 This time, he went to Hamburg, Germany. Nearby Sweden (one of the superpowers of the day) had numerous connections to the city, which made it quite natural for Swedish authorities to notice the presence and availability for hire of such a luminary. Moving to take advantage of the situation, they made him their Ambassador to France in 1634. Grotius began his diplomatic duties in Paris the following year. It is hard to gauge his success as ambassador: while he did help to negotiate a treaty which led to the end of the Thirty Years’ War, he could also be outmaneuvered in the diplomatic game—at one point, his bumbling forced the Swedish Chancellor Axel Oxenstierna to come to Paris and sort things out. Still, such stories notwithstanding, it is true that he lasted ten years in one of the highest and most demanding diplomatic postings of his day.