+------------------------------------------------------------+ |Transcriber's note. | | | |The original punctuation, language and spelling have been | |retained, except where noted at the end of the text. | |Minor typographical errors have been corrected without note. | | | |The [oe] ligature has been rendered as oe. | | | |Alternative spellings: | |château: chateau | |camerara: camarera | |Fenelon: Fénelon | |Ferté-Senneterre: Ferte-Senneterre | |Hôtel: Hotel | |Leganez: Léganez | |Orléans: Orleans | |Querouialle: Quérouialle | |Saint-Megrin: Saint-Mégrin | |Sévigné: Sevigné, Sévigne | |Tremouille: Trémouille | |Tarent: Tarente | +------------------------------------------------------------+

 POLITICAL WOMEN. 

 BY

 SUTHERLAND MENZIES, AUTHOR OF "ROYAL FAVOURITES, " ETC. 

 IN TWO VOLUMES. 

 VOL. II. 

 HENRY S. KING & CO. , 65, CORNHILL, AND 12, PATERNOSTER ROW, LONDON. 

 1873. 

 [_All rights reserved. _]

CONTENTS OF VOLUME II. 

BOOK V. --_continued. _

 PAGE

 CHAP. III. --The struggle between Condé and Turenne--Noble conduct of Mademoiselle de Montpensier--Fall of the Fronde 3

 IV. --The Duke de Nemours slain in a duel by his brother-in-law Beaufort 12

 V. --Triumph of Mazarin 16

BOOK VI. 

 CHAP. I. --Closing scenes--Madame de Longueville 35

 II. --Madame de Chevreuse 49

 III. --The Princess Palatine 54

 IV. --Madame de Montbazon 61

 V. --Mademoiselle de Montpensier 69

 VI. --The Wife of the Great Condé 80

PART II. 

 The Duchess of Portsmouth 93

PART III. 

BOOK I. 

PRINCESS DES URSINS. 

 CHAP. I. --Two ladies of the Bedchamber during _the war of the Spanish Succession_--Lady Churchill and the Princess des Ursins--Political motives for their elevation in England and Spain 127

 II. --The Princess des Ursins--The married life of Anne de la Tremouille--She becomes the centre of contemporary politics in Rome 131

 III. --Madame des Ursins aspires to govern Spain--Her manoeuvres to secure the post of Camerara-Mayor 141

 IV. --The Princess assumes the functions of Camerara-Mayor to the young Queen of Spain--An unpropitious royal wedding 148

 V. --Onerous and incongruous duties of the Camerara-Mayor--She renders Marie Louise popular with the Spaniards--The policy adopted by the Princess for the regeneration of Spain--Character of Philip and Marie Louise--Two political systems combated by Madame des Ursins--She effects the ruin of her political rivals and reigns absolutely in the Councils of the Crown 161

 VI. --The Princess makes a false step in her Statecraft--A blunder and an imbroglio 175

 VII. --The Princess quits Madrid by command of Louis XIV. --After a short exile, she receives permission to visit Versailles 184

 VIII. --The Princess triumphs at Versailles 192

BOOK II. 

 CHAP. I. --Sarah Jennings and John Churchill 207

 II. --State of parties in action on the accession of Queen Anne--Harley and Bolingbroke aim at overthrowing the sway of the female "Viceroy"--Abigail Hill becomes the instrument of the Duchess's downfall--Squabbles between the Queen and her Mistress of the Robes 215

 III. --Success of the Cabal--The Queen emancipates herself from all obligations to the Duke and Duchess of Marlborough--The downfall of the Duchess and the Whigs resolved upon--The Duchess's stormy and final interview with the Queen 233

 IV. --The disgrace of the Duchess involves the fall of the Whigs--Anne demands back the Duchess's gold keys of office--Extraordinary influence of Sarah and Abigail on the fortunes of Europe--The illustrious soldier and his disgraced wife driven from England 242

BOOK III. 

 CHAP. I. --Delicate and perilous position of the Princess des Ursins after the Battle of Almanza--She effects an important reform by the centralisation of the different kingdoms of Spain--The Duke of Orleans heads a faction inimical to the Princess--She demands and obtains his recall--Her bold resolution to act in opposition to the timid policy of Versailles--The loftiness of her past conduct and character--The victory of Villaviciosa definitely seats the House of Bourbon on the throne of Spain 251

 II. --The Princess's share in the Treaty of Utrecht--At the culminating point of her greatness, a humiliating catastrophe is impending--Philip negotiates for the erection of a territory into a sovereignty for Madame des Ursins--The sudden death of Queen Marie Louise causes a serious conjunction for the Princess--Her power begins to totter 264

 III. --The Princess finds herself friendless in Spain--Suspicions and slanders rife with regard to the relations existing between her and the King--The projected creation of a sovereignty fails, through the abandonment of England--Philip, in consequence, refuses to sign the Treaty of Utrecht, but Louis XIV. Compels the King and Princess to yield--Their _têtes-à-têtes_ causing great scandal, the King suddenly orders the Princess to find him a wife 272

 IV. --Among the Princesses eligible to become Philip's consort, he chooses the Princess of Parma--Alberoni deceives Madame des Ursins as to the character of Elizabeth Farnese--The Camerara-Mayor's prompt and cruel disgrace at the hands of the new Queen--She is arrested and carried to St. Jean de Luz--Her courage under adversity--She returns to Rome, and dies there 287

BOOK IV. 

 I. --_Closing Scenes_--The Princess des Ursins 301

 II. --Sarah, Duchess of Marlborough 307

BOOK V. 

(_Continued. _)

POLITICAL WOMEN. 

CHAPTER III. 

 THE STRUGGLE BETWEEN CONDÉ AND TURENNE AT PARIS--NOBLE CONDUCT OF MADEMOISELLE DE MONTPENSIER--FALL OF THE FRONDE. 

THE second-rate actors in this shifting drama presented no lessdiversity in the motives of their actions. Beaufort, who commanded thetroops of Gaston, and Nemours those of Condé, although brothers-in-law, weakened by their dissentions an army which their concord would haverendered formidable. The necessity of military operations required theirabsence from Paris; but they preferred rather to there exhibitthemselves to their mistresses, decked out in a general's uniform, andgrasping the truncheon of command. No greater harmony existed betweenthe Prince de Conti and Madame de Longueville than when La Rochefoucauldsevered them. At Bordeaux they favoured opposite parties, andcontributed to augment the discord prevailing, and to weaken the partyof the Princes by dividing it. The Duchess de Longueville, when nolonger guided by La Rochefoucauld, did not fail to lose herself inaimless projects, and to compromise herself in intrigues without result. On Nemours being wounded, his wife repaired to the army to tend him, andthe Duchess de Châtillon, under pretext of visiting one of herchâteaux, accompanied her as far as Montargis; thence she went to theconvent of Filles de Sainte-Marie, where, believing herself quiteincognita, she went, under various disguises, to see him whom she hadnever ceased to love. These mysterious visits soon became no longer asecret to any one; and then Condé and his sister could convincethemselves how different are the sentiments which love inspires andthose which self-interest and vanity simulate. The great Condé, by hisintelligence and bearing, had all the means of pleasing women; butobtained small success notwithstanding. Mademoiselle Vigean excepted, heappears to have been incapable of inspiring the tender passion, in thetruest acceptation of the phrase. He went further than his sister, itseems, in the neglect of his person. It was his habit of life to bealmost always badly dressed, and only appeared radiant on the field ofbattle. So that the Duke de Nemours was not the only rival with whomCondé had to contend for the favours of that beauty for whom Louis XIV. In his boyish amusements had shown a preference, and which has furnisheda theme for some agreeable trifling to the sparkling muse of Benserade. An abbé, named Cambiac, in the service of the house of Condé, balancedfor some time the passion to which Nemours had given birth in the bosomof the Duchess de Châtillon, and the jealousy of Nemours failed to expelCambiac. The Duchess kept fair with him as the man who had obtained thegreatest sway over her relation, the Princess-dowager de Condé. Thecondescension of the Duchess de Châtillon towards this intriguing andlicentious priest procured her, on the part of the Princess-dowager, alegacy of more than a hundred thousand crowns in Bavaria, and theusufruct of an estate worth twenty thousand livres in rent per annum. Cambiac, however, retired, when he knew that Condé was his rival. Butthe victor of Rocroy had more address in winning battles than inconducting a love intrigue. He was clumsy enough to employ as ago-between in his courtship of his new mistress a certain gentlemannamed Vineuil, who was, it is true, one of his most skilful and attachedfollowers, but whose good looks, agreeable and satirical wit, andenterprising character rendered him a very dangerous emissary amongwomen. He had even acquired some celebrity through his successes in thatway. Madame de Montbazon, Madame de Mouy, and the Princess of Wurtemberghad successively experienced the effects of his seductions. Vineuil madehimself very agreeable to Madame de Châtillon, and if Condé were wrongedby him in that quarter, he never knew of it; for Vineuil was always ingreat favour with him. Nemours excited his jealousy, and Nemours onlydreaded Condé. However, shortly before, in the month of March, 1652, theMarquis de la Boulay and Count de Choisy, both enamoured of this Queenof Hearts, were bent on fighting a duel about her. A rumour of theirintention got wind. The Duchess de Châtillon heard of it, and appearedunexpectedly on the spot fixed by the two adversaries for a rendezvous;and at the very instant they were about to unsheath their swords, sheflung herself between them, seized each by the hand, and led them intothe presence of the Duke d'Orleans, who charged Marshals l'Hospital, Schomberg, and d'Etampes, then in Paris, to arrange that affair andprevent a duel. In this they succeeded, but these rivalries and gallantintrigues very sensibly weakened Condé's party, and hindered there beinganything secret or combined in the execution of projects determined uponin the councils of its chief. 

In the meantime, the siege of Etampes had been raised; and the army ofCondé had issued forth, probably with the intention of attacking Turenneif he were found engaged with the Duke de Lorraine. On its approachingParis, Condé took the command of it, and fixed his head-quarters atSaint-Cloud, in order to manoeuvre on both banks of the Seine. Theproximity of his camp to Paris did him far greater harm than even adefeat would have done. With but a scanty commissariat, Condé was ofcourse obliged to permit every sort of licence. All the crops wereruined in the neighbouring fields; the peasantry were plundered, injured, and their domestic peace destroyed; and the country-houses ofthe rich Parisians were pillaged and burned in all directions. The evilsof civil war now came home to the hearts of the people of the capital, and, forgetting how great a part they themselves had taken in producingthe results they lamented, they cast the whole blame upon Condé, andregarded him thenceforth with a malevolent eye. 

That prince was distracted with different passions and differentfeelings. He was himself desirous of peace, and willing to makesacrifices to obtain it. His fair mistress, the Duchess de Châtillon, linked with La Rochefoucauld and the Duke de Nemours, confirmed him inseeking it; but, on the other hand, his sister, who sought to break offhis connection with Madame de Châtillon, joined with the Spaniards, towhom he had bound himself by so many ties, to lead him away from Paris, and to protract the war. Gaston's daughter, too, Mademoiselle deMontpensier, mingled in all these intrigues, and took the same unwisemeans to force herself as a bride upon the young King, which De Retztook to force himself as minister upon his mother. But while theseseparate interests tore the capital, the peril of the army of Condébecame imminent. Turenne having brought the Court to St. Denis, caused anumber of boats to be drawn up from Pontoise, and commenced theconstruction of a bridge opposite Epinay. 

Condé, betrayed on all sides, could at length perceive what an error hehad committed in quitting the army only to lose himself amidst a seriesof impotent intrigues, and in having preferred the counsels of such afickle mistress as Madame de Châtillon to those of a courageous anddevoted sister such as Madame de Longueville. Towards the end of June, he got on horseback with a small number of intrepid friends, and rodeforth to try for the last time the fate of arms. 

It was too late. Marshal de la Ferté-Senneterre had brought fromLorraine powerful reinforcements to the royal army, which therebyamounted to twelve thousand men. That of the Fronde had scarcely thehalf of that number, and it was discouraged, divided, incapable ofgiving battle, and could only carry on a few days' campaign aroundParis, thanks to the manoeuvres and energy everywhere exhibited by itschief. It was evident that no other alternative remained to Condé but totreat with the Court at any price, or to throw himself into the arms ofSpain, and the famous combat of the Faubourg Saint-Antoine, seriouslyconsidered, was only an act of despair, an heroic but vain protest ofcourage against fortune. Success would have remedied nothing, and adefeat might have been expected, in which Condé might have lost hisglory and his life. It was no slight error of Turenne to risk a combatagainst such an adversary without a disposition of his entire force, forat that moment La Ferté-Senneterre was still with the artillery beforethe barrier Saint-Denis. Reunited, the Queen's two generals mightoverwhelm Condé; separated, La Ferté-Senneterre remained useless, andTurenne left alone might purchase his victory very dearly. The lattertherefore required that La Ferté should hasten to join him by forcedmarches, and that the attack should not be commenced before he arrived. But the orders of the Court admitted of no delay, and the Duke deBouillon himself advised an immediate attack, in order to avoid havingthe appearance of manoeuvring with Condé. Hence the fatal combat of the2nd of July, 1652, in which so many valiant officers, of whom the armywas proud, perished uselessly. 

Historians in relating the details of that deplorable day have dweltupon the courage and talent displayed by Condé within that narrow arena, that small space of ground which extended from the barrier du Trône, bythe main street of the Faubourg Saint-Antoine, in front of the Bastille. As usual, he had formed a picked squadron which he led on all points, himself leading the most desperate charges. He had posted himself infront of Turenne, disputing foot to foot with him the _Grande Rue SaintAntoine_, and during the intervals of relaxation of the enemy's attacks, he rode off towards Picpus to encourage Tavannes, who was repelling withhis customary vigour every attack made by Saint-Mégrin, or to hold incheck, on the side of the Seine and Charenton Navailles, one ofTurenne's best lieutenants. It was in the _Grande Rue_ where the rudestshocks were delivered. Turenne and Condé there rivalled each other inboldness and obstinacy, both charging at the head of their troops, bothcovered with blood, and unceasingly exposed to the fire of musketry. Turenne, far superior in numbers, was rapidly gaining ground, when Condésuddenly, sword in hand, at the head of his squadron of fifty bravegentlemen, forced him to fall back, and the affair remained undecideduntil Navailles, who had just received a reinforcement with artillery, overthrew all the barricades in his path, and in advancing, threatenedto surround Condé. The latter, throwing himself quickly in thatdirection, saw on reaching the last barricade his two friends, Nemoursand La Rochefoucauld, the one wounded in several places and unable tostand, the other blinded by a ball which had passed through his facejust below the eyes, and both in immediate danger of being madeprisoners. All exhausted as he was--for the fighting lasted from morningtill evening, --Condé had still heart and energy to make a last chargefor their rescue, and to place them in safety within the city. He feltthe old flame of Rocroy and Nordlingen firing his blood, and he foughtlike the boldest of his dragoons. The citizens on the ramparts beheldwith emotion the Prince, covered with blood and dust, enter a garden, throw off his casque and cuirass, and roll himself half-naked upon thegrass to wipe off the sweat in which he was bathed. Meanwhile, LaFerté-Senneterre had come up. From that moment all gave way, and thePrince, feebly seconded by his disheartened soldiers, with the greatestdifficulty reached the Place de la Bastille. There he found the gates ofParis shut. In vain did Beaufort urge the city militia to go to theassistance of that handful of brave men on the point of succumbing:wearied with three years of discord and manipulated by Mazarin, it nolonger responded to the summons of its old chief. Splendidly dressedladies waved signals to their champions and lovers below, and thestreets became alive with the shouting of armed citizens, who desired tobe let out to the aid of their defenders, and could not see with coldblood the slaughter of their friends. Thousands went to the Luxembourgto beseech Gaston to open the gates of the city for the reception ofthe wounded and the protection of the over-matched. Long trains ofwounded and dying young men began to be carried in; the groans and bloodwere horrible to hear and see; and the women of all ranks and ages werefrantic with sympathy and grief. De Retz and terror had so chilled theDuke d'Orleans into inaction that he would have let Condé perish, hadnot Mademoiselle de Montpensier, who was at that time smitten withCondé, wrung indignantly from her father, by dint of tears andentreaties, an order to open the gates to the outnumbered Prince. 

Mazarin, from the heights of Charonne, where he had stationed himselfwith the young King, might well have thought that it was all over withhis worst enemy; and, when startled to hear that Mademoiselle herselfhad even ordered the cannon of the Bastille to be fired upon the royalarmy, exclaimed, "With that cannon-shot she has slain her husband, "making allusion to the ambition which the Princess d'Orleans always hadto espouse the youthful Louis XIV. True, on that same day, Mademoiselledestroyed with her own hand her dearest hopes; but that trait ofgenerosity and greatness of soul has for ever honoured her memory, andshields it from many errors and much ridicule. After having solemnlypledged itself to Condé, it would have been the height of opprobrium forthe House of Orleans to let Condé fall before their eyes: better to haveperished with him, and at least saved its honour. 

Mademoiselle has related in what condition she found Condé, when havingplaced herself at the window of a little dwelling near the Bastille, inorder to see the troops pass as they entered the city, the Princehurried for a moment from the gate to speak to her. He neither thoughtof himself, all covered with blood as he was, nor even of his cause, very nearly hopeless: he thought only of the friends he had lost. Itdid not occur to him that they were those who had embarked him innegotiations the results of which had proved so fatal: he thought onlythat they had died for him, and his anguish grew insupportable. "Hewas, " says Mademoiselle, "in a most pitiable state; he was not woundedhimself, yet he was covered from head to foot with dust and blood, hishair all disordered, his face flushed with exertion, his cuirassbattered with blows, and having lost the scabbard of his sword in thefight, he held the blade naked in his hand. " As he entered, the memoryof all those he had seen fall around him seemed to rush suddenly uponCondé, and casting himself upon a seat, he burst into tears. "Forgiveme, " said the great soldier, "I have lost all my friends--the gallantyoung hearts that loved me. " "No, they are only wounded, " said hiscousin, "and many of them not dangerously; they will recover and loveyou still. " Condé sprang up at the good news, and rushed back into thefight. At the head of all his effective cavalry, he made one desperate, long-continued charge, and drove the enemy backward for a mile. In themeantime, the gates were opened wide, and, file after file, the wearysoldiers marched into the city; and dashing homeward after his brilliantassault, Condé and his squadron galloped in the last: but when theponderous bars were once more drawn across the portals, it was felt thatthe combatants indeed were saved, but that the Fronde was destroyed. 

CHAPTER IV. 

 THE DUKE DE NEMOURS SLAIN IN A DUEL BY HIS BROTHER-IN-LAW, BEAUFORT. 

SOME few days after the fierce fight of the Faubourg Saint-Antoine, Condé had an interview with the Duke d'Orleans, "who embraced him withan air as gay as though he had failed him in nothing. "[1] Condé utteredno word of reproach out of respect to his daughter. He did not behaveexactly in the same way towards Madame de Châtillon. She had addressed anote to him begging him to visit her. She showed this effusion toMademoiselle, saying, "He will at least see from that the uneasinesswhich is felt for him. " But Condé's mind was disabused, and when he mether who had been his ruin, "he cast upon her, we are told, the mostterrible glances conceivable, showing by the expression of hiscountenance how much he despised her. "[2] Well would it have been ifsoon afterwards the grand-nephew of Henry IV. Had not lent anew his earto the song of the syren and resumed the slavery of her dishonouringfetters!

 [1] Mademoiselle de Montpensier, tom. Ii. P. 148. 

 [2] The same. 

It is not to our purpose to retrace the melancholy scenes of which, after the combat of Saint Antoine, and during the remainder of the monthof July, 1652, Paris was the theatre. It would be only to dwell upon thesad spectacle of the agony and supreme convulsions of a beaten party, struggling in vain to escape its fate, and seeking safety in excesseswhich only served to precipitate its destruction. 

Condé left no violent extreme untried to determine Paris to make furthersacrifices for his cause. Dissatisfied with the deliberations of theHôtel de Ville, he caused it to be carried by assault by the populace, who killed several of the _échevins_. The Fronde, however, wasapproaching its last agony. Divided amongst themselves by selfishinterests, and outwearied with endless intrigues, the majority of theFrondeurs only awaited a fitting opportunity of treating with Mazarin. An amnesty soon made its appearance, and the Cardinal took the step ofquitting France once more in order to facilitate a reconciliation. ButCondé, on his side, was very little disposed thereto, for he had gonevery far indeed to retrace his steps. Furious at having failed to reachthe object which he had thought to attain, exasperated by theabandonment of his partisans, by the sarcasms of pamphleteers, hedemanded securities and large indemnifications; and proposed such hardconditions that all accord with him became impossible. Thereupon hecollected some troops around his standard, a tolerably large number ofgentlemen, and rejoined the Duke de Lorraine, who was advancing uponParis. Their united forces amounted to eighty squadrons and eightthousand infantry. Turenne had scarcely half that strength; but hemanoeuvred so skilfully round Paris, that they failed to get anyadvantage over him. Condé withdrew; and when the King, on his return tothe Louvre, published a second amnesty (October, 1652), the Prince hadcrossed the frontier, after having taken several strongholds in his lineof march. Shortly afterwards, he became generalissimo of the Spanisharmies, whilst a decree of the parliament declared him guilty of hightreason and a traitor to the State. 

Previous to Condé's departure from Paris, intense indignation had beenexcited in every well-balanced mind by a shocking event--the Duke deNemours having been slain by the hand of his brother-in-law, the Duke deBeaufort, in an abominable duel. From De Nemours the provocation hadcome, and all the wrong was on his part; but as the victim, he wasdeplored by all those who were ignorant of what had contributed to bringabout the affair, and for some time the new governor of Paris (Beaufort)could not show himself in public. 

In the Dukes de Nemours and La Rochefoucauld, Condé had lost his twopacific advisers. In vain had he offered to La Rochefoucauld the post ofNemours, the command under him, and thus to be the second authority inhis army. La Rochefoucauld had excused himself on account of his wound, and Condé gave the vacant command to the Prince de Tarente. Henceforward, Madame de Châtillon quite alone was unable tocounterbalance the counsels and influence of Madame de Longueville, andCondé plunged deeper than ever into the Spanish alliance and the warwaged by that nation against France. 

Whilst all these events were happening, Bordeaux had become the theatreof continued troubles. Madame de Longueville no longer agreed with heryounger brother; the inhabitants of the city, who had only enteredhalf-heartedly and been almost forced into rebellion, became impatientto extricate themselves from the constrained position in which they wereheld. As the sequel to negotiations which the city carried on with theDuke de Vendôme, who blockaded it, there was a general amnesty. 

When Condé retired to the Netherlands, it was not long before it becameknown, to the national humiliation, that the best soldier of France, aprince of the blood and protector of the people, had followed the recentexample of his conqueror, and sold his services to Spain. The young Kingmade his triumphal entry into Paris, accompanied by his mother andTurenne. He convoked the Courts, and received them into favour, "provided they returned within the limits of their duties, and abstainedfrom interfering with the government. " Gaston was sent into honourableexile, to his castle in the beautiful town of Blois, and theCardinal-Archbishop, the evil spirit of the Fronde, was received withapparent cordiality, and began to entertain hopes of supplanting hisrival; but when he had fallen into disrepute with the citizens, he wasquietly carried off to Vincennes, and left to meditate on his plots andschemings within the bars of his solitary apartment. The Parisians werenow so changed from what they had been, that they received their oldenemy, the Cardinal Mazarin, with demonstrations of delight, when hemade his solemn entry into the repentant city with young Louis as anattendant at his side. 

CHAPTER V. 

 THE TRIUMPH OF MAZARIN. 

MAZARIN might well have claimed the right of accompanying to Paris, onthe 21st October, 1652, Louis the Fourteenth and Anne of Austria, and toshare the joy of their victory over the Fronde, for he was the trueachiever of it. It was he who, by retiring so opportunely, by leavingthe Fronde to itself, had allowed it to exhibit at its entire ease itsfury and impotence; it was he who, from the depth of his exile, disquieted by the success of Châteauneuf, had collected troops, ralliedround him experienced generals, raised the banner of the monarchy, andfrom one vantage ground to another had carried it forwards even toParis. But by reappearing there prematurely, Mazarin might have riskedthe rekindling of animosities scarcely yet extinguished. It was his ownadvice he followed--to second the effect of the amnesty, by a momentaryabsence, in order to leave no pretext to those who had so often promisedto yield if he quitted the kingdom. Sure of the young King, surer stillof his mother, leaving with them his instructions and approved advisers, Mazarin had disappeared, withdrawing at first to Bouillon, across thefrontier; then, as by degrees the King's government became consolidatedat Paris, he drew nearer and moved to Sedan; next, he went openly tojoin the royal army, taking with him powerful reinforcements, munitions, provisions, and money. Admirably commanded by Turenne and LaFerté-Senneterre, it had forced the little army of Condé and the Duke deLorraine to slowly beat a retreat in the direction of the Netherlands. Active, resolute, indefatigable, he did not hesitate to prolong thecampaign beyond its ordinary limits, until the end of December, and evenup to January, 1653. He had only quitted the army on beholding the enemyabandon French territory, and after having made the frontier ofChampagne and Picardy secure from any chance of a return of offensiveoperations. It was then that he put his troops into winter quarters, andthat he himself, heralded and sustained by these solid successes, hadtaken the road to Paris. 

On the 3rd of February, 1653, he therein made a truly triumphal entry. The young King, accompanied by his brother the Duke d'Anjou, went outfor more than a league to meet him, received him with the greatestapparent affection, took him into his carriage, and two hours afterwardsthey entered by the Porte Saint-Denis, in great pomp, amidst the joyousshouts of that same populace which, two years previously, had pursuedhim with imprecations. The Cardinal was thus enthusiastically conductedto the Louvre, where Anne of Austria awaited him. 

He there beheld once more that courageous Queen, whom history, misled bythe impostors of the Fronde, has too much misconceived, that stanchfriend, an example among all queens, and almost among all women, of aconstancy equal to either fortune; who, in the early days of 1643, haddiscerned the great abilities of Mazarin, and seen in him the only mancapable of properly conducting the affairs of France; who, after havingowed to him five long years of glory, had in 1648 and 1649 defended himagainst the aristocracy, the parliament, and the people united; wholater had only consented to his retirement because he himself had judgedit necessary; who during his absence had alike resisted every species ofseduction, every kind of menace, and had never ceased to be governed byhis counsels; who, at Gien, learning the rout of her troops at Bleneauwhilst at her toilet, went on with it calmly, when everyone else spokeof flight, rivalling Mazarin himself in courage and coolness. On findingthemselves once more together under the roof of royalty after so manylong and sorrowful separations, after seeing each other so often on thevery verge of ruin, they might well be proud of their mutual constancy, which had deserved and brought about the halo of prosperity surroundingthat auspicious day, and together look forward for the rest of theirlives with the solid hope of sharing a glorious repose. 

Around the Queen, the Cardinal was welcomed by a brilliant array ofgreat nobles and fair ladies, formerly the bitter enemies Of Richelieu'ssuccessor, but who were there assembled to compliment him upon his happyreturn. 

Amongst those ladies foremost in their congratulations was the PrincessPalatine, with whom we have already made some acquaintance--Anne deGonzagua, one of the most eminent personages of the seventeenth century. Of an admirable beauty, which served in some sort as a setting to anintellect the most solid, she was as capable of taking part in thedeliberations of statesmen as in the assemblies of wits or in gallantintrigues, seeking, it is true, her advantages, but not by the betrayalof any one; who, without treason to royalty, had given advice the mostjudicious to the Fronde, and would have saved it, if the Fronde couldhave been saved. As she had never ceased to keep up the bestunderstanding with Mazarin, she could very well associate herself withhis triumph. 

She was there also, that other famous female politician, of a gradestill higher, as beautiful and as gallant, of a less gracious, perhaps, but yet stronger disposition, more capable still of grand enterprises, and never suffering herself to be stayed by any danger or anyscruple--the widow of the Constable de Luynes, Marie de Rohan, Duchessde Chevreuse, who formerly had lent a hand to every plot concoctedagainst Mazarin, and in concert with the Palatine had proposed, as wehave seen, the sole measure which could bring together all theCardinal's enemies, and form a great aristocratical party strong enoughto make head against royalty:--the marriage of Condé's son with adaughter of the Duke d'Orleans, and that of her own daughter with thePrince de Conti. This latter match having been broken off in a mannerthe most outrageous to her feelings, Madame de Chevreuse had separatedfrom Condé with éclat; and, too experienced to ally herself with thesort of _tiers-parti_ which Retz had proposed, but allowing herself tobe gently and skilfully guided by the Marquis de Laignes, whom Mazarinwith his usual adroitness had known how to win over, she had returned tothe side of her early friend, Anne of Austria, and became resigned tothe power of a man who at any rate knew his own mind, and whose robustambition never wavered at the breath of vanity or the gust of momentarypassion. The fame and honour that she might expect from the Fronde hadbeen offered to her by Mazarin, and in return Madame de Chevreuse hadbrought to royalty the declared support of the three illustriousfamilies, the Rohans, De Luynes, and the Lorraines. It was she who, everpuissant over the Duke de Lorraine, had negotiated a secret treatybetween him and the Cardinal, and who by turns had made him act in suchcontrary directions. Restored entirely to the Queen's favour, Madame deChevreuse was at her side in the Louvre, to welcome warmly the return ofthe prosperous Cardinal. 

After Madame de Chevreuse, Mazarin had had no adversaries more dangerousthan the Vendômes and Bouillons. And yet on that memorable day ofFebruary 3rd, 1653, he could consider the heads of those two powerfulfamilies as the firmest supporters of his greatness. 

Cæsar, Duke de Vendôme, natural son of Henry the Fourth, was much moreformidable by his intelligence, his valour, and his craft than by hisbirth. There was nothing--even to the virtues of his wife, a reputedsaint, --which was not put to the profit of his ambition. His daughter, the beautiful Mademoiselle de Vendôme, had married that brilliant Dukede Nemours, who had come to such a miserable end. His eldest son, theDuke de Mercoeur, was a sagacious and estimable prince, and the Duke deBeaufort, his youngest, was the idol of the populace of Paris. It wasBeaufort who, in 1643, urged by the two duchesses De Montbazon and DeChevreuse, had formed the design of assassinating Mazarin. The Duke deVendôme had been suspected of being implicated in that affair; he had atleast given shelter in his château at Anet to all the accomplices of hisson; and, forced to quit France to avoid the arrest with which he wasthreatened, he had wandered for several years through Italy and England, everywhere stirring up enemies against the Cardinal. The latter sawclearly that it was better to acquire a son of Henry the Fourth at agiven price, than to prosecute him without the slightest advantage. After all, what did the Duke desire, and what were his demands whenMazarin became prime minister? Either that the government of Brittany, which his father, Henry the Fourth, had destined for him, and that hisfather-in-law, Philibert Emmanuel of Lorraine, held; or that theAdmiralty, one of the highest posts in the state, should be given him. Mazarin had repulsed these pretensions in 1643, but looked upon themfavourably in 1652; he therefore made the Duke High-Admiral, evenconferred upon him the title of State Minister, with a seat at thecouncil-board, after being assured that Vendôme, having secured thatwhich he had always sought to attain, would serve him as firmly as hehad formerly opposed him. He had an infallible pledge for his fidelity. The Duke's eldest son, the loyal and pious Duke de Mercoeur, hadmarried one of the Cardinal's nieces, the amiable and virtuous LauraMancini, so that the house of Vendôme was interested in and inseparablyunited to Mazarin's fortunes. Therefore, on the 3rd of February, 1653, the High-Admiral Cæsar de Vendôme, engaged in pursuing the Spanish fleetin the sea of Gascony, entered the Gironde, and threatened the relics ofthe Fronde at Bordeaux. On his part, the Duke de Mercoeur, namedgovernor of Provence, watched over that important province for the Kingand Mazarin, whilst the Duke de Beaufort, who earlier had been desirousof laying violent hands on the Cardinal, and who yet quite recently hadshown himself as his implacable enemy, covered and protected by theservices of his father and brother, retired to Anet, without being theleast in the world disquieted; satisfied with beholding Madame deMontbazon satisfied because plenty of money had been given her, andawaited quietly the moment at which he should succeed his father in thecommand of the fleet, and shed his blood in the service of his King. 

The Bouillons were of little less importance than the Vendômes. TheDuke was a politician and a soldier of the first class, capable ofconducting a government or leading an army, and who had only onesentiment or thought in heart and head--the aggrandisement of his house. Already sovereign prince of Sedan, urged by his wife, still moreambitious than himself, he had in 1641, in the hope of securing freshterritorial acquisitions, treated with Spain, taken part in the revoltof the Count de Soissons, and won the battle of La Marfée against theroyal army. In 1642, he had entered into the conspiracy of the Duked'Orleans and Cinq Mars, and, arrested, thrown into chains atPierre-Encise, he had only saved his head from the scaffold byabandoning his principality. Ever since, he had not ceased to agitatefor the recovery of that which by treason he had lost. He had againdemanded Sedan from Mazarin in 1643, and not being able to obtain it atthe hands of that great servant of the Crown, that, in order to satisfya private interest, France should renounce one of its best strongholdson the frontier of the Netherlands, he had ranked himself among theCardinal's enemies, and forced at first to flee, like the Duke deVendôme, had scarcely returned to France ere he embraced with ardour theFronde, though without the slightest conviction, be it understood, andin the sole hope of easily obtaining from it what he could not snatchfrom royalty. He had enlisted with him in the Fronde his brotherTurenne, of whom he disposed absolutely, and who was equally ambitious, and equally covetous of the grandeur of their family, but after his ownfashion, and the mould of his frigid, reflective, and profoundlydissembling character. At the peace of Ruel, in 1649, the Duke deBouillon had demanded "his re-establishment in Sedan, or if the Queenpreferred to reimburse him for it at an estimated price, with thepossessions promised and due to his house; for himself, the governmentof Auvergne; for his brother that of Haute and Basse Alsace, with thatof Philipsbourg and the command of all the armies of Germany. " Mazarinhad then committed the error of not satisfying this ambitious andpowerful house; hence, in 1650, the conduct of the Duke in Guienne andthat of Turenne at Stenay and in Flanders. In 1651, the Queen treatedseriously with the Duke, and on his return Mazarin succeeded in entirelygaining him over. Not desiring at any price to restore Sedan to him, hegranted the equivalent demanded--a great domain at Château-Thierry, muchricher than that of Sedan, and, without effective sovereignty, thattitle of _Prince_, so dear to the vanity of the Bouillons, which thehead of the family could not only transmit to his children, but whichcould descend also to his brother Turenne. The Duke de Bouillon havingonce taken the part of abandoning Condé, in spite of all hisengagements, and of serving royalty, did it with the same energy whichhe had displayed at Paris and Bordeaux. He never afterwards forsookMazarin, but assisted him with his advice, and suffered even more thanonce in person, by acting with his customary vigour, and the obstinateardour of his country and race. It was he who, on the night of thebattle of Bleneau, brought reinforcements to Turenne, and enabled him tostop Condé. It was he, again, who, on the 2nd of July, 1652, to letMazarin see that he had gained him for good and all, joined with theCardinal in pressing Turenne, against all the rules of war, not to waitthe coming up of the troops of La Ferte-Senneterre. A truthful witness, and one of the principal actors in that sanguinary drama, Navailles, even affirms that the Duke de Bouillon took part in the affair, andthat he was at the attack in which Saint-Megrin perished. If Bouillonhad lived, with his immeasurable ambition and his capacity equalling hisambition, would he have been contented with the second rank, and wouldhe always have remained the devoted servant of the Cardinal?

None can say: for the Duke de Bouillon was cut short in his ambitiouscareer; he died on the 9th of August, 1652, without having enjoyed thosepossessions and those honours which he had so greatly coveted; but ereclosing his eyes he saw them pass to his children. Turenne, carefullyconciliated and caressed, was made, on his brother's death, governor ofAuvergne, and the viscounty of Turenne erected into a principalty. Veryshortly afterwards he also received the post of minister of state. Mazarin went even still further: desirous of heaping up benefits uponthe illustrious soldier whose honesty and ambition he had so long known, desirous at the same time to attach in his person all the Protestantparty by decisive acts, which would show in a conspicuous manner thatwhosoever should serve him well would be faithfully recompensed, withoutdistinction of religion, the skilful and politic Cardinal made the Dukede la Force, a Protestant and the father-in-law of Turenne, Marshal ofFrance, as his father had been. Thus, on the 3rd of February, 1653, Turenne was likewise at the Louvre at Mazarin's side, as therepresentative of all his family, and already occupied with preparationfor the campaign that was about to open in the spring in theNetherlands, and where he was to take command of the French army. 

But if Mazarin had taken care to win over successively those chiefs ofthe Importants and the Frondeurs in whom his experienced eye hadrecognised as sincerely disposed to a loyal submission, he had this timetaken care not to allow himself to be betrayed by false appearances, and did not fail to strike at, or at least banish from Paris, those whomhe despaired of acquiring. He had lent himself with good grace to thereconciliation sought by the Duke d'Orleans; as it was not his wish togive to France and Europe the appearance of ill-treating the King'suncle, and constrain him perhaps once more to go in search of a foreignasylum; but by conciliating him in the most suitable way, he had takensurety of him, and being convinced that too much lenity would onlyembolden him to mix himself up in fresh intrigues, he did not permit himto remain in Paris, when the King returned thither, for fear lest in hispalace of the Luxembourg, surrounded by perfidious advisers, whilstlavishing great marks of deference upon the Queen and the young King, hemight cherish and rekindle on occasion the hopes of the Fronde. Therefore, it was arranged that the Duke d'Orleans should quit Paris onthe day previous to that of the King's entry, and consequently heretired at first to Limours, then to Blois, the ordinary refuge of histreason and faint-heartedness, where, in nowise persecuted, but watchedand kept within bounds, he passed amidst general indifference theremainder of his contemptible career. Mademoiselle remained also forsome time in disgrace at St. Fargeau, and consoled herself by degreesfor the ruin of her divers pretensions with her large fortune and smallcourt. The Cardinal de Retz putting a good face upon a losing game, andespecially desirous of receiving from the King's own hand the cardinal'shat granted him by the Pope, in order to claim the right of wearing thedress and of enjoying the honours and privileges attached to that highdignity, had been among the first to meet the King at Compiègne at thehead of the clergy of Paris, and had addressed him in a bold and artfulspeech, in the style of that of Cæsar in the affair of Cataline, skilfully covering the defeat of his party, recommending the policy ofmoderation, referring more than once to the conduct of Henry the Greattowards the Leaguers, and through fear lest it should not besufficiently understood that he was speaking about himself, citing thepacific words of Henry to his great uncle, the Cardinal de Gondi. Inthat oration he had also insinuated some high compliments to the Queen, as though he had resumed his former hopes. The next day, at mass, theKing placed the red hat upon his head, and henceforward De Retz assumedand wore the dress of cardinal. After the King's return, he had carriedhis audacity so far as to present himself at the Louvre to pay, as afaithful subject, his homage to their Majesties. On the 1st of December, he preached with great effect at Notre Dame, and recommenced his oldcourse of life of 1648, making pious sermons in the intervals of hisgallant rendezvous, devoting the morning to preaching at church, theevening to _bonnes fortunes_, and reknitting in the dark the meshes ofhis old intrigues. But Mazarin knew him thoroughly: he was persuadedthat De Retz was incapable of confining himself to his ecclesiasticalfunctions, incompatible as they were with his dissipated and licentioushabits, with his restless and factious disposition, and so under hisminister's advice on some slight suspicion arising, the King had himarrested even in the very Louvre, on the 19th of December, 1652, andconducted to the donjon of Vincennes. 

Mazarin was too cautious to treat La Rochefoucauld after the samefashion. He knew marvellously well that, separated from Condé and Madamede Longueville, who constituted all his importance, La Rochefoucauld wasno longer to be dreaded, and that he was not of a humour to makehimself the champion and martyr of a vanquished party. The serious woundwhich he had received in the combat of Saint Antoine turned him, so tospeak, to advantage. Struck by a ball which had traversed both cheeksand temporarily deprived him of sight, it was impossible for him tocontinue in active service and to follow the army. He did not thereforeplay false to Condé in not accepting the command of such troops asremained to the Fronde--a command which, on his retirement, was offeredto the Prince de Tarent. It was absolutely essential that he should bespeedily cured of his wound; and that real motive covering his wearinessand long-felt disgust, he did not, like Persan, Bouteville, and Vauban, join the Prince in Flanders. On the other hand, he had not objected tothe amnesty, and therefore could not be included in the royaldeclaration issued on the 13th of November against Condé, Conti, Madamede Longueville, and their chief adherents. But Mazarin took good carenot to pursue him, and La Rochefoucauld, after allowing the firstoutburst of the storm to pass over, retired to his estates to buryhimself in obscurity for a few years, and to taste that repose of whichhe had so great need. Then he quitted his retreat and reappeared atParis. It must have been necessary for him to go very far inconciliation to be received again into favour. He succeeded in it, however, by saving appearances, to use a modern phrase, and in skilfullymanaging the transition. He made his peace with the politic and graciousCardinal, rode in his carriage, saying with as much reason as wit, "Everything happens in France!" He managed to get his son into intimacywith the young King, and, wonderful to relate, he obtained from Mazarin, in indemnification for the losses he had experienced in carrying on waragainst him, a thumping pension of eight thousand livres. 

If space permitted us thus to run over successively the list of all thegreat nobles who had previously had a hand in the Fronde, it would beeasy to show that on the 3rd of February, 1653, the most ardent and themost illustrious of those we have cited, and many others, such as theDuke d'Elbeuf and Marshal Houdancourt, both generals of the Fronde atParis in 1648 and 1649, the Duke de Guise, so strongly bound to Condé, almost all, in short, were ranged round Mazarin, and fought with him andfor him, and that for one sole but very sufficient reason--which wasthat the clever Cardinal knew how to make them understand wherein laytheir true interests. 

Self-interest, self-interest, such was, with very few exceptions, theunique mainspring of the aristocracy in the Fronde, and La Rochefoucauldhas only erected into a maxim and even generalised into excess theprinciple which he had seen practised everywhere around him. 

It may thus be judged whether, as some writers have asserted without theslightest knowledge of the facts, the Fronde was a great and generouscause which failed of obtaining success. On the contrary, it was simplya powerful coalition of individual interests, and if considered underthe aspect of an abortive anticipation of the French revolution, andsome general design sought for therein in one way or another, it wouldbe rather that of stifling in its cradle the principles of thatrevolution. 

Is it true that the Fronde, as has been asserted, was a counterpart, asort of miserable imitation, of the revolution which was then convulsingEngland? Not the least in the world. That other error, still strangerthan the preceding, rests upon a false and deceitful analogy--thatcommon shoal of historical considerations and comparisons. At bottom, the earlier part of the English revolution was almost entirely of areligious character, whilst in the Fronde the religious element did notintervene at all, thanks to the enlightened protection enjoyed by theProtestants. It seemed, indeed, like a demoniacal caricature of ourBritish troubles at that moment. No sternness, no reality; love-lettersand witty verses supplying the place of the Biblical language and awfulearnestness of the words and deeds of the Covenanters and Independents;the gentlemen of France utterly debased and frivolised; religionridiculed; nothing left of the old landmarks; and no Cromwell possible. All sense of honour disappears when conduct is regulated by the shiftingmotives of party politics. The dissensions of the Fronde accordinglyproduced no champion to whom either side could look with unmingledrespect. The great Condé and the famous Turenne showed military talentof the highest order, but a want of principle and a flighty frivolity ofcharacter counterbalanced all their virtues. The scenes of those five orsix years are like a series of dissolving views, or the changingcombinations of a kaleidoscope; Condé and Turenne always on oppositesides--for each changed his party as often as the other; battlesprepared for by masquerades and theatricals, and celebrated on bothsides with epigrams and songs; the wildest excesses of debauchery andvice practised by both sexes and all ranks in the State; archbishopsfighting like gladiators, and intriguing like the vulgarestconspirators; princes imprisoned with a jest, and executions attendedwith cheers and laughter; the highest in the land caballing, cheating, and lying, but keeping a firm grasp of power:--no country was ever sosplit into faction, or so denuded of great men. 

But, while all these elements of confusion were heaving and tumbling inwhat seemed an inextricable chaos, the monarchical principle, strange tosay, still burned brightly in the hearts of all the French. Even intheir fights and quarrelings there was a deep reverence entertained forthe ideal of the throne. The King's name was a tower of strength; andwhen the nation, in the course of the miserable years from 1610 to 1661, saw the extinction of nobility, religion, law, and almost of civilisedsociety, it caught the first sound that told it it still had a King, asan echo from the past assuring it of its future. It forgot Louis theThirteenth, the Regency, and the Fronde, and only remembered that itsmonarch was the grandson of Henry the Fourth, when it witnessed in hisreign the culmination of the French monarchy, and the splendidintellectual development with which it was simultaneous. 

And that brilliant day of Mazarin's triumph was shadowed by no eclipse. It was not one of those lucky freaks of fate often followed by longdisgrace: no, that Minister's triumph rested on solid foundations. Notonly he saw at his feet, in the Louvre, all his former enemiesvanquished, but not one of them able to rise again in enmity, for alltheir strength was exhausted. The wearied citizens wanted repose, andplaced all their hopes in royalty. The parliaments, ashamed of havingallowed their ancient loyalty to be surprised by the deceitful caressesof the discontented nobles, returned voluntarily within the prudentlimits of their institution, satisfied with having seen the governmentrecognise all their legitimate complaints, and bind itself to respecttheir just and necessary independence. The aristocracy thought itselfstill more fortunate at having thus been extricated from this lastdefeat. It left, it is true, upon the field of battle some few of itsfeudal pretensions, but in exchange, titles, honours, and wealth werelavished upon it, and its vanity could at any rate console its ambition. The good fortune of Mazarin opened the eyes of everyone to his merit. Noone could refrain from applauding his firmness and his capacity. Had heproved unsuccessful, he would only have been looked upon as a secondConcini; victorious, he was another Richelieu to whom it was necessaryto succumb, but who might be served without loss of honour, because, after having shown that he was as firm in his principle of government ashis imperious predecessor, he did not play the tyrant; and, far frommaking the weight of his power felt, he forced himself rather todisguise it under flattering words, did not show the least resentmentfor former injuries, extended a hand to everyone who came to him, listened to every complaint that had anything legitimate in it, entertained every pretension that was at all reasonable, and seemeddisposed to base his government upon skilful concessions and not uponuseless rigour. His star was believed in, his moderation inspiredconfidence, and people grew eager to participate in his triumph. Alreadyat Vendôme, a grandson of Henry the Great had espoused one of hisnieces; the proudest among the French nobility were soon about tocontend for the hands of the others; and the man whom the Fronde had sopersecuted was about to place his family upon the steps of the throne. The solemn reception which the King and Queen gave Mazarin at the Louvreon the 3rd February, 1653, was not therefore an idle pageant or emptyceremony. That same day, Mazarin could understand that a new era hadarisen for him, more brilliant and more secure than that of 1643, afterthe defeat of the _Importants_, and that that sterile and sanguinaryhalt upon the road of reform and the civilising march of monarchy knownin history under the name of the Fronde was at last and for everterminated. 

BOOK VI. 

CLOSING SCENES. 

CHAPTER I. 

 THE DUCHESS DE LONGUEVILLE. 

HAVING rapidly summarised the fate and fortunes of the leading maleactors who figured in the Fronde, we will now glance briefly at theclosing scenes in the careers of the fair politicians whom we have seenplaying such brilliant and prominent parts in that curious tragi-comedy. 

To high-born French women--princesses and duchesses--the revolt of theFronde especially belonged. They were at once its main-springs, itschief instruments, its most interested agents; and among them Madame deLongueville, who enacted the most conspicuous part, was by its eventsthe most ill-treated of all. 

We have seen her the heroine--or, perhaps the adventuress--of the civilwar, rushing into dangers and mixing herself up in intrigues of everykind, in order to serve the interests of another. She was not aconsummate politician like the Palatine, for she had no real businesstact. Her true character and the unity of her life should be soughtwhere they were really shown--in her devotion to him whom she loved. Itis there--in that devotion wholly and always the same, at onceconsistent, yet absurd, and very touching even in its downright follies. 

All her eccentric movements were attributable to the restless and ficklespirit of La Rochefoucauld. Solely occupied with his own interests, itwas he who drew her into the vortex of party politics and civil war, with a view to his own self-aggrandisement. It was for love of him thatshe sacrificed domestic peace, repose, and reputation. 

At Bordeaux Madame de Longueville had at first enjoyed the samepopularity as that which she had acquired in Paris at the commencementof the first Fronde. Upon that section of the second Fronde which hadits head-quarters in the South, the Duchess, after its chief, the Princede Conti, was the most likely person to exercise a decisive influencealike by the clearness of her intellect, the firmness of her character, and the great confidence with which she had inspired the entire party. In 1650 she had covered herself with glory at Stenay, and the eyes ofnot only France, but the whole of Europe, were fixed upon her. She wasunable to play the same part at Bordeaux. Invested at Stenay withsupreme authority, she had been compelled, as it were, to display allthe intelligence and energy she possessed: at Bordeaux she was only anadviser indifferently well listened to. And moreover, in 1650, her frameof mind was widely different. With a sincere attachment to the interestsof her party and her house, another and more intimate sentiment animatedand sustained her: she loved and was beloved. A reciprocal devotednessjustified in some measure that passion which had already passed throughthree long and trying years, and found its aliment and its strength incommon sacrifices. In fact, if Madame de Longueville had braved inNormandy all kinds of danger and even death to cross the sea in order toreach the Netherlands and unfurl at Stenay the banner of the Princes, LaRochefoucauld, too, it must be remembered, had been continually in arms. That interval was the golden era of their lives. They suffered andcombated for each other. They had the same cause, the same faith, thesame hopes. Their hearts were never more united than during that cruelyear when, separated by civil war, they could scarcely, from thefurthest extremities of France, address each other, amid risksinnumerable, in a few apparently insignificant lines, but through which, nevertheless, there breathed a tenderness and confidence proof againsteverything. Now all was changed. As we have said, La Rochefoucauld hadgrown wearied of the Fronde, into which he had hopefully flung himselfin 1648. In 1651 he became desirous of reconciling himself with theCourt, and making a pact which would have infallibly separated them, since M. De Longueville, irritated with all that had at length reachedhis ears, had summoned his wife in a menacing tone to join him inNormandy. It was she who then, in her turn, was compelled to draw overLa Rochefoucauld. He continued to follow in her footsteps through thesentiment of devotedness that still lingered in his heart, but withoutconviction, and with a lukewarmness which deeply wounded Condé'shigh-souled sister. She felt that she was no longer loved commensuratelywith the heroic and tender ideal of which she had dreamed, and that astruggle with fortune, too long continued, had cast down his inconstantand wavering spirit. Hence also arose that momentary error which we haveneither disguised nor excused. Love enfeebled and discouraged haddelivered her up once more to her natural coquetry, and coquetrystimulated by politics had made her brave the semblance of an infidelitytowards La Rochefoucauld and herself. Without being hurried away in theslightest degree by the senses or the heart, in her endeavour to carryoff the Duke de Nemours from Madame de Châtillon and the peace party, and engage him more deeply in that of the war and Condé, she hadslightly compromised herself; and La Rochefoucauld, influenced by animplacable resentment, instead of breaking with her openly, had, atParis, entered into a shameful league with Madame de Châtillon and hispretended rival, the Duke de Nemours, in order that they might rob thepoor Duchess of her last consolation, the esteem and affection of Condé. Left in Guienne, without any great or engrossing occupation, with avacant mind, discontented both with others and herself, Madame deLongueville was no longer the brilliant Bellona of Stenay, but her prideand dignity, which she could not lose, never failed to sustain her. Shetherefore resolved to remain even unto the end faithful to that brotherwhose heart was sought to be steeled against her by the whispers ofcalumny: to remain in Bordeaux as long as possible, without recoilingfrom any means which necessity might prescribe. Not for a single day, not for an hour, did she dream of separating her fate from that ofCondé, and of bending the knee before his victorious enemies. 

At length, however, it was her inevitable fate to yield to the star ofMazarin and Louis XIV. , who having obtained the mastery over the Southas elsewhere, she was compelled to quit the factious city, and repair, by command of the Court, to Montreuil-Bellay, a domain belonging to herhusband in Anjou. Shortly afterwards she obtained permission to go toMoulins, where her aunt, the inconsolable widow De Montmorency, wassuperior of the convent (_Filles de Sainte-Marie_). From that visit toMoulins may be dated the conversion of the beautiful and adventurousprincess. On emerging from such a chaos of turmoil and commotion, inthat calm and holy retreat, her thoughts reverted to the pure andinnocent period of her youth, to the brilliant and tumultuous past, tothe sorrowful and disenchanted present. Embroiled with the Court andher brothers, abandoned by La Rochefoucauld, in the decline of herbeauty, upon the eve of maturity, she saw in Heaven alone a refugeagainst others and herself. But the Divine grace had to be awaited aswell as prayed for, the prickings of conscience were succeeded byrelapses--the ties to be broken were still so strong! At length, one daywhen engaged in reading, "a veil, as it were, was drawn from before theeyes of my mind, " she wrote, in that somewhat hyperbolical style ofwhich she was fond; "all the charms of truth, concentrated upon one soleobject, presented themselves before me. Faith, which had remained deadand buried beneath my passions, became renewed. I felt like a personwho, after a long sleep in which he has dreamed of being great, happy, esteemed, and honoured by everybody, awakens all on a sudden to findhimself loaded with chains, pierced with wounds, weighed down withheaviness, and pent up in some dark prison. " To that conviction sheremained faithful until death, and expiated her six years of deviationby a penitence which lasted for five-and-twenty, and continued ever onthe increase. 

The first act of the Duchess, after her conversion, was to implorepardon of her husband. M. De Longueville behaved generously, and went tomeet her at Moulins, and took her back with him to Rouen with every markof delicacy and distinction. Reverting to the aspirations of her youth, Madame de Longueville placed herself in active communication with thegood Carmelites, whom she had never entirely forgotten. She wasconstantly writing to Mademoiselle du Vigean, the _sous-prieure_, forguidance in her new way of life; for she had need of spiritual advice, and cried out for help, and help came through the good offices of theMarquise de Sablé, who had herself withdrawn from the world toPort-Royal, and supplied the want felt by her illustrious friend byplacing her in the hands of one of the great spiritual guides of thatday, M. Singlin. Between the ghostly adviser and the fair penitent thereensued frequent conversations curiously flavoured with a spice ofromance. Persecution had already attacked Port-Royal, and M. Singlin, inorder not to be recognised, went to the Hôtel de Longueville disguisedas a doctor, his features being concealed by an ample wig. M. Singlinstrove to fix limits to the ardour by which Madame de Longueville wascarried away, he counselled her to remain in the outer world, to whichher husband and children bound her, and in which her salvation, he said, might be as surely accomplished by exacting more vigilance than it wouldbe found necessary to exercise in the retirement of the cloister. 

Madame de Longueville's piety had been generally subordinated to thevicissitudes of a very agitated existence. Her primitive tendency todevotion was rekindled on every occasion that she experienced a trouble, a disenchantment, or any failure of courage. In 1651, when she had beensomewhat compromised by the homage of the Duke de Nemours, she hadretired to the Carmelite convent at Bourges; then towards the end of hersojourn in Guienne she had sought refuge among the Benedictines atBordeaux. But all these gleams of repentance vanished so soon as somecaprice of fortune came to reawaken, by the hope of fresh success, hernatural inclination for political intrigue and pleasure. On accompanyingher husband to Normandy she appeared wholly resolved not to allowherself to be engrossed by anything save her eternal welfare. However, it appears that her desire to abstain henceforward from all politicalintrigue was looked upon incredulously for several years; since, in1659, at the time of the Treaty of the Pyrenees being signed, Mazarin, replying to Don Louis de Haro, who required that the French Ministershould restore Condé "to all his birthrights, " still placed, as we havenoticed, Madame de Longueville among the feminine trio, who, said he, "would be capable of governing or of overturning three great kingdoms. "Yet Mazarin yielded, and Condé returned to France. 

The long and rigid penitence which she imposed upon herself, and whichMadame de Motteville characterised by the expressive term--"veryaugust, " restored to her somewhat of that importance which she wasdesirous of renouncing through humility. But the world is everdistrustful on the score of a repentance which has some tinge ofostentation about it. One historian remarks that "the Duchess deLongueville being unable to dispense with intrigues, after she hadrenounced those of love and politics, found sufficient to satisfy her indevotion. " This sentence, read aright, would mean that the schisms ofCatholicism gave her an opportunity of playing a considerable part intaking under her protection the persecuted party of the Jansenists. Madame de Longueville, on whom was bestowed the designation of "Motherof the Church, " and who in that quality recovered some reputation at theCourt of France, and acquired a very great one at the Court of Rome, rendered an eminent service to the Jansenists by obtaining for them fromthe Pope, in 1668, that theological transaction which was called "ThePeace of Clement the Ninth. " It would, however, be unjust to tax herwith hypocrisy. All that was extreme in the pious practices to which shedevoted herself must be attributed to her exalted nature, which mingledpassion with every sentiment of her soul. 

When the Duke de Longueville died in 1663, the Duchess availed herselfof the state of independence in which her widowhood placed her to giveherself up wholly to exercises of piety and penitence, and the educationand care of her children. The latter occupation caused her muchgrief--the Count de Dunois, by his bad conduct and imbecility, and theCount de Saint Paul himself, the son so dearly beloved, by hisprecocious debaucheries and fiery impatience of character. Then, as bydegrees they had less need of her care, she devoted herself deeper anddeeper to expiation, lavishing her fortune to repair in the provincesruined by civil war the evils she had helped to inflict, weeping andhumbling herself in her efforts to subdue that pride which was thecharacteristic of her race, receiving outrages and insultsuncomplainingly, accepting them as the just chastisement of her sins, and forgiving those who dealt her the most cruel wounds. And so, inausterities and self-mortification she ended her days, sharing thembetween the Carmelites, in whose convent she had an apartment, andPort-Royal des Champs, where she had built a wing--having a preferencefor Port-Royal. She was always naturally disposed to favour therebellious, and these rebels, it must be remembered, were the persecutedfor conscience' sake. Madame de Longueville's protection was extended tothe principal Jansenists, whom she sheltered in her chateau, and herinfluence at length brought about that peace in the Church, which, solong as she lived, gave calm and security to the sacred community. Notwithstanding her predilection for Port-Royal, she continued toinhabit her hôtel, which she did not quit until after the death of theCount de Saint-Paul (1672), killed so unfortunately by the side of theGreat Condé at the passage of the Rhine. 

That blow was the last of Madame de Longueville's earthly troubles--itoverwhelmed her. Madame de Sevigné has depicted in a few touchingsentences the scene which was witnessed when the fatal tidings reachedthe wretched mother: "Mademoiselle des Vertus returned two days since toPort-Royal, where she is constantly staying. They sent M. Arnauld tofetch her, that she might break the terrible news. Mademoiselle desVertus had only to show herself; her hurried return was the certainsignal that something sad had happened. In fact, as soon as sheappeared, she was greeted with: 'Ah! mademoiselle, how is my brother?'Her thoughts dare not venture further question. 'Madame, his wound isgoing on favourably. ' 'There has been a battle! and my son?' No answer. 'Ah! mademoiselle, my son, my dear boy, answer me, is he dead?' 'Madame, I cannot find words to reply to you. ' 'Ah! my dear son! did he die uponthe spot? Was not one single moment given him? Ah! _Mon Dieu!_ what asacrifice!' And thereupon she sank down in bed, and of all that the mostpoignant anguish could exhibit in convulsions and swooning, and in deadsilence and stifled groans, by bitter tears and appeals to Heaven, andby tender and pitiful plaints, she went through them all. She seescertain persons, she takes broths, because it is the will of God; butshe gets no rest; and her health, already very bad, is visibly shaken. For myself, I wish she may die, not believing that she can survive sucha loss. " Some few days afterwards Madame de Sevigné writes: "Thereexists in the world one man not less touched by this blow: it hasoccurred to me that if they had both met each other in the first burstof grief and no one else had been present, all other feelings wouldhave given place to tears and moans re-echoed from the depths of boththeir hearts. "

With this young Duke de Longueville disappeared the last witness tobygone errors. The last link was broken, and, from that day, Madame deLongueville belonged no more to this world. She died on the 15th April, 1679, at the Carmelites, where her remains were interred; her heartbeing taken to Port-Royal. A year afterwards, in the same convent ofCarmelites, the Bishop of Autun, Roquette, whom Molière had in view whendrawing the character of Tartuffe, pronounced her funeral oration. Madame de Sevigné, who was present at the ceremony, says of the orator:"It was not a _Tartuffe_, it was not a _Pantaloon_: it was a prelate ofdistinction, preaching with dignity, and going over the entire life ofthat Princess with an incredible address; passing by all the delicatepassages, mentioning, or leaving unmentioned, all the points that heought to speak or be silent upon. His text was "Fallax pulchritudo, mulier timens Deum laudabitur. " Assuredly many delicate points must havepresented themselves in the life of a princess who had been a politicianand a Frondeuse, a gallant woman, and a Jansenist. Yet Father Talon, aJesuit, who was present at her death, was fond of repeating on fittingoccasions: "Jansenist as much as you will, she died the death of asaint. "

There were three well-defined periods in the agitated life of theDuchess de Longueville--and happily the end was conformable to thebeginning, to neutralise, as it were, the censurable middle part. Butadmitting such condonation, does not that same _mezza camin_ constitutethe seduction which that brilliant period exercises over almost everywriter who seeks to portray it, over those even who indulge in ecstacieson the score of her penitence? So the prestige of beauty and the charmsof mind traverse centuries to win unceasingly posthumous admiration!These are the qualities which give a more undying interest to the careerof Madame de Longueville even than the grandeur of her soul; for that isan incontestable feature which all must recognise, whether partisans oradversaries:--in spite of her errors and deviations, she certainlypossessed greatness of soul. If a terse judgment then were summed up ofher character, it might be said without flattery that, take her all inall, she was not unworthy of being the sister of the great Condé. 

With the opinions of such astute statesmen as Cardinal Mazarin and DonLouis de Haro upon the mischievous tendencies of political women, it maybe well, in the instance of Madame de Longueville to couple thesentiments of an acute and highly intellectual writer of our own day, who showed herself a subtle analyst of character. Mrs. Jameson, discoursing upon the characteristics of Shakespere's women (in the formof a dialogue between Alda and Medon) calls them "affectionate, thinkingbeings, and moral agents; and then witty, as if by accident, or as theDuchess de Chaulnes said of herself 'Par la grace de Dieu. '

"Or, " retorts _Medon_, the male interlocutor, "politicians to vary theexcitement! How I hate political women!

"_Alda. _ Why do you hate them?

"_Medon. _ Because they are mischievous. 

"_Alda. _ But why are they mischievous?

"_Medon. _ Why?--why are they mischievous? Nay, ask them, or ask thefather of all mischief, who has not a more efficient instrument tofurther his designs in this world than a woman run mad with politics. The number of political, intriguing women of this time, whose boudoirsand drawing-rooms are the _foyers_ of party spirit, is another trait ofresemblance between the state of society now and that which existed atParis before the Revolution. "

In another place, however, the same judicious and usually discriminatingwriter is betrayed into giving--more from conjecture, it would seem, than close acquaintance with the facts of her life--an historicallyfalse and singularly unjust estimate of Madame de Longueville'scharacter. 

"_Alda. _ Women are illustrious in history, not from what they have beenin themselves, but generally in proportion to the mischief they havedone or caused. * * * Of those which have been handed down to us by manydifferent authorities under different aspects, we cannot judge withoutprejudice; in others there occur certain chasms which it is difficult tosupply; and hence inconsistencies we have no means of reconciling, though doubtless they might be reconciled if we knew the whole, insteadof a part. 

"_Medon. _ But instance--instance!

"_Alda. _ Do you remember that Duchess de Longueville, whose beautifulpicture we were looking at yesterday?--the heroine of the Fronde?--thinkof that woman--bold, intriguing, profligate, vain, ambitious, factious!--who made rebels with a smile; or if that were not enough, thelady was not scrupulous, --apparently without principle as without shame, nothing was _too_ much! And then think of the same woman protecting thevirtuous philosopher Arnauld, [3] when he was denounced and condemned, and from motives which her worst enemies could not malign, secreting himin her house, unknown even to her servants--preparing his food herself, watching for his safety, and at length saving him. Her tenderness, herpatience, her discretion, her disinterested benevolence not only defieddanger (that were little to a woman of her temper), but endured alengthened trial, all the ennui caused by the necessity of keeping herhouse, continued self-control, and the thousand small daily sacrificeswhich, to a vain, dissipated, proud, impatient woman, must have beenhard to bear. Now, if Shakespere had drawn the character of the Duchessde Longueville, he would have shown us the same individual woman in bothsituations:--for the same being, with the same faculties and passionsand powers, it surely was: whereas in history, we see in one case a furyof discord, a woman without modesty or pity; and in the other an angelof benevolence, and a worshipper of goodness; and nothing to connect thetwo extremes in our fancy. 

 [3] The Jansenist. 

"_Medon. _ But these are contradictions which we meet on every page ofhistory, which make us giddy with doubt or sick with belief; and are theproper objects of inquiry for the moralist and the philosopher. "

 * * * * *

With a true eye for the refined and the beautiful, and that honestlysympathetic nature without which it is impossible to discriminatebetween what is noble and what is mediocre, still Mrs. Jameson, in theabove reflections upon the character of Madame de Longueville, wasobviously led to draw hasty and erroneous conclusions either from asuperficial glance at detached passages in the Duchess's extraordinarycareer with regard to the dates of which she is widely in error, orothers during which her conduct and actions were but too easilysusceptible of misrepresention and distortion at the hands of partisanwriters. Such unjust judgment would most probably be formed by acceptinganecdotes, like those contained in Tallemant's scandalous chronicle orBussy Rabutin's "Letters, " as historic truths; or by placing implicitfaith in every statement made by De Retz or La Rochefoucauld, given asboth were to exaggeration and over-colouring, and whose object, moreover, was not so much to tell the truth as always to exaltthemselves, sometimes by its suppression, at others by downrightfalsification. 

Without attempting to extenuate the errors of Madame de Longueville, moral or political, it has been the author's endeavour to reconcile theapparent contradictions in her character, imputed in the passage abovecited, by assigning the different incidents, which have doubtless causedan intelligent woman to falter in her judgment, to their proper place inthe order of time. For as, during the Olympian contests, swift-footedSpartan boys, to typify the transmission of Truth, ran with a lightedtorch, and, as each fell breathless, another took up the flambeau andbore it on, bright and rapid, to the goal, so should the light ofHistory be passed steadily and carefully from hand to hand, and itssacred flame--the Truth--be kept ever burning clearly onward in thecourse of time. 

CHAPTER II. 

 THE DUCHESS DE CHEVREUSE. 

SIDE by side with the two great statesmen, Richelieu and Mazarin, theclever, daring, vivacious, charming Marie de Rohan occupied a moreelevated position, and certainly played a more extended part, than anyother of the political women who were her contemporaries during thestirring times of the first half of the seventeenth century. 

Seductive, with irresistible fascination of manner, singular grace andanimation; of pregnant wit, though quite uneducated; devoted togallantry, and too high-spirited to heed propriety; obeying no controlsave that of honour; despising, for those she loved, danger, fortune, and opinion; rather restless than ambitious; risking willingly her ownlife as well as that of others; and after having passed the best part ofher existence in intrigue of every kind--thwarted more than oneplot--left more than one victim on her path--traversed nearly the wholeof Europe, by turns an exile and a conqueress who not unfrequentlydazzled even crowned heads; after having seen Chalais lay his head onthe block, Châteauneuf turned out of the ministry and imprisoned, theDuke de Lorraine well-nigh despoiled of his territories, Buckinghamassassinated, the King of Spain embroiled in a war of ever-recurringdisasters, Anne of Austria humiliated and overcome, and Richelieutriumphant; sustaining the struggle, nevertheless, even to its bitterend; ever ready, in that desperate game of politics--become to her acraving and a passion--to descend to the darkest cabals or adopt therashest resolves; with an incomparable faculty of discerning the actualstate of affairs or the predominant evil of the moment, and of strengthof mind and boldness of heart enough to grapple with and destroy it atany cost; a devoted friend and an implacable enemy; and, finally, themost formidable foe that Richelieu and Mazarin, in their turn, encountered:--such was the celebrated Duchess de Chevreuse whom we haveseen alternately courted and dreaded by the two great politicalmaster-spirits of her time, the founders of monarchical unity in France. 

When the Fronde broke out, that ardent factionist rushed once more toBrussels, and there brought over to her party the support of Spain, together with her own long experience. She was then nearly fifty yearsold. Age and sorrow, it is true, had dimmed the lustre of her beauty;but she was still abounding in attraction, and her firm glance, herdecision, her quick and accurate perception, her dauntless courage andgenius, were yet entire. She had there also found a last friend in theMarquis de Laigues, captain of the Duke d'Orleans' guards, a man ofsense and resolution, whom she loved to the end, and whom, after thedecease of the Duke de Chevreuse in 1657, she linked probably with herown destiny by one of those "marriages of conscience"[4] then somewhatfashionable. It was not our purpose to follow her step by step throughthe last civil war, and so plunge the reader into the labyrinth of theFronde intrigues. Suffice it to say, therefore, that she played thereinone of the most prominent parts. Attached, heart and soul, to thatfaction and its essential interests, she steered it through all theshoals and quicksands which encircled it with incomparable skill andvigour. After having so long enlisted the support of Spain, she knew theproper moment to effect a timely separation from it. She alwayspreserved her great influence over the Duke de Lorraine, and it is notdifficult to recognize her hidden hand behind the different and oftencontrary movements of Charles IV. She had a principal share in the threegreat movements which mark and link together the entire history of theFronde between the war in Paris and the peace of Ruel. In 1650 she wasinclined to prefer Mazarin to Condé, and she ventured to advise layinghands on the victor of Rocroy and Lens. In 1651--an interval ofincertitude for Mazarin, who very nearly ensnared himself in the meshesof his own craftiness and a too-complicated line of conduct--a greatinterest, the well-founded hope of marrying her daughter Charlotte tothe Prince de Conti, brought her back once more to the Condé party, andhence the deliverance of the imprisoned Princes. In 1652, theaccumulated blunders of Condé brought her back again and for ever toAnne of Austria and Mazarin. She did not endorse De Retz's foolish ideaof constructing a third party during the revolt, nor dream of agovernment shared between Condé and Mazarin, with a worn-out parliamentand the fickle Duke d'Orléans. Her politic instinct told her that, afteran intestine struggle so long sustained, a solid and durable power wasthe greatest necessity of France. Mazarin, who, like Richelieu, hadnever opposed her but with regret, sought for, and was very glad tofollow her advice. She passed over, therefore, with flying colours tothe side of royalty, served it, and in return received its services. After Mazarin, she predicted the talent in Colbert, before he wasappointed to office; she laboured at his elevation and the ruin ofFouquet: and the proud but judicious Marie de Rohan gave her grandson, the Duke de Chevreuse, the friend of Beauvilliers and Fenelon, to thedaughter of a talented burgess--the greatest financial administratorFrance ever had. Thenceforward she readily obtained all she could desirefor herself and for her family; and thus having reached the summit ofrenown and consideration, like her two illustrious sister-politicians, Madame de Longueville and the Princess Palatine, she finished inprofound peace one of the most agitated careers of that stormiest ofepochs--the seventeenth century. 

 [4] See "Memoirs of Brienne the Younger, " tom. Ii. Chap. Xix. , p. 178. "Le Marquis de Laigues qui certainement étoit mari de conscience de la Duchesse. "

It is said that the Duchess also, towards the close of her earthlypilgrimage, felt the influence of divine grace, and turned heavenwardsher gaze, wearied with the changefulness of all sublunary things. Shehad seen successively fall around her all whom she had either loved orhated--Richelieu and Mazarin, Louis XIII. And Anne of Austria, the Queenof England, Henrietta Maria, and her amiable daughter the Duchessd'Orléans, Châteauneuf, and the Duke of Lorraine. Her fondly loveddaughter had expired in her arms, of fever, during the miserable war ofthe Fronde. He who had been the first to lure her from the path ofduty--the handsome but frivolous Holland--had ascended the scaffold withCharles I. ; and her last friend, much younger than herself, the Marquisde Laigues, had preceded her to the tomb. 

Arrived at length but too clearly at the conviction that she had givenup her mind to chimeras and illusions, and seeking self-mortificationthrough the same sentiment which had brought about her ruin, theonce-haughty Duchess became the humblest of women. Renouncing allworldly grandeur, she quitted her splendid mansion in the Faubourg St. Germain, built by Le Muet, and retired into the country--not toDampierre, which would have only too vividly recalled to her remembrancethe brilliant days of her past existence--but to a modest dwelling atGagny, near Chelles. There she awaited her last hour, far from theworld's observation, and ere long expired in tranquillity at the age ofseventy-nine, the same year as Cardinal de Retz and Madame deLongueville. She desired to have neither solemn obsequies nor funeraloration, and forbade that any of those lofty titles which she had bornethrough life and had learned to despise should accompany her to thegrave. It was her wish to be buried obscurely in the small and ancientchurch of Gagny; and there, in the southern aisle, near the chapel ofthe Virgin, some faithful but unknown hand has placed upon a slab ofblack marble the following epitaph:--

 "Here lies Marie de Rohan, Duchess de Chevreuse, daughter of Hercule de Rohan, Duke de Montbazon. She espoused, first, Charles d'Albert, Duke de Luynes, peer and constable of France, and secondly, Claude de Lorraine, Duke de Chevreuse. "

CHAPTER III. 

 THE PRINCESS PALATINE. 

THE political importance of the Princess Palatine dates from 1650, whenthe arrest of Condé, Conti, and the Duke de Longueville urged her, as wehave seen, to take part in the struggles of the Fronde. The Duchesses deChevreuse, De Montbazon, De Guéméné, and other famous femininefactionists of that time, became, in the hands of Anne de Gonzagua, asso many wires with which she moved at her will the men whom these womengoverned; for the Princess exercised alike over all those men and womenthat superiority which disinterestedness, good faith, and firmness ofdecision confer. De Retz, when he discovered her characteristics, wasimmediately struck with the above-named qualities, especially the twolatter. "To have stability of purpose, " said he, when speaking of hisfirst interview with Anne, "is a rare quality, which indicates anenlightened mind far above the ordinary class. " And further on, "I donot think, " he remarks, "that Queen Elizabeth had more capacity togovern a state. " Mazarin, too, somewhat later, in alluding to the dreadin which he held the famous trio of political women for their capacityto work mischief, remarked to Don Louis de Haro:--"The most turbulent ofthe male politicians do not give us half so much trouble to keep themwithin bounds as the intrigues of a Duchess de Chevreuse or a PrincessPalatine. "

Anne de Gonzagua, the Princess Palatine, lived long after the Fronde inthe midst of all sorts of political troubles and diplomatic intrigues:conferences innumerable were held beneath her roof, and in that tortuouslabyrinth she wandered and manoeuvred to her heart's delight. Sometimesshe laboured to reconcile Condé with Anne of Austria, sometimes toreunite Gaston and Condé, or perhaps the Queen and Madame deLongueville. She often failed, it is true, in these attempts, andmeanwhile Mazarin, with more address, setting in motion in his retreatbeyond the frontier the most powerful machinery, and making magnificentpromises, again appeared above the political horizon--winning over hisenemies one after another through his secret agents; at one time it wasChâteauneuf, at another Gondi, whom he made for good and all a cardinal;at another it was Madame de Chevreuse. He had passed his word to thePrincess Palatine that he would some day give her the post ofsuperintendent of the young Queen's household: he did so, in fact, buton condition that she should relinquish it two months later to theCountess de Soissons, which she did in all good faith. Then she withdrewfrom court, somewhat undeceived no doubt touching men and thingstherein, if it really were the case that she ever had indulged in greatillusions concerning court life. 

Years rolled away, however: Mazarin died. Court intrigue with her was atan end. The personages who had been mixed up in the Fronde hurly-burly, so menacing in reality, so puerile in aspect, so insignificant as anisolated fact, and so formidable as a symptom, appeared affected by thatdecay which change of circumstances more than lapse of time imposes uponmen and ideas. All that sort of thing was out of fashion. The reign ofthe _Grand Monarque_ was in all its heyday. Besides, the Palatine wasno longer young; she had married her daughters, and dwelt in seclusion. And it was when living thus tranquilly that a rapid, unforeseen, enthusiastic conversion came upon her like a surprise. For all relatingthereto, we must listen to Bossuet, who dwells upon it in his funeraloration upon the Princess. His eloquence revels in relating the miraclessuddenly wrought in such a soul as hers. He expatiates on that suddenchange with an apostolic joy and an incomparable majesty: it was asubject worthy of him, the brilliant narrator of solemn events. It wasexoteric to that life upon which it was so difficult to pronounce aneulogium; he was not trammelled in the flow of his diction by thoseoratorical precautions which are so distressingly hampering to animpetuous genius like his. He celebrated a victory of grace, and that inaccents the most touching and expressions the most powerful. It was thehymn of an illustrious conversion, chanted by the noblest mortal voiceever heard. 

Bossuet relates with inimitable art the Princess's two dreams; thesimple anecdotes are dramatised, poetised--one might almost saysanctified--in proceeding from his lips. But, in short, whether Anne deGonzagua saw or thought that she saw that mystical mendicant, and thosesymbolical animals, in her slumbers, the truth is that in soul she wastouched, agitated, shaken, overcome. An ardent faith, an invinciblelonging for prayer and penitence, had obtained the mastery over thatrebellious soul. She felt once more the enthusiasm of her early youth;she felt beating once more, at the Divine Master's name, that heartwhich had too often throbbed for His creatures only. Her scepticismvanished; she had no other ambition left save that of gaining heaven, and holy tears were seen to dim those eyes wherein it once seemed asthough the source of such emotion was dried up for ever. It was done. Agreat thing was accomplished, whatsoever had been the cause. A soulwhich incredulity had frozen into apathy became fervent before itsCreator. Anne de Gonzagua did not fear to let her repentance be seen;she desired that the publicity of her penitence might obliterate, if itwere possible, the scandal of her past life. Her conscience becametender, even scrupulous. "_Plus elle était clairvoyante, _" says Bossuet;"_plus elle était tourmentée. _" Henceforward she devoted herself whollyto charity and prayer. She became as humble as she had hitherto beenproud. She cherished a life of seclusion as much as she had once lovedmundane notoriety. She became as sincerely a Christian as she hadformerly been an infidel. During the lapse of twelve years thisstartling confession of faith did not belie itself for a single day. "Everything became poor about her house and person, " says herillustrious panegyrist. "She saw with sensible delight the relics of thepomps of this world disappear one after another, and alms-giving taughther to retrench daily something fresh.... A person so delicate andsensible had suffered for twelve entire years, and almost without aninterval, either the most vivid anguish or languor exhausting alike tomind and body; and notwithstanding, during the whole of that time, andin the unheard-of torments of her last illness, in which her sufferingswere increased to the utmost excess, she had not to repent of havingonce wished for an easier death. Again and again did she suppress thatweak wish by uttering, so soon as she felt it arising, with the Saviour, the prayer of the Sacred Mystery of the Garden, 'Father, thy will, notmine, be done!'"

Such a sight must have moved the least susceptible--to have beheld thePalatine thus redeem her past errors. She was anxious to write with herown hand the account of her conversion, and addressed it to thecelebrated Rancé, the Abbé of La Trappe. It was from that narrative thatBossuet drew the source of his own. Some few years previously, with thatpolished and elegant vein which intercourse with so many superior mindstends to create, she had written, as though she had foreseen that shewould not despair of her spiritual future, a short but charmingpanegyric upon Hope. Bussy-Rabutin has preserved this relic in one ofhis letters. "I have never in my life, " he says, with no doubt a littletoo much enthusiasm, "seen anything better or more delicately written. "There is to be found in it, it is true, a happy inspiration and apassage capable of pleasing minds struggling with difficulties. "It ispermitted to us, " she says, "to measure our hope by our courage, it isnoble to sustain it amidst trials; but it is not less glorious to sufferthe entire ruin of it with the same high-heartedness which had dared toconceive it. " Those are noble sentiments, and revealing a vigorousmental power. The end of the Princess Palatine (1681) showed clearlythat she had not, for the mere pleasure of expressing herself elegantly, vaunted the delights of a saint-like hope. "Ready to render up hersoul, " says Bossuet, "she was heard to utter in dying accents, 'I amabout to see how God will treat me, but I hope for His mercy. '" Such wasthe close of that life, the piety of which illuminated its latter years;such was the death of that Princess who, after having been remarkableamong the women of her time for her beauty, her errors, and, at last, byher penitence, had the rare good fortune to be praised by the mostillustrious of historians, priests, and authors of the great century. 

Our notice of this celebrated woman would be incomplete without apassing glance at the singular fortunes of Henri de Guise, subsequent tohis desertion of his first love, Anne de Gonzagua. 

The Duke de Guise, after playing a conspicuous part in the firstdissensions of the Regency, and after having killed Coligny, had marriedat Brussels the widow of the Count de Bossut, with whom he becamequickly disgusted, and whose fortune he squandered. A violent passionnext possessed him for the charming and witty Mademoiselle de Pons, maidof honour to the Queen. He took it into his head to espouse her, and"the marriage was spoken of as though he had never been married before. "That phantasy, however, did not hinder him from taking part, as avolunteer, in the campaigns of 1644 and 1645. Whilst at Rome in 1647, endeavouring to obtain a dispensation to enable him to secure the handof Mademoiselle de Pons, the Neapolitans, having revolted against theSpaniards under Masaniello, elected him as their leader, and gave himthe title of generalissimo of their army. Brave, enterprising, and bornfor adventure, able, moreover, to render available ancient pretensionsto that kingdom, through René d'Anjou, who in 1420 had espoused Isabellede Lorraine, encouraged in short, if not supported, by the French Court, where it was deemed politic to keep at a distance from it a man bearingthe great name of Guise, so formidable some sixty years before, theyoung prince embarked in a simple felucca, sailed boldly through thenaval armament of Don Juan, seized the reins of government, defeated theSpanish troops, and made himself master of the country. He won allhearts by his address, his gentleness, and his affability. But want ofcircumspection in his gallantries, the objects of which were not alwaysof a rank equal to his own, caused jealousies and discontent among thenobles. His enemies, profiting by a sortie which he made for the purposeof getting a convoy into Naples, delivered up the city to the Spaniards. His repeated efforts to re-enter the place proved futile. After havingdefended himself like a lion, he was nevertheless carried prisoner toMadrid. The great Condé, who was then serving the enemies of hiscountry, demanded that Guise should be set at liberty, in the hope thathe might foment troubles in France. But the ill-treatment which the Dukehad experienced at the hands of the Spaniards left impressions upon hismind which made him regardless of a promise that had been extorted fromhim. He attempted again in 1654 to reconquer the kingdom of Naples, withthe aid of a French fleet, but failed of success. He then went back toParis to seek indemnity for the loss of his crown. In 1655 he wasappointed to the post of grand-chamberlain of France. He figured in thefamous _carrousel_ of 1663, at the head of a quadrille of Americansavages, whilst the great Condé appeared as chief of the Turks. Onseeing those two personages so pitted, some wit observed, "There go theheroes of history and fable. " The Duke de Guise might indeed be veryaptly compared to a mythological entity, or to a knight errant of theage of chivalry. His duels, his romantic amours, his profusion, thevaried adventures of his life, rendered him exceptionable in everything. He died in 1664, leaving no issue. 

CHAPTER IV. 

 MADAME DE MONTBAZON. 

AMONGST the celebrated women of the first half of the seventeenthcentury, many were, says Bussy Rabutin, "pitiable, " whilst some were"brazen. " We must assert unhesitatingly that Madame de Montbazonbelonged to the latter class. She was "one of those personages, however, who made the most noise" at the courts of Louis the Thirteenth and Anneof Austria, as we are told by Madame de Motteville, and as we havealready seen by the prominent political part she played in the factionsof the Importants and the Fronde. In summing up her character, we shallbe silent upon the subject of many of her faults, though it is not ourwish to excuse one of them. 

"She was not wanting in wit, " remarks Tallemant; "for she had beenacquainted with so many witty people!" There is a spice of flattery inthis, for we must agree with Madame de Motteville and M. Cousin that thewit of the dazzling rival of Madame de Longueville was far from being asdelicate and attractive as was her handsome person, though we cannot atthe same time look upon Tallemant's phrase as a calumny. Both space andcourage would alike fail us, should we attempt to produce a list of allthe lovers, titled and untitled, who had peculiar opportunities ofsharpening the wit of Madame de Montbazon. 

Among the first of her adorers, beside the name of Gaston d'Orléans, must be cited that of the Duke de Chevreuse, her husband's kinsman. Their _liaison_ furnished matter for a ballad, and was very nearly thecause of a duel at the door of the king's apartments, between the Dukede Montmorency and the Duke de Chevreuse; but that did not hinder Madamede Montbazon from becoming the friend of her step-daughter, who, olderand more experienced in the political world than she was, often used heras an instrument. The young Duchess was a more dangerous rival to Madamede Guéméné, her other step-daughter, from whom she carried off, not herhusband, but the Count de Soissons. And it was not enough that sheobtained an easy conquest over her, for she instigated the Count to addoutrage to desertion, and he docilely compromised his forsaken mistressby a gross and shameful perfidy. 

But, passing rapidly over the errors of her youth, it is the close ofMadame de Montbazon's political career with which we are now concerned. The influence which the gay and gallant Duchess long exercised over theDuke de Beaufort had sometimes proved useful to the interests of theCourt, and during the early troubles of the Fronde the Queen and Mazarintook care to keep her favourably disposed towards them. But theimportance which Beaufort's infatuated passion gave or seemed to giveher, speedily made the Duchess one of the heroines of theFronde--though, it must be owned, one of the secondary heroines. Herallies were careful not to allow her to take upon herself a part she wasunable to sustain. Violent, unreflecting, accessible to the mostcontradictory suggestions, ready for any turn, and the sport of everycaprice, she was wanting in all the better qualities of a politicalwoman. Her indiscretion became formidable on all occasions when secresywas necessary, and more than once the Duke de Beaufort was obliged to beexcluded from the assemblages at which the chiefs of the Fronde tookcounsel together. It was well known that he dare not keep anything fromhis mistress, and it might chance that a royalist might turn to accountthe confidence which she wormed out of her lover, for conformity inpolitical sentiments was not one of the conditions which she imposedupon the adorers whose homage she welcomed. Her correspondence withMarshal d'Albret exposed her moreover to be subject to, without beingaware of it, the influences of the Court, and her intimacy with Vineuiltended to make her an ally, in spite of herself, of the Prince de Condé. Hence it is easy to explain the mistrust with which she inspired theCoadjutor of Paris, the future Cardinal de Retz. She herself did notfail to perceive the surveillance which he exercised around her; and shewas irritated to see with what facility he modified in his own fashionthe line of conduct which she had just previously dictated to the Dukede Beaufort. She was forced to confess that his authority prevailed overher own. One evening, disheartened by the incapacity of the grandson ofthe great Henry, and terrified by the dangers to which their imprudenceexposed the Frondeurs, and esteeming the political talent of Gondi to bemore truly worthy of her own, she opened her heart to him, and proposedthat they should enter into a treaty of alliance. The gallant Coadjutorwould only consent to accept one portion of the treaty, and, happily forthe Duke de Beaufort, who was busily occupied with a game at chessduring that strange conversation, he stipulated to eliminate from theproposed association everything that related to politics. But theDuchess would not consent to those terms. 

In love, Madame de Montbazon was very mercenary; we say it once for all, and beg to be excused from citing proof of the assertion. In politics, she also surrendered herself very willingly to any representation theeloquence of which was aided by crowns or pistoles. It was thus that inthe month of August, 1649, she promised that the Duke de Beaufort shouldnot oppose the return of the Court, at the same moment that she openedher hand to receive a considerable sum. It was thus that, the same year, she accepted two thousand pistoles from the Spanish envoys, who, desirous of rendering her favourable, promised besides that the sum oftwenty thousand crowns and a pension of six thousand livres if she wouldsecure to them the concurrence of the Duke de Beaufort. But she did notalways meet with debtors so honest as Mazarin and the Spanishambassadors. In 1650, whilst the treaty was preparing which sought tounite the Frondeurs with the Princes, then prisoners at Havre, anegotiation was entered into with Madame de Montbazon in which thePrince de Conti was offered to her as a husband for her daughter. Theproposition was not accepted. The proposers were not discouraged, and asum of a hundred thousand crowns was offered to her. This time theDuchess could not resist, and the treaty was signed in all due form. Unfortunately, when the Princes were liberated, she was imprudent enoughto confide her voucher to the Princess Palatine, who, with perfidioushaste, had promised to take care of her interests. She never saw theprecious contract again, and the Prince de Condé only answered herdemands by cruel and cutting jeers. In that adventure, it was not Madamede Montbazon who played the shabbiest part. 

The aid which the Duchess had often lent the Court amidst intrigues themost contradictory, did not preserve her from exile when the King madehis entry into Paris, on its definite pacification in October, 1652. Shedid not return thither till 1657. "She was still beautiful, and as muchcarried away by vanity as though she had been only in her twenty-fifthyear, " says Madame de Motteville, when noting her reappearance. "Sherelied all the same upon her charms, " she adds with a somewhat maliciousfinesse, "for she returned with the same desire of pleasing; and thosewho saw her assured me that the mourning garb which she wore as a widow, and to which she added everything in the shape of ornament thatself-love could suggest, rendered her so charming, that in her case itmight be said that the course of nature was changed, since so many yearsand so much beauty could meet together. "[5] Thus, by dint of care andart, did Madame de Montbazon succeed in preserving her beauty muchlonger than she could have hoped for, since, in the pride of hereighteen summers, she declared that old age commenced at thirty, andrequested it as a favour that she might be flung into the river anddrowned so soon as she reached the dreaded period. Who would have daredto remind her of that imprudent proposal in 1640? And who could haverefused her a respite even in the latter moments of her existence?

 [5] The same sentiments were thus versified by Loret, when announcing that the Duchess had obtained permission to return to Court:

 "Montbazon, la belle douairière, Dont les appas et la lumière Sous de lugubres vêtements Paraissent encore plus charmants.... "

Permission had scarcely been given her to appear at Court, when she wasattacked by an illness which seemed nothing more than a common cold, but which turned out to be the measles. In the course of a few days themalady proved fatal. Three hours only were accorded to thisearthly-minded woman to prepare for death. She made confession andreceived the sacrament with every indication of the most lively pietyand the most sincere repentance, saying to her daughter, the Abbess ofCaen, "that she regretted not having always lived in a cloister as shehad, and that she looked with horror upon her past life. " Up to thoselast three hours, she had refused to believe that there were degrees inthe morality of women, and to admit that they were not all equallyvirtuous. 

"She was little regretted by the Queen, " Madame de Motteville tells us, "as she had frequently forsaken her interests to follow her owncaprices. The minister heard of her death with the feeling oneentertains for one's deceased enemy. Her former lovers looked upon herwith contempt; and those who admired her still, were but little touchedat her loss, because each, jealous of his rival, left tears and grief asthe share of the Duke de Beaufort, who was at that moment the mostbeloved. "

On that point Madame de Motteville was in error. Which of the two--M. DeBeaufort or M. De Rancé--was most beloved it would be difficult todetermine. But this is so far certain, that M. De Rancé, the futurefounder of La Trappe, was the lover who regretted her the mostsincerely. He had hastened to her sick couch so soon as he heard of herillness; and he had arrived, not too late, and only to find himself thespectator of a most horrible sight, as has frequently been related withmuch romantic and dramatic detail, but soon enough to pass within herchamber the last hours left to her of life. "Already balancing andwrestling between heaven and this world, " says Saint Simon, who was inhis confidence, "the sight of that so sudden death achieved in him thedetermination of withdrawing from the world which he had for some timemeditated. "

Among the different versions of this catastrophe, Laroque asserts that, after an absence on a long journey, on De Rancé's return, he called atthe Hôtel Montbazon, and then learned, for the first time, the death ofthe Duchess; that he was shown into her room, where, to his horror, theheadless body lay in its coffin. The head had been cut off, eitherbecause the lead coffin was not made long enough or for the purpose ofan anatomical study. Some assert that De Rancé took the head, and thatthe skull of the woman he loved so well was found in his cell at LaTrappe. History, however, will not accept this romantic incident. 

Touching the fate of De Rancé's rival--when Louis XIV. Returned to Parisin 1652, the Duke de Beaufort submitted to the royal authority, and tookno further part in the civil war, which the Prince de Condé carried onfor several years longer. Later, the Duke obtained the command of theroyal fleet. In 1664 and 1665, he was at the head of several expeditionsagainst the African corsairs. In 1666 he commanded the French men-of-warordered to join those of Holland against England. Finally, in 1669, hewent to the aid of the Venetians, attacked by the Turks in the island ofCandia. The galleys and vessels, newly constructed in the port ofToulon, disembarked seven thousand men under Beaufort--a contingent tooweak for such a dangerous undertaking. That aid only served to retardthe taking of Candia for a few days, and was the means of uselessbloodshed. In a sortie, the rash and impetuous grandson of Henry theGreat was cut to pieces in the most merciless way; and as his bodycould not be found after the fight, his death gave rise to fables soughtto be rendered probable by the remembrance of the eccentric part he hadpreviously played. 

CHAPTER V. 

 MADEMOISELLE DE MONTPENSIER. 

ANNE MARIE LOUISE D'ORLÉANS, Duchess de Montpensier, whom historydistinguishes by the epithet of _La Grande Mademoiselle_, after tellingus in her memoirs, at least twenty times, in order to make herselfbetter known, that she was fond of glory, adds--"The Bourbons are folksvery much addicted to trifles, with very little solidity about them;perhaps I myself as well as the rest may inherit the same qualities fromfather and mother. "[6] With this hint, whoever scans her portrait mayreadily read the character her features reveal:--a mind false to theservice of a noble and generous heart; an honest but frivolous mind, toooften swayed, by a bombastic heroism; a _précieuse_ of the HôtelRambouillet, whom Nicolas Poilly very happily painted as Pallas, withher helmet proudly perched upon the summit of her fair tresses; anamazon, who bordered upon the adventuress, and, notwithstanding, remained the princess; in short, a personage at whom one cannot helplaughing heartily, nor at the same time help admiring. 

 [6] The daughter of Gaston d'Orléans and the charming Marie de Bourbon, she was born in 1627, the same year as Bossuet and Mad. De Sévigné. Her mother died five days after her birth. 

Passing by the subject of her numerous matrimonial projects, we hastenon to the commencement of her political--and perhaps we may add hermilitary[7]--career, when, in January, 1652, a treaty had been concludedbetween _Monsieur_ her father, Condé, and the Duke de Lorraine, theDuchess d'Orléans had signed in her brother's name, and the Count deFiesque in the name of Condé. On her part, Mademoiselle, somewhatfantastic but loyal and courageous, had joined her mother-in-law, anddeclared for the Fronde, partly through her liking for _éclat_ and thenotoriety of parading at the head of the troops, with her two ladies ofhonour, the Countesses of Fiesque and Frontenac, transformed intoaides-de-camp; partly by the secret hope that by Mazarin's defeat andher father's triumph she might succeed in espousing the young King, andso exchange the helmet of the Fronde for the crown of France. 

 [7] Her father, writing to her companions in arms the Countesses of Fiesque and Frontenac shortly after their entrance into Orleans, complimented them upon their courage, and addressed his letter to _the Countesses Adjutant-Generals in the Army of my Daughter against Mazarin_. 

It would be a great mistake to attribute to this fair Frondeuse aliberalism of ideas to which she was most assuredly a stranger. "It mustbe, " she somewhere remarks, "that the intentions of the great are likethe mysteries of the Faith: it does not belong to mankind to penetratewithin them; men ought to revere them, and to believe that they arenever otherwise than for the welfare and salvation of their country. "But, however that may be, it did not prevent the civil war from being avery amusing thing for Mademoiselle. To hear the drums beating to armsone fine morning, to see men running through the streets to defend thebarricades as well as their untrained hands could wield musket andsabre, to lie upon the floor in a large chamber at Saint-Germain, and tofind on awaking that chamber filled with soldiers in great buffjerkins, --those were pleasures not to be always found at will, and wereto be made the most of when met with. Such pleasures, moreover, savouring of the unforeseen, the adventurous, and the grotesque, solelydetermined Mademoiselle's conduct in the outset. But on the secondFronde breaking out, when the struggle of the Parliament with royaltyhad become a quarrel between princes and ministers, Mademoiselle feltthat the honour of her house was at stake. Gaston, after having pledgedhimself to the Prince de Condé, so far as a man who does not know hisown mind can give a pledge, contented himself with whistling, as he waswont to do, or to dissertating cleverly without acting. But his daughterwrested from him an authority to go herself and defend Orleans againstthe troops of Louis XIV. ; his daughter, on seeing the unfortunateadherents of Condé engaged with her in rebellion overpowered at theFaubourg Saint-Antoine, secured their retreat by ordering the guns ofthe Bastille to cannonade the royal forces, although that cannonadeshould slay the husband of whom she still dreamed; that daughter, too, when she heard of the disgraceful scenes of the 4th of July, 1652, boldly did what no one else dare do, --she flew to the assistance of thevictims of the Hôtel de Ville, without bestowing a thought of theimminent danger she thereby ran. 

But it is in the Princess's own Memoirs that the curious epopee must beread; and to which a dry abridgment does injustice. Whether she holdcouncil of war with her fair _Maréchales de Camp_, without allowing themen folks to give her their ready cut-and-dried advice, --whether she bethrust into Orleans through the gap of an old gateway, and, covered withmud, be seen carried along its streets in an old arm-chair, laughingheartily, --or when hastening to arrest the massacre at the Hôtel deVille, she stops to look at Madame Riche, the ribbon-vendor, talking inher chemise to her gossip, the beadle of St. Jacques, who has nothingon but his drawers, --the reader is always reminded that he sees andhears the granddaughter of Henry IV. --a Parisian with a touch of theprincess in all she says and does, and he cannot help asking himselfmomentarily whether it be all incorrigible frivolity, or some quaintspecies of natural heroism which speaks and acts thus strangely. 

Heroic or frivolous, Mademoiselle expiated her pranks by an exile offour years in her manor of Saint-Fargeau. The rupture with her father, who drove her out of doors, and denied her permission to take refugeunder any other roof he owned, her consequent wanderings, at times not alittle affecting, and at others comical, when directing her stepstowards her place of banishment, her arrival at the ruinous châteauwhich has neither doors nor windows, and which is haunted by ghosts, andthe attempts to embellish the tumble-down place, and people it withgaiety, animation, and life, are so many scenes to which the piquantstyle of Mademoiselle gives singular attractiveness. Whilst avenues werebeing planted and a theatre built, matrimonial negotiations went on asbriskly as ever, and pretenders to her hand abounded--the Elector ofBavaria, the Duke of Savoy, the nephew of the Duke of Lorraine, the Dukede Neuborg. The reception of M. De Neuborg's envoy, an honest Jesuit, who draws out of his pocket victoriously two portraits of his good lord, ogles Mademoiselle as long as he could, and talks "goguette" to her fora whole hour, is one of the most amusing farces anywhere to be met with. Unluckily, the farce was not worth the candle in the opinion of certainjudges, and all the diversions of Saint-Fargeau did not prevent ourprincess from regretting with all her heart that pompous Court ofVersailles in which the young Louis was giving such graceful ballets, brilliant carousals, and piquant masquerades. The masquerades of 1657carried the day over the political aims of 1652, and the fair exileexperienced a vivid longing to be once more received into favour at thecourt of her royal cousin. 

To take up sword or pen and fall foul of the government was almostalways an easy thing to do in France; the difficulty lay in proposingpeace after the war, to hit upon profitable reconciliations or lucrativetreaties. Mademoiselle did her best; and at length, in that same year of1657, she made her appearance in the royal camp near Sedan, having ather carriage-door the silly and complaisant Mazarin, who believed allshe wished him to believe, and who presented the princess with a littleBoulogne bitch, in token of good friendship; she made her excuses to theKing for having been naughty, and promised to be wise in future. Louisbehaved more graciously towards the fair rebel than did his mother, andsaid that everything should be buried in oblivion; but he did not forgetthe cannonade of the Bastille. After five years' seclusion, she againlooked forward to resume her position at Court, to keep one of her own, to enthrone herself at the Luxembourg, and doubtless contract somesovereign alliance. Vain illusions! Conflicts of the heart were about tosucceed to those political storms from whose effects she had justrecovered. The most vainglorious of the daughters of France was destinedto extinguish with the wet blanket of vile prose the brilliancy of along and romantic career. 

History, justly severe upon the Fronde, ought not, we think, to treattoo harshly the Frondeuse of the blood-royal. Upon one delicate point ofher private life the biographer cannot, unfortunately, show the sameindulgence. The supreme criterion for the appreciation of certain women, and the irresistible argument, is the man whom they have loved. Assuredly we may pardon many things recorded of the _GrandeMademoiselle_, even her shrewish relations with her step-mother, evenher haughty contempt for her half-sisters, but we cannot pardon her M. De Lauzun. We are all well acquainted with that individual, with hiscunning and supercilious cast of countenance, servile or arrogant, according to circumstances and interests, adroit in concealing amerciless egotism, a revolting brutality, under the guise of atheatrical liberality; brave so far as was necessary to be insolent withimpunity, intelligent no further than to the extent at which selfishnessblinds the judgment, and delighting in mischief when there was nothingto dread from it. To all this may be added an incisive tone of voice, and language keenly sarcastic or servilely obsequious, an insatiable andinordinate sensuality, innumerable conquests among the fair sex, andextraordinary adventures. At first sight, at a Court masquerade, in1659, the bully made an impression upon the _précieuse_, and she noticedhim for his exquisite elegance during the marriage fêtes of Louis XIV. When she met him in the Queen's apartments, she remarked that he hadmore wit than anyone else, and found a particular pleasure in talkingwith him. The charm operated so effectually that the princess offorty-three was at length fain to own that she passionately loved theGascon cadet, who was then in his thirty-eighth year. Determined as shewas naturally, that discovery overwhelmed her. "I resolved, " she says, "never to speak to M. Lauzun again save in hearing of a third person, and I was anxious to avoid opportunities of seeing him in order to drivehim out of my head. I entered upon such a line of conduct; I onlyexchanged a few trivial words with him. I found that I did not know whatI was saying, that I could not put three words of good sense together;and the more I sought to shun him, the more desirous I was of seeinghim. " At her wits' end, the poor Princess cast herself at the foot ofthe altar, on one occasion when she took the sacrament, and ardentlybesought Heaven to enlighten her as to the course she ought to pursue. The inspiration is by no means difficult to anticipate. "Heaven's gracedetermined me not to struggle longer to drive out of my mind that whichwas so strongly established in it, but to marry M. De Lauzun. "

Two things, however, were necessary to accomplish this: firstly, that M. De Lauzun should thoroughly understand that he was beloved, and that hewould deign to espouse Mademoiselle's twenty-two millions; and next thatKing Louis should consent to a marriage, the strangest certainly everresolved upon. Strange, indeed, that she, the grand-daughter of Henrythe Great, Mademoiselle d'Eu, Mademoiselle de Dombes, Mademoiselled'Orléans, Mademoiselle the King's first cousin, the Mademoiselledestined to the throne, should ask the King's permission to marry aGascon cadet. Louis, as the sequel to an overture made to him by severalnobles collectively, friends of Lauzun, with M. De Montausier at theirhead, granted his permission. But when the question arose, thanks to theblind vanity of Lauzun, of their union being celebrated at the Louvreand in the face of all France, like an alliance "of crown to crown;"when a feeling which was shared by every member of the royal house wason the point of communicating itself to all the sovereign families ofEurope, Louis, with great reason, began to take account of the politicalinterests which this whim of the Princess brought into play, andretracted, as King, the authority which he had given as head of afamily. Contemporary writers seem never tired of dwelling upon themanifestations of Mademoiselle's grief, at times as laughable as atothers it was touching; receiving the condolence of all the Court asthough she had been a lone widow, Madame de Sévigné tells us, andexclaiming excitedly in her despair to every fresh visitor, as shepointed to the vacant place in her bed, "He should be there! he shouldbe there!"

This took place on the 18th of December, 1670. On the 25th of November, 1671, M. De Lauzun was arrested, thrown into the Bastille, and takenthence to Pignerol, where he was subjected to a captivity of ten years. What passed in that interval has proved a great subject of controversyamongst ingenious writers. The most probable explanation seems to bethat, notwithstanding the King's refusal, the marriage between Lauzunand Mademoiselle had been accomplished. The evidence of twenty differentpersons might be cited in support of the fact, but one may suffice. Anhistorian of the last century, M. Anquetil, relates that at the Châteaud'Eu, in 1774, an apartment was still pointed out which had beenoccupied by Lauzun, situated above that of the princess, andcommunicating by a secret staircase with her alcove. At the same period, Anquetil saw at Treport a tall person resembling Mademoiselle not onlyin her figure, but strikingly like her portraits. She seemed to be aboutseventy or seventy-five. She was called, throughout that part of thecountry, the Princess's daughter. She seemed to believe so herself, andwas in receipt of a pension of fifteen hundred francs paid punctually, without knowing from what quarter they came. She occupied a handsomehouse for which she paid no rent, although for it she held noproprietary deed. All this, coupled with the age of the lady, who statedthat she was born in 1671, would seem decisive as to the clandestinemarriage which probably occasioned the arrest of Lauzun. 

Ten years of anguish and poignant regrets passed over poorMademoiselle's head--ten years employed in imploring and bargaining forthe restoration of her dearly beloved captive. "Consider what you haveit in your power to do to please the King, in order that he may grantyou that which you have so much at heart, " was the artful suggestiondaily repeated in her ear by Madame de Montespan. And to render thediscovery more easy, she took care to bring with her, and to send to hervery frequently, that charming little Duke du Maine to whom the countyof Eu, the duchy of Aumale, and the principality of Dombes would havebeen a fitting appanage. To despoil herself for the deliverance of theman she loved with such an infatuated affection, the Princess would nothave hesitated a moment. The difficulty was to despoil the man himself, already in possession of a portion of what was required, and verykeen-witted indeed to keep what he had acquired. The negotiation, for along while brought to a dead-lock by the resistance of Lauzun, was atlength concluded. M. De Lauzun, emerged from Pignerol, but restricted atfirst to a residence in Touraine or Anjou, received at length permissionto revisit Paris and behold once more the benefactress who could stillsecure to him the enjoyment of an income of forty thousand livres. "Idid not know him, " exclaimed the woebegone Princess, shortly after hisrelease, "and my sole consolation is that the King, who is moreclear-sighted than I am, did not know him either. " Tardyclear-sightedness! M. De Lauzun had then made himself knownunmistakably--by beating her. But, if the truth must be told, she hadfirst scratched his face. 

Thus ended, in vulgar squabbles, more and more stormy, a connection soromantically begun. Lauzun, disappointed in his hope of a magnificentalliance, considered himself despoiled by the Princess's donation, and, finding himself after ten years' captivity the husband of a woman offifty-four, showed her neither tenderness nor respect. It was, therefore, a relief to her when he took his departure for England in1685. The ill-assorted couple never met again. Lauzun more than onceendeavoured to obtain an interview with the Princess, but she would notforgive him, and died without consenting to his urgent appeals. It wasin her latter years only, and under the perceptibly increasing sway ofreligious influences, that her miserably tormented mind recovered peaceand repose. Mademoiselle, who had only given up dancing in 1674, withdrew gradually from Court when she found that she had become anobject of pity, if not of mockery, therein. The _Grande Mademoiselle_expired on the 5th of April, 1693, in her palace of the Luxembourg, agedsixty-six. That singularity, which had so remarkably characterised herlife, pursued her even beyond it. At her obsequies, celebrated with muchmagnificence, her entrails, imperfectly embalmed, fermented, and the urnwhich contained them burst with a loud explosion during the ceremonies. All present fled in the extremity of terror. 

Was it from the singularity of her existence, from the essentiallyFrench tone of her character, from the grandeur of an epoch during whichno one passed unnoticed, that the species of popularity half-indulgent, half-sportive, which attached to her name must be attributed? To allthese doubtless, but likewise to another cause more decisive still. Mademoiselle does not take her place only in the sufficiently extensivecatalogue of princely eccentricities; she holds a creditable positionupon the list of French writers. Nor should it be forgotten that thegates of the Luxembourg were by her thrown open to all the _beauxesprits_ of her time, "qui y trouvaient leur place comme chez Mécænas;"and that she fostered both by encouragement and example La Rochefoucauldand La Bruyère, and that it is no slight claim to remembrance that sheled France to appreciate the _Maxims_ of the one and the _Characters_ ofthe other. May such considerations serve as extenuating circumstanceswhen we bring her up for judgment for the flagrant crime of--M. DeLauzun. 

CHAPTER VI. 

 THE WIFE OF THE GREAT CONDÉ. 

AMONG so many heroines of beauty, glory, and gallantry, who achievedcelebrity at this stirring epoch of French history, there is one whosename ought not to be effaced from, nor placed lowest on the list, although a humble--we were going to say, a humiliated, disdained, andsacrificed wife; a martyr to conjugal faith, but who, perhaps, canscarcely be called a "political" woman. 

Mademoiselle de Brézé, as already intimated, had entered into the Condéfamily through the detestable influence of authority and politics. TheDuke d'Enghien, therefore, unhappily held his wife in aversion; hermother-in-law, Charlotte de Montmorency, despised her; Madame deLongueville, her sister-in-law, did not esteem her; Mademoiselle deMontpensier declares that "she felt pity for her, " and that was thegentlest phrase she could find to apply to a person who had so signallycrossed her views and inclination. 

Married at thirteen to the future hero of Rocroy and Lens, both beforemarriage and again more strongly after, the young Duke had protested bya formal act that he yielded only to compulsion and his respect forpaternal authority in giving her his hand. Henry (II. ), Prince de Condé, who thus exacted his son's compliance, merely followed his usualinstincts as a greedy and ambitious courtier in seeking an alliance withCardinal Richelieu, whose niece Mademoiselle de Brézé was, through hermother, Nicole du Plessis. Mademoiselle de Montpensier, who thought thatshe had more reason than any one else to be indignant at the match, tells us plainly that the Prince threw himself at the feet of hiseminence to solicit from him both Mademoiselle de Brézé for the Duked'Enghien, and M. De Brézé, her brother, for Mademoiselle de Bourbon, and that he only escaped from the disgrace of a double _mésalliance_through the Cardinal's clemency, who, in reply, told him that "he wasquite willing to give untitled young ladies to princes, but notprincesses to untitled young gentlemen. "

Did the young Duchess personally merit that aversion and contempt?Mademoiselle has told us, indeed, that she was awkward, and that, "onthe score of wit and beauty, she had nothing above the common run. " ButMadame de Motteville, less passionate and more disinterested in herjudgments, recognises certain advantages possessed by her. "She was notplain, " she tells us, "but had fine eyes, a good complexion, and apretty figure. She spoke well when she was in the humour to talk. " Thediscerning court lady adds that, "if Madame de Condé did not alwaysdisplay a talent for pleasing in the ball-room or in conversation, thefidelity with which she clung to her husband during adversity, and thezeal she showed for his interests and for those of her son during theGuienne campaign, ought to compensate for the misfortune of not havingbeen able to merit, by more eminent virtues, a more brilliant and widelycelebrated reputation. "

Here, then, it seems incumbent upon us to divine, from the _façon deparler_ of that day, what were _the eminent virtues_ which the Princessde Condé needed to deserve the esteem of her husband; or to ask whethertried fidelity, courage, devotedness, were not then ranked among theeminent virtues. They were so, no doubt; and it is probable that whatMadame de Motteville understands by those words, was the eminence ofqualities peculiar to the women, who more than ever in her day derivedfrom them a species of celebrity which closely resembled glory--theéclat of beauty, wit, grace, intrepidity, and power of charming; in aword, that which was possessed in so high a degree by a Madame deLongueville, a Madame de Chevreuse, a Marie de Hautefort, and aMademoiselle du Vigean. 

Whatever might have been the personal merit of the wife of the greatCondé, did the little she had justify the wretchedness of her destiny?No: some beauty, wit, virtue, courage, a timid disposition perhaps, anunpretending virtue, a courage even mediocre, easily overthrown, andwhich needed the pressure of circumstances and danger for itsdevelopment, --in all this there was nothing to invoke the ire of theimplacable sisters. 

In contemplating her truly deplorable existence, afflicted from itsbeginning to its end by every kind of grief and humiliation, one canscarcely resist the idea of the ascendency of an invincible fatality, making her a victim of the irresistible force of events and destiny. Thewoes of Claire de Brézé commenced in her earliest childhood. At the timeof her marriage to the Duke d'Enghien she had lost her mother some sixyears, that parent having died in 1635. What befell her infancy, abandoned to the neglect of a fantastic and libertine father, ruled evenbefore his widowhood by a mistress, the wife of one of his lacqueys, whom he killed one day during a hunting match in order to get him out ofthe way; of a father who, Tallemant tells us, carelessly remarked, whenhis daughter's marriage was agreed upon--as though she belonged to someone else--"They are going to make a princess of that little girl!"

She was destined, nevertheless, to have her hour of fame anddistinction, and that hour dawned amidst disasters of every sort, andupon the captivity of her husband. At the moment of the arrest of thePrince, whilst the Princess-dowager was conferring with her adherentsupon the best measures to be adopted for the deliverance of the Princesand for the safety of her little grandson, the young Princess, overcoming her timidity, interrupted Lenet, who was proposing a plan fortheir flight, and another for a campaign, and, after the humblest tokensof respect and deference for her mother-in-law, _entreated her not toseparate her from her son, protesting that she would follow himeverywhere joyfully, whatsoever might be the peril, and that she wouldexpose herself to any risk to aid her husband_. [8]

 [8] Lenet. 

From that moment, we trace, almost from day to day as it were, in the_Mémoires_ of Lenet proofs of the zeal and constancy of the Princess deCondé. She escapes from Chantilly on foot, with her son and a small bandof faithful followers, traverses Paris, whence she reaches, in threedays and by devious roads, Montrond, the place pointed out by Lenet asthe safest retreat and the most advantageous to defend. Her letters tothe Queen and ministers, to the magistrates, to her relatives, arestamped with nobility and firmness. Threatened in Montrond by LaMeilleraye, who was advancing in force, she again made her escape undercover of a hunting party, after having provided for the safety of theplace and others which depended on it, and went in search of, amid ahost of difficulties, sometimes on horseback, at others in a litter orby boat, the Dukes de Bouillon and La Rochefoucauld, who escorted herto Bordeaux. One must turn to Lenet for all the details of that toilsomejourney and of the insurrection at Bordeaux, which he has related withall the minutiæ and animation of an eye-witness and an actor who morethan once figured in the front rank. No longer timid, no longer awkward, in presence of danger the daughter of Marshal de Brézé became the amazonand almost the heroine. She held reviews, councils of war, negotiated, and issued orders. Scarcely had she reached Bordeaux, her entry intowhich was quite an ovation, than she besieged the Parliament chamber toprocure the registration of her requests and protestations against theunjust detention of her husband. "She solicited the judges on their wayout of court, representing to them with tears in her eyes the unhappycondition of all her oppressed house.... The young Duke, whom agentleman (Vialas) carried in his arms, caught the counsellors round theneck as they passed, and weepingly besought at their hands theliberation of his father, in so tender a manner that those gentlemenwept also as bitterly as he and his mother, and gave them both goodhopes. " She harangued the magistrates, supplicated them, urged them; sheeven protected them, on one occasion that the populace of Bordeaux, finding them not so bold as they could have wished, endeavoured byclamour to obtain a decree contrary to the views of the party of thePrinces. She repaired to the palace, and from the top of the stepsconjured the furious rabble and made them lay down their arms. "And itmust be owned, " says Lenet, "that she had a particular talent forspeaking in public, and that nothing could be better, more appropriate, nor more conformable to her position than what she said. " On that day, the Princess de Condé, upon the steps of the Hôtel de Ville of Bordeaux, appeared no longer unworthy of being ranked with Madame de Longuevilleat the town-hall at Paris, or with Mademoiselle d'Orléans at the PorteSt. Antoine. Brienne adds that she worked, with her own hands, with theladies of the city, at the fortifications, and that she was anxiousherself to embroider, upon the banners of her army, the emblem anddevice of the revolt--a grenade exploding, with the word _coacta_!

We have already seen the result of that three months' resistance--thepeace concluded at Bordeaux, the amnesty accorded to all those who hadtaken up arms in Guienne, in a word, all the conditions proposed by thePrincess and the Dukes conceded, with the exception of one only--theprincipal, that which had been the prime cause of all thatinsurrection--the deliverance of the Prince de Condé, whom Mazarinpersisted in retaining prisoner, whilst at the same time promising to doeverything towards abridging his captivity. 

The Princess was sent back to Montrond with her son, vexed no doubt atnot having conquered, but proud of having dared so much, and satisfiedat having deserved for that once to share his imprisonment. That daycame, however, --the day of gratitude and justice. On one occasionalready, whilst yet at Vincennes, the Prince, as he watered the tulipscelebrated by Mademoiselle de Scudéry in song, remarked to some one, "_Who would have thought that I should be watering tulips whilst Madamela Princesse was making war in the south!_"

But later, when the campaign at Bordeaux had ended, the Prince still aprisoner at Havre, forwarding a communication in cypher to Lenet, addedthereto a short note for the Princess, couched in terms so tender thatLenet, fearing lest in the exuberance of her delight the Princess mightbetray the secret of that correspondence, hesitated for some moments tocommunicate it to her. That note, the first and sole recompense of herdevotion, courage, and constancy, we must here transcribe, as the tardyand begrudging compensation for such long-continued ingratitude, suchlong-continued disdain, for so many cruel and unmerited outrages. 

 "Il me tard, Madame, que je sois en état de vous embrasser mil fois pour toute l'amitié que vous m'avez temoigné, qui m'est d'autant plus sensible que ma conduite envers vous l'avoit peu méritée; mais je sçauray si bien vivre avec vous à l'advenir, que vous ne vous repentirés pas de tout ce que vous avés faict to me pour moy, qui fera que je seray toute ma vie tout à vous et de tout mon coeur. "

Poor Clémence de Maillé! how, at that first testimony of an affectionwhich she had despaired of ever gaining, did her heart, so long pent up, burst forth with ecstatic delight! And how must Lenet, on witnessingthat touching effusion of irrepressible rapture, have congratulatedhimself at not having persevered in his diplomatic prudence! She tookthe letter, shed tears over it, kissed it, read it over and over again, and tried to get it by heart--for she might lose it. Then she selectedfrom her toilette her finest ribbon (a bright _flame-coloured_ one), andsewed that precious missive to it, in order to carry it always upon herperson, beneath her dress--upon her chemise, Lenet bluntly tells us, andwho adds that that gush of delirious delight lasted until the morrow. 

Alas! that warm ray was the only one that Condé, in his glory, let fallupon her, and it was but evanescent. The danger over, the prison opened, Condé restored to his honours and his power, she became once more thedespised, alienated, humiliated wife. Mademoiselle, on meeting heragain, asked whether it were true that she had taken part _in thatwhich was done in her name?_ On her return from Montrond (after theletter), she found her, it is true, _plus habile_; but she was shockedat the delight manifested by the Princess on seeing all the great worldflock to visit her, so wholly forsaken as she had previously been, andshe concluded that, being carried out of her normal condition, shethought too much of herself. 

Then came humiliations the most cutting, and the deepest grief. Twicewas she attacked by dangerous illness, from which it was asserted shecould not recover. And each time that report was welcomed at Court asthe joyous announcement of a marriage or a succession. Everybody busiedthemselves with finding another wife for the Prince; and some thoughtonce more of Mademoiselle: "that rumour reached my ears, " says she, "andI mused upon it. " Unfortunately for her, the poor Princess recovered, and Mademoiselle had to wait for Lauzun. In another place she remarkssomewhat spitefully, "Madame la Princesse arrived in better health than_could have been anticipated; no one could have imagined that she wouldso soon recover_. "

At length a tragic event, the consequences of which exhibit in asinister light the perseverance of ill-feeling that had always beenshown towards her in the family of which she had become a member, cameto add itself to that almost unbroken chain of tribulations, outrages, and troubles amid which no sort of calamity seemed wanting. Two officersof her household took it into their heads to quarrel and draw swordsupon each other. The Princess (she was then in her forty-thirdyear--1671) placed herself between the angry combatants with theintention of separating them, and by so doing received a stab in herside. The individual who inflicted the wound was brought to trial. Asfor her, "When she was cured, the Prince had her conducted to Châteauroux, one of his country-houses. She has been there kept for a long time imprisoned, and at present permission is only given her to walk in the court-yard, always strictly watched by the people whom the Prince always keeps about her. _The Duke is accused of having suggested to the Prince the treatment to which his mother is subjected: he was very glad_, it is said, to find a pretext for putting her in a place where she would _spend less_ than in society. "[9]

 [9] Mémoires of Mademoiselle de Montpensier, 4th part. 

Was it the hereditary avarice of the house of Condé which thus revealeditself in the odious sentiment of that unworthy son? Poor woman! Heronly crime was that of being too liberal. She had, it is true, foolishlyplaced her diamonds in pledge at Bordeaux to support the cost of thewar. But had she not, as a set-off to her prodigality, brought to theDuke d'Enghien and his father her share of Richelieu's wealth? Thatprudent advice of the excellent son was followed: the Princess was stilla prisoner at Châteauroux, when the Prince her husband died, in 1686;and by way of a precaution--which cannot be thought of without ashudder, giving as it does the measure of an implacable hatred--herecommended that she should be so kept after his decease. This once, Mademoiselle did find a word of pity for the persecuted wife and mother. "I could have wished, " says she, when speaking of the last moments ofthe Prince, "that he had not prayed the King to let his wife always bekept at Châteauroux, and I was very sorry for it.... "

And it was there, doubtless, that she died in 1694, at the age ofsixty-six. The collections of funeral orations and sermons of celebratedpreachers of that day will be searched in vain for any funeral tributeto her memory. And a feeling of disappointment arises that Bossuet, inhis panegyric of the hero, could not find a word of praise, ofconsolation, or even of pity for the ill-fated shadow he left sorrowfuland abandoned by all, to bear his name in pitiless obscurity to thegrave. 

Mysterious destiny! strange fatality! which neither personal demerits, wrongs, nor faults justified, which neither love, devotedness, norunfailing virtue, approved and respected even by the calumnious, couldavert. 

PART II. 

THE DUCHESS OF PORTSMOUTH. 

VERY little is known for certain concerning the antecedents of LouiseQuerouaille before she figured at the Court of France as one of themaids of honour to the unfortunate Henrietta, Duchess of Orleans, sisterof Charles the Second of England. The contemporaries of the merrymonarch, witnesses and censors of his political errors, in tracing themto their source, have attributed them primarily to the foreignfavourite, who was, more than any other of the many mistresses of thatPrince, odious in the eyes of the English people. 

At the commencement of 1670, the splendour and corruption of the FrenchCourt had reached their acme. The seraglio of the great King recalled tomind that of Solomon, whilst his brother, enslaved by effeminacy anddebauchery, had only to hold up his finger and the most importantpersonages of the state were suitably provided with mistresses to suchan extent that at length it became necessary to transfer occasionally toforeign courts those attractive creatures who, by antiphrasis doubtless, were always called "maids of honour. " It was in the household of hissister-in-law, Henrietta of England, that Louis had first met the twomistresses of his predilection; and when he wished to assure himself bya new tie of his royal vassal on the other side of the channel, it wasstill the domestic circle of the Duchess of Orleans which supplied himwith the diplomatist in petticoats he wanted. 

When Mademoiselle Querouaille's mission to the Court of St. James'sbecame thoroughly understood, and her position as Duchess of Portsmouthassured in it, her previous history was hunted up, the details of whichno one knew--not even the royal family of France, who had used her as aninstrument without caring to trouble itself about her origin. Madame deSévigné, in her letters to her daughter, speaks of the Duchess ofPortsmouth in a very disrespectful fashion, so much so as to reveal, ifnot the certainty, at least the belief that the antecedents of the _maidof honour_, as she says, were not the most honourable. In 1690, fiveyears after Charles's death, a pamphlet was published in London in whichthe Duchess figures under the fictitious name of _Francelie_; Louis XIV. Designated as _Tirannides_, and our English king as _Prince des Iles_. In the preface to the French translation of this pamphlet, which bearsthe title of _Histoire secrète de la Duchesse de Portsmouth_, it isstated that the author desired to give, by these changes of name, someadditional piquancy to the revelations contained in his book. Accordingto such chronicle, the father of Louise Querouaille was a wool merchantof Paris. After having realised a moderate fortune in trade, he retiredinto Brittany, his native country, with his two daughters; the youngest, Louise, being amiable and pretty; the eldest, plain and ungraceful. Thedissimilarity of the two sisters, the one universally pleasing, theother displeasing everybody, created such misunderstanding between themthat their father was obliged to separate them. He kept the plaindaughter at home, and placed the younger and pretty one as a boarder ina neighbouring town to that in which he lived. Louise thereby acquiredaccomplishments which enhanced her natural charms. She was sharp, cunning, insinuating, and having gained the confidence and goodwill ofthe lady to whose care her father had entrusted her, the formerintroduced her amongst her relations and general society. In that circleMademoiselle Querouaille ere long inspired passions, rumours of whichreached the ears of the old wool-merchant. Fearing lest his daughtermight but too thoughtlessly respond to the attentions of which she wasthe object, he withdrew her from the boarding-house, and took her toParis, where he left her under the care of his sister-in-law, then awidow. Her husband had been a dependent of the Duke de Beaufort, and sheherself lived, for the most part, upon the bounty of that nobleman, who, on reconciling himself with the Court after the Fronde, had obtained thepost of high-admiral of France. Shortly after the arrival of Louise inParis, in 1669, the Duke seeing her walking in the Tuileries gardenswith her relative, and being struck with the young girl's beauty, andmoreover it is said with the effect which she produced upon the public, became suddenly enamoured of her. The author of the _Histoire secrète_relates the manoeuvres resorted to by Beaufort and Louise to deceive thevigilance, more affected than real, as it would seem, of her old aunt. In short, the Duke's passion made rapid progress; and the young girl, yielding to the wishes of a lover who adored her and heaped magnificentpresents upon her, allowed herself to be carried off by him at themoment that he was about to enter upon his naval command. Thatexpedition had for its object the succour of the Venetians, who for sometwenty-four years had been blockaded by the Turks in Candia. Mademoiselle Querouaille, disguised as a page, embarked with the Duke, who, shortly after landing, was cut to pieces in action. An officer ofthe French force, whom the before-cited chronicle merely designates as amarquis, and to whom Beaufort had confided the secret of his love, offered to conduct Louise back to France. It appears that MademoiselleQuerouaille would have preferred to have been accompanied on her returnby a certain smart page who had been in the Duke's service, but themarquis did not give her the option of such a choice. Yet, though Louisecould not withdraw herself from the protection of the latter, there isno reason to believe that he forced his love upon her. The anonymouschronicler concedes that much; but, in his opinion, the Marquis mighthave hoped that Louise would have acknowledged his care and respect bythe same favours which she had accorded to "Beaufort, and, " he adds, "one may presume that a girl who previously, urged by love, had allowedthe Duke to carry her off to Candia, could do no less for a man whoshowed her so much attention on the voyage back to France. " More or lessjust as these inductions may be, it appears quite certain that this sameprank of Mademoiselle Querouaille was the foundation of her fortunes. Ingiving his friends an account of the expedition in which he had takenpart, the Marquis did not omit the episode of the Duke de Beaufort'spretended page. Henrietta of England, to whom this romantic tale wascarried, became desirous of seeing the heroine of it, and LouiseQuerouaille was therefore duly introduced to the Duchess. The fictitiousCherubino was cunning enough to represent herself as being the victim ofa forcible abduction. Henrietta listened to her story with the liveliestinterest, took her into her household, and soon afterwards admitting heramongst the number of her maids of honour. Louise, at the age ofnineteen, was thus at once introduced to all the pleasures andtemptations of a magnificent and dissipated court. Her introduction tookplace at a critical moment (1669), and, in deciding her future, fatehas made her destiny and character matter of history. 

The conquest or the ruin of Holland had long been one of the favouriteprojects of Louis the Fourteenth. The Dutch, however, resisted hisovergrown power, as their ancestors had formerly defied that of Philipthe Second of Spain. In order to carry his plans into execution, Louisfound it necessary to detach England from the interests of Holland. Thiswas matter of some difficulty, for an alliance with France againstHolland was so odious to all parties in England, so contrary to thenational prejudices and interests, that though Louis did not despair ofcajoling or bribing Charles into such a treaty, the utmost caution andsecresy were necessary in conducting it. 

The only person who was at first trusted with this negotiation was theDuchess of Orleans. She was at this time about five-and-twenty, "asingular mixture of discretion, or rather dissimulation, with rashnessand petulance; of exceeding haughtiness, with a winning sweetness ofmanner and disposition which gained all hearts. " She was not, however, exactly pretty or well made, but had the dazzlingly fair complexion ofan Englishwoman, "un teint de rose et de jasmin, " a profusion of lighthair, with eyes blue and bright as those of Pallas. She had inheritedsome of the nobler qualities of her grandfather, Henri Quatre, and allthe graces and intriguing spirit of her mother, Henrietta Maria. Earlybanished from England by the misfortunes of her family, she regarded thecountry of her birth with indifference, if not abhorrence, and was aFrenchwoman in education, manners, mind, and heart. She possessedunbounded power over the mind of Charles the Second, whose affection forher was said to exceed that of a brother for a sister; he had neverbeen known to refuse her anything she had asked for herself or others, and Louis trusted that her fascinations would gain from the king ofEngland what reason and principle and patriotism would have denied. 

The shrewdness of mind and inclination for intrigue which characterisedhis sister-in-law's maid-of-honour did not escape the observation ofLouis. In her he found an apt as well as willing instrument in thesecret negotiation of which he had constituted her mistress theplenipotentiary. For such compliance the manners of the time may, to acertain extent, furnish La Querouaille with an excuse. At Versailles, ideas of honour and morality had lost their ordinary signification: themen envied generally the lot of Amphitryon, and the women lost everyinstinct of modesty when it became a question about satisfying a capriceof Jupiter. Breathing such a vitiated atmosphere, and having so manylamentable examples before her eyes, Mademoiselle Querouaille saw onlythe dazzling side of the proposition made to her--the hope of reigningdespotically over the heart of a great prince, and of becoming the equalof that La Vallière whose _elevation_ was the object of so much envy andfeminine ambition. 

It was arranged, therefore, that the piquant Bas-Bretonne should bebrought under the notice of the amorous Charles II. During a visit tohim, arranged to take place at Dover. In order to give the interviewbetween the royal brother and sister the appearance of an accidental orfamily meeting, the pretext of a progress to his recently acquiredFlemish territories was resorted to by Louis, who set out with hisqueen, his two mistresses De Montespan and La Vallière, the Duchess ofOrleans and Mademoiselle de Montpensier, with their respective retinues, and attended by the most beautiful women of the Court. The splendourexhibited on this occasion exceeded all that had been witnessed, evenduring the reign of this pomp-loving monarch. Thirty thousand menmarched in the van and rear of the royal party; some of them destined toreinforce the garrisons of the conquered country, others to work uponthe fortifications, and others again to level the roads. It was acontinued series of fêtes, banquets, and triumphs, the ostensiblehonours being chiefly for Madame de Montespan; the real object of thisfamous journey, well-nigh unparalleled for its lavish and luxuriousostentation, was known only to Henrietta of England, who enjoyed insecret her own importance, and this gave a new zest to the pleasureswith which she was surrounded. 

On reaching Dunkirk, the Duchess of Orleans embarked for England withher maid-of-honour and a small but chosen retinue, and met Charles atDover, where this secret negotiation was initiated. The resultanticipated came to pass, and proved that Louis had not miscalculatedthe power of his sister-in-law over her easy-going and unscrupulousbrother. Charles fell into the snare laid for him, and Henrietta carriedmost of the points of that disgraceful treaty, which rendered the Kingof England the pensioned tool of France, and his reign the most abjectin the annals of her native country. 

Aiming rather to stimulate than gratify the languid desires of herbrother for fresh feminine novelty, the Duchess of Orleans, withfinished finesse, appeared not to perceive the attention which thepiquant charms and almost childish grace of her young maid-of-honour wonfrom the captivated King. Nor did she, at her departure, leave Louise inEngland, as some historians have erroneously supposed. In order torender the impression which her fair attendant had made upon Charlesmore deep and lasting, it was sought by her absence to incite the desirefelt by her royal brother to retain her in his Court. The secretnegotiation with which Louis had entrusted his sister-in-law had notbeen, in fact, yet completed. To conduct it to a prosperous termination, to preserve perfect harmony between France and England, it was stillneedful to make use of another kind of female influence. It wasnecessary, moreover, that such influence should become permanent--athing hitherto very difficult at courts wherein the fair sex disputedstrenuously and shamelessly for the royal favour. But thus much seemedcertain--that the key to the will of the sovereign of Great Britain hadbeen found in Mademoiselle Louise Querouaille. 

Charles had indeed written in reply to his sister, on the 8th July ofthe preceding year (1668), that "in every negotiation she shall have ashare, which will prove how much I love her. " In August he told theFrench ambassador--"The Duchess of Orleans passionately desires analliance between me and France; and as I love her tenderly, I shall behappy to let her see what power her entreaties have over me. " Henrietta, probably, did not consider that by thus bringing her brother intoalliance with France she was betraying her native country. She no doubtthought rather of augmenting the greatness of Charles than of benefitingEngland. The sea should be given up to England; the territory ofContinental Europe to France. Louis XIV. Expressly declared, inopposition to the views of Colbert, "that he would leave commerce to theEnglish--three-fourths of it at least--that all he cared for wasconquest. " But that would have involved, as a first step, the conquestof England herself, and have cost torrents of blood. The fascinatingHenrietta, doubtless, did not perceive this when she trod so far in thefatal footsteps of her ancestress, Mary Stuart. She had none of her rashviolence, but not a little of her spirit of romantic intrigue, and thatfeminine delight of having in hand a tangled skein, of which she heldsecurely the end of the thread. 

The secret negotiation of the treaty, however, went on between the twokings. Louis had submitted to exorbitant conditions on the score ofmoney, and to another, moreover, sufficiently weighty. It was thatCharles, converted to the Romish faith, should share with him in theconquest of Holland, should send a considerable military force thither, and should keep for himself the Dutch islands opposite to England--anadvantage so enormous to the latter power that it would have renderednational the odious alliance, and glorified the treason. 

Two points still remained unsettled: first, to persuade Charles tocommence the war before his conversion--a step considered easy toobtain; but that conversion terrified him when the moment came forcarrying it out. Secondly--and which proved the most difficult--was toinduce him to despatch very few troops--too few to take and afterwardshold the territory promised him. Louis XIV. Stipulated to send 120, 000men there; Charles II. Engaged to furnish 6000, which number his sisterprevailed upon him to reduce to 4000. 

Such was the sad, disgraceful, deplorable negotiation imposed by thegreat King upon his sister-in-law. She had always obeyed him (as sheherself said), and she obeyed him in this matter, rendering her brotherdoubly a traitor by his abandonment of the latter condition, whichlessened his treason. 

Everybody had envied the Duchess her visit to England, none knew thebitterness it entailed. The King confided in her, and yet distrustedher. Otherwise he would not have had her accompanied by the pretty doll, with her baby face, whose office it was to ensnare the licentiousCharles. Henrietta was compelled to take her over to England, and, infact, to chaperone her. For such self-abasement the King had handsomelyrewarded the compliant maid-of-honour, promising to give her an estate, and so much per head for each bastard she might have by Charles ofEngland. 

Henrietta endured all this shameful bargaining, hoping that her royalbrother would obtain from the Pope the dissolution of her marriage withthe worthless, stupid, profligate Duke of Orleans, on whom her wit andcharms were equally thrown away. She might then remain at his court andbe the virtual Queen of England, by governing him through femaleinfluence. Her brilliant hopes, however, were destined to be speedilydissipated, and her career cut short by a painful and treacherous death. 

On her return from England, two surprises awaited her: not only did shefind the Duke, her husband, exasperated against her, but what she hadleast of all expected, the King very cold in his demeanour towards her. Louis had got from her all he desired. His changed attitude emboldened acabal in her own household to effect her destruction. Those who formedit were creatures of her husband's detestable favourite, the Chevalierde Lorraine, whom they believed had been banished by the King throughher entreaties. The poor Duchess wept bitterly on finding that she hadnow no support from any one about her. The Duke, in the exercise of hismarital authority, took her from Court, not permitting her any longer tovisit Versailles. The King might have insisted upon her attendancethere but did not. In tears, she suffered herself to be carried off toSt. Cloud. There she felt herself alone, with every hand against her. 

The weather was excessively hot. On her arrival at St. Cloud, she took abath, which made her ill, but she soon recovered from it, and during twodays was tolerably well--eating and sleeping. On the 28th of June sheasked for a cup of chicory, drank it, and at the same moment became red, then pale, and shrieked aloud. The poor Duchess, commonly so patientunder pain, gave way under the excess of her anguish, her eyes filledwith tears, and she exclaimed that she was dying. 

Inquiries were made about the water the Duchess had drunk, and herwaiting-woman said that she had not prepared it herself, but had orderedit to be made, and then asked that some of it might be given her, drankof it; but there is no evidence to show that the water had not beenchanged in the interval. 

Was it an attack of cholera, as was said? The symptoms in no wiseindicated that species of disorder. The Duchess's health was very muchshattered, and she was doubtless liable to be rapidly carried off. Butthe event had very plainly been hastened (as in the case of Don Carlos);nature had been assisted. The Duke's valets--who were, as to fidelity, much more the servants of his banished favourite, the Chevalier deLorraine--comprehended that, in the approaching alliance of the twokings, and the need they would have of each other's confidence, theDuchess might in some moment of tenderness recover her absolute powerover the King, who would in such event sweep his brother's householdclear of them all. They well knew the Court, and surmised that, if shewere to die, the alliance would nevertheless be maintained, and thematter hushed up; that she would be lamented, but not avenged; thatfacts accomplished would be respected. 

Good care was taken not to confide the secret to the wretched Duke, herhusband; it was even thought that it might be possible to get him out ofthe way--to keep him in Paris, where by chance, indeed, he was detained. Philip of Orleans was really astonished when he beheld his agonisedwife, and ordered an antidote to be given her; but time was lost inadministering the _poudre de vipère_. The Duchess asked only for anemetic, and the doctors obstinately refused her one. Strange, too, theKing, who, on his arrival, remonstrated with them, was equallyunsuccessful in obtaining for the sufferer that which she craved. Themedicos held steadily to their opinion: they had pronounced it to becholera, and they would not swallow their own words. 

Were they in the plot? That did not follow. For, besides theprofessional pride which forbade them to belie themselves, they mightfear to discover more than they wished--to act in a very uncourtier-likemanner by discovering traces but too evident of poisoning. In such casethe alliance, perhaps, might have been broken off, and the projects ofboth King and clergy for the Dutch and English crusade have come tonothing. Such blundering fellows would never have been forgiven. So thephysicians were prudent and politic. It was altogether a grievousspectacle. Here was a woman universally beloved, yet who inspired no onewith any strong feeling. Everybody was interested--went and came; but noone would assume any responsibility, no one obeyed her last and constantprayer. She wanted to eject the poison by the aid of an emetic. No onedared to give it her. "Look, " she exclaimed, "my nose is gone--shrunkto nothing. " It was observed, in fact, that it was already like that ofan eight days' corpse. For all that, they stuck to the doctors' opinion:"It is nothing. " With only one exception, nobody seemed uneasy abouther; some even laughed. Mademoiselle de Montpensier alone showedindignation at all this heartless indifference, and had the courage toremark that "At any rate they should endeavour to save her soul, " andwent in search of a confessor. 

The people belonging to the household, one and all, recommended that thecuré of St. Cloud should be sent for, certain that, as he was unknown tothe Duchess, their mistress would confess nothing of moment to him. Mademoiselle, however, would not hear of him as confessor. "FetchBossuet, " she said, "and meanwhile call in the Canon Feuillet. "

Feuillet was a very wary ecclesiastic, and quite as prudent as thephysicians. He persuaded _Madame_ to offer herself up as a sacrifice toHeaven without accusing anyone. The Duchess said, in fact, to Marshal deGrammont, "They have poisoned me--but by mistake. " She exhibitedthroughout an admirable discretion and perfect gentleness. She embracedthe Duke, her husband, whispering to him--in allusion to the outrageousarrest of the Chevalier de Lorraine--that she had "never been unfaithfulto him. "

The English Ambassador having arrived, she spoke to him in English, telling him to conceal from her brother that she had been poisoned. TheAbbé Feuillet, who had not quitted her, overhearing the word "_poison_, "stopped her, saying, "_Madame_, think only of God now!" Bossuet, whonext came in, continues Feuillet, confirmed her in those thoughts ofself-abnegation and discretion. For a long time back, she had looked toBossuet to console her in that supreme moment. She desired that afterher decease an emerald ring should be given to him which she hadreserved for that purpose. 

By degrees, however, the unfortunate Duchess found herself left almostalone. The King had taken his departure, after manifesting greatemotion, and the Duke also in tears. All the Court had disappeared. Mademoiselle de Montpensier was too much affected to bid her farewell. She was sinking fast, felt an inclination to sleep, woke up suddenly, inquired for Bossuet, who placed a crucifix in her hand, and, whilst inthe act of embracing it, she expired. The clock at that moment struckthree, and the first faint light of dawn was visible (June 29th, 1670). 

The English Ambassador expressed a desire to be present at the_post-mortem_ examination, and the doctors did not fail to pronounce thecause of her death to be an attack of _cholera morbus_ (so Mademoisellede Montpensier states), and that mortification had for some time pastset in. He was not the dupe of such opinion; neither was Charles II. , who, at first, indignantly refused to receive the letter addressed tohim by the Duke of Orleans. But to persevere in such a line of conductwould have been to bring about a rupture of the pending negotiation andthe loss of the French subsidy. He calmed down, therefore, and pretendedto believe the explanations that were offered him. It was, however, remembered that the Chevalier de Lorraine, the Duke's unworthyfavourite, had openly accused _Madame_ as the instigator of hisbanishment; and Saint-Simon asserts that the King, before consenting tohis brother marrying again, was resolved to know whether he had reallyhad the Duchess poisoned, and with that view summoned Furnon, Henrietta's master of the household. From him he learned that thepoison had been sent from Italy by the Chevalier de Lorraine toBeauveau, equerry to the Duchess, and to D'Effiat, her captain of theguard, but without the knowledge of the Duke. "It was that_maître-d'hôtel_ who himself related it, " says Saint-Simon, "to M. Jolyde Fleury, from whom I had it. "

A story but too probable. But that which appears incredible, and whichnevertheless is quite certain, was that the poisoners were perfectlysuccessful, that shortly after the crime the King permitted theChevalier de Lorraine to serve in the army, appointed himmarshal-de-camp, and allowed him to return to Court. What explanation, what palliation, can there be for such an enormous outrage to our commonhumanity? It has truly been said that "the intrigues which led to themurder of the unfortunate Henrietta of England present such a scene ofaccumulated horrors and iniquity, that, for the honour of human nature, one could wish that the curtain had never been raised which hid themfrom our knowledge. "

The last political act of the Duchess of Orleans was one of decisiveimport, and calculated to secure for a long time the subjection of theEnglish nation. Although seriously afflicted by the death of his sister, the thoughtless Charles seemed especially occupied with the design ofbringing over to England the attractive maid-of-honour who had made sucha lively impression upon him, as had been intended, during the shortvisit to Dover already mentioned. On the melancholy tidings ofHenrietta's death reaching England, the profligate Duke of Buckinghamwas despatched to Paris as envoy extraordinary, ostensibly to inquireinto the particulars of that catastrophe but in reality, as Burnetsays, to conclude the treaty. This he accomplished; France agreeing togive two millions of livres (£150, 000) for Charles's conversion topopery, and three millions a year for the Dutch war. Large sums of moneywere also distributed to Buckingham, Arlington, and Clifford. 

Buckingham, that complaisant companion of "the merry monarch, " who, "everything by turns and nothing long, " having been the first to observethe impression the mignonne maid-of-honour had made on the King'ssusceptible fancy, had little hesitation in attaching to his diplomaticoffice the very undignified one of Sir Pandarus, and therefore with abrave defiance of decorum bent all his efforts to overcome the scruples, if any there might be, lingering in the mind of Louise with regard totransferring herself to the service of the Queen of England, poorCatherine of Braganza. As she was then placed through the death of theDuchess of Orleans, a convent was the only retreat MademoiselleQuerouaille could look forward to in France; and as religious seclusionwas not at all congenial to the lively nymph, she was not foundimpracticable to Buckingham's overtures. Nor were the latter's effortsentirely disinterested in the matter. He had lately had a fierce quarrelwith "old Rowley's" imperious mistress, the Duchess of Cleveland, andhaving sworn hatred and revenge against that profligate beauty, soughtto turn the French maid-of-honour to his own advantage by raising up arival in the King's affections, who should be wholly governed byhimself. He therefore represented seriously to Louis that the only wayto secure Charles to French interests was to give him a French mistress;and he told Charles jestingly that he ought to take charge of hissister's favourite attendant, if only out of "decent tenderness for hermemory. "

The delicate affair, in short, was soon arranged; an invitation, soformally worded as to wear the semblance of propriety, was sent from theEnglish Court, and Louise immediately departed for Dieppe, escorted bypart of the Duke of Buckingham's suite, and his grace's promise to joinher with all convenient speed. But, as usual with the man whose"ambition was frequently nothing more than a frolic, and whose bestdesigns were for the foolishest ends, " who "could keep no secret norexecute any design without spoiling it, " he totally forgot both the ladyand his promise, and, leaving the forsaken demoiselle at Dieppe to crossthe Straits as she best might, sailed to England by way of Calais. LordMontagu, then our Ambassador at Paris, hearing of the Duke's escapade, immediately sent over for a yacht, and ordered some of his ownattendants to convey her, with all honour, to Whitehall, where she wasreceived by Lord Arlington with all respect, and forthwith appointedmaid-of-honour to the Queen. 

The intoxication of Charles was complete, and the man who had supportedpatiently the furious outbreaks of Barbara Palmer[10] and the saucypetulence of Nell Gwynne, was the more able to appreciate "les grâcesdécentes" of the foreign maid-of-honour, who, in the profaned walls ofWhitehall, diffused the delicate odour of Versailles. 

 [10] Duchess of Cleveland. 

The purpose of her receiving an appointment at the Court of St. James'swas apparently foretold, for Madame de Sévigné thus writes to herdaughter:--"Ne trouvez-vous pas bon de savoir que Querouaille dontl'étoile avait été devineé avant qu'elle partit, l'a suivietrès-fidèlement? Le roi d'Angleterre l'a aimée, elle s'est trouvée avecune légère disposition à ne le pas haïr. "[11]

 [11] Letter 190. 

It is doubtful, however, whether Charles did immediately enjoy hisconquest. If it be noted that the Duke of Richmond only came into theworld in 1672, we may be led to suppose that Mademoiselle Querouailledid not yield without hesitation to the desires of her royal lover; andthat supposition becomes almost a certitude, when one reads this passageof a letter which Saint-Evremond addressed to his fair countrywoman:--

 "Suffer yourself rather to follow the bent of your temptation, instead of listening to your pride. Your pride would soon cause you to be sent back to France, and France would fling you, as has been the lot of many others, into some convent. But allowing that you should choose of your own free will that dismal kind of retreat, still it would be necessary beforehand to render yourself worthy of entering therein. What a figure you would cut there, if you had not the character of a penitent! True penitence is that which afflicts and mortifies us at the recollection of our faults. Of what has a good girl to be penitent who has done nothing wrong? You would appear ridiculous in the eyes of the other nuns, who, repenting from just motives, should discover that your repentance was only grimace. "

Louise committed the error of not only approving the advice of thatequivocal monitor, but the greater error of following it. Experiencecame very soon to open her eyes. 

In 1672, as has been said, the Querouaille having presented the Kingwith a son, her favour increased considerably. In 1673 she was created_Duchess of Portsmouth_, and at the close of the same year Louis XIV. , alike to flatter the King of England, and to confirm him in his alliancewith himself against Holland, as to reward the good offices of LouiseQuerouaille, conferred upon the latter the domain of D'Aubigny, inBerry. This domain given, in 1422, by Charles VII. To John Stuart, "as atoken of the great services which he had rendered in war to that King, "had reverted to the crown of France. In the letter of donation whichLouis sent to Charles, it stated that "after the death of the Duchess ofPortsmouth, the demesne of Aubigny shall pass to such of the naturalchildren of the King of Great Britain as he shall nominate. " Charles II. Nominated Charles Lennox (his son by Querouaille), and created him Dukeof Richmond on the 19th of August, 1675. 

Although _maîtresse-en-titre_, and favourite mistress as she became, shecould not, however, prevent the unworthy and frequent resort of thedebauched prince to rivals of a lower grade, and Madame de Sévignépenned some amusing lines on the subject of those duplicateamours:--"Querouaille has been in no way deceived; she had a mind to bethe King's mistress, she has her wish. He passes almost every evening inher company, in presence of the whole Court. She has a child which hasjust been acknowledged, and on whom two duchies have been bestowed. Sheamasses wealth, and makes herself feared and respected wherever she can;but she could not foresee finding a young actress in her path by whomthe King is bewitched.... He shares his attentions, his time, and hishealth between them both. The actress is quite as proud as the Duchessof Portsmouth: she spites her, makes wry faces at her, assails her, andoften carries the King off from her. She boasts of those points in whichshe is preferable--that she is young, silly, bold, debauched, andagreeable; that she can sing, dance, and play the part _de bonne foi_. She has a son by the King, and is determined that he shall beacknowledged. Here are her reasons:--'This Duchess, ' she says, 'actsthe person of quality; she pretends that she is related to everybody inFrance. No sooner does any grandee die, than she puts on mourning. Ahwell! if she is such a great lady, why did she condescend to become a_catin_? She ought to expire with shame: for myself, it is myprofession; I don't pique myself on anything else. The King keeps me; Iam at present his solely. I have brought him a son, whom I intend heshall acknowledge, and I am assured that he will, for he loves me quiteas well as he does his Portsmouth. ' This creature takes the top of thewalk, and embarrasses and puts the Duchess out of countenance in a mostextraordinary manner. "

In Mrs. Nelly, with all her good qualities, Charles had not foundexactly a rose without thorns to stick in his button-hole. In her toowild fun, or spirit of mockery, she was apt, as most others, to givedemonstration of all the variety of her woman's nature and her woman'swit, and to make her baffled and humbled sovereign wish in his inmostheart that he had never had anything to do with her. 

Such were the annoyances--doubtless unforeseen by MademoiselleQuerouaille on quitting France, and to which La Vallière and Montespanwere not exposed in the Court of the _Grand Monarque_, where vice itselfput on airs of grandeur and majesty. It must be owned, however, thatMadame de Sévigné exaggerates when she pretends to establish a sort ofequilibrium between the position of the actress and that of the Duchess. The triumphs of Nell Gwynne were triumphs of the alcove; whilst herGrace of Portsmouth reigned without a rival over the realm of diplomacy. Charles II. Was in the habit of passing a great portion of his time inher apartments, where often, in the midst of a joyous circle, he metBarillon, the French Ambassador, who, from his agreeable manners, wasfreely admitted to all the amusements of the indolent monarch. It was bymeans of these frequent conversations that, seizing the favourablemoment, the Duchess and the Ambassador succeeded in obtaining an orderwhich suddenly changed the face of Europe, by bringing about thesignature of the Treaty of Niméguen, and more than once it fell to herlot to obtain a success of the same kind, to which neither her arrogantGrace of Cleveland nor the piquant Nelly could ever pretend. Inpolitical affairs the Querouaille held her own triumphantly over all herrivals, and obtained a dominion that ended only with the life ofCharles. Too sensible to exact a strict fidelity from the King, theDuchess of Portsmouth was content to sigh in silence so long as herwomanly feelings alone were sported with; but when it seemed likely thatthe influence which she strove to utilise to the profit of France mightbe trenched upon, her resentment broke forth in sudden and sweepingebullitions which even the dread of a public scandal was impotent torepress. The correspondence of Bussy-Rabutin furnishes us with a sceneof that description:--

 "It is rumoured that Querouaille has been sermonising the King, crucifix in hand, as well both to wean him from other women as to bring him back to Christianity: in fact, it appears that she herself has been very near the point of death. However, three or four days afterwards, finding herself better, she rose from her bed, and dragged herself into the box where the King was seeing a play in company with Madame de Mazarin, and there she overwhelmed him with endless reproaches for his infidelity. Love and jealousy are strong passions. "

Hortensia Mancini, Duchess de Mazarin, who was commonly thought to bethe finest woman in Europe, and more than that--a very great lady, auntof the Duchess of York, might have easily supplanted the "baby-faced"Querouaille in the inconstant heart of Charles Stuart, but that thehaughty Italian paid small attention to the predilections of thatprince, whom she cut to the quick by receiving before his face theadvances of the Prince de Monaco, and so Charles returned "_à sespremières amours_. " That phrase, somewhat vague in so far as it appliesto the sensual instincts of a man who did not even believe infriendship, describes at least accurately that passionate feeling withwhich the Duchess of Portsmouth had inspired him. Under certaincircumstances--very rare, it is true--she went so far as to sacrifice tohim entirely her political _rôle_, and when the question of the famous"bill of exclusion" arose, she was seen to throw herself at the King'sfeet, and implore her royal lover not to rush headlong todestruction;[12] entreating him to abandon, if it must be so, theinterests of his brother and those of Catholicism, rather thancompromise his crown and life. Such proceeding appears still moregenerous, if we reflect that, in spite of the irregular position whichshe had accepted, the Duchess had remained deeply attached to herreligion and her native country, and that at that juncture no one wasignorant that an era of persecution was about to commence for thereformed Churches of France. Two years later, on the eve of the Niméguentreaty, the decline of the great reign was already foreshadowed; theinfluence of incapable though _right-thinking_ men became daily moremarked, and the star of the austere Frances d'Aubigny (Maintenon) aroseslowly above the horizon. Conversions at any price were clamoured for, and no extent of sacrifice deterred the proselytisers from bringing backwithin the fold souls of quality, save leaving one day to Louvois'dragoons the charge of enlightening the Protestant vulgar. The Duchessof Portsmouth was, together with the Duchess of York, at the head of theEnglish propagandists, and, curious enough, a regular exchange ofedifying letters took place between the future foundress of Saint-Cyrand the joyous sinner of the Court of St. James's. Louis XIV. , desirousof duly recompensing the services of the royal favourite, conferred uponher by letters-patent dated January, 1684, the French title of Duchessd'Aubigny. 

 [12] Macaulay. 

Thus had Louise Querouaille reached the summit of her rapid prosperity;but a great turn of chance was at hand, and in a moment she was about tobe hurled from that dizzy height. 

Lord Macaulay has graphically sketched the memorable scene in which shefigured so creditably when Charles was struck with his fatal seizure. Onthe 2nd of February, 1685, "scarcely had Charles risen from his bed whenhis attendants perceived that his utterance was indistinct, and that histhoughts seemed to be wandering. Several men of rank had, as usual, assembled to see their sovereign shaved and dressed. He made an effortto converse with them in his usual gay style; but his ghastly looksurprised and alarmed them. Soon his face grew black; his eyes turned inhis head; he uttered a cry, staggered, and fell into the arms of one ofhis lords. A physician, who had charge of the royal retorts andcrucibles, happened to be present. He had no lancet; but he opened avein with a penknife. The blood flowed freely; but the King was stillinsensible. 

"He was laid on his bed, where, during a short time, the Duchess ofPortsmouth hung over him with the familiarity of a wife. But the alarmhad been given. The Queen and the Duchess of York were hastening to theroom. The favourite concubine was forced to retire to her ownapartments. Those apartments had been thrice pulled down and thricerebuilt by her lover to gratify her caprice. The very furniture of thechimney was massive silver. Several fine paintings, which properlybelonged to the Queen, had been transferred to the dwelling of themistress. The sideboards were piled with richly wrought plate. In theniches stood cabinets, masterpieces of Japanese art. On the hangings, fresh from the looms of Paris, were depicted, in tints which no Englishtapestry could rival, birds of gorgeous plumage, landscapes, huntingmatches, the lordly terrace of Saint-Germain's, the statues andfountains of Versailles. [13] In the midst of this splendour, purchasedby guilt and shame, the unhappy woman gave herself up to an agony ofgrief, which, to do her justice, was not wholly selfish. "

 [13] Evelyn's Diary, Jan. 24, 1681-2. Oct. 4, 1683. 

On the morning on which the King was taken ill, the Duchess of York had, at the request of the Queen, suggested the propriety of procuringspiritual assistance. "For such assistance, " continues Macaulay, "Charles was at last indebted to an agency very different from that ofhis pious wife and sister-in-law. " A life of frivolity and vice had notextinguished in the Duchess of Portsmouth all sentiments of religion, orall that kindness which is the glory of her sex. The French Ambassador, Barillon, who had come to the palace to inquire after the King, paid hera visit. He found her in an agony of sorrow. She took him into a secretroom, and poured out her whole heart to him. "I have, " she said, "athing of great moment to tell you. If it were known, my head would be indanger. The King is really and truly a Catholic; but he will diewithout being reconciled to the Church. His bedchamber is full ofProtestant clergymen. I cannot enter it without giving scandal. The Dukeis thinking only of himself. Speak to him. Remind him that there is asoul at stake. He is master now. He can clear the room. Go this instant, or it will be too late. "

Barillon hastened to the bedchamber, took the Duke aside, and deliveredthe message of the mistress. The conscience of James smote him. Hestarted as if roused from sleep, and declared that nothing shouldprevent him discharging the sacred duty which had been so long delayed. Several schemes were discussed and rejected. At last the Duke commandedthe crowd to stand aloof, went to the bed, stooped down, and whisperedsomething which none of the spectators could hear, but which theysupposed to be some question about affairs of state. Charles answered inan audible voice, "Yes, yes, with all my heart. " None of the bystanders, except the French Ambassador, guessed that the King was declaring hiswish to be admitted into the bosom of the Church of Rome. 

The difficulty was to find a priest at a moment's notice; for, as thelaw then stood, the person who admitted a proselyte into the RomanCatholic Church was guilty of a capital crime. John Huddleston, aBenedictine monk, however, who had, with great risk to himself, savedthe King's life after the battle of Worcester, readily consented to puthis life a second time in peril for his prince. Father Huddleston wasadmitted by the back door. A cloak had been thrown over his sacredvestments; and his shaven crown was concealed by a flowing wig. "Sir, "said the Duke, "this good man once saved your life. He now comes to saveyour soul. " Charles faintly answered, "He is welcome. " Huddleston wentthrough his part better than had been expected, for he was so illiteratethat he did not know what he ought to say on an occasion of so muchimportance, and had to be instructed on the spot by a Portugueseecclesiastic, one Castel Melhor. The whole ceremony occupied aboutthree-quarters of an hour; and, during that time, the courtiers whofilled the outer room had communicated their suspicions to each other bywhispers and significant glances. The door was at length thrown open, and the crowd again filled the chamber of death. 

It was now late in the evening. The King seemed much relieved by whathad passed. His natural children were brought to his bedside--the Dukesof Grafton, Southampton, and Northumberland, sons of the Duchess ofCleveland; the Duke of St. Albans, son of Eleanor Gwynne; and the Dukeof Richmond, son of the Duchess of Portsmouth. Charles blessed them all, but spoke with peculiar tenderness to Richmond. One face, which shouldhave been there, was wanting. The eldest and best beloved child was anexile and a wanderer. His name was not once mentioned by his father. 

During the night Charles earnestly recommended the Duchess of Portsmouthand her boy to the care of James; "And do not, " he good-naturedly added, "let poor Nelly starve. " The Queen sent excuses for her absence byHalifax. She said she was too much disordered to resume her post by thecouch, and implored pardon for any offence which she might unwittinglyhave given. "She asks my pardon, poor woman!" cried Charles; "I ask herswith all my heart. "

At noon of the next day (Friday, February 6th) he passed away without astruggle. 

As it commonly happens in the sequel of such sudden and mournful events, the most absurd rumours did not fail to be circulated on the subject ofCharles's death. According to one, the Duchess of Portsmouth hadpoisoned the King with a cup of chocolate; another asserted that theQueen had poisoned him with a jar of preserved pears. Time has donejustice to these ridiculous suspicions; but that which will probablynever be discovered is the exact nature of the unfortunate monarch'smalady, whom a deplorable fatality caused to fall into the hands ofignorant physicians who, not being able to agree amongst themselves, tortured the patient haphazard for many hours together. 

Hume, at the end of his dissertation upon the hypothesis of thepoisoning of Charles, relates the following anecdote:--"Mr. Henley, ofHampshire, told me that the Duchess of Portsmouth having come to Englandin 1699, he learned that she had caused it to be understood that CharlesII. Had been poisoned, and that, being desirous of ascertaining the factfrom the Duchess's own mouth, she told him that she continually urgedthe King to place himself at his ease as well as his people, and to livein perfect understanding with his Parliament; that he had taken theresolution of sending his brother out of the kingdom, and to convoke aParliament, which was to have been put in execution on the day afterthat upon which he was seized with his first access; that, aboveeverything, the King recommended her to keep it secret, and that she hadonly revealed it to her confessor; but she believed that her confessorhad revealed the secret to persons who made use of that evil means ofpreventing the _coup d'état_. "

If such, indeed, was the political attitude of the Duchess during thelast months of Charles's life, it may be conceived that the supremerecommendations of the dying monarch may have exercised little influenceover the predetermined resolves of his ignoble successor, and itexplains the sudden step she took to regain her native country. On herreturn to France she carried with her a large treasure in money andjewels. She had come to England poor, had lived there in splendour, butwithout much care for the future, and having proudly enjoyed afull-blown prosperity, was now about to endure adversity with courageousresolution. Having quarrelled with James II. , the Duchess could notthink of taking up her abode at Versailles, where her position would nothave been tenable; she determined therefore to settle herself in Paris, where her house and surroundings became the object of a rigoroussurveillance. 

"It reached the King's ears, " says Saint-Simon, "that great freedom ofspeech prevailed in her circle, and that she herself spoke very freelyof him and Madame de Maintenon, upon which M. De Louvois was directed toprepare immediately a _lettre de cachet_ to exile her far away. Courtinwas an intimate friend of Louvois, who had a small house at Meudon, where the former was accustomed to enter his cabinet unceremoniously atall hours. On his entrance one evening, he found Louvois alone writing, and whilst the minister was absorbed in that occupation, Courtinperceived the _lettre de cachet_ lying upon the bureau. When Louvois hadfinished writing, Courtin, with some emotion, asked him what that_lettre de cachet_ was? Louvois told him its purpose. Courtin remarkedthat it was surely an ungracious act, for that, even if the report weretrue, the King might be content to go no further than advising her to bemore circumspect. He begged and entreated him to tell the King so on hispart before acting upon the _lettre de cachet_; and that, if the Kingwould not believe his words, he should get him, before going further, tolook at the despatches of his negotiations with England, especiallythose relating to the important results he had obtained through theDuchess of Portsmouth at the time of the Dutch war, and during the wholeof his embassy; and that after such services rendered by her, it wouldbe dishonour to himself to forget them. Louvois, who remembered it allvery well, after Courtin had reminded him of several important facts, suspended the execution of the _lettre de cachet_, and gave the King anaccount of the interview, and of what Courtin had said; and upon suchtestimony, which recalled several facts to the King's mind, he orderedthe _lettre de cachet_ to be thrown into the fire, and had the Duchessof Portsmouth admonished to be more reserved in future. She defendedherself stoutly from what had been imputed to her, and, true or false, she took heed in future of the nature of the conversation which was heldat her house. 

Louis XIV. , become a bigot and a persecutor, suffered none but silentand submissive slaves to surround him. The Duchess showed herself docileto Courtin's advice, and passed in profound obscurity the many longyears which, remained to her of existence. Saint-Simon and Dangeau saynothing more about her, save to enregister the meagre favours which theCourt measured out with an avaricious hand, and that woman, to whom wasowing the signature of the Treaty of Niméguen, was reduced in 1689 tosolicit a pension of 20, 000 livres, which was considerably diminishedwhen the disasters soon afterwards happened which impoverished theFrench nation. 

Such was the parsimony exercised by the great Monarch towards a womanwho had laboured strenuously for French interests so long as her swayover Charles of England lasted, and which sway only ceased with hislife. "Therein she employed unceasingly all her talent for politics, allher fascinations, all her wit, " says the English chronicler alreadycited, and whose object has been, according to his translator, anonymouslike himself, to demonstrate that if Charles II. Acted in a way solittle conformable to the interests not only of several foreign states, but still more of his own kingdom, it was the Duchess of Portsmouth whourged him to it, through the passion with which she had inspired him, byher cunning, and the power she possessed over his mind. The sametranslator afterwards remarks, that "this lady obtained more easily fromthe King in a moment and with a _coup de langue_ things the mostunreasonable and the most contrary to true policy, than all the mostjudicious, the most voluble, the most insinuating persons could obtainfrom him in matters infinitely reasonable and just. " Without attributingto the Duchess of Portsmouth a power of action so prejudicial to theinterests of the British nation as her anonymous biographer has done, who wrote under the excitement of discontent caused, says Lyttleton, by"the strengthening of the alliance with France, the secret enemy ofEngland and the Protestant religion, as well as by a costly war withHolland, her natural ally, " Hume states that "during the rest of hislife Charles II. Was extremely attached to Querouaille, and that thisfavourite contributed greatly to the close alliance between her owncountry and England. " Voltaire, without particularising the effects ofthe ascendancy of the Duchess of Portsmouth over Charles II. , says thatthat monarch "was governed by her to the very last moment of his life. "He adds that "her beauty equalled that of Madame de Montespan, and thatshe was in England what the other beauty had been in France, but withmore influence. " This assertion, accurate as it is so far as concernspolitical influence--for Madame de Montespan never exercised any overthe government of Louis XIV. --is not equally so with regard to thequestion of beauty. On that head, indeed, the Duchess had herdetractors. "I have seen that famous beauty, Mademoiselle Querouaille, "wrote Evelyn in his _Diary_, about a month after her arrival in England;"but, in my opinion, she is of a childish, simple, and baby face. "

PART III. 

BOOK I. 

CHAPTER I. 

 TWO LADIES OF THE BEDCHAMBER DURING THE WAR OF THE SPANISH SUCCESSION, LADY CHURCHILL AND THE PRINCESS DES URSINS--POLITICAL MOTIVES FOR THEIR ELEVATION IN ENGLAND AND SPAIN. 

AT the outset of that historic period known as the _War of the SpanishSuccession_ a remarkable feature presents itself in the fact that twowomen were chosen to be, as it were, its advanced sentinels--the one ofthe Austrian party in England, the other of the French party in Spain. These were Lady Churchill (wife of the famous soldier, Marlborough), first lady of the bedchamber to our Queen Anne, and the Princess desUrsins, fulfilling, under the title of _Camerara-Mayor_, the samefunctions for the new Queen of Spain, Marie-Louise of Savoy, first wifeof Philip V. 

The perpetual struggle previously waged between France and Spain for twocenturies constitutes a theme of no ordinary interest. True, that inmodern times armed interventions and dynastic and family tendencies haveattested the political predominance of the former power, but it was notso in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, when the bigoted PhilipII. Looked upon himself as the head of all Catholicism and thevicegerent of God on earth. The general character of the struggle, theevents, the men, the results, are all worthy of consideration, andreplete with illustrations of historical and political adventure. Everyeffort made by the two great adversaries shook Europe to its centre, andthe ultimate result of each has always been in favour of the great causeof religious and political freedom. Two centuries of warfare between twoabsolute governments and two states so profoundly Catholic gave birth tothe first European republic--Holland; and served to confirm the power ofthe great Protestant state--England; and to establish religious libertyin Germany. 

A brief glance at the more immediate circumstances which brought aboutthis _War of Succession_ may here be necessary. The Treaty of thePyrenees had terminated the long struggle above alluded to; peace beingcemented by the marriage of the Infanta Maria Theresa, daughter ofPhilip IV. Of Spain, to the young Louis XIV. Of France, on the 3rd ofJune, 1660. The royal husband renounced for himself and his heirs allright of succession to the Spanish throne, but was promised in return amoderate dowry, which, however, was only partially paid. Forty yearsafter this marriage, Charles II. Of Spain, widowed, childless, andbroken in health, selected as his successor Prince Leopold of Bavaria, but he died when five years old. In this difficulty Charles consultedPope Innocent XII. , who decreed that the children of the Dauphin ofFrance were the true, only, and legitimate heirs. But this negotiationwas conducted with such profound secresy that it was only after theaccession of Philip V. , grandson of Louis XIV. , that the Pope'sinterference became public. 

The Holy Father's reply, however, was so positive, that all the scruplesof Charles II. Were removed. His previous will was immediately burnt inthe presence of his confessor; and a new one drawn up wherein Philipd'Anjou was declared absolute heir to the crown and kingdom of Spain;which, in the event of his demise, were to devolve to the Duke de Berri, third son of the Dauphin; and, he failing, to the Archduke Charles; withthe reservation, as regarded the two first, that they should not unitein their own persons the sovereignties of France and Spain; and in thatof the third that he should renounce all claim to the empire of Germanyif he ever became heir to the Spanish throne; while it was, moreover, finally decreed that, if by any extraordinary concatenation of events, neither of those three princes should be enabled to claim the bequest ofCharles II. , it should devolve upon the Duke of Savoy without anyrestriction whatever. 

The precaution was well-timed; for shortly afterwards, Charles, losingthe use of his faculties, descended into the vaults of the Escurial, where he had commanded the tombs of his father, mother, and first wifeto be opened in order that he might consult their tenants upon thesacred obligations of the will he had just signed. Wildly interrogatingthe mouldering relics, upon which he imprinted impassioned kisses, theunfortunate monarch fell senseless upon an adjacent tomb, destinedshortly to receive his own remains, and was carried from those gloomysepulchres back to his couch only to be borne back again in a few shortdays a corpse. 

The royal will--the subject of so much gloomy meditation, of discussionsthe most anxious in the councils of the Escurial, and of intrigues themost active on the part of the foreigner, had been accepted by LouisXIV. In the name of his grandson, the Duke d'Anjou. The cabinet ofVersailles, hoping to ally the Duke of Savoy to its policy, had broughtabout a marriage between Philip V. And the daughter of Victor AmadeusII. , Marie Louise, sister of the young Duchess of Burgundy. The House ofHapsburg, during a period of almost hopeless anarchy, had exhausted itsefforts in the attempt to establish a political duality in Spain. "Ifthe government of that monarchy be closely scrutinised, " wrote Count deRébenac, [14] "it will be found that disorder everywhere prevails to anexcessive degree; but that, in the condition in which matters stand, scarcely any change can be ventured upon without risk of incurringdangers more to be dreaded than the existing evils, and a completerevolution would be necessary before perfect order in the state could bere-established. " Rébenac added that it was not the elements of strengththat were wanting to Spain, but that they were scattered as in a chaos, and that no master-mind existed capable of reducing them to order andunity. The dynasty, in fact, which reigned at Madrid at that juncturehad passed from incapacity to impotence, and henceforward there onlyremained to Spain her _law of succession_ to rescue her from herabasement. The miserable Charles II. Was then making and unmaking hiswill continually--sometimes indicating a prince of Bavaria as hissuccessor, at others a prince of the house of Austria. At last he chose, as has been said, a grandson of Louis XIV. , in the hope of interestingFrance in the preservation of the duality of the monarchy. Two yearsafterwards one half of Europe was in arms to hurl the youthful Philipfrom his throne. 

 [14] Memoirs of Count de Rébenac's Embassy to Spain in 1689, MS. No. 63, fol. 224, Bibliothèque Nationale, Paris. 

CHAPTER II. 

 THE PRINCESS DES URSINS. 

 THE MARRIED LIFE OF MARIE ANNE DE LA TRÉMOUILLE--SHE BECOMES THE CENTRE OF CONTEMPORARY POLITICS IN ROME. 

AMONG the heroines of the Fronde there were certainly lofty minds andstrongly tempered souls to be found; but, when the French nationremitted to those Erminias and Hermengildas the care of its destiny uponsome grave emergency or decisive occasion, those very women soconspicuous for their generous impulses, delicate tastes, and unsparingself-abnegation, only profited by their possession of power toinaugurate a policy the record of which has remained branded withopprobrium in history as a treason to their country. The bareremembrance, indeed, of those sterile agitations proves the first rockupon which the memory of the Princess des Ursins suffered shipwreck. Inthe brilliant daughter of the Duke de Noirmoutier, heiress of a namemixed up with all the struggles of that epoch, we behold a last survivorof the Regency, and the dramatic vicissitudes of a life devoted to thepursuit of political power, have blinded the mental vision of posterityto the grandeur of a work of which that eminent woman was the principalinstrument. Proud and restless, as largely dominated as any other of hersex by the vivacity of her preferences and her dislikes, but full ofsound sense in her views and in the firmness of her designs, the skilfuladviser of a King and Queen of Spain has not received at the hands ofposterity the merit due to an idea pursued with a wonderful perseveranceamidst obstacles which would have daunted men even of the strongestresolution. Because her public career ended in a catastrophe, popularopinion, which readily follows success, considers as merely abortivethat long career during which her hand sustained upon the brow of aFrench prince the tottering crown against which the arms of Europe, thedistrust of Spain, and the discouragement of France vied in conspiring. 

Yet in her girlhood, during the last days of the Fronde, Marie Anne dela Trémouille must early have observed how greatly beauty can aidambition, and how, by tact, endowments the most frivolous may be broughtto the service of interests the most serious and complicated. Married in1650 to the Prince de Chalais, of the house of Talleyrand, she conceivedfor her young husband the sole passion to be noted throughout a life inwhich, especially during its later period, love figured only in thedullest of hues. This marriage took place during the wars of the secondFronde, and at an epoch when a rage for duelling, the anarchical andruthless effect of Frenchmen's ideas touching the "point of honour, " hadinfused a new element into the spirit of party, and had become averitable mania. It chanced on the occasion of one of those duels in1663--that of the two brothers Frette--wherein four fought on eitherside, and in which the Duke de Beauvilliers was slain, that the Princede Chalais figured as one of the champions. The law against duelling, enforced by Henri Quatre, and revived with so much rigour by Richelieuagainst the father of the famous Marshal de Luxembourg, and from whichpractice the blood of Bouteville had not completely delivered France, was still in full vigour. The consequences being so terrible, that thePrince de Chalais, to place himself beyond reach of them, was compelledto seek safety in flight. He succeeded in escaping to Spain, whither hiswife followed him. 

During this brief period of her union with the Prince de Chalais, whomshe adored, Marie Anne de la Trémouille had shone as conspicuously byher wit as by her beauty in the famous circle of the Hôtel d'Albret, where she first met Madame Scarron, whose destiny it was later on inlife--as Madame de Maintenon--to be so closely allied with the Princess. Thus united by ties of the tenderest affection, scarcely had the youngcouple quitted Madrid, after a three years' sojourn, to establishthemselves at Rome, when the death of M. De Chalais left her a childlesswidow, without protection, and almost destitute--a prey to griefapparently the most profound, and to anxieties concerning the futurereadily conceivable. 

Madame de Chalais was then in the plenitude of that attractive beauty soclosely observed and described in all its most delicate shades by thegraphic pen of the Duke de Saint-Simon when at a more advanced period ofher life, but on which beauty, by a miracle of art and nature, thewasting hand of time had as yet scarcely brought a blemish. 

The first years of her widowhood, passed in a convent, were marked bythe liveliest sorrow. By degrees, however, love of society resumed itssway over her, and she reappeared therein with all her wontedattractiveness, markedly patronised in the highest circles of Romansociety by Cardinal d'Estrées, the French ambassador--assuredly notwithout design, since at the same time that high functionary sodistinguished her, he directed the attention of Louis XIV. To the witand capacity of the charming widow. It was, therefore, in great measurewith a political purpose, and by the diplomatic tact of the two brothersd'Estrées, that the second marriage of the Princess de Chalais withFlavio Orsini, Duke di Bracciano, himself a widower, was arranged(1675). Thenceforward the Palazzo Orsini became the focus of Frenchinfluence, which was further increased by a marriage promoted betweenher sister Louise Angélique de la Trémouille and her brother-in-law, theDuke de Lanti. 

She thus, therefore, became definitively an inhabitant of Rome and_quasi_ Roman. What did she do there? How did she consort with anItalian husband? With what ambition was she soon inspired in the moreelevated position in which her second marriage placed her at Rome? Whattalents, what political aptitude were manifested by her, and developedat a court which at that time bore the highest repute for skill inpolitics and diplomacy? How did Italian finesse and cunning blend andharmonize with the quick penetration and delicate tact of theFrenchwoman? What advantage did the French government, which, after thedeath of the Prince de Chalais, could no longer treat her as aproscribed subject, seek to draw immediately from her position anddisposition? What were her relations with the first personages at thecourt of France, with the Roman cardinals, with the French ambassadorsat Rome, with the representatives or the principal personages of othernations, and what splendour did her palace display, whether through theinfluence of natural taste or a calculating ambition? In a word, whatwas the mode of life, and what was the career of the Duchess diBracciano, at Rome, before she proceeded to make application of thescience she must there have acquired upon another and a wider stage?These are the curious and interesting points, upon which the recentdiscovery in the public library at Stockholm, of copies of nearly onehundred inedited letters addressed by the Princess des Ursins to Madamela Maréchale de Noailles and Madame de Maintenon, in addition to fivelong letters published by the Abbé Millot, [15] enable us to furnish verynearly complete details, ranging from 1675 to 1701. 

 [15] Among the _pièces justificatives_ appended to the Mémoires du Maréchal de Noailles. 

Owning as its mistress a woman so abundantly charming, the PalazzoOrsini became more than ever the rendezvous of the best society. TheDuchess di Bracciano held therein an actual Court, as numerous also asit was distinguished. Each visitor delighted to frequent it, in order towitness with his own eyes to what a degree of perfection andgracefulness a French lady could attain. The men especially sought hersociety; for although womanly, and more so than many around her, thehabitual subject of their conversations pleased her better than those ofpersons of her own sex, and she therein exhibited a solidity ofunderstanding, a correctness of view, together with a perfect lucidityof expression which captivated the Roman nobles, and made them feel it asatisfaction to submit their ideas to her, and hear her discuss them. The Duke di Bracciano was not mentally up to her mark, nevertheless inthe first season which followed their union, a season of complaisantaffection, when susceptibility was held in check by a more spontaneousadmiration, he felt himself flattered by the homage she received, andwhich wore the semblance of an eulogium upon his choice and good taste. But, eventually, too mediocre, or too much kept in the background, nothaving wit enough himself to appreciate that of his brilliant partnerwithout blushing at his own defect, or, it might be, sufficientconsideration not being given to the inevitable arousing of hismasculine _amour propre_, he sought to attribute to himself thepopularity which she obtained, and that which might have constituted hispride became his torment. It would have been wanting in dignity tohimself, he felt, ever to have owned or even in the least degreebetrayed the secret motive of his wounded self-love; but the excessiveextravagance of his wife, and the enormous expenses in which sheinvolved him afforded ample pretext for his complaints: such was theground, therefore, upon which he fell back. The Princess unhappilycomprehended all this, and went to greater lengths than ever: henceuntoward misunderstandings ere long arose between them. 

Nevertheless, through the effect of her irresistible attractions, theDuchess di Bracciano became the centre of a cosmopolitan society which, in the midst of the noisiest diversions, debated daily in the capital ofthe papal dominions the weightiest problems of contemporary politics. Whilst externally her palace on the Piazza Navone blazed broadly withilluminated devices and coloured fires, and made all the echoes of Romeresound in pealing harmonies with the name of Louis the Great, in theinterior of her magnificent saloons the vicissitudes of the longstruggle waged between that monarch and the Holy Father were watchedwith inquietude, whether as concerning regal claims or the question ofreligious freedom--a portentous strife which seemed to increase inenergy at each fresh act of violence on the part of Louis XIV. Againsthis Protestant subjects. To the arduous questions in which theology ranso closely parallel with State interests, to the burning rivalries ofdoctrines and persons which then set by the ears the most illustriousamong Christian prelates, were added the daily accidents of a policy towhich fell the burden of maintaining in all corners of the universe aconstant equilibrium between the Houses of France and Austria--apermanent problem which soon helped to complicate the perspective openedby the next succession to the Crown of Spain. 

In such a school--borne along the brimming tide of pleasure by the softbreeze of homage--did Madame di Bracciano's political intelligencerapidly ripen: and if by a glittering gaiety, ease of manner, and aspecies of decorous gallantry, her life appeared to continue thetraditions of Anne of Austria's time, the restrained firmness of heropinions, her reverence for absolute authority, her settled resolve toowe nothing to any one save to her own Great King, combined to link herfast to the new school of power and respect founded by Louis XIV. In theplenitude of his sway. Thus the passion for politics and power was notslow to obtain the mastery over the mind of a woman constituted likeMarie Anne de la Trémouille, who had failed to find in her secondmarriage any community of taste or intellect. 

The disputes between Louis and Innocent XI. Proved, perhaps, anothersource of disunion between the ducal pair. The Orsini were in some sorta sacerdotal family, at the same time that they stood at the head of theRoman aristocracy: it had always furnished Pontiffs and Cardinals to theChurch. It was not, therefore, probable that the Duke di Bracciano, whowas its chief, should hold, in those famous quarrels, an opinioncontrary to that of the Holy Father, more especially if, as it wasrumoured, having no child, he had by an adoption long kept secret, sought for a son in the family of Innocent XI. Himself. The sameinduction cannot be drawn from acts which were comprised in the life ofthe Duchess di Bracciano. Whether at Rome or at Madrid, the ideas heldby the Court of Versailles upon dogmatic questions, or upon therelations of the Church with the State, were hers also; and in Italy, inthe halls of the Vatican, she openly evinced her detestation of theJesuits, in whom the Ultramontane doctrines were personified. Therein, in all probability, lay a new stumbling block against which the conjugalharmony jarred, already shaken as it was by all the dissemblances ofhabit, appreciation, and of taste, which difference of nationalityengendered. "_Ce ménage ne fut pas concordant_, " says Saint-Simon;"_quoique sans brouillerie ouverte, et les époux furent quelquefois bienaises de se séparer. _"

To escape from these different causes of domestic ennui, the Duchess diBracciano varied her sojourn in Italy by long and frequent visits toFrance, going thither to present, by clever and well-timed calculation, the spectacle of a Roman princess whom no one even within the grandioseprecincts of Versailles surpassed either in true French _esprit_ orsteady devotion to the Sovereign. The Duchess formed a close intimacywith the Maréchale de Noailles, to whom she was related; she made theacquaintance of the minister Torcy, who was capable of appreciating allthe varied resources of her woman's nature and her woman's wit; and shewas presented to Madame de Maintenon, who had become the goddess of theCourt. Her second visit took place shortly after the period of theTreaty of Ryswick--that is to say, near upon that fatal conjuncture atwhich Louis XIV. Saw England escape him for ever, supported as she wasby the Dutch alliance, and had hope only from the Court of Spain tocounterbalance the formidable union of his enemies. This was the reasonthat each of those personages, at Versailles or Paris, had forretaining the Duchess di Bracciano in the interests of France in thefuture succession of Spain, and recommended them to her at the PapalCourt, to the Spanish Ambassador at Rome, the Duke d'Uzeda, or indeed toany other Spaniard of distinction whom she might meet with in thatcapital. 

The letters addressed to the Duchess Lanti, her sister, which are, as itwere, a last echo of the conversations of the Hôtel d'Albret, [16] werefor the most part written from Paris between the years 1685 and 1698, the latter being the date of the demise of the Duke di Bracciano. Theadvanced age and failing health of her second husband had, in that year, summoned her back to Rome, and a kind of reconciliation, brought aboutchiefly through the good offices of Cardinal Porto-Carrero--soonafterwards destined to play a great part in the political affairs of hisnative country--had preceded that demise, which placed the Duchess inpossession of estates and property reputed to be considerable, but uponwhich heavy incumbrances, increased by lawsuits, brought down upon herendless anxiety and almost ruin. 

 [16] Collection of M. Geffroy, pp. 1-25. 

The obligation of discharging an immense amount of debt compelled Madamedi Bracciano to part with the property of the duchy bearing that name. She was, therefore, forced to relinquish that title and adopt that ofPrincess des Ursins (Orsini), under which she has taken her place inhistory. The beneficence of the French King was assured beforehand to anoble widow married under his auspices, ruined, so to speak, in hisservice, and whose palace had become the residence of his ambassadorfrom the moment that the Prince de Monaco had superseded the disgracedCardinal de Bouillon in that high post. The Princess obtained, therefore, one of those Court pensions, the ordinary patrimony of allgreat families, and of which the good offices of the Maréchale deNoailles, the staunch patroness of her kinswoman, had ere long succeededin doubling the amount, when the death of Cardinal Maidalchini had leftthe considerable subsidy disposable by which that member of the SacredCollege was secretly secured to the policy of Louis XIV. She had, indeed, herself solicited an increase of her pension in a charminglywitty letter, in which she undertook to prove how useful it would be forthe King's service that she should be richer. "My house, " says she, "isthe only French abode open to the public. It is in my assemblages therethat one can speak to people whom it would be difficult to meet withelsewhere. " And thus she rose sufficiently high in the esteem of thecabinet of Versailles to obtain even the recall of the French Ambassadorfrom Rome. 

CHAPTER III. 

 MADAME DES URSINS ASPIRES TO GOVERN SPAIN--SHE MANOEUVRES TO SECURE THE POST OF CAMERARA-MAYOR. 

AT the moment when the Court of Versailles very earnestly sought thesupport of the Princess des Ursins, the important business of theSpanish succession engrossed the attention of all the politicians ofEurope. The question, however, still presented that undecided aspectwhich left the field open to every species of ambition and manoeuvre. The influence of the Court of Rome and that of the Spaniards therelocated was necessary to the success of the House of Bourbon. Amongthese latter was to be numbered the Cardinal Porto-Carrero, Archbishopof Toledo, who dreamed of being, in his own day, it is said, the Ximenesof Spain. Madame des Ursins, as already stated, had formed a closefriendship with that prelate, who, as a member of the Council ofCastille, exercised a powerful influence alike over the mind of PopeInnocent XI. And of King Charles II. Of Spain. She led him to perceivein the choice of the Duke d'Anjou a sure means of reaching the goal ofhis ambition. She dazzled his mental vision with "the advantages whichhe might derive from the just gratitude of Louis XIV. " Porto-Carreroallowed himself to be seduced. At the same moment, Charles II. , disquieted, tormented, and worn out with an endless train of doubts, consulted Pope Innocent XI. The latter, whom the management of Madamedes Ursins and the credit of Porto-Carrero had brought to look withfavour upon the pretensions of France, sent a friendly communication tothe Duke d'Anjou. These counsels determined the irresolution of theSpanish King, and the Bourbons reaped the benefit of the succession ofCharles V. 

Thus matters stood between France and the Princess when it becamenecessary to choose a _Camerara-Mayor_ for the young Queen. Madame desUrsins had given Louis XIV. Ample proof of her devotion; she had in somesort enchained him: she could, therefore, with so much the more securityinvoke the gratitude of his court, which feeling, under existingcircumstances, it was advisable for the cabinet of Versailles to makemanifest. Thoroughly secure in that quarter, she wrote direct to theDuke of Savoy, --Philip V. Making his father-in-law comprehend that itwas the wish of France to see her installed in such post--and the Dukeof Savoy referred the matter to Louis XIV. From that moment herelevation was certain. Such choice was the consummation of Frenchpolicy. 

There is something very striking indeed in that indomitable resolutionone day to govern Spain, conceived and adopted so far from the theatreof events--to exercise the functions of _Camerara-mayor_ to a queen ofthirteen years of age, when to obtain that exalted guardianship in Courtand State, every ambitious heart was throbbing from the Alps to thePyrenees. Yet Madame des Ursins importuned no one, for no one hadthought of her, Louis XIV. No more than his ministers, the Duke of Savoyno more than the King of Spain; but that remarkable woman had mentallyaimed at that as the supreme object and end of her aspirations. For itsrealisation she combined her measures, therefore, with an activity soardent, with an accuracy of perception so marvellous through the meshof intrigues which spread from Versailles to Turin and to Madrid, thatshe succeeded in getting herself accepted simultaneously by the threecourts, through letting them think that the choice of her individualityhad been for each of them the effect of a spontaneous inspiration. 

The principal instrument in this affair ought to have been, and was infact, the Maréchale de Noailles. No woman had a better footing at courtor exercised a more incessant activity among the ministers. The youngCount d'Ayen, her son, a personal friend of the Duke d'Anjou, and whoderived a precocious importance from the gravity of his life, was, moreover, disposed to second at Madrid the secret negotiation firstbroached in the cabinet of Madame de Maintenon, the barriers of which_sanctum_ scarcely gave way even before the Maréchale. The progress ofthe negotiation may be followed from day to day in the letters addressedto Madame de Noailles, conducted by that lady as her indefatigablecorrespondent pointed out. The first idea of Madame des Ursins may betherein detected, developed as it is with equal art and caution, andstrengthened by addressing itself to the mother of a numerous family inarguments which could not fail of their effect. "I conjecture from allthis, " wrote the Princess, "that the Duchess of Burgundy will have thesatisfaction of seeing her sister queen of that great monarchy, and asthere must be some lady of rank to direct that young princess, I entreatof you, madame, that you will offer my services, before the King cancast his eyes upon some one else. I venture to say that I am betterfitted than any other person whomsoever for such office from thenumerous friends I have in that country, and the advantage I have inbeing a grandee of Spain, which would lighten the difficulties anothermight encounter in the matter of ceremonial customs. I speak, moreover, Spanish, and further, I am certain that such choice would be agreeableto the whole nation, by whom I can boast of having always been loved andesteemed. My design, madame, would be to go to Madrid, to remain thereso long as it should please the King, and afterwards to return to Courtand render an account to his Majesty of my sojourn. If it were only aquestion of accompanying the Queen as far as the frontier, I would notthink further of the matter, for that which makes me chiefly desire it, after the King's service, which with me goes before everything, is thewish that I have to prosecute personally at the Court of Madrid certainbusiness of importance connected with the kingdom of Naples. I should bevery glad also to see my friends there, and amongst others the CardinalPorto-Carrero, with whose aid I would find means of marrying a rounddozen of your daughters in that country. You must know, madame, that Ireckon upon him almost as firmly in Spain as I do upon you in France. Judge after this whether I could not bring rain or sunshine upon thatCourt, and whether it is with too much vanity that I offer you myservices therein. I did not believe that I could persuade you to enterinto this matter, madame, save in making you take a weighty interest init, for I apprehend that you may be very weary of employing longer theCardinal de Noailles in my behalf, to whom I have communicated my views, but you can rouse him up again, if necessary. Thus you will be the onlyperson upon whom I shall rely for the entire conduct of this affair. "Rome, 27th December, 1700. [17]

 [17] Collection of M. Geffroy, p. 88. 

Each difficulty is seen to vanish, one after another, under the combinedefforts of secret influence and patient and persistent suppleness. Thenwhen the moment had arrived at which it was necessary for the Duke ofSavoy to decide upon a matter that affected so closely the personalexpedience of his daughter, and to set M. De Torcy in motion, promptlyrallied to the support of the candidate favoured by Madame de Maintenon, we find the Princess des Ursins tracing for the use of that minister aprogramme which a diplomatist already grown grey under the toils andanxieties of office would not have disowned. 

"ROME, January, 1701. 

"I dare not, Madame, allow two couriers to depart one after another, without writing to you about my business, but as I have nothing new totell you, I shall only do myself the honour to communicate to you somereflections I have made. It is certain that the success of all thisdepends upon His Highness the Duke of Savoy; you have written to meclearly enough upon the subject to enable me to see that, and besidesthe thing speaks for itself. I am seeking, therefore, the means ofgaining the confidence of that Prince, who, _au fond_, ought not to feelthe slightest repugnance in preferring me to anybody else. However, as Ican promise myself nothing certain from his letter, which I have thehonour to forward to you, I wish to propose one thing to you which wouldin no way commit the King, and which not the less would assuredlydetermine His Royal Highness. That is, Madame, that M. De Torcy, actingfor himself, and without mixing up the King's name in any way, should incourse of conversation, ask the ambassador, who is at Paris, the name ofthe lady whom his master destines for this post, and that he would begood enough to mention me as thoroughly adapted for it, in hisestimation. Ambassadors keep journals of everything that goes on, andinform their sovereigns of the most trifling matters they hear discussedin ministerial circles. What I have suggested might be taken as aninsinuation which would certainly determine the Duke of Savoy to do whatwe desire, whilst leaving him nevertheless at full liberty to actagreeably to his fancy. I submit this idea to your prudent judgment, andshould it appear to you right, you can turn it to what account you like, for you are more clever than I am. "[18]

 [18] Collection of M. Geffroy, p. 90. 

The trenches thus cleverly opened, the fair besiegers were not likely tofail of ultimate success. The Princess's letters to the Maréchale, sonicely calculating in the force of every phrase throughout the course ofthe siege, are, after her victory, the natural and almost naïveexpression of delight at a success which both sides promised themselvesto render fruitful. It is an instance of poor, naked human nature caughtin the fact. But, as in other instances, she cannot play the woman withimpunity. Madame des Ursins dwells with complacency upon her descriptionof the fabulous _cortége_ which he has in preparation. Lackeysinnumerable, a legion of pages and gentlemen, _fiocches_ and carriages, emblazoned with gold, a suite with which in the present day a sovereignwould not encumber himself, and which ate up the remainder of herfortune, all these marvels by means of which it was proposed to win overthe admiration of the Spaniards to the new dynasty, were notunserviceable also in gaining over the young Duchess of Burgundy, andthe details of them were welcomed by an approving smile in the sanctuaryof Madame de Maintenon. The Princess des Ursins being, moreover, tooknowing to exact anything in the shape of money from the King inaddition to the high favour and all-powerful protection she had justreceived at his hands; she showed herself, to use her own words, _aussifière que gueuse_. [19] But there is a time for all things; when we havegained possession of the tree itself, we need not be in such a hurry tostrip it of its fruits. 

 [19] Letter to the Maréchale de Noailles of 21st June, 1701. 

CHAPTER IV. 

 MADAME DES URSINS ASSUMES THE FUNCTIONS OF CAMERARA-MAYOR TO THE YOUNG QUEEN OF SPAIN--AN UNPROPITIOUS ROYAL WEDDING. 

IT was, therefore, with a paraphernalia almost regal that Madame desUrsins set forth to conduct the Princess of Savoy to her husband. Ourheroine was then in her fifty-ninth year (1701), according to mostauthorities, in her sixty-second, according to others; and either agewould have been for any one else the period for retreat. But by the rareprivilege of a singular energy, physical and moral, still beautiful, andhaving as yet only prepared herself for playing the grand part of herlife's drama, she was about to make that advanced age a point ofdeparture in her militant career, the outset of a new existence. She hadnot committed the error of remaining attached to old customs or oldstyles of dress, she had, as the present phrase runs, advanced with theage. She had sympathised with it with a juvenile ardour, she had noted, at a distance, its deviations. She was desirous, by opposing it on manypoints, to take advantage of its decreptitude. She could not shut hereyes to the dazzling aspect of Madame de Maintenon's laurels. 

We have shown what the Princess was as a young woman, and also at themature age of forty; but it is during the twenty-four years of her greenold age (1698-1722) when having become a great political personage, wehave to behold her exercising a powerful influence over the destinies oftwo great kingdoms, and aspiring to soar to a greater height than everher painstaking ambition enabled her to attain. It was then thatambition began to take entire possession of her soul, and displaced inher heart every other sentiment that her previous sixty-two years hadnot extinguished. There can be no doubt of that fact when we discover inher letters such a glow of youthful feeling, such scarcely repressibledelight, and finally that air of triumph with which she proposes towelcome and profit by her first elevation. 

Her ambition, moreover, could not have had a more brilliant andlegitimate aim than that of associating herself in the glorious task ofFrance become the instructress of Spain; and Madame des Ursins, whojoined to her own the aspirations of the other sex, entered upon her newmission with a zeal, an ardour, and an activity more than virile. 

Into what profound decadence Spain had then fallen is well known to anyreader of modern history, and the history of modern Europe contains nomore terrible lesson. The Austrian dynasty, insatiable and jealous, hadsought to impose at once upon Spain, Europe, and the world, herpolitical and religious despotism. Charles V. Had confiscated Spanishliberties and conquered the Commons. Philip II. , his son, constitutinghimself the representative of Catholicism, had persecuted on all sides, whether by open violence or intrigue, by the aid of corruption ortorture, the new principle of Protestantism. He had failed in everyquarter. The sanguinary executions of the Duke of Alva had been answeredby the creation of a new free State--Protestant and Republican Holland. With the _Invincible Armada_ was engulfed the last menace of the Spanishnavy, which had been answered by the triumph of Protestant England underthe glorious reign of Elizabeth. The Spanish nation itself hadconspired, it must be confessed, to that decadence. It had shown noreaction either against the enervating despotism of royalty, or even thenature of the climate and soil, unequal and excessive in every way. Theepoch of heroic deeds once elapsed upon the glowing arena of the MiddleAges, the Spanish people had despised labour, commerce, and industry. The soil, neglected, had returned to its primitive sterility, and almostentire provinces had become solitary deserts. Indolence and poverty areevil counsellors. The Spanish people, the nation of the Cid, hadtransformed her noble and fervent religion of the Middle Ages into adegrading, and too often cruel superstition. It was unhappily thepopular sentiment of which Philip III. Was the exponent when he expelledthe Moors in 1603, thus depriving Spain--poor and alreadydepopulated--of one hundred thousand rich and industrious families; andit was national opinion also which had accepted and maintained thedomination of the monks and the hateful empire of the Inquisition. 

France, on the contrary, had proceeded rapidly along the path of anadmirable progress. After having put an end to the sanguinary period ofthe religious wars, after having repressed the formidable ambition ofthe House of Austria, she had proclaimed the principles of tolerance andjustice, destined to become common to all modern communities, and shehad afforded the example of a centralisation which it was thought wouldprove an element of prosperity and power. Would the establishment ofsuch a centralisation consort with the native energy of Spain, whichthe peculiar genius of her great provinces still retained? Was itnecessary, in order to rouse that generous country from its languor, merely to appeal to its recollections of the past, to the sentiment ofits dignity, to what remained of its antique virtues, or was it indeednecessary to inoculate it with an infusion of some better blood?Finally, had it not become a question whether Spain should be governedfor itself, or rather as an annexation of France, by considering it as asimple instrument of the policy of Louis XIV. 

Such were the grave questions which the accession of Philip V. Hadraised. Louis XIV. Had solved them in the sense most favourable to hisambition, and if he recommended his grandson not to surround himselfwith Frenchmen and to respect the national feeling, it was only to bendthe more gently the genius of Spain to his own designs. Thecorrespondence of Madame de Maintenon--eloquent echoes from Marly andVersailles--openly reveals that policy. No wonder that it should do so. The interests involved in the preservation of the balance of power inEurope were not those which affected the great King: those of thecabinet of Versailles, he considered ought to be the sole rule, not onlyfor France, but for Europe entire. So thought everybody also whosurrounded the pompous Louis. Those even who pretended to holdthemselves aloof from his moral domination--the Duke de Beauvilliers, the Duke de Chevreuse, and the Archbishop of Cambrai--divided theirhopes between the Duke of Burgundy and the new King of Spain, thebrother of their well-beloved disciple; and, surrounding Philip V. Withcreatures of their own, would not admit that they could govern otherwisethan by Frenchmen and French ideas. Even for that party which arrogatedto itself the title of "honest folks, " animated by noble sentiments andgenerous illusions, it was difficult sufficiently to enlarge the narrowpatriotism of the time, and to admit within it a sympathetic alliancewith the ideas of any foreign nationality. 

Madame des Ursins was less exclusively and more truly devoted to Spain, without failing in her devotion to France. She was a Frenchwoman atMadrid in sustaining the alliance between the two countries in view oftheir common interests, and in attacking by reforms the deep-seatedabuses which had prepared the complete ruin of Spain; she was soespecially likewise in waging a determined fight against an institutionthe most repugnant to the character and intelligence of France--theInquisition. But she became Spanish also when needful, whether she hadto humour warily the national susceptibilities, or to confide theprincipal posts to Spaniards rather than to Frenchmen, or, finally, whether in 1709, when the guardianship of Philip V. Had become a veryheavy burden to the declining Louis, she manifested her indignation atthe very idea, too readily accepted at Versailles, of abandoning Spain, and was stubbornly resolved, on her own part, to struggle by the side ofLouis XIV. 's grandson to the last extremity. 

The whole period which extends up to the moment of her first disgracewas solely employed by her in establishing her power by masking it. Shestill remained without a very precise mission; the indirectencouragement of Torcy and Madame de Maintenon, it is true, soon came tosustain her, and her entire study centered in meriting at their hands, and especially at those of Louis XIV. , a more effective confidence. 

She had first to make herself acceptable to the Queen of Spain. Marie-Louise of Savoy, whom her _Camerara-mayor_ met for the first timeon board her galley in the harbour of Villefranche, at the moment whenthe tearful eyes of the young princess were casting a last glance at thelovely Italian land, was that admirable queen whose life in default ofmental courage became worn out by the corroding of adversity, and whosepopular name has remained as a symbol in Spain of every royal anddomestic virtue. Not quite fourteen at the period of that meeting, theprincess was already as tall as the Duchess of Burgundy, whose perfectshape she also possessed, with a more regular cast of features and anincomparable charm in her graceful and affable manners. Smiling throughher tears, and in the midst of her grief ever displaying gentlenessblended with majesty, she played the queen on all occasions in amarvellous way for one so youthful, that everybody who had the honour ofapproaching her during the journey was struck with astonishment. Marie-Louise was a gentle and affectionate girl, of an intelligence andwill in advance of her years, and which happily did not injure hernatural gracefulness. For this young creature, for this child, suddenlybecome a wife and a queen, the presence of Madame des Ursins, stillhandsome even at sixty-six, sprightly and as skilful as she was eager toplease, was the sole refuge beside the indolent love of a boy-king ofeighteen, who gave her no protection. These two women, whom nature hadcreated so dissimilar, were about to be united for ever in one commondestiny. The young Queen appeared to be immediately struck with thevalue of the support which a mind so supple and vigorous offered her, and when the departure of her Piedmontese waiting-maids had torn fromthe poor girl-queen the last trace of family and country, she clung toher grand _camerara_ as the ivy to the tree which supports it. On theother hand, Madame des Ursins did not fail to hold herself out asrepresenting the respected authority of Louis XIV. And Madame deMaintenon; on the other, she knew well how to initiate herself, by meansof the domestic duties, of which she designedly exaggerated theimportance, into the innermost prejudices of the royal wife. She madeherself useful to Marie-Louise, became indispensable amidst anintercourse so privileged and private; at the same time she affordedpleasure in so doing, and that proved during the whole period of hersojourn in Spain the most solid foundation of her favour and power. 

Through the Queen the _camerara-mayor_ was certain of governing theKing. Proportionately as the absolute monarchy, in spite of the severestwarnings, set up pretensions even more and more excessive and insensate, it became also more manifest that its old traditions had rendered theprinces degenerate, and that the blood was equally menaced withimpoverishment in the family of Louis XIV. As in that of Charles V. Thenew King of Spain was deficient in moral force and determination. He hadgenerous proclivities, without the least doubt. He was gloriously born, as the phrase then ran. Like all his race, he showed bravery on thefield of battle; but energetic persistence in long-continued designsfirmly conceived, he was ever wanting in. Wearied to excess by theweight of a crown, he ended by resigning its functions; compelled toresume them, he succumbed beneath their weight, conceived scruplestouching the legitimacy of his royalty, and sunk into a crazymelancholy, which degenerated later into downright insanity. [20]

 [20] The singing of Farinelli had at first the effect of charming away his dark moods, but he speedily gave way to such hallucinations that he quite neglected his personal appearance, pretended to go fishing in the middle of the night, and to mount the horses which figured on the tapestry of his chamber. 

The Princess des Ursins in directing her steps towards Villefranche, thelittle Piedmontese port, which had been fixed upon as the place ofMarie-Louise's embarkation, had merely wished to present herself to theQueen, her mistress, at the moment when the latter would be ready toenter her galley and set sail for Spain. By that means, she would avoidthe necessity of putting all the royal train in mourning. For, as shehad already suggested with remarkable foresight to the Maréchale deNoailles--the Court of Turin was then in mourning, and there would havebeen a necessity to conform to the French custom, followed by the Dukesof Savoy: on the contrary, by stopping at Villefranche and meeting theQueen at the moment of her embarkation, she would merely have to observethe usage of Spain, which only enjoined mourning upon the master andmistress of a house. 

Authorised to do what seemed fit to her on that score, she had awaitedtherefore the arrival of the young princess at Villefranche, and with somuch the more satisfaction, that at Turin she would have been exposed toa thousand annoyances. There she would have encountered the Princess deCarignan--the great lady who had taken care of her niece, Marie-Louiseof Savoy, and like many other Piedmontese ladies, she wished very muchto follow her into Spain, and perhaps remain there. There were manylittle projects, it appears, formed at Turin with the view of governingthe young Queen. [21] For a long while it was thought that they would berealised, because the report ran that the Princess de Carignan would infact accompany her niece to Madrid. But Louis XIV. , foreseeing thatsource of embarrassment, had given an order to dismiss all thePiedmontese ladies at the frontier, so soon as the Queen should meet herSpanish household. Those ladies were aware of this; but their discontentwas only the greater, and it was much to be feared lest if Madame desUrsins should herself repair to Turin, to present herself to the youngQueen, she might be exposed to some insult on their part. Who could tellwhether, at that court, before the departure of Marie-Louise had removedall hope, her "position might not be menaced"? In that, then, therearose an additional motive, and the principal one, to stop atVillefranche, in order not to see the Queen before the moment ofembarking with her, and of entering immediately and irrevocably upon theexercise of her duties. 

 [21] Memoirs of Louville, tom. I. , and those of De Noailles, tom. Ii. , pp. 164, 165. 

When Marie-Louise arrived there in the month of October, 1701, theanchor of her galley was instantly weighed and sail set for Nice, wherea last farewell was taken of Piedmont and the soil of Italy; and next, her foot touched the French shore to make slight halts at Toulon, atMarseilles, and at Montpellier, and despatch thence, by way of thanksfor the splendid fêtes given by the local authorities, a salvo of homageto the Great King at Versailles. Madame des Ursins was seated in theroyal litter, at the Queen's side, and everywhere had her share of thehonours rendered to that princess in the various cities of France andItaly. At length the Spanish frontier was reached, and there thePiedmontese ladies, to the great regret of Marie-Louise and their own, were compelled to stop and retrace their steps to Turin. The Spanishdames, appointed by Philip V. , replaced them. The young Queen thereuponlost much of her characteristic amenity, and Madame des Ursins gainednothing on the score of benevolence of intention; but the jealousy ofthe Spanish ladies was less formidable to her. 

The marriage by procuration had been performed at Turin. The definitiveespousals, it was settled, should be accomplished at Figuieras, onSpanish soil, in order that Marie-Louise might not enter into thecountry, where she was destined to reign, save with the irrevocabletitles of wife and queen. Thither was to come, on an appointed day, KingPhilip V. He did not keep his bride waiting for him, for, impatient tobehold her to whom, by procuration, he had already given his hand, andwhose charms had been highly extolled to him, he passed beyond the placefixed upon for the official reception, and went forwards disguised, without pomp or noise, to meet her. He was followed by a very smallnumber of cavaliers, and so soon as he perceived the queen's retinueapproaching the town of Hostalnovo, he quitted his attendants, and"pricked forward like a courier" towards the royal litter. Desirous ofpreserving his incognito, he presented himself as a king's messenger, sent to get the earliest tidings of the Queen, and he addressed himselfin Spanish to the Princess des Ursins, to receive the information whichhe asserted he was ordered to obtain. The Queen immediately guessed thatthe messenger was no other than the King himself. She was, therefore, anxious to answer him herself, and so their conversation commenced, touching her health and that of King Philip V. , the incidents of herjourney, and it was continued for about a quarter of an hour. For sometime the Queen pretended not to recognise him; but, at last, her emotiongetting the better of her, she broke through the assumed incognito inwhich the King had shrouded himself, and was anxious to alight from herlitter. Philip, without further revealing himself, stayed her with hishand. Whereupon, she grasped hold instantly of that royal hand, which byan attention, divined by her heart, was rendered so dear to her; "shetook it in both of her own, kissed it, and held it for some moments, after which the king rode off to rejoin his suite, and returnedsatisfied to Figuieras. "[22]

 [22] MS. Hist. De l'élévation de Philip V. , p. 372. 

There was celebrated the marriage of Philip V. With Marie-Louise ofSavoy. But oh, unforeseen mischance! Several days were destined toelapse ere he could really possess her the sight of whom had only hadthe effect of redoubling the ardour of his desires. His happiness wasretarded by an incident of a very extraordinary nature, one which causedhim personally much unpleasantness, and moreover, gave his young bride abad impression of the character of a nation she was about to rule over. For the supper, which was prepared for her after the marriage ceremony, the viands had been cooked partly in the Spanish, partly in the Frenchfashion, because at Turin the art of the celebrated _Chef_ Vatel hadbeen adopted. But the Spanish ladies whose duty it was, under thedirection of Madame des Ursins, to serve the dishes, did not expect sucha strange commencement of their functions. All their nationalsusceptibilities were aroused at the sight, and determined to weanabruptly their new Queen from the customs of her own country, and toimpose upon her, from the moment of her very first repast, the diet ofSpain, they did not hesitate to upset all the French dishes, without asingle exception, in order to serve up nothing but Spanish cookery. TheKing said nothing; and the Princess des Ursins, notwithstanding herstupefaction and secret wrath, was unwilling to commence her career inSpain by scenes of reproach and severity. The Queen also, whose naturalvivacity and tender age could not be expected to observe the samerestraint, had, nevertheless, sufficient control over herself at firstto keep silence. But when she found herself with the King and Madame desUrsins in the apartment allotted to their privacy, her displeasure burstforth, and with so much the greater force that it had been so longrestrained and that no foreign eye hindered its manifestation. She shedtears plentifully, sobbed, regretted the absence of her Piedmonteseladies, waxed indignant at the audacity and rudeness of the Spanishdames, and even declared that she would proceed no further, but wouldreturn to Piedmont. Night came on, the king left her to undress, andwaited to be summoned to his bride's apartment; but the young Queen, "_entêtée, comme une enfant qu'elle était_, " says Saint Simon, "for shewas scarcely fourteen, " appeared disposed to attribute to the Kinghimself, the rude conduct of his subjects; and in spite of all reasoningon the subject, and the remonstrances of Madame des Ursins, replied thatshe would sleep alone and go back as quickly as possible to Turin. Itmay easily be guessed how untoward and disagreeable such an affairproved to Philip V. ; he was greatly discomfited by it, and when thesecond night came, as the Queen had not recovered her good humour, itwas he, who acting upon the advice of the Duke of Medina Sidonia andCount San Estevan de Gormas, anticipated a fresh refusal, by causing herto be told that he would not now share her couch. That spontaneousdetermination was adroit, and produced its effect. Marie-Louise wasexceedingly piqued at it in the depth of her girlish _amour-propre_, andended by making an honourable _amende_ to the King, blaming andcondemning her own childishness. She promised to conduct herself for thefuture like a woman and a queen, and on the arrival of the third night, the nuptial bed at length reunited the hitherto dissevered husband andwife. The next day they left Figuieras, touched at Barcelona, and thencehastened on to Madrid, wherein they made their triumphal entry by theAlcala Gate, towards the end of October, 1701, amidst a great concourseof nobles and populace. There also the Princess des Ursins was installeddefinitively in her functions of _camerara-mayor_. These she wasdestined to fulfil during a period of thirteen years, from 1701 to 1714, and by favour of that influential position, to exercise a virtualsovereignty, the acts of which it will now be our task to dulyappreciate. 

CHAPTER V. 

 ONEROUS AND INCONGRUOUS DUTIES OF THE _CAMERARA MAYOR_--SHE RENDERS THE YOUNG QUEEN POPULAR WITH THE SPANIARDS--POLICY ADOPTED BY THE PRINCESS FOR THE REGENERATION OF SPAIN--CHARACTER OF PHILIP V. AND MARIE-LOUISE--TWO POLITICAL SYSTEMS COMBATED BY MADAME DES URSINS--SHE EFFECTS THE RUIN OF HER POLITICAL RIVALS, AND REIGNS ABSOLUTELY IN THE COUNCILS OF THE CROWN. 

THE sudden departure of all her Italian waiting-women had, as we haveseen, on first setting her foot in Spain, for a moment thrown the youngQueen into a condition bordering on despair. By advice, however, therespectful devotedness of which served to soften its austerity, and byan absolute abnegation of herself, Madame des Ursins drew closelytowards her the broken-hearted princess by discreetly assuaging all herfirst girlish sorrows. She became a friend, a sister, almost a mother tothe exiled-one, and her influence profited no less by the firstembarrassments of the conjugal union than by the unbridled passion whichere long placed under the yoke of his wife a husband of eighteen, chasteas St. Louis, with the amorous temperament of Henry IV. In order tostrengthen that ascendency and to remain exclusive mistress of aconfidence of which power was the price, the Princess des Ursinsflinched neither under fatigue calculated to exhaust the sturdiestframe, nor before services the nature of which would have outraged herpride, had it not been to her, as Saint-Simon says, _une même chosed'être et de gouverner_. That gilded servitude is described with acharmingly punctilious complaisance in her letters to the Maréchale deNoailles and the Marquis de Torcy, and notwithstanding the commiserationwhich she claims for it, it may be clearly seen that Madame des Ursinsenters into the details of her domestic service far less for the purposeof carrying a complaint to Versailles, than to have it there set down toher credit. 

"Gracious Heaven! to what sort of occupation, madame, have you destinedme? I have not a moment's repose, and cannot find time even to speak tomy secretary. There is no longer any question about resting afterdinner, nor of eating when I am hungry. I am but too glad to be able tomake a bad dinner standing, and moreover it is very rare that I am notsummoned away before swallowing the first mouthful. In truth, Madame deMaintenon would laugh heartily if she knew all the details of my office. Tell her, I beseech you, that it is I who have the honour of receivingthe King of Spain's dressing-gown when he gets into bed, and of handingit to him along with his slippers when he rises. So far as that goes Idon't lose my patience; but every night when the King enters the Queen'schamber to go to bed, the Count de Benavente confides to my care theKing's sword, a certain utensil, and a lamp, the contents of which Igenerally manage to spill over my dress, --rather too good a joke. TheKing would never rise were I not to go and draw aside the bed-curtains, and it would be a sacrilege if anybody but myself were to enter theQueen's chamber whilst they were abed. Very lately, the lamp went outbecause I had spilled half the oil. I could not find where the windowswere, and thought that I should have broken my neck against the wall, and we were--the King of Spain and I--near a quarter of an hourstumbling against each other in trying to find them. Her Majesty has gotso used to me that sometimes she is good enough to call me up two hoursearlier than I should otherwise care to rise.... The Queen delights inthis sort of pleasantry; still, however, she has not yet regained theconfidence she placed in her Piedmontese women. I am astonished at this, for I serve her better than they did, and I am certain that they wouldnot wash her feet or pull off her shoes as readily as I do. "[23]

 [23] Letter to the Maréchale de Noailles, Dec. 1701. Recueil de M. Geffroy. 

How unlike a contemporary mistress of the robes in England, the haughtyDuchess of Marlborough!

Such a state of slavery weighed very lightly upon the Princess, for, although it was conformable to the custom of a palace, in which asolitary royalty seemed to exist without keeping up any relations withthe human race, nothing could have been more easy than for the _cameraramayor_ to have provided substitutes for the performance of herunbecoming duties. One of the recommendations of Louis XIV. To hisgrandson had been, in fact, that whilst scrupulously respecting allpopular customs, to wage an implacable war in his court against themonstrous etiquette which, under the last Austrian princes, had palsiedSpanish royalty. This was one of the labours to which the _cameraramayor_ devoted herself; but she took good care not to reform anythingappertaining to her own functions, comprehending clearly enough thepolicy of keeping to herself sole access to the royal personages, andsacrificing without grudge her dignity to her power and influence. Acontrary policy, as will be seen, caused the downfall of Queen Anne'spotent favourite. 

But we must pass over these domestic duties to speak of state affairsand the gradual initiation therein by the Princess of this young couple. During the campaign of Italy in which Philip V. Was anxious to takepart, Madame des Ursins, suitably to the duties and prerogatives of hercharge, did not quit the Queen for a single moment. She was present withher on every occasion at the sittings of the Junta, and, under pretextof familiarising her with politics, she herself penetrated every statesecret. The Princess well knew how to make etiquette subserve herpurpose, to maintain it to the utmost, modify or slacken it according toher interests. She understood what kind of concessions the genius of theSpanish nation demanded, and also what reforms it permitted. She judgedat a glance of the disposition of the grandees, and yielded to noillusion relative to the degree of support she might expect from them. "With these sort of folks, " she wrote to the Marquis de Torcy, "thesurest way is to show firmness. The closer I observe them, the less do Ifind that they merit the esteem which I thought it would have beenimpossible not to accord them. " According to the Princess, the Spanishnation in the persons of its grandees, had yielded obedience to a son ofFrance only, under the idea that France alone could defend and protectit. France remaining powerful and victorious, Spain would be safe: but, at each defeat that occurred in Flanders or Germany from theirresistible sword of Marlborough, the eyes of the grandees were turnedtowards the Archduke, and their fidelity was shaken. The skill and meritof Madame des Ursins was to perceive how, in so short a time, to deriveso much advantage from the grace and affability of the Queen, whom shemade really popular among the faithful people of central Spain, and itwas wonderful to see the roots of that new royalty strike so quickly inthe hearts of the old Castilians, as to render it able later during thestormy times to weather every rude attack. With an intuitiveforesightedness not a little remarkable, the Princess des Ursins hadfrom the first proposed to herself a twofold object. She sought tobecome the intermedium of the close alliance formed between thegrandsire and the grandson, in order to regenerate Spain by causingFrench measures to prevail in the government of that misruled country;but to the extent only that their application should appear possiblewithout wounding the national sentiment. That policy was the wisest andassuredly the most useful for the Peninsula in the extremity to whichthe inept power it had just escaped from had brought it. Among theprinces who were neither vicious nor cruel, there are none who had donemore harm to mankind than the last descendants of Charles V. At the endof the seventeenth century, the immense empire of Philip IV. And CharlesII. , reduced to a feebleness which the Ottoman empire in our own dayshas scarcely felt, was nothing more than the phantom of a nation. TheHouse of Austria had triumphed over feudality and municipal resistanceas completely as the House of Bourbon; but the successes of monarchicalpower had been as sterile on one side of the Pyrenees as they had beenprofitable to it on the other, for in Spain the impotence of thevanquisher had still surpassed that of the vanquished. 

So much blood shed by axe and sword, so many lives sacrificed undertorture, had scarcely tended further to strengthen royal authority orcement the union of the Spanish kingdoms; and those princes whosedomains still spread widely across the globe, had no longer to opposeto Europe, during the long agony in which their race was perishing, either an army, a fleet, a general, or even a statesman. 

The first of the sovereigns summoned to assist in restoring this unhappycountry to its ancient grandeur was assuredly the least fitting toaccomplish such a task. But seventeen years old, when Charles II. Chosehim for his successor, the Duke d'Anjou was indebted both to nature andeducation for a mind rather constituted to serve than reign. Brother ofthe heir to the French throne, he had been reared in studiedsubordination towards the latter, and the discipline of Beauvilliers andFénelon, which had curbed the violence of character in the Duke ofBurgundy, had produced less beneficial effects in the melancholytemperament of his younger brother. With a natural rectitude of thoughtand a pride which at times revealed the hereditary haughtiness of hisrace, Philip V. Had in the same degree as his nephew Louis XV. , whom heresembled in many ways, that morbid weariness of life, that contempt formankind and distaste for business. He was afflicted, moreover, with thatfatal impotence of will which makes a libertine king the slave of hismistresses, and, a faithful husband the passive instrument of a charmingqueen who may happen to be prompted by the most skilful of councillors. 

But nothing had as yet indicated the melancholy condition of mind whichlater drove the young King to the confines of despair and insanity. Onhis first entrance into his kingdom, escorted by a crowd of brilliantnobles, Philip was radiant with youth and hope. He strode forwardssustained by the strong arm of a people who thought to escape, by theintervention of the most powerful sovereign in Europe, from the evilsof war, and more especially from that severance of the Spanish monarchymore dreaded by the nation than all its other woes together. In acapital which he was forced to quit on two several occasions, in a courtsoon afterwards prostrated before his rival, and even in those provincesof Arragon and Catalonia, the burning centres of civil war, nothing atfirst was heard save shouts of joy and protestations of fidelity. Nevertheless it did not need great sagacity to foresee the perilsreserved for the new establishment. The French regime disquietedinterests too numerous and prejudices too powerful throughout thePeninsula not to explode at the first difficulty which it mightencounter on its path. 

Thunderstruck by the unforeseen will of Charles II. , Europe, which atthe first moment had seemed indisposed to contest its dispositions, hadnot long deferred their reconsideration. Persuaded that theaggrandisement of his family was equivalent in the eyes of Louis XIV. Toan aggrandisement of territory, England, Holland, and Portugal, takingin hand the successorial pretentions of the house of Austria, out ofwhich those cabinets had made such a good bargain in two treaties ofpartition, sent fleets into every sea, whilst awaiting the moment tocarry into the heart of Spain, hostilities which the emperor had alreadycommenced in Italy. An implacable coalition, of which the Peace ofRyswick had suspended the effects without modifying the causes of it, was formed to snatch the two peninsulas from the domination of France. The latter power resolutely accepted the struggle this time for a justand honest cause; but the war was scarcely begun ere the certitude wasacquired that in doubling the dangers of France, Spain would add nothingto its resources. With what contemptuous bitterness did Spain, in fact, watch the long train of disasters which from the pinnacle of powerbrought Louis XIV. To the brink of an abyss by one of those vicissitudesthe effect of which is never more rapid upon the popular mind than whenfortune deserts men who have been long powerful and flourishing!

Such was the theatre upon which Providence had placed a timid and ailingprince, but which event threatened to endanger even the very existenceof the French monarchy itself. Louis XIV. Seemed to have attained hisobject in the guidance of his grandson, who followed the great monarch'sinjunctions with filial docility. The Queen governed Philip V. , andMadame des Ursins governed the Queen. Saint Simon thus explains thisascendancy:--"She guided the Queen, " says he, "who had placed in her allthe affection and all the confidence of a young person who knew no otheradviser, who depended wholly upon her for her particular daily conduct, and for her amusements, and who found in her graciousness, gentleness, and complaisance, combined with every possible resource. For the rest, such empire was not that which weakness and incapacity yields to geniusand strength. " Marie-Louise had not been less carefully brought up thanher sister, the Duchess of Burgundy, nor less well instructed. She hadinnate talent, and, in her early youth showed intelligence, good sense, firmness, and was capable of being advised and restrained, and wholater, when her character became more developed and formed, manifested aconstancy and courage which the natural graces of that same intelligenceinfinitely enhanced. A lively sympathy between the two women alonedetermined the authority of the older over the younger, and if theKing's confidence in the _camerara-mayor_ was a homage rendered to thereal superiority of her intelligence, it might be said that a happyconformity of tastes, views, and dispositions, attached his Queen to thePrincess des Ursins. 

Two political systems confronted each other at Madrid. The oneultra-French, the other purely Spanish, represented by the grandees andinclining towards the Archduke of Austria, the competitor of Philip V. The first-named had for champions, Cardinal Porto-Carrero, "virtuallythe actual prime minister, " the Archbishop of Seville, Arias, theprovisional president of the Council of Castille, the Marquis deLouville, and all the King's French household; subsequently it wasdirected by the Cardinal and the Abbé d'Estrées, Ambassadors of France. The second party re-united the most illustrious names of the monarchy. It had for its chiefs, successively, the Count de Melgar, Admiral ofCastile, the Marquis de Léganez, and the Duke de Medina-Coeli. Thefirst-named policy tended to destroy, by its exclusive ideas, thepopularity of Philip V. , the second prepared to betray him. They wereboth reduced to impotence, and became fatal to those who ventured todefend them. Madame des Ursins combated the one and the other, and aimedat inaugurating in Spain a mixed policy, heeding the cabinet ofVersailles without annihilating the cabinet of Madrid, satisfying thejust desires of Spain and the susceptibilities of the nation, withoutdisdaining the sometimes useful advice and the ever requisite resourcesof France. Such was, therefore, the plan adopted by the young Queen. But, in order to realise it, it was necessary to have the field open, itwas necessary that Madame des Ursins should be delivered from herrivals, and should reign as absolutely in the councils of the Crown asin the minds of the King and Queen. 

The principal chief of the Austrian party, the Admiral of Castile, wasthe first to become dangerous. "He loved the house of Austria, for whichhe had fought, under the preceding reign, by sea and land, and fromwhich he had received the highest honours. " On the contrary he detestedthe house of Bourbon, against which he had strongly "pronounced" at thetime when the last will of Charles II. Was in preparation. [24] But hehad confronting him the vigilance of Madame des Ursins. She fathomed hisintrigues and baffled his early manoeuvres; though she had not always tostruggle openly against him. He rendered himself justice; hecomprehended his own impotence, and had recourse to treason. He hadfrequent conferences with a Dutch spy, plotted with him the downfall ofPhilip V. , and the elevation of the Archduke, and finally handed him acorrect topographic plan of Andalusia and Estremadura. The cabinets ofVienna and London assured of such an aid, declared war against Philip V. Nevertheless, although the Spanish government was duly apprised of theseproceedings, it still wanted that boldness which the continuous use ofpower and long-indulged prosperity give. It only determined upondispatching the admiral abroad, and appointed him ambassador to theFrench Court; a dubious favour which at once revealed its fears and itsweakness, but which at least postponed a peril it dared not yet face. The admiral saw plainly that he was suspected in Spain, and that inFrance he would be a cipher; nevertheless, he pretended to take hisdeparture thither; but halted when half-way, and went to join thePortuguese troops banded with those of the allies. The cabinet of Madridhad from that time forward acquired the right of punishing him. TheCount de Melgar was condemned _par contumace_; his friends were forcedto blame his conduct openly; and his melancholy death which happenedshortly afterwards, the result of an insult reserved sooner or later forall traitors, deprived a formidable faction of its leader. 

 [24] Combes, p. 109. 

The ultra-French party did not find a less rude adversary in Madame desUrsins. Of this, Louville, even before the arrival of the Princess, hada presentiment. "I would much rather have Madame de Ventadour, " he wroteTorcy. So early as the month of January, 1703, he saw his influencedestroyed, foresaw his coming defeat and meditated a _coup d'éclat_--thegetting rid of the _camerara-mayor_. He declares to the Duke deBeauvilliers, --"If prompt measures are not taken to extricate theCatholic King from his slavery, he is lost. In the first place, Madamedes Ursins must be got rid of, there need be no hesitation about that. "In the month following, he insists that they should "keep firm, and getrid of her;" and, in July, 1703, to bring Torcy to a decision, headds, --"She is now detested by the Spaniards. " Madame des Ursins repaidhim hate for hate, and never spoke of him save with a lofty contemptbefitting an offended great lady. "He has cut a greater figure, " shewrote to Cardinal de Noailles, "by the insolent things he has writtenabout me, than by any merit of his own. I think that I can never forgivehim if he does not first retract everything which he has advancedagainst me. In truth, it ought not to be permitted that so insignificanta person should outrage a woman of my rank. " Matters having reached thispass, it was clear that one or the other must succumb. It was the lot ofthe Marquis de Louville. Two couriers reaching Versailles from Spain, determined his fall. On the 22nd of October, a despatch from the Duke deBeauvilliers announced it to him. "It is done, " wrote the duke, "we arelost. The step is taken. You are to be instantly recalled. "[25]

 [25] Collection of M. Geffroy, p. 457. 

The Archbishop of Seville, Arias, who was of the same politics, wasshortly afterwards sent back to his diocese. The Duke de Montellanoreplaced him in the presidency of Castile, and a Papal brief, obtainedsome months after his disgrace, enjoined him not to quit Seville again. There remained Porto-Carrero and the Cardinal d'Estrées, recentlynominated ambassador of France. They were the firmest supporters oftheir cause and the most formidable adversaries of the Princess:Porto-Carrero, by his high position, by the recollection of servicesrendered at the period of the will; Cardinal d'Estrées, by his influenceat the Court of Versailles, by the protection of Noailles, by theenergetic support of the entire French party. The strife was fierce; butthe resources of Madame des Ursins were equal to the emergency. The Dukede Montellano, president of the Council of Castille, counterbalanced theauthority, until then unlimited, of Porto-Carrero; the auditorship offinance, which had always appertained to the prime minister, being takenfrom him. Weakened by this check and rivalry, the Cardinal abruptlychanged his policy and placed himself at the head of the anti-Frenchparty; he refused to act with Cardinal d'Estrées, and tendered hisresignation. Had he remained firm in that course, probably he might havere-enacted his political part in the ranks of his new friends, and havecaused the government great embarrassment. On receiving a letter fromLouis XIV. , he had the weakness to give way, withdrew his resignation, and resumed his seat at the council board. But factions hate and despisemore intensely those who abandon their ranks than those who fightagainst them: that manoeuvre irritated alike the French and theSpaniards; both, in their turn, abjured. Porto-Carrero was the turn-coatfrom every cause: as a politician he was annihilated. 

In this affair, Cardinal d'Estrées had been, without knowing it, thetool of Madame des Ursins. "He was, " according to Saint Simon, "a hot, hasty, impetuous, high-handed man, who could tolerate neither superiornor equal. " It will readily be imagined that the _camerara-mayor_ couldnot brook the ascendency which he aimed at ursurping. She resolutelyresisted him in all things and on every occasion. She opposed, withmight and main, the success of his policy; she set her face against hisimperious manners and tedious formalities. Philip and his Queen grewtired of the strife. They took part with Madame des Ursins and wrote toLouis XIV. After that letter "the Cardinal d'Estrées was looked upon asthe great stirrer-up of strife. His arrival at the Court of Madrid hadinterrupted the perfect harmony about to be re-established. Not a daypassed without some one suffering from his intractable and arroganttemper. " Madame des Ursins worked in the same groove with Torcy. TheCardinal's cabal, by way of revenge, "raked into the private life of the_camerara-mayor_, " hoping to destroy by scandalous tales her reputationin the eyes of Louis XIV. And Madame de Maintenon. Those tactics failedof success; Louis XIV. , it is true, recalled Madame des Ursins; but theQueen of Spain defended her favourite with such earnest importunity, that the severity of the Court of Versailles was disarmed. An endeavourwas made to reconcile the two adversaries; but that reconciliation, ifsincere, was not lasting. Supreme authority admits of no equalpartition: difficulties multiplied themselves. Philip V. At lengthdeclared to Louis XIV. , "that if, to keep his crown, he must resignhimself to have Cardinal Porto-Carrero always as his minister, he knewwhat he should prefer to choose. " In the month of September, 1704, therefore, all the French household, with Cardinal Porto-Carrero, quitted Madrid. 

CHAPTER VI. 

 THE PRINCESS MAKES A FALSE STEP IN HER STATECRAFT--A BLUNDER AND AN IMBROGLIO. 

TO recall Madame des Ursins at the earliest possible moment and inflictupon her a well-merited disgrace was the earnest desire of Louis XIV. ;but, omnipotent as that Prince was, he found his hand arrested by a veryserious difficulty, the _camerara-mayor_, in fact, screened herselfbehind the Queen, and the King of France was well aware that inrecalling her he would deal a blow alike against the affection andself-love of his grand-daughter which she would never forgive--anextremity which was not less repugnant to his policy than to his goodfeeling. Moreover the departure of Madame des Ursins would not renderthe Cardinal d'Estrées' position less insupportable in a court, all theapproaches to which were barred to him, and in which his isolation was aconstant insult to France. There was nothing left, therefore, but togrant the latter a recall which, smarting with a humiliation sounforeseen to his overweening arrogance, he demanded in accents of rageand despair. However, in order to salve his _amour-propre_, the Abbéd'Estrées continued to discharge the functions of the embassy, as thoughhis uncle's absence were only temporary; but that state of things didnot suit either of the two factions which for more than twelve monthspast divided the French household of the King of Spain, surpassing eachother in vituperation and calumny. Despite a sort of truce stipulatedbetween the embassy and the palace, the Abbé d'Estrées soon foundhimself in the same position in which the Cardinal had been placed; forMadame des Ursins did not like the arrangement of the Abbé being leftbehind, but as Madame de Maintenon insisted upon it, she was obliged toaccept it with as good a grace as possible. [26] The Abbé, vain of hisfamily and his position, was not a man much to be feared as it seemed. Madame des Ursins accordingly laughed at and despised him. He wasadmitted to the council, but was quite without influence there, and whenhe attempted to make any representations to Madame des Ursins or Orry, they listened to him without attending in the least to what he said. ThePrincess reigned supreme, and thought of nothing but getting rid of allwho attempted to divide her authority. At last she obtained such acommand over the poor Abbé d'Estrées, so teased and hampered him, thathe consented to the hitherto unheard-of arrangement, that the Ambassadorof France should not write to the King without first concerting hisletter with her, and afterwards show her its contents before hedespatched it. But such restraint as this became, in a short time, sofettering, that the Abbé determined to break away from it. He wrote aletter to the King without showing it to Madame des Ursins. She soon hadscent of what he had done; seized the letter as it passed through thepost, opened it, and, as she expected, found its contents were not of akind to give her much satisfaction. In fact, in her emotion of anger andindignation she made a false step in her state-craft of a nature one canhardly imagine a person so astute as the Princess making. This blunderled to a great _imbroglio_. 

 [26] Saint Simon. 

The question has been raised--Did Madame des Ursins always use theintimate and uncontrolled influence she had obtained over the youngQueen of fourteen in a purely devoted and disinterested way? It would bedifficult, certainly, to answer in the affirmative. Louville, her rivaland enemy, a man of talent and ardour, but passionate, represents her asthe wickedest woman on earth, to be got rid of at the earliest possiblemoment and at any cost, "sordid and thievish to a marvellous degree. " Heraises the same accusation against Orry, a clever man whom Louis XIV. Had sent to Spain to put some order into her finances. These accusationsseem to have been unjustifiable. The Marshal Duke of Berwick, who kepthimself aloof from all these odious bickerings, does more justice toOrry, and everything leads the impartial student to think that Madamedes Ursins on that score comes out of the scrutiny with still cleanerhands. "_Je suis gueuse, il est vrai_, " she writes to Madame de Noailleson first going to Spain, "_mais je suis encore plus fière_. " Detailingto Madame de Maintenon somewhat later the indignities they both had toput up with from accusations of a like nature, she speaks of them in atone of lofty irony and sovereign contempt which appears to excludeanything like falsehood. 

But what seems more certain--if the truth must be told--is, although alittle singular at first sight, that at the age of sixty and upwards, Madame des Ursins still had lovers. "She is hair-brained in herconduct, "[27] wrote Louville to the Duke and Duchess de Beauvilliers. One Sieur d'Aubigny, a kind of household steward whom she had promotedto be her equerry, was lodged in the _Retiro_ palace near the apartmentsof her women, where he was seen one day brushing his teeth veryunconcernedly at the window. _C'était un beau et grand drôle très-bienfait et très-découplé de corps et d'esprit_, [28] and not a _bête brute_, as Louville calls him. But he was bold and somewhat insolent, as one whoconceived that he had a right to be so. On another occasion, Louvilleand the Duke de Medina-Coeli entering the apartments of Madame desUrsins, into which she ushered them in order that they might talk moreunrestrainedly, D'Aubigny who was installed at the other end, seeingonly the Princess and believing her to be alone, began to apostrophiseher in terms of very rude and coarse familiarity, which threw allpresent into confusion. The feminine failing of Madame des Ursins, was, we are told, this; "gallantry and _l'entêtement de sa personne_ was inher the dominant and overweening weakness above all else, even to thelatest period of her life. " So Saint Simon says, and he renders her fulljustice moreover for her spirited and elevated qualities. 

 [27] "Elle a des moeurs _à l'escarpolette_. "

 [28] Saint Simon. 

But to return to the matter of the intercepted despatch. What piqued thePrincess most was, to find details in it exaggerating the authority ofD'Aubigny, and a statement to the effect that it was generally believedthat she had married him. On reading this passage the pride of the greatlady was more outraged even than her modesty. Beside herself with rageand vexation, she wrote with her own hand upon the margin of the letter, "_Pour mariée, non_" ("At any rate, not married"), showed it in thisstate to the King and Queen of Spain, to a number of other people, always with strange clamouring, and finally crowned her folly bysending it to Louis XIV. , with furious complaints against the Abbé forwriting it without her knowledge, and for inflicting upon her such anatrocious injury as to mention such a thing as this pretended marriage. Her letter and its enclosure reached the King at a very inopportunemoment. Just before he had received a letter, which, taken in connectionwith this of the Princess des Ursins, struck a blow at her power of themost decisive kind. At the same time that the original thus annotatedwas despatched to the Marquis de Torcy, a copy of it was addressed bythe Princess to the Duke de Noirmoutier, her brother, and the lattercaused it to be circulated throughout Paris, to the great scandal of asociety which had still some little respect left for morals and royalpower. 

Louis XIV. Owed it to himself not to allow such excessive audacity to gounpunished. At the same time the affairs of Spain were then in such astate of confusion, the danger of exasperating the young Queen appearedso great, that it was necessary to defer severe measures, howeverjustifiable they might be. It was only some months afterwards, whenPhilip V. Had quitted Madrid for the frontiers of Portugal, to takecommand of his army, reinforced by a French corps under the command ofthe Duke of Berwick, that Louis thought it possible to make himselfobeyed and to strike what he himself called a decisive blow. 

"The complaints against the Princess des Ursins, " wrote the King to theAbbé d'Estrées, [29] "have reached such a point that at length it isnecessary to take notice of them. I should have used less delay if I hadonly consulted the welfare of the State; but I was compelled to waituntil the King quitted Madrid. I had reason to foresee that he would beonly too much influenced by the Queen's tears, that they might hinderhim from deferring with sufficient promptitude to my advice.... If theKing offers resistance, let him see how onerous is the war which I amwaging for his interests. Do not tell him that I will abandon him, forhe would not believe you; but let him understand that whatever may be myaffection for him, I can, if he does not respond thereto, make peace atthe expense of Spain, and grow tired of supporting a monarchy wherein Ionly see disorders and contradictions in matters the most reasonablethat I may urge in his own interest. In fine, after such an _éclat_, nothing short of success will do; my honour, the interest of the King, my grandson, and that of the monarchy are concerned therein.... Thedirections that I give you are absolutely necessary for my service, butthe consequences will be disagreeable for you. They have not ceased tomake mischief between my grandson and yourself; matters have made suchan impression that he has already on several occasions requested me torecall you. "

 [29] 19th March, 1704. Memoirs of Noailles, tom. Ii. , p. 297. 

Louis XIV. Gave the Abbé, therefore, an order to leave forthwith, addingto the expression of his lively regret the assurance that this disgrace, wholly involuntary as it was, should not damage his future fortunes. Such was the extremity to which a subject had brought the most absoluteprince in Europe. It may thus be seen what extensive roots the woman hadalready thrown out in Spain who balanced so nicely the power of theFrench King in his grandson's court. It will shortly afterwards be moreclearly apparent; but if the _éclat_ of such a part enhances theimportance of Madame des Ursins, her character remains singularlycompromised by it. However indulgently we may be disposed to look uponit, we cannot dissever from a system of policy the unworthy hostilitywaged by a Frenchwoman against two ambassadors of her sovereign with socruel a perseverance. The Cardinal d'Estrées was desirous of carryingthe same measures in Spain as Madame des Ursins; he there representedtheir common master with a loftier title and a more legitimateauthority. His errors of conduct, which were numerous, had in some sortbeen forced upon him, and if he had the misfortune to fall intoambushes, to another person must be attributed the fault of preparingthem. In that period of two years, the least honourable of her politicallife, the Princess had solely as a stimulant her egotistic and impatientambition. In subordinating to her interests those of two monarchies, inalleging as an excuse for the violence of her attacks the right of herown superiority, she confirmed in the minds of her adversaries by herexample the truth, that for ardent natures it is less perilous toexercise than to pursue power. 

Philip, reduced by the Queen's absence to his natural indolence, opposedno resistance to the injunctions of his grandfather. Assailed in hertenderest affections, wounded in her dignity as a sovereign, andresenting at fifteen years of age that twofold outrage in as lively adegree as in the maturity of life, Marie-Louise restricted herself atfirst to a disdainful silence which, nevertheless, revealed the hopeeither of a terrible vengeance or a speedy retaliation. Madame desUrsins submitted to the commands of her sovereign with the statelyhaughtiness, the expression of which is conveyed in one of her very bestletters to Madame de Noailles. The consciousness of the great servicesrendered by her to both monarchies with an inviolable fidelity, thebitter astonishment at finding her relative, until then so devoted, "prefer to herself persons who were merely her allies, and whosewickedness ought to have inspired her with horror, " her adroit flatteryof Madame de Maintenon, "to whom Providence had reserved, as by anassured privilege for her virtue, the sacred mission of causing truthand justice in the end to triumph;" "Heaven wishing to avail itself ofher services for that purpose in spite of herself;" such are the chieffeatures of that clever defence, in which calculation tempers rage andresentment, and which ought to be read in its entirety in theinteresting letters of the Princess. [30]

 [30] Letter of May, 23rd, 1704. Geffroy's Recueil, p. 169. 

But the letters likewise of the great King which have come down to us, show that there was no need of the foolish insult conveyed by her ownepistle, to make him angry with Madame des Ursins. The complaints raisedagainst her were then universal, at least at Versailles, and at adistance it was difficult to separate those which were founded on falsereports. With the well-known temper which characterised Louis XIV. , itmust have seemed a thing inconceivable that such importance should beconceded to a woman whom he had placed there to do his bidding. Findingthat his grandson and the young queen were disposed to resist his recallof the _camerara-mayor_, he addressed them as a father and as a king:--

"You ask for my advice, " he says to Philip V. (20th August, 1704), "andI write you what I think; but the best advice becomes useless when it isonly asked for and followed after the mischief has happened.... You havehitherto given your confidence to incapable or interested persons.... (And speaking of the recall of Orry and of another agent) it seems, however, that the interest of those particular persons wholly engagesyour attention, and at a time when you ought only to have elevatedviews _you dwarf them down to the cabals of the Princess des Ursins, with which I am unceasingly wearied_. "

And to the Queen, Louis XIV. Writes still more explicitly (20thSeptember, 1704, ):--

"You know how much I have desired that you should give your confidenceto the Princess des Ursins, and that I forgot nothing that might induceyou to do so. However, unmindful of our common interest, she has givenherself up to an enmity which I do not comprehend, and has only thoughtof baffling those who have been charged with our affairs. If she had hada sincere attachment for you, she would have sacrificed all herresentments, well or ill-founded, against the Cardinal d'Estrées, instead of dragging you into them. _Persons of your rank ought to keepthemselves aloof from private quarrels and conduct themselves withregard to their own interests and those of their subjects, which arealways identical. _ I must therefore recall my ambassador, abandon you tothe Princess des Ursins, and leave her solely to govern your realms, orrecall that lady herself. That is what I think I ought to do. "

In these truthful and kingly words, the true cause of Louis'dissatisfaction may be seen, and the marginal note, true or false, inthe despatch, appears nothing more than a secondary accident. [31]

 [31] The affirmation of Madame des Ursins was no doubt true, since in a letter of hers to Orry, dated in 1718, she begs him to present her friendly remembrances to M. D'Aubigny's _wife_. 

The politic monarch, moreover, thought it well to take extremeprecaution in timing his blow aright. The moment of the young King beingwith the army and separated from the Queen was expressly chosen, forfear lest the latter in her despair, might oppose some obstacle, to itsexecution. 

CHAPTER VII. 

 THE PRINCESS QUITS MADRID BY COMMAND OF LOUIS XIV. --AFTER A SHORT EXILE SHE RECEIVES PERMISSION TO VISIT VERSAILLES. 

MADAME DES URSINS had received Louis XIV. 's command to withdraw intoItaly. Quitting Madrid as a State criminal (_en criminelle d'état_), thePrincess directed her steps towards the land indicated for her exile. Wemust refer, however, to "The Memoirs of Saint Simon" those of ourreaders who are desirous of admiring the presence of mind with whichMadame des Ursins, recalled thus unexpectedly and struck by the Olympianbolt, suffered herself to be in nowise disconcerted, but skilfullymanaged to retreat slowly and in good order, yielding ground only stepby step, [32] without appearing to disobey, she found time to arouse herfriends at Versailles into action, "who representing the severity ofsuch a fall for a dictatress of her quality, urged that the King, havingbeen obeyed, and having glutted his vengeance, a feeling ofcommiseration ought to be shown thereafter, and that it was notadvisable to push the Queen to extremity. " These reasons commented uponby the Duke d'Harcourt, a man of great weight in the affairs of thePeninsula, by Marshal de Villeroy and the Noailles, prevailed with LouisXIV. , who granted the Princess his permission, ardently solicited, tostop at Toulouse and there take up her abode. That was but the firststep to a rehabilitation towards which laboured with equal ardour, though by very different ways, the youthful spouse of Philip V. And thegrave companion of Louis XIV. Madame de Maintenon, accepting willinglythe part of missionary of Divine justice, held it as a point of honournot to deceive the hope of the illustrious accused, who had attributedthose functions to her at a juncture so _à propos_. And whether that shefelt a real affection for Madame des Ursins, whether that she wished tomitigate the Duchess of Burgundy's regret for her sister's vexation, whether, in short, she feared to see Louis XIV. Lose by so abrupt achange all authority over the affairs of Spain, she was disposed inevery event to serve the exile. The Princess, to give time for the stormto expend its fury, well knowing that acts hastily determined upon areordinarily the least durable, did not seek to hurry matters herself withthe French King, but wrote to Madame de Noailles, hoping that her lettermight be shown: "You are not ignorant of my attachment and respect forMadame de Maintenon; the obligations that I owe her are ever present tome, and the reliance that I place in the generosity of her heart. "[33]All the correspondence from Toulouse is in that vein, and, stillfurther, she adroitly represents herself as a victim, as a womandisabused of worldly grandeur, and afflicted solely at having displeasedLouis XIV. 

 [32] "_A lents tours de roue. _" St. Simon, tom. Vii. 

 [33] Recueil of M. Geffroy, Letter lvi. 

This conduct allayed the mutterings of the spent tempest. The court grewaccustomed to behold in her an unfortunate noblewoman resigned to herexile with an antique patience. 

At the end of four months passed in the capital of Languedoc, in thedepth of a retreat enlivened by an assiduous correspondence with the twocourts, Madame des Ursins received permission to appear at Versaillesand there to justify herself. The intervention of Madame de Maintenonhad nothing more in it than was perfectly natural under thecircumstances; not that she had the desire to govern Spain, as SaintSimon affirms, nor even France, however entirely she might govern LouisXIV. What she desired to establish on either side of the Pyrenees was aspecies of moral control of the house of Bourbon. And, by keeping herinformed of the most minute particulars touching the King and Queen, byinspiring the Duchess of Burgundy's sister with the duteous affection ofthe elder for her _aunt_, Madame des Ursins rendered the Marquise deMaintenon the only service the latter cared for, and the only one, tospeak the truth, which could add anything to her importance. 

The motives of Louis XIV. Were of a very different kind, and his politicmind did not hesitate to sacrifice to them his grievances, howeverlegitimate they might be. Far from pacifying the Court of Spain, thedeparture of the Princess des Ursins had been the signal for an outburstof the most complete anarchy. To the rule exercised by the Queen hadsucceeded an entire absence of direction, and matters were conductedwith an incoherence so shocking, that M. De Torcy having exhausted bothhis advice and his patience, opened with perfect terror the despatchesdrawn from that Pandora's box. The accord--at least apparent, which thepreponderance of Madame des Ursins had maintained among the members ofthe _despacho_ by the intervention of the Duke de Montellano, hercreature, was abruptly broken up, and the Austrian party gatheredstrength from the effect of that disorder and that universaldissolution. The Archduke, proclaimed King of Spain by the Emperor underthe name of Charles III. And recognised in that quality by England andHolland, had just landed at Lisbon; the campaign opened against thePortuguese had ended, after some ephemeral successes, by a sort ofdisbanding of the Spanish army, through want of clothing, pay, andprovisions, in the supply of which nothing was done after Orry'sdeparture, recalled to France from the same motives as the Princess. Gibraltar, the defence of which had been confided by an inexplicablenegligence to fifty men, was torn away for ever by a handful of Britishseamen from the crown of the Catholic kings; Catalonia, Arragon, thekingdom of Valentia, made ripe for insurrection by the Prince ofDarmstadt, were on the eve of escaping from their allegiance. At thebeginning of 1705, the armies of Philip V. Were composed of five or sixthousand men in rags, their tottering fidelity daily tampered with, andthe little band of French auxiliaries exhausted itself in fruitlessefforts to retake Gibraltar, which, covered as it was by the Englishfleet, remained mistress of the Straits, after the first disasterinflicted on the French marine in that war which was destined to cost itits last vessel. 

To the government of prime ministers, and still more that of women, Louis XIV. Had an insuperable antipathy. It must therefore have cost himmuch to renounce the flattering hope of seeing his grandson makepractical application of the lofty instructions in which his personalroyalty reflected itself with so much splendour; but such a prince as heknew but too well that a political idea is valueless when it remainsinapplicable. Impressed with the sorrowful conviction, he was compelledto recognise that Philip's ailing temperament rendered all equilibriumbetween intelligence and will impossible, so far so that that unhappyPrince could not elude his fate save by escaping from himself. In theapproaching perils which the disasters of the French armies foreboded, the hope of preserving Spain even under the dictation of Madame desUrsins was better, after all, than the certainty of losing that crown byestranging the _camarera-mayor_. After the battle of Blenheim, thedefection of the Duke of Savoy and the disastrous Italian campaign, therestoration of the Princess to her charge was, on the part of LouisXIV. , a first concession to evil fortune, a determination for which hissagacity triumphed over his repugnance. And so Saint Simon ought to haveseen, instead of representing the triumph obtained by Madame des Ursinsat Versailles as the inexplicable effect of a species of suddenfascination. 

That victory suddenly transformed her who was but a short timepreviously an accused person into "a court divinity. " The Spanishambassador, followed by a swarm of courtiers, went forth to meet heroutside the gates of Paris, and offered her his mansion during her stayin the capital. There she received "all France" we are told. [34] Herevery look was interpreted, and the words she addressed to ladies of thehighest consideration impressed them with a rapturous sense of hercondescension. Nothing could exceed the King's attentions in every waythat could contribute to her honour and distinction, and from themajestic fashion with which it was all received, with such a rareadmixture of grace and politeness it reminded the beholders of the earlydays of the Queen-Mother. Whether the particular determination of theKing shone through this marked graciousness, or that the well-knowndexterity of the Princess did not allow of any doubt of her success, shewas welcomed on all hands, not with those timid precautions and thatambiguous reserve which characterise the incertitude of courts, butwith that lively, prompt and decided enthusiasm which only greetsunclouded favour and assured fortune. At the balls which were given atthe royal residences, Louis XIV. , the Duchess of Burgundy, and all theprinces treated her with the most affable condescension. If Louis XIV. Showed great tact in appearing to attribute to his conversations withMadame des Ursins a preconceived resolution which had really been thesimple result of events, and if the easy grace of the gentleman coveredin some sort the retreat of the politician, it will be readily imaginedthat the Princess did not suffer herself to be beaten in address. Whenthe desire to see her return to the side of the young Queen of Spain wasintimated to her, she spoke of the disgust with which the condition ofthat miserable country filled her, and which made it impossible to doany good there. To the King's impatience she opposed the impaired stateof her health, and placed herself under medical treatment, having atthat identical moment a real interest in being pronounced out of health. She delayed from day to day a departure that was more and more pressedfor, cautiously making it understood that in order to avoid the mishapsand the mistakes of the past, the safety of Spain must be sought in acomplete unity of direction, and that the inevitable preponderance ofthe Queen would constrain the placing of that political direction, notin the embassy, but in the Palace. This was to demand nothing less thana _carte blanche_ to govern the kingdom; but however audacious in itselfsuch exigence might be, it offended no one, so glad were all concerned, after so many mistakes, to find one head which could courageouslyconfront the responsibility of a situation that had become so perilous. She was the only Frenchwoman who could govern Spain, and the cabinet ofVersailles, satisfied with having shown its strength, exhibitedhenceforth that majestic condescendence towards her which is theflattery made use of by monarchs in their relations with indispensableagents. 

 [34] Saint Simon. 

She was not in a hurry, therefore, to return to Madrid. Probably she wasanxious to enjoy her triumph, and by it to crush for a long while thetrembling jealousy of her enemies; perhaps, sure of setting out when shechose, it was her aim to make her presence in Spain felt. Be that as itmay, we do not believe, as it has been supposed, that she herself wastired of her political _rôle_ whatever may have been the mask with whichher prudence sought to cover her ambition during her disgrace, theexistence of that ambition is clear enough as a matter of history. Weadmit nothing more, in answer to the insinuations of Saint Simon, thatdazzled with the royal favour she had dreamed of supplanting Madame deMaintenon in the great King's confidence. Of a judgment eminently soundand precise, she had too much of the practical in her character tocradle her imagination with such chimæras. Madame des Ursins'quick-sightedness fathomed all the advantages she might derive from thegeneral discouragement, and promised herself to let nothing be lost byit either for herself or her dependents, however equivocal theirposition might be towards her. She procured the admission of D'Aubignyinto the cabinet of Louis XIV. , and, a thing more difficult still, intothat of Madame de Maintenon. She caused Orry to be reinstated in hisformer functions, at the same time that one of her most dangerousenemies, the father Daubenton, received an order to quit Madrid, wherehis restless nullity had lost itself in a maze of intrigues. Authorisedin a manner to form her ministry, she nominated the President Amelot asAmbassador for Spain, a diplomatist although very high minded, yet ofsomewhat subaltern ability, one of the lights of that magistracy fromwhich Louis XIV. Loved to recruit the staff of his government, andwhence Madame des Ursins herself sprung on her mother's side. TheMarshal de Tessé was appointed to the command of the army, and Orry, apupil of Colbert and a distinguished financier, was one of those cleverand hard-working citizens who were amongst the best of French ministersof that epoch. This selection, equally excellent for both monarchs, wasbetter still for the Princess, to whom it guaranteed a valuableconcurrence without leaving her to apprehend any resistance. Those threemen, from the very moment of their arrival in Madrid, found themselvesface to face with two grave difficulties. The first was the oppositionof the grandees; the second, a foreign invasion. Aristocraticconspiracies were hatching in the capital. The Archduke Charles hadlanded in Catalonia, and several noblemen were endeavouring to clear theroad for him as far as Madrid. The Marquis de Leganez was the soul ofthis plot. Ever since the accession of Philip V. He had eluded takingthe oath of allegiance: and later, summoned to take up arms against theArchduke, he had refused. From that moment he became a suspected person. His sole refuge was a conspiracy: and that was his destruction. Arrestedby order of the new administration, he was conducted to the fortress ofPampeluna, afterwards to Bordeaux, whence his vain and tardyprotestations in favour of Philip V. Failed to extricate him. Thisenergetic blow struck terror into the hearts of the grandees andprepared the triumphal return of the Princess. 

CHAPTER VIII. 

 THE PRINCESS TRIUMPHS AT VERSAILLES. 

IN the balls given at Marly, she appeared loftily self-possessed, easyand familiar by turns, ogling people one after another with hereye-glass; and at one of these balls she made her appearance with a tinyspaniel under her arm, as though she had been in her own house, and(which was more remarked than anything else) the King caressed thelittle dog on several different occasions, when he went up to conversewith her, and he did so nearly throughout the evening. "She had neverbefore been seen to take so grand a flight. "

Madame des Ursins, who, though a woman of imagination, was, as we havesaid, but little liable to be dazzled, might still have been pardonedgiving way during these months of royal favour to an excess ofintoxication; but above all, and at the same time that she displayed thetreasures of her continual and inexhaustible conversation, she evinced alively appreciation of the King's mental qualities. She returns to thesubject afterwards too frequently, and enters too minutely into detailof what she discovered in him, not to show on her part a truthfulnessstronger than flattery. She never speaks of the King otherwise than as_l'homme du monde le plus aimable_, as the _meilleur ami_, and _le plushonnête homme du monde_. 

 "If I had further, Madam, as you observe to me (she writes to Madam de Maintenon) the happiness of his being more accustomed to me, I ingenuously confess to you that it only depends upon his Majesty to perceive that I find him _very good company_. Really, although I can boast of having, in my time, entertained in France, Italy, and Spain, all the wittiest and most agreeable persons therein, I have never been so much pleased with them as with his Majesty. You must own that this is a very frank avowal. "

There were not wanting those who even went so far as to suppose that theviews of Madame des Ursins went much further--"the age and health ofMadame de Maintenon tempting her. " The question must have occurred tothe Princess, it was hinted, whether the prospect of replacing her inFrance was not more alluring than any she was likely to meet with inSpain. Such conjectures, however, touching the inmost secrets of awoman's heart, are more easily formed than verified. 

That which appears far more certain is, that independently even ofpolitics there was a mental triumph achieved by her in this closecontact with the great King. Madame de Maintenon, Madame des Ursins, andLouis XIV. Were all three for some time under the same spell: "I oftenrecall to mind your ideas and that amiable countenance which so charmedme at Marly, " Madame de Maintenon writes to her a year later; "do youstill preserve that equanimity which allowed you to pass from the mostimportant topics of conversation with the King to indulge in _badinage_with Madame d'Heudicourt in my cabinet?" Madame des Ursins, who was onlyat that moment a bird of passage, was of those in whom the delight ofpleasing and the feeling of success doubly enhanced every innate grace. That slight fascination which she probably underwent, she repaid with ashower of sparkling phrases. 

Louis XIV. Himself was seduced both by her grace and her talent. He hadexpected, according to all accounts, to find in Madame des Ursins awoman of the Fronde, somewhat post-dated: instead of that he discovereda person whom it cost little to be naturally a person of authority, witha capacity for governing, and whose social powers never failed of theircharm, so elevated were their characteristics. She, even as a thirdparty, from her intercourse with Madame de Maintenon, felt herself growquite young again. Of these three potential persons, the assertion maybe hazarded that Madame des Ursins was still that one who bestmaintained her position, possessed the happy knack of turning all thingsto advantage through her lucid common sense: of the three she played herpart the most unrestrictedly, and therefore so much the better, throughan energetic will in carrying out what an acute judgment told her wasbest. 

Her brow encircled with the halo of victory, Madame des Ursins, after ayear's absence, re-entered that Spain which she had quitted humiliated:she returned to it amid the acclamations of its populace, welcomed inall its cities as a sovereign. The citadels fired salutes as she passed;the Spanish Court went out to meet her as far as Burgos; the King andQueen received her at some two leagues from Madrid. She returnedstrengthened by disgrace, so much the stronger that her absence hadproved injurious, treating henceforward as between Power and Power withthe Court of Versailles, which, yielding to a political necessity, recognized and graciously accepted, had restored her with its own handto the summit of power, and seemed, by that signal preference, to menacebeforehand all those who should pretend to struggle against hersovereign mission. 

Once re-established in Spain, Madame des Ursins, thus acting in harmonyonce more with Louis XIV. , set herself to pursue a more measured course, more regular and thoroughly irreproachable with relation to those whoseenvoy she was. She took no step save in concert with the sagaciousambassador M. Amelot. If the letters she addressed to Madame deMaintenon, and which commence immediately after her departure fromParis, do not reveal her genius in all its vigour and brilliancy, theyat any rate allow us to divine it in certain passages, and give usclearly the chief outlines of her character. The natural tone of hermind was serious, positive, somewhat dry at bottom, but frank, deliberate, and bold. Unlike Madame de Maintenon, she had politicalideas which she dared not only avow, but put into execution. Before allelse she decided upon the complete restoration of the King's authority. With reference to a claim advanced by the grandees against the captainof the guards, she was anxious to break up effectually that cabal of thegrandees who profited by the weakness of the new régime in order tocreate titles and prerogatives for themselves: otherwise it would be themeans of throwing Spain again into the same embarrassments as those inwhich France found herself during the Fronde, "when Frenchmen onlybusied themselves with provoking one another. " She was of opinion thatthe chiefs of that party should feel the effects of the King'sdispleasure before there was time to receive replies from France, inorder that it might clearly appear that it was a determination taken bythe King of Spain himself, and not a suggestion of others:

 "Do not be frightened, Madame, I entreat you, at these resolutions. It is fortunate that the grandees have given us such a lucky opportunity of mortifying them. Lacking strength and courage, these haughty nobles are ceaseless in their attempts to overthrow the authority of their king, and against whom I am incensed beyond measure for all which they did so long as they had the uppermost in the _Despacho_ (Privy Council). "

The virile tone of that paragraph carries us far beyond Madame deMaintenon. There was one thing, however, of more importance to Madamedes Ursins than appeasing the grandees, and that was to procure troopsand find the means of paying them. That done, she might laugh at everyother difficulty. "Would to heaven, " she exclaimed, "that it were aseasy to get the uppermost over the priests and monks, who are the causeof all the revolts you hear of!"

The first portion of the Princess's labours was accomplished. Her mostdangerous enemies had fallen: she reigned. But there yet remained a fewhostile nobles, and she resolved to strike at them. One of them, formerly her ally, the Duke de Montellano, president of Castile, excitedthe suspicion of this mistrustful woman. She manifested towards him, from the moment of her return, a haughty coldness. She dreaded to see ina post of such eminence a man placed by his birth amongst her worstenemies. Montellano, offended at her attitude towards him, tendered hisresignation. The King hesitated, but the Princess made him accept it, and the corregidor of Madrid, Ronquillo, a man of obscure origin, wasnominated to the presidentship. Amelot was equally mistrustful ofcertain grandees in the Privy Council, as was the Princess; and, whetherthey tendered their resignation or that it was required of them, theDuke de Montalto and the Count de Monterei were replaced by devotedpartisans of the Princess. The high aristocracy, indignant at thismanoeuvre, worked against her in an underhanded opposition, in which thedouble character of the Duke de Medina-Coeli was more and moredeveloped. Their plans were foiled in the very outset, but we shall seethem again make their appearance upon the political arena at a momentwhen it required nothing less than all the power and skill of Madame desUrsins to triumph over them. 

The Princess was, in fact, triumphing on the very brink of a volcano. Spain was in a blaze, and every day seemed to call in question theexistence of that throne under the shadow of which she had come toreign. Lord Peterborough had torn Barcelona from Philip V. , and thegreater part of its garrison had recognised the Archduke, who, actinghenceforward as King of Spain, had just made his entrance into that cityamidst the acclamations of the Catalan people. The principal fortressesof the province had shared the fate of the chief city; and on one sidethe insurrection spread to Saragossa, whilst on the other, the importantcity of Valencia proclaimed Charles III. The situation was little betterin the west of the kingdom, for an Anglo-Portuguese army had penetratedinto Estramadura, commanded by a French refugee who had been made anEnglish peer, [35] and whose hatred pursued Louis XIV. On every field ofbattle. Constrained to carry on the struggle simultaneously in Flanders, Italy, and beyond the Pyrenees, in order to defend the integrity of amonarchy which more and more hesitated in its obedience, the French Kinghad just sent to Spain thirty battalions and twenty squadrons, which itbecame necessary to supplement by despatching a new army. Unhappily, thetime was approaching when the French soldiery had more cause to dreadtheir own generals than those of the enemy; and these forces, besidesbeing insufficient, were placed under the command of Marshal de Tessé, acunning courtier but mediocre general, incapable of any initiativestrategy, and whose sole study was to carry out to the letter thepersonal instructions of Louis XIV. And Chamillard. However, either fromwant of sufficient resources or want of skill, Tessé failed this once inthe execution of his master's formal orders, which directed him tosuspend all his operations in order to retake Barcelona at any cost. Asiege languidly conducted in presence of a fleet mistress of the seas, on which the French flag dared no longer show itself, was followed by adisaster aggravated by the presence of the King of Spain and by bitterrecriminations between the two nations together engaged in that fatalenterprise. Alike indifferent to misfortune and success, still it mightbe seen in Philip, since the presence of his rival in Spain, that therewas an indomitable resolution to die sword in hand in defence of thesole right which touched his pride and his conscience. Before Barcelonahe had displayed a useless courage, and when de Tessé rendered itnecessary to raise the siege by his refusal to continue it, theinsurrection had closed to the King every road which gave access to hiscapital. To rejoin the Queen Regent in the heart of the two Castiles, Philip was compelled to take, in mortal agony, the road to France, inorder to direct his steps by way of Rousillon towards Navarre, thusgiving his enemies a plausible pretext for turning his going out of thekingdom into a desertion of the crown. 

 [35] The Duke of Berwick. 

Trials not less formidable awaited the young Queen at the hands offortune. Excited by the greatness of the danger, but finding a succourin the _sang-froid_ of Madame des Ursins, which her youth and ardourdenied her, adored by the inhabitants of Madrid, to whom in the hour ofcrisis she confided herself with a touching helplessness, the_Savoiana_, by the spell of her gentle and steady virtues, alonemaintained the royal authority in a country where "it was necessary tohave almost an army in each province. "[36]

 [36] Despatch of Marshal de Tessé to Chamillard, 4th Feb. , 1706. --_Mémoires_ de Noailles, tom. Ii. , p. 380. 

At length the day came when despair reigned everywhere save at the_Retiro_ Palace. The square d'Alcantara, defended by ten battalions, thelast remains of the Spanish army, had surrendered without fighting. Whether through folly or treason, Salamanca had also just fallen intothe enemy's hands, and the Anglo-Portuguese troops advanced by forcedmarches upon Madrid, in order there to proclaim Charles III. There wasnothing left but flight--but to quit a city of proved devotion andconfide in others of doubtful fidelity. The King had rejoined the Frencharmy; the Queen, accompanied by her _camerara mayor_ and a few femaleattendants, was compelled to repair to Burgos, in order there to keep upat least some shadow of legitimate government. The little party waswithout resources, money, almost without victuals. The silver platebelonging to the palace was hastily flung into the melting-pot; thesovereign of so many realms, after having borrowed by pawning so manythousand pistoles, packed up with her own hands those jewels which werea tribute to her from the new world, the pride and recreation of hersorrowful youth, previous to pledging them to the Jew brokers. Hercourt, lately so numerous, had been dispersed by the wind of adversity, not with the intent of influencing events, but, shameful to record, onlyto await them; and Marie Louise _enceinte_ with the first child of hermarriage, shaped her course towards the land of the Cid, resolved to gothither and defend the monarchy even among those rugged mountains whichhad been its cradle. Destitution prevailed throughout the solitudes ofCastile as well as in those poor _posadas_, bare as an Asiaticcaravanserai. If in the central provinces the populace showed itselffaithful, it was not without extreme suffering and the most cruelperplexity that the journey could be accomplished by almostimpracticable ways, through detachments of the enemy, launched inpursuit of the royal retinue. Nothing certainly is more honourable tothe memory of the Princess des Ursins than the letters in which sherelates with charming naturalness the daily accidents of thatadventurous life, which she supported at the age of sixty-five with allthe gaiety of a youthful tourist. [37]

 [37] Letters of the Princess to Mad. De Maintenon, from the 24th of June to 26th October, 1706. --Tom. Iii. , pp. 305 to 367. 

In the midst of these disasters, therefore, Philip V. Found a firmsupport in the devotion of the people and in the indefatigable zeal ofMadame des Ursins. At Madrid and in all the provinces, except Catalonia, the allies were received with that repugnance which presages adisastrous future and belies the most brilliant promises of victory. Madame des Ursins multiplied herself: speeches, letters, overtures--shespared nothing to obtain from the people the money indispensable forcarrying on the war. She thus arrested desertion, consolidated in OldCastile, and even in Andalusia the King's authority; she propagated, inshort (if we may so express it) the feeling of devotedness. She knew howto surround Philip V. With the austere majesty of royal misfortuneendured with courage and consoled by the watchful love of the nation. Atthe same time her cheerful and confident spirit restored to its serenitythe little court of Burgos. She locked within her own bosom herdiscouragements and inquietudes: she clung to hope, and thatsuccessfully. She sought and found in her own firm will consolationjustified by events. All her correspondence at this epoch, at timesamiable, witty, affectionate, at others grave, precise, and altogetherpolitic, full of facts, plans, exact details, worthy of a minister, andof a great minister too, shows the extraordinary genius of the woman. Itwas not she alone, certainly, who saved the dynasty, for it wasnecessary to fight and conquer to do that, but she was unquestionablyone of the most vigorous instruments ever made use of by Providence towork out its own purposes in defence of a nation. 

She had some ideas about war too--we do not say they were of the best, but she had some--and about plans of defence and the choice of generals. She anticipated coming dangers, which she laid bare and exposed withoutallowing herself to be discouraged by them. She described the nativetroops in their true colours, the places of importance entirelyunprovided for, according to Spanish custom; she energetically claimedhelp from France, and after asking for strong battalions in the body ofher letter, adds in a postscript that she has advised the King of Spainto have prayers offered up. She did not forget to send appropriateflatteries also to Madame de Maintenon. 

A few days after the arrival of the Duke of Berwick, in order to thankMadame de Maintenon for such aid, she spoke to her about Saint-Cyr, wellaware that nothing could be more agreeable, and knowing _the weakness ofmothers_. 

 "The Queen has highly approved of all your Saint-Cyr rules; our ladies are anxious to have them, and I am working hard at translating them into Spanish to afford them that satisfaction. If her Majesty were not under engagements very different to those of the young ladies of Saint-Cyr, I really believe that she would like to be one of your pupils. "

Her flattery knew well in what language to couch itself; but there weremoments at which, discontented at feeling Spain abandoned and lost sightof by Versailles, she became plain spoken even to rudeness. Greatallowance, however, ought to be made for the Princess's occasionalbluntness when it is remembered that she was then in her sixty-fourthyear, suffering from rheumatism and a painful affection of one of hereyes, a condition altogether very unpropitious in which to commence thecareer of arms in the capacity of field-marshal to a youthful Queen. Notwithstanding all this, however, she exerted herself to enliveneverybody, to console, to inspire fortitude and a spirit of joyousnessaround her, never to see things on their darkest side or through herailing eye, but to obey rather the buoyant spirit and an inclination tohope for the best, which was natural to her. 

 "It often happens, Madame, " she writes to Madame de Maintenon, "that when one thinks all is lost some fortunate circumstance occurs unexpectedly which entirely changes the face of things. " "I think, " she says in another letter, "that fortune may again become favourable to us; that it is with its favours as with too much health; I mean that one is never so near falling sick as when one feels oneself so remarkably well, nor so near being unfortunate as when our measure of happiness is full to the brim. I reverse the medal, and I await some consolation which may effectually alleviate my sorrows. I wish, Madame, that you would do the same, and that your temperament were your best friend, as mine is that on which I can surest reckon; for I think, to speak frankly, that I have more obligation to it than to my reason, and that there is no great merit in possessing that tranquillity of mind, of which you are disposed, in your extreme kindness, to think me possessed, and on which you bestow so much praise. "

Madame de Maintenon, in fact, who, strong-minded as she might be, wasnevertheless perpetually tormenting herself and wailing about somethingor other, continually eulogised that natural equanimity which sheenvied, that courage allied with good temper, that amiability, and that_beau sang qui ne laissait rien d'âpre et de chagrin en elle_. 

Her letters to Madame de Maintenon from Burgos, admirably paint thischaracteristic tranquillity of mind. "To enliven you, " she writes, "Imust give you a description of my quarters. They consist of a singleroom, which may measure twelve or thirteen feet at most. One largewindow which will not shut, facing the south, occupies almost entirelyone side. A somewhat low door gives me admittance to the Queen'schamber, and another still smaller opens into a winding passage, intowhich I dare not go, although it always has two or three lamps lightedin it, because it is so badly _paved_ that I should break my neck there. I cannot say that the walls are whitewashed, for they are so dirty. Mytravelling bedstead is the sole piece of furniture I have in it, besidesa folding stool and a deal table, which latter serves me alternately fora toilette, to write upon, or to hold the Queen's dessert--there beingno receptacle in the kitchen or elsewhere wherein to put it. I laugh atall this ... And amidst all the sombre occurrences which have befallenus, I console myself with my own reflections. I imagine that fortune maytake a good turn, and I calmly and trustfully wait for thoseconsolations which are powerful to assuage all my trouble. "[38] "Actionbecomes you, " Madame de Maintenon might remark with great truth. It was, in fact, an original and most distinctive feature in the Princess desUrsins' character, that of having been known to be a person sothoroughly calm in the main during a career so active and a destiny soagitated; and it was to this very characteristic equanimity that she wasindebted, after so abrupt a downfall at sixty-two, for the lot reservedfor her of dying in peace and of old age at eighty. But there are manyother traits worthy of study in her composition, and which place her inperfect contrast with her friend Madame de Maintenon. 

 [38] Mém. De Noailles, tom. Iii. , p. 375, and Letters to Mad. De Maintenon, tom. Iv. , p. 163. 

BOOK II. 

CHAPTER I. 

 SARAH JENNINGS AND JOHN CHURCHILL. 

THE succession of the Duke d'Anjou to the Spanish crown had, in fact, destroyed the balance of power in Europe; and our William the Third, then recently dead, but even beyond the grave the most resolute enemy ofLouis the Fourteenth, had bequeathed to him the new league which borethe name of the Great Alliance, and which had for its aim to place theSpanish crown upon the head of the Archduke Charles, the son of theEmperor of Germany; or in default of dispossessing Philip the Fifth ofhis kingdom, to trace round the two nations of France and Spain a limitwhich should never be overpassed by the ambition of either. All hope ofsuccess for the Archduke Charles--the legitimate successor to the lastfour effete kings of Spain--all the means which he might have ofpreserving in Europe two houses of Austria, and of continuing that grandAustrian duality which the sceptre of Charles the Fifth had produced, but which was then broken in twain, rested chiefly upon the Englishalliance. There, for the adversaries of Louis the Fourteenth, was theknot of the question. With the treasures of England, with her navy, withher troops also, together with the advantage of her situation, whichallowed of her doing so much mischief to France, the Imperialists mighteffect much; without her they could scarcely do anything. Hence withthem the necessity of keeping in power a party favourable to them--theWhigs, a party which preferred that ancient duality to the newduality--in other words, the ambition of Louis the Fourteenth totherewith augment the House of Bourbon, and in effect more dangerousthan the other to the English nation. But that necessity createdanother: it was requisite to have near Queen Anne some one who, atCourt, should be, as it were, the advanced sentinel of the Whigs, attached to the interests of Austria, and who would hinder frompenetrating, or at any rate prevailing therein any other interest thantheirs. This precaution was so much the more indispensable that QueenAnne's feeling towards the Whigs was purely official, and not a genuinesympathy. To these zealous partizans of Parliament and liberty, to theseavowed heirs of those who had made the revolution of 1640, she secretlypreferred the Tories. Amongst them she found admirers of the absoluteorder of government that Louis XIV. , lord of France instead of beinglegislator of it, had for too long a time substituted for the too muchcontemned troubles of the Fronde. And the rather as they might betermed, under that relation, a veritable French party, did she leantowards them, because they were the defenders of the royal prerogative. The exactions, the delays, the innumerable formalities of constitutionalmonarchy, wearied her to such an extent, that more than once the rumourran that she was willing to treat for the recall of her brother, theex-King James the Third. These reports were not without foundation, asthe Duke of Berwick tells us in his "Memoirs"; the desire alone ofpreventing civil war, to which fresh endeavours on the part of thatprince would give rise, was alleged as the generous motive forrelinquishing a design which the disgust of a too-limited power hadinspired. The Whigs well knew how to conjure that peril. But they hadalways to dread that whilst continuing to wear the crown, Anne might notso much consider the welfare of England as that of her own pleasure, where such welfare interfered with her peculiar sympathies; and lest inturning to the side of the Tories she might carry away from the ArchdukeCharles the support of England, in other words his chief reliance. Thequestion was how to guarantee themselves from that untoward eventuality?One means devised--and it was not the less available in this case ofroyalty exercised by a woman--was to secure to Queen Anne the adhesionof the Mistress of the Robes, Lady Churchill, the clever wife of thebrilliant soldier, afterwards Duke of Marlborough. 

This remarkable woman, who, without possessing great talents, and withthe disadvantage of an imperious and capricious temper, exercised for solong a period such exceptional influence over public affairs, was thesecond of the three daughters of Richard Jennings, a country gentlemanof good family but moderate fortune, her mother being FrancesThornhurst, daughter of Sir Gifford Thornhurst, of Agnes Court, in Kent, and his heiress. She was born at Holywell, near St. Alban's, 29th May, 1660, the very day of the restoration of Charles the Second. Inrecompense for the services rendered by their father during the civilwars, the two elder sisters were received when very young into thehousehold of the Duchess of York. 

When only twelve years old, Sarah Jennings had the good fortune tobecome the inseparable companion of the Princess Anne, who was about thesame age. Her beauty was not characterised by regularity of feature, butshe possessed an animated countenance, with eyes full of fire. She wassmall of stature, more piquante than imposing, and her chief charmswere centered in her magnificent tresses, the delicacy of her features, and certain peculiar graces of mind and person. These attractions wereenhanced by a conversation full of vivacity and intelligence. Prudentand virtuous--for even Swift, who was otherwise the remorseless enemy ofthe Duke and Duchess of Marlborough, renders homage to the virtue of thelatter--in the midst of a corrupt Court, and enjoying the highest favourof the Royal Family, she had for admirers some men of the highest rankin England. Amongst those who aspired to her hand may be cited theadmired Earl of Lindsay, afterwards Marquis of Ancaster, "the star andornament of the Court, " whose suit she rejected for that of the youngand handsome Colonel Churchill. A single trait suffices to prove thelady's attractiveness--the avaricious John Churchill wooed and weddedher although all along he knew Sarah to be altogether portionless. 

This successful wooer--afterwards Lord Churchill and Duke ofMarlborough--who had entered the army at sixteen, was the son of a poorcavalier knight who had come to London after the Restoration. Love, notWar, was the first stepping-stone to his subsequent high fortune. TheDuke of York, heir to the Crown, "young and ardent in the pursuit ofpleasure, " became enamoured of Arabella Churchill one of themaids-of-honour to his first wife, and afterwards his avowed mistress. Through this lady's interest, her elder brother John obtained a pair ofcolours in the Guards. In his twenty-third year he made his firstcampaign in the Low Countries when Charles and Louis united their forcesagainst Holland. Distinguished by his commanding stature and handsomeface, he was known to the French soldiery as the "handsome Englishman. "Turenne complimented him on his gallantry and "serene intrepidity"before the allied armies. The Marshal had been attracted to him by hiscourage, and is said to have laid a wager, which he won, on the subjectof Churchill's gallantry, on the occasion of a post of importance havingbeen abandoned by one of his own officers. "I will bet a supper and adozen of claret, " said he, "that my handsome Englishman will recover thepost with half the number of men commanded by the officer who lost it. "The event justified the Marshal's opinion. Emboldened by the praise ofsuch a general, Churchill solicited but did not obtain the command of aregiment from Louis XIV. , [39] the great King refusing his services, ashe declined those of Prince Eugene a few years later. He was esteemedone of the handsomest and most attractive gentlemen of the day. LordChesterfield, the _arbiter elegantiarum_, declared that the grace andfascination of young Churchill was such, that he was "irresistibleeither by man or woman. "

 [39] This curious fact was lately ascertained by M. Moret, through the discovery of an inedited, but authentic document, in the _Archives de la Guerre_ in Paris. It appears in a letter of Lord Lockhart, the English Ambassador at Paris, who asks that the colonelcy of a regiment might be given to Churchill. It is dated 27th of May, 1674. --_Archives de la Guerre_, vol. 411, No. 193. 

On his return to London at the close of the war, the young soldierbecame attached to the household of the Duke of York, and rose rapidlyin that witty, gallant, and corrupt Court, where shone the Grammonts, Rochesters, and Hamiltons, and where Churchill sought the society of thesultanas who shared with Charles the government of England. The handsomeChurchill became, for a short time, the object of the violent but ficklefondness of the head sultana, the Duchess of Cleveland. On one occasionthe audacious gallant was very nearly caught in the frail beauty'sapartments by "old Rowley, " and only escaped by leaping from the windowat the risk of his life. For this exploit the grateful Duchess presentedher daring lover with five thousand pounds. Churchill made no scruple ofreceiving the money, so early had the sordid propensity for gain takenhold of him, and with it he at once bought an annuity of five hundred ayear, well secured on the estate of Lord Chesterfield's grandfather, Halifax. [40]

 [40] Chesterfield's Letters, November 18th, 1748. 

After some disputes and obstacles on the part of the Churchill family, which the Duchess of York herself took the trouble to obviate, the twolovers were united in the month of April, 1678: and whilst the husbandadvanced in the confidence and favour of James, his wife made still morerapid progress in the affections of the young Princess, his daughter. 

During many years of married happiness, Churchill testified the greatestaffection for his wife, and always kept her minutely informed--evenamidst councils and battle-fields--upon the state of public affairs, andshowed the most entire deference and the liveliest affection for her. Most of his letters end with these words: "I am yours, heart and soul. "Lady Churchill governed this great man, in fact, like a child--whohimself governed kings. Like the Princess des Ursins, she possessedincontestably certain qualities, a liking and capacity for publicbusiness, a knowledge of men, the shrewdness of her sex, the obstinacyof her race, an inconceivable love of domination; but she was hard, vindictive, insatiable of honours and wealth, and united to the pride ofa queen the rage of a fury. 

Aided by his sister, by the King's imperious mistress and his ownincontestable merit, Churchill climbed fast up the ladder ofpreferment. He obtained successively the command of the only dragoonregiment in the service, a Scotch peerage, and the post of Ambassador tothe Court of France. Lord Churchill, however, was destined to beadvanced still higher in court favour through the influence of his wifeand his own genius as a general. 

At the Revolution of 1688, he coldly foorsook James II. , his benefactor, and carried over his formidable sword to the House of Orange. TheRevolution augmented his fortune. Created Earl and General by WilliamIII. ; Duke, Knight of the Garter and Commander of the British Armies byQueen Anne. Marlborough was one of those men whom conviction astonishes, devotedness confounds; who acknowledge no other law than that of theirown interest, no other deity than success, and which the uncontrollablecurrent of human affairs not unfrequently brings rapidly to the surface. Cradled in revolutions, he had seen the Commonwealth pass away, theStuarts fall, the House of Orange proclaimed. He had taken part inintrigues, plots, apostacies, defections: doubt alone survived everyother political instinct of his heart. Faithful to the very brink ofmisfortune, he ever adhered unswervingly until the dawning of the evildays. Well aware how quickly dynasties expire in a country convulsed byrevolutions, he had learnt to anticipate approaching catastrophes, andto secure to himself beforehand an _appui_ amongst the victorioussurvivors. Whilst he was defending the cause of the House of Orange inEurope, he corresponded secretly with the Stuarts, kept up assiduousrelations with the little Court of St. Germains, and made underhandpreparations for marrying one of his daughters with the Pretender, thenex-King (James III. ), at St. Germains, and, perhaps, on the morrow _defacto_ King of England. But if Marlborough's soul was mean and sordid, his genius was vast and powerful. In parliament, at St. James's, inforeign councils, in foreign courts, on the field of battle, everywherehe dominated men. His education had been so very much neglected that hecould scarcely write correctly his native English, and yet, when he roseto speak in the House of Lords, the entire assembly hung upon his words, and the most consummate orators, the heads of the British forum, wereenvious of that natural eloquence which without effort went straight tothe heart; and he exercised that charm even upon his foes, to such adegree that Bolingbroke once remarked to Voltaire, when speaking of him:"He was such a great man that I have forgotten his vices. "[41]

 [41] Voltaire, Beuchot's edition, tom. Xxxvii. Lettre xii. , p. 172. 

At the period of which we are now treating, Marlborough was the mostpowerful personage in England: by his wife, the Queen's favourite, heruled the household; by the Whigs, become his friends, parliament andthe ministry; by his rank and his military popularity, the army; byPrince Eugene, his comrade in arms, the councils of Austria; by his oldfriend Heinsius, the States-General; by the weight of his name, hisconduct and address, the suppleness of his character, Prussia and theprinces of the Empire. It was he who raised their regiments, whoregulated their subventions, who appeased their quarrels. He was thehead and arm of the coalition. As potent as Cromwell, more of a kingthan William III. ; without affection or hatred, he justified the sayingof Machiavelli: "The universe belongs to the phlegmatic. "

We will now revert to his no less celebrated wife, who, as LadyChurchill and Duchess of Marlborough, so long and wholly swayed the mindand ruled the court of Queen Anne. Brought up in such close intimacywith the Princess, Lady Churchill had assumed from childhood an absoluteascendancy over her mind. Anne was indolent and taciturn; she delightedin the lively talk of her companion and bosom friend, and loved her inspite of her haughty temperament, to which her own easy dispositionyielded without offering the slightest resistance. Married to a sullenand insignificant husband, whose sole delight was centred in a crapulouslove of the bottle; she had lost her only son during his minority--hadseen her father, James II. Dethroned, her brother, the Chevalier St. George, proscribed, and, to the exclusion of that well-beloved brother, she was compelled to leave her crown to a stranger--the Elector Georgeof Hanover, for whom she felt an invincible aversion. Anne confided allher griefs to her favourite Mistress of the Robes, and by degrees anardent affection for her inseparable companion, which had in it all thedelicate tenderness of feminine friendship, sprung up in the Princess'sbosom. Such was the strength of the attachment that it was the desire ofthe Princess that all distinction prescribed by etiquette should bewaived. She required that in their epistolary correspondence they shouldtreat each other as equals, under the assumed names of Mrs. Morley andMrs. Freeman. Lady Churchill chose the latter, which would be, she said, the emblem of her "frank, open temper. " Under these assumed names theywrote frequently to each other to communicate their sentiments of joy, anguish, hope or fear, according to the events of the day, and gavethemselves up unrestrictedly to the momentary impulse of their hearts. 

"I both obtained and held the place in her service, " the favourite goeson to relate, "without the assistance of flattery--a charm which, intruth, her (the Princess's) inclination for me, together with myunwearied application to serve and amuse her rendered needless; butwhich, had it been otherwise, my temper and turn of mind would neverhave suffered me to employ. Young as I was when I first became this highfavourite, I laid it down as a maxim, that flattery was falsehood to mytrust, and ingratitude to my dearest friend.... From this rule I neverswerved: and though my temper and my notions in most things were widelydifferent from those of the Princess, yet, during a long course ofyears, she was so far from being displeased with me for openly speakingmy sentiments, that she sometimes professed a desire, and even added hercommand, that it should be always continued, promising never to beoffended at it, but to love me the better for my frankness. "

CHAPTER II. 

 STATE OF PARTIES IN ACTION ON THE ACCESSION OF ANNE--HARLEY AND BOLINGBROKE AIM AT OVERTHROWING THE SWAY OF THE DUCHESS--ABIGAIL HILL BECOMES THE INSTRUMENT OF THE DUCHESS'S DOWNFALL. 

THE year following that in which the Duke d'Anjou succeeded to thethrone of Spain saw Anne Queen of England. 

On her accession Queen Anne had found three parties in action--theTories, the Whigs, and the Jacobites. The first asserting thesovereignty of the royal prerogative; the second the extension of publicliberty; the last demanding the exclusion of the Protestant George ofHanover, designated by the Commons as the Queen's heir, and the recallof the Chevalier St. George, the Romanist son of James II. , then anexile in France, where Louis XIV. Had welcomed him under the title ofJames III. 

Of these three parties, the last, who were desirous of a revolution witha change of dynasty, naturally found themselves excluded from publicaffairs; the Queen, facile and conciliating, divided the power of theState between the two others, and chose a ministry comprising the mosteminent men among both Whigs and Tories. 

Those statesmen jointly carried on the government for four years, afterwhich the opposition of their sentiments and interests became so violentthat it divided them. The Tories, representing the landed interest, which had suffered during the war, clamoured for peace with all theirmight; the Whigs, on the contrary, representing the monied interest, had lent their funds to the State, and desired the continuance ofhostilities, as it enhanced the value of their capital. The Whigstriumphed in this first struggle. They ejected, in the first instance, three Tories from the Ministry, and afterwards obtained the dismissal ofall the rest--Mansel, Harley, and Bolingbroke, and then ruled withoutdivision. They reckoned amongst their ranks the most illustrious men ofthe day: Marlborough, the great soldier; the skilful financier, Godolphin; the formidable speaker, Robert Walpole; the army, publicopinion, parliament, and even the very heart of the Queen, through theDuchess of Marlborough, who, intoxicated with her almost unlimited sway, no longer deigned to ask, but commanded. 

The influence of the Duchess of Marlborough at the court of Queen Annewas now well understood by the continental powers of Europe. WhenEngland, in 1703, received a foreign potentate as her guest, the Duchess, was, of all her subjects, the object peculiarly selected fordistinction. Charles, the second son of the Emperor of Austria, havingrecently been proclaimed, at Vienna, King of Spain, in opposition to theDuke of Anjou, completed his visits to sundry courts in Germany, whitherhe had repaired to seek a wife, by paying his respects to Anne ofEngland. Anne received her royal ally with great courtesy at Windsor, whither he was conducted by Marlborough, and there entertained with atruly royal magnificence. All ranks of people crowded to see the youngmonarch dine with the Queen in public, and his deportment and appearancewere greatly admired by the multitude, more especially by the fair sex, whose national beauty was, on the other hand, highly extolled byCharles. The Duchess of Marlborough, though no longer young, stillgraced the court which she controlled. It was her office to hold thebasin of water after dinner to the Queen, for the royal hands to bedipped, after the ancient fashion of the laver and ewer. Charles tookthe basin from the fair Duchess's hand, and, with the gallantry of ayoung and well-bred man, held it to the Queen; and in returning it tothe Duchess, he drew from his own finger a valuable ring and placed iton that of the stately Sarah. 

It was two years after this visit that Charles sent a letter of thanksfor the assistance granted him by the Queen against the French, which headdressed to the Duchess of Marlborough, "as the person most agreeableto her Majesty. " The King might have added, as a partisan mostfavourable to the aid afforded him, and most inimical to the sway ofFrance, which, by the will of the late King of Spain, Charles theSecond, had been unjustly extended over the Spanish monarchy. 

At the time of the overthrow of the Tories, she had pushed obsession ofher royal mistress even as far as constraint. To the Whigs, who hadproscribed her brother, Anne preferred the Tories; but, in spite ofthese sympathies the favourite had demanded the dismissal of theMinistry, and the Queen had yielded, though not without the deepestgrief, to her imperious Mistress of the Robes. 

Thus got rid of by an intrigue, the Tories, and at their head the twocelebrated statesmen, Harley and Bolingbroke, worked steadfastly in thedark to regain power. Harley was a skilful and eloquent orator. He hadquitted the bar to enter parliament, and his suppleness as well as histalents had rapidly carried him on to the Speakership and the Ministry. He had specially directed his attention to finance, and passed for themost skilful financier of his day. A man of wit and taste, he lovedbooks and manuscripts, and patronised the most illustrious writers ofthe reign: Swift, the English Rabelais, Pope, Boileau, and Prior, theRegnier of Great Britain. But he was not unjustly reproached for hisobstinacy of character, the changeableness of his opinions, hisproneness to descend to little means, and an unfortunate passion fordrink. [42]

 [42] This habit of drinking had then invaded even the highest ranks of English society, the Queen herself not being exempt. Walpole, Harley's enemy, has traced a curious and tolerably accurate portrait of him in his "Letters. "

The other chief of the Tory party was Henry St. John, so well-knownunder the name of Bolingbroke. [43] He descended from an old Normanfamily allied to the royal house of Tudor. His grandfather, as though hehad foreseen the future, had bequeathed him the greater part of hisproperty, and Bolingbroke began the world under the happiest auspices ofbirth and fortune. At twenty-six, after a career of youthfullicentiousness, he married and entered parliament. He had all thenecessary qualifications for playing a distinguished part therein: anoble countenance, ready eloquence, an incredible capacity for work, amind which later astonished Voltaire, a memory so retentive that heavoided reading mediocre books from the fear of retaining theircontents. At thirty, his lofty and copious oratory, unceasingly fed bystudy of the ancient models, captivated both Lords and Commons. Hispowerful and versatile genius embraced at once poetry and jurisprudence, history and the _belles lettres_. He was associated, like Harley, withthe first writers in England--Pope, Prior, Swift, Dryden, even withAddison himself, the Whig poet and essayist. He was one of thoseconsummate orators who, joining grace to eloquence, was the foremostalike in pleasure or business. He was in the habit of saying that onlyfools were unable to find or enjoy leisure. He possessed, in short, thepeculiar talents and vices which were destined later to immortalise aswell as disgrace Mirabeau. 

 [43] He was only created Viscount Bolingbroke in 1712, but we give him the name by which he is best known in history. 

Uniting their talents and their rancour against the imperious anduncompromising woman who had compassed their disgrace, Harley andBolingbroke, in their turn, had set about overthrowing the sway of theDuchess. They craftily endeavoured to undermine, therefore, thatfriendship which constituted her strength, and sought for a rival whomight supplant her in the Queen's heart. There was then at court a younglady named Abigail Hill, the daughter of a bankrupt merchant of London, who, when in poverty, had been taken by the hand by the Duchess ofMarlborough, to whom she was cousin, and through her influence appointedbedchamber-woman to the Queen. By a singular chance, Abigail Hill wasalso a cousin of Harley, who during his administration married her toMasham, a dangling official of the royal household, who had beenindebted for his post rather to his birth and connections than anypersonal merit. 

Up to the period of Marlborough's brilliant victory of Ramilies (May, 1706), the influence of the Duchess over the mind of her sovereign wasnot visibly lessened by her own indiscretion, or by the arts of heropponents. From the moment of Anne's accession, she had flung herselfwith ardour into politics. To dominate was her favourite passion. Andshe imagined that she could decide affairs of State as easily as shedirected a petty intrigue, or suppressed a squabble within the interiorof the royal household. Instead of using the absolute sway she had overthe Queen with tact and moderation, she exercised it with an imprudentaudacity. Her party predilections were diametrically opposed to those ofAnne, who was sincerely attached to the principles of the Tories, andwho ardently desired to bring them into power. The Duchess did not allowher a moment's repose until she had, by concession after concession, surrounded herself by the chiefs of the Whig party, whom she at heartdetested. Hence an endless succession of piques, misunderstandings, andjars between the royal Lady and her imperious Mistress of the Robes. Theglory and the important services of the Duke had, however, long deferredthe explosion of these secret resentments; but it was when Harley foundit impossible by any means to establish himself in the favour of theDuchess, and gain her over to his interest, that he hit upon a planwhich succeeded to the utmost, as trifles often do when more importantengines fail. The one he used was ready to his hand in the person of thebedchamber-woman, who had been placed about the Queen by the Duchessherself. In a letter, supposed to have been addressed to Bishop Burnet, the Duchess gives a brief account of this person, who was her kinswoman, in explanation to his inquiry as to the first cause of her disagreementwith the Queen. 

Abigail Hill--a name rendered famous from the momentous changes whichsucceeded its introduction to the political world--was the appropriatedesignation of the lowly, supple, and artful being on whose secretoffices Harley relied for the accomplishment of his plans. Mistress Hillat this time held the post of dresser and chamber-woman to her Majesty. The world assigned certain causes for the pains which the proudfavourite (the Duchess) had manifested to place her cousin in a postwhere she might have easy access to the Queen's ear, and obtain herconfidence. The Duchess, it was said, was weary of her arduousattendance upon a mistress whom she secretly despised. She had becometoo proud to perform the subordinate duties of her office, and proposedto relieve herself of some of them, by placing one on whom she couldentirely depend, as an occasional substitute in the performance of thoseduties which even habit had not taught her to endure with patience. Since after the elevation of the Duke, in consequence of the battle ofBlenheim, she had become a princess of the empire, [44] she was supposedto consider herself too elevated to continue those services to which shehad been enured, first in the court of the amiable Anne Hyde, then inthat of the unhappy Mary of Modena, and since, near her too gracioussovereign, the meek, but dissembling Anne. 

 [44] Lediard, vol. Ii. , p. 2. 

The ungrateful kinswoman had been early acquainted with adversity, whichwas the remote cause of her ultimate greatness. "Mrs. Masham, " theDuchess tells us, in her succinct narrative, "was the daughter of oneHill, a merchant in the city, by a sister of my father. Our grandfather, Sir John Jenyns, had two-and-twenty children, by which means the estateof the family, which was reputed to be about four thousand pounds ayear, came to be divided into small parcels. Mrs. Hill had only £500 toher fortune. Her husband lived very well for many years, as I have beentold, until turning projector, he brought ruin on himself and family. But as this was long before I was born, I never knew there were suchpeople in the world till after the Princess Anne was married, and whenshe lived at the Cockpit; at which time an acquaintance of mine came tome and said, _she believed I did not know that I had relations who werein want_, and she gave me an account of them. When she had finished herstory, I answered, _that indeed I had never heard before of any suchrelations_, and immediately gave her out of my purse ten guineas fortheir present relief, saying I would do what I could for them. "

Not contented with conferring important benefits on Abigail's brothersand sister, the Duchess tells us that even the _husband_ of Mrs. Mashamhad several obligations to her. "It was at my instance, " says theindignant benefactress, "that he was first made a page, then an equerry, and afterwards groom of the bedchamber to the Prince; for all which hehimself thanked me, as for favours procured by my means. "

Towards the Queen, Mrs. Hill displayed a servile, humble, gentle, andpliant manner, in singular contrast with that of the commanding andhaughty Duchess. Anne, accustomed to opposition and remonstrance, nay, sometimes rebukes, upon certain points she had at heart, was delightedto find that as regarded both religious opinions and politics, her lowlyattendant coincided with her. Mrs. Hill was, or pretended to be to serveher purpose, an enemy to the Hanoverian succession, if not a partizan ofthe exiled Stuarts--subjects on which the Queen and the Duchess wereknown to have frequent controversies, which sometimes degenerated intoangry disputes. Such was the woman whom the Tories set up to oppose andundermine the influence of the redoubtable Sarah. Mrs. Masham was ableto give them, by means of her court-appointment, continual access to theQueen. She had neither the wit nor the intelligence of her rival, butshe pleased Anne by the simplicity of her manners and the amenity ofher temper. Moreover, two powerful ties, political and religious, thoughstrangely contradictory in their sympathies, attached her to her royalmistress. An ardent Jacobite, she, equally with the Queen, desired thereturn of the Pretender; like her, too, she was a zealous Protestant. 

Carrying out Harley's injunctions, Mrs. Masham strove secretlyto sap the power and credit of the Whigs at Court, by dailyrepresenting to Queen Anne the disquieting influence of their chief, Marlborough--master, as he was, of the parliament, the army, theministry, the court, --more sovereign, in fact, than the Queen herself;and she recalled to mind that last dismissal of the Tories, so rudelyand imperiously dictated by the Duchess. The Queen, moved even to terrorby such advice, drew closer by degrees to her new confidante, andshortly manifested towards her a favour which the Duchess of Marlboroughwas the first to perceive. But instead of seeking to revive a friendshipstill endeared to the Queen, the Duchess complained sharply of it beingshared. At the same time she heaped every species of contempt, sarcasm, and insult upon Mrs. Masham, spread the vilest calumnies about her, andthen, perceiving the inutility of her efforts, directed the current ofher wrath against the throne. In the month of August, 1708, during athanksgiving service at St. Paul's on the occasion of the battle ofOudenarde, Anne found that she had not put on her diamonds, and blamedthe Duchess for the omission, it belonging to her duty as Mistress ofthe Robes. The quondam favourite made her Majesty a haughty reply; andAnne, hurt at it, repeated her reproaches with greater warmth. TheDuchess, furious, imposed silence upon her royal mistress. "I don't askyou for an answer, " she exclaimed loud enough to be heard by the courtand congregation, "don't answer me. " The Queen remained silent, dreadingfurther scandal, but she did not forget that day's incident. [45]

 [45] The extent of her insolence towards the Queen on this occasion is scarcely conceivable. "The Duchess gave her her gloves to hold, " relates Walpole; "and, on taking them back, suddenly turned away her head, as though the breath of her royal mistress had imparted a disagreeable odour. "

A year afterwards, during the autumn of 1709, another altercation tookplace still more deplorable. Anne was in the habit of allowing a bottleof wine to be daily carried to one of her laundrymaids who was ailing, without previously asking leave of the Mistress of the Robes. Thiscoming to the knowledge of the Duchess, she ran after the Queen one dayas Anne was proceeding on her charitable errand, reproached her forhaving usurped her functions, and behaved with such violence that thelackeys at the bottom of the stairs could overhear what she said. Indignant at this, Anne rose to leave the room, but the Duchessprevented her by placing her back against the door, and, during an hour, exhausted herself by launching invectives against her sovereign. Havingsufficiently vented her rage, the angry woman ended by saying thatdoubtless she should never see her again, but she cared very littleabout that. "I think, " calmly replied Anne, "the seldomer the better. "The Duchess at length quitted the room, but from that day the links oftheir hitherto close friendship were rudely broken, their correspondenceinterrupted, and the Queen gave her entire confidence to Mrs. Masham. 

The subtle Abigail was ever on the watch to closely observe the frequentdisagreements between her Majesty and the Mistress of the Robes, and didnot fail to turn them to skilful account. When the storm had subsided, and the Queen poured into her friendly ear confidential complaints ofthe absent Duchess, Abigail's sympathy, acquiescence, and responsivecondolences, were ever ready, and effected their purpose. Thelady-dresser thus gradually wormed herself into the Queen's affections, and as gradually undermined what remained of friendly feeling betweenher powerful kinswoman and their royal mistress. Every one at court hadbecome aware of the influence of the new favourite before the Duchessherself perceived it; but it was not in the power of the artfulrelative, nor of her tool, the Queen, much longer to blind the womanwhom they had, with true vulgarity of mind, gloried in deceiving. [46]

 [46] MSS. Brit. Mus. , Coxe Papers, vol. Xliv. 

From the time of Mrs. Masham's admittance to close attendance on theQueen, the Duchess seemed in a constant state of irritation andannoyance. Her letters to Anne showed the mortification and vexation sheendured, and prove the petty and ungrateful conduct of thebedchamber-woman, whose hold on the Queen's regard was sustained by athousand mean and paltry instances of treachery to her benefactress. That Queen Anne, who had once been really attached to a woman like theDuchess of Marlborough, could condescend to replace her by such a rivalis not a little surprising, and shows the true bent of her character tohave been such as to render her unworthy of the friendship of an honestand high-minded woman. That the Duchess herself entered into details ofpetty injuries, and descends to justify herself, cannot be wondered at;for such subjects were forced upon her, and much as it galled herfeelings to be obliged to notice what she held in contempt, still shehad no other course to pursue. 

At length, the Duchess perceived clearly enough that she had beenhoodwinked in certain matters by the Queen and Mrs. Masham, and thatwithout any reasonable cause for resorting to mystery or deception. Having discovered that not only was Mrs. Hill's marriage known to theQueen, though she had denied any knowledge of the event, but that herMajesty had been herself at the wedding, and given a large dower to thebride, the Duchess immediately wrote to Mrs. Masham, to desire anexplanation of her reasons for concealing so important an occurrencefrom one whom she had every reason to consider her only friend. Thecautious answer which she received to her question was dictated, as sheeasily perceived, by no other than Harley, whose tool she now saw, toolate, her unworthy cousin was; and it became sufficiently plain that herempire over the mind of the weak Queen was gone. 

The Duchess was, whatever her faults, upright, honest, truthtelling, andfearless; and _she_ was long before she could suspect the treachery andmeanness of a dependent; and still longer in believing that the womanwho had for so many years been her pupil, and had been accustomed to herfrankness, could condescend to a low cabal, and, displacing her from hercouncils, solace herself with the society of a person so immeasurablyher inferior. 

The betrayed Mistress of the Robes could now trace the whole system ofdeception which had been carried on to her injury for a considerabletime; her relative and former dependent being the chief agent--hersovereign the accomplice. She could account for the interest whichHarley had now acquired at court by means of this new instrument. Shecould explain to her astonished and irritated mind certain incidents, which had seemed of little moment when they occurred, but whichafforded an unquestionable confirmation of all that she had learned. 

When the Duchess could no longer doubt the mortifying truth, shecommunicated the fact to her friend, Lord Godolphin, and to her husband, then abroad. Marlborough wearied with these, as he considered them, petty dissensions, wrote a somewhat stern letter to his wife. The greatsoldier was annoyed and distressed at the details of paltry wrongs whichhe was obliged to hear, and grown impatient, forgot that sometimes, --

"Dire events from little causes spring;"

he did not contemplate his own, his wife's, and his friend's disgrace, from the contemptible quarrels among the women about the court. 

"If you have good reasons, " he writes, "for what you write of thekindness and esteem the Queen has for Mrs. Masham and Mr. Harley, myopinion should be, that my Lord Treasurer and I should tell her Majestywhat is good for herself; and if that will not prevail, to be quiet, andto let Mr. Harley and Mrs. Masham do what they please; for I own I amquite tired, and if the Queen can be safe I shall be glad. I hope theLord Treasurer will be of my mind; and then we shall be much happierthan by being in a perpetual struggle. "

At length the mask of affected humility assumed by Mrs. Masham wasthrown off entirely; and, confident in the support of her royalmistress, the upstart favourite exhibited all the scorn and insolencewhich was in her nature. The Duchess expatiates with femininepertinacity upon the stinging impertinences and insulting condescensionsshe had to endure from her lately exalted cousin. One instance shedwells on with bitter recollection, for it was the first time the minionof the Queen had dared to show her how little she regarded her. 

When having with difficulty obtained an interview with Mrs. Masham, theDuchess upbraided her with her treachery, and observed, that she wascertain no good intentions towards herself could have influenced heractions, Abigail replied:--

"... Very gravely, that she was sure the Queen, who had always loved meextremely, would _always be very kind to me_. I was some minutes beforeI could recover from the surprise with which so extraordinary an answerstruck me. To see a woman whom I had raised out of the dust put on sucha superior air, and to hear her assure me, by way of consolation, thatthe Queen would always be very kind to me!--I was stunned to hear hersay so strange a thing!"

The Duchess of Marlborough was now, therefore, at open variance with hercousin. Towards her Majesty she stood in a predicament the most curiousand unprecedented that perhaps ever existed between sovereign andsubject. The amused and astonished court beheld Anne cautiously creepingout of that subjection in which the Duchess had, according to herenemies, long held the timid sovereign. 

A confidential friend of the Duchess, Mr. Mainwaring, remarks of her, inone of his letters, that she was totally deficient in that "part ofcraft which Mr. Hobbes very prettily calls crooked wisdom. "[47] Apt, asshe herself expresses it, "to tumble out her mind, " her openness andhonesty were appreciated, when at an advanced age, and after she had runthe career of five courts--by that experienced judge, the Lady MaryWortley Montagu, who often presumed upon the venerable Duchess'scandour in telling her unpalatable truths, which none but the honestcould have borne to hear. It was this uprightness and singleness of mindwhich rendered the Duchess unwilling to believe in the duplicity and theinfluence of her cousin. Warned of it by Mr. Mainwaring, it was notuntil she found in the Queen a defender of Mrs. Masham's secretmarriage, that the Duchess was roused into suspicion. It was then thatshe communicated her conviction to Lord Godolphin and to Marlborough, and besought their advice and assistance. 

 [47] Private Correspondence, vol. I. , p. 105. 

The Duke had just then prepared measures for carrying on the war, andhad completed every arrangement for his voyage into Holland; the onlything which detained him in England was, says Cunningham, "the quarrelamong the women about the court. " He desired his often-offended Duchess"to put an end to those controversies, and to avoid all occasions ofsuspicion and disgust; and not to suffer herself to grow insolent uponthe favour of fortune; "otherwise, " said he, "I shall hardly be ablehereafter to excuse your fault, or to justify my own actions, howevermeritorious. " To which the Duchess replied, "I will take care of thosethings, so that you need not be in any fear about me; but whoever shallthink to remove me out of the Queen's favour, let them take care lestthey remove themselves. "

It was not long before Marlborough perceived that the Duchess was notmistaken in her apprehensions; nor before he became painfully aware ofthe fact, that services of the greatest magnitude are often not to beweighed against slights and petty provocations. 

Queen Anne, however, had some pangs of conscience, in spite of her joyat being emancipated from the thraldom of her haughty Mistress of theRobes, in ill-treating the great general who had filled her reign withglory; but the uninterrupted gossip which she delighted now to indulgein with her waiting-woman compensated for all. 

Soon after Marlborough had won the sanguinary battle of Malplaquet, thecelebrated trial of the noted Doctor Sacheverell took place; on whichoccasion an incident occurred which completed the downfall of theDuchess. The prosecution of Sacheverell had been advised by the Duke, lest he should preach him and his party out of the kingdom. 

CHAPTER III. 

 SUCCESS OF THE CABAL, ETC. 

THE result of the trial of Sacheverell made Harley and the favouritesure of the temper of the nation, and they resolved to hesitate nolonger. The cabal had succeeded, and the Queen, a tool in the hands ofothers, by degrees gave up every appearance of regard for the Duchess, or of gratitude to the Duke. Though still fighting his country's battlesand gaining immortal honours, the cabal sought to overwhelm him withunkindness and mortification at home. On the death of Lord Essex, theQueen was urged to give the Duke's regiment to Major Hill, Mrs. Masham'sbrother. Marlborough, highly indignant, insisted on Abigail beingdismissed, or else he would resign; but the efforts of Godolphin andother friends accommodated the matter, and he was contented with thedisposal of the regiment being left with him. To prove, as it were, theinfluence of the favourite, the Queen soon after gave Hill a pension of£1, 000 a year; and she made the Duke consent to raise him to the rank ofbrigadier. 

It was Harley's plan to overthrow the Ministry by degrees; and when LordGodolphin was dismissed from office, the triumph of the adverse partywas complete. Thus fell the most able, and perhaps the most patrioticadministration that England had possessed since the days of Elizabeth. It fell by disunion in itself, by the imprudent impeachment of acontemptible divine, and by the intrigues of the bedchamber, where aweak woman, whom the constitution had invested with power, wasdomineered over by one attendant and wheedled and flattered by another. 

It was thus that, after seven-and-twenty years' service and professedfriendship, Anne emancipated herself from all obligations, and shook offthe yoke which pressed too heavily on her mind, regardless of theconfusion into which her weak compliance with interested persons castthe country. 

It was now that all the malice which had been long repressed burst out, and poured forth its vengeance on the disgraced favourite. Among otherlibellers in the service of the new Ministry Swift employed his greattalents to cover her with ridicule and obloquy. In the celebratedjournal called "The Examiner, " his unjust insinuations must have beeneven more galling than his abuse. He represents the Duke and Duchess asextortioners and dissipators of the public money, insatiable in theiravarice, and greedily swallowing all that they could get into theirpower, disposing of places, and seizing on rewards in a manner the mostodious. "Even the Duke's courage, " says Smollet, "was called inquestion, and this consummate general was represented as the lowest ofmankind. " Yet he did not resign; for Godolphin and the Whigs, theEmperor, and all the allies implored him to retain the command of thearmy, as otherwise all their hopes would be gone. 

The clamour raised by Dr. Sacheverell's affair, not less than theacrimonious temper of the Duchess, contributed to ruin the Whigs in theQueen's favour, who was present _incognita_ during every debate. Duringthe course of Sacheverell's trial, the government advocate, in order toestablish the true Whig doctrine, calumniated by the Doctor, utteredwords which seemed revolutionary to the royal ears. It will be readilyunderstood that the theory of absolute obedience, preached bySacheverell and adopted by certain Tories, was more consonant with theQueen's taste than the maxims of the Whigs, who asserted the dogma ofthe sovereignty of nations and recognised their right of insurrectionagainst royalty. Anne was a zealous Protestant, and sincerely attachedto the Anglican Church, of which she was the head. She blamed thetolerance of the Whigs, and thought with Sacheverell that it wasnecessary to defend the Church both against Popery and indifferentism. 

The Tories fomented these dissensions in an underhand way, turning themdexterously against their enemies. The negotiations then set on foot inHolland occurred still more favourably to advance their projects. Annehad a horror of bloodshed: since her accession she had not permitted asingle political execution. She sighed deeply on hearing of thecontinual levies for the war, and shed tears on receiving the long listsof dead and wounded from the Low Countries. One day, having to signcertain papers relative to the army, her tears were seen to blot thepaper, as she exclaimed, "Great God! when will this horrible effusion ofblood cease?" The Tories, who, like herself, wished for peace with alltheir hearts, adroitly fostered her grief. With her, they deplored thebutchery of Malplaquet, the increase of taxation, the misery entailed bythe interminable campaigns, and repeated that it was time to put an endto the sufferings of the people. Such hideous carnage seemed at last tocry aloud to Heaven for cessation. Pity and conscience, so long stifledand tyrannised over, claimed at length to be heard. Weighing well also aconsideration no less potent over the Queen's heart, they representedthat the Whigs were her brother's most implacable enemies--that theyhad set a price upon his head--that they (the Whigs) would neverrecognise, as her successor, any other king than the Elector of Hanover;that they (the Tories), on the contrary, felt neither repulsion norhatred for the Pretender, and that if the good of the country demandedit, they would willingly favour his return. Finally they dwelt upon theodious tyranny of the Duchess of Marlborough, [48] especially in thescenes enacted at St. Paul's and Windsor, and promised the Queen todeliver her from a woman whom she had ceased to love, and who had begunto terrify her. 

 [48] Bolingbroke says so in express terms: "The true cause (of the change of Ministry) was her discontent, " &c. --Secret Memoirs of Lord Bolingbroke, p. 18. 

Lending a willing ear to such arguments, Anne gave herself up entirelyto Mrs. Masham, and the misunderstanding between the Queen and theDuchess had become public, when a fresh outbreak of violence on the partof the latter precipitated her disgrace. 

On the occasion of a christening, at which Marlborough was to standgodfather, the Duchess vowed that she would never consent to it if thechild were to bear the name of Anne, and she made use of an epithetwhich neither a queen nor a woman could ever pardon. The word was dulyreported at St. James's. Anne heard it with the deepest indignation, andso gross an outrage extinguished any latent spark of tenderness left inher heart. The downfall of the Duchess and the Whigs was resolved upon. 

Recognising her error when too late, the Duchess requested an audienceof the Queen, in the hope of exculpating herself. Anne, who dreaded herfurious violence, replied that she could justify herself by letter, andto avoid the chance of an interview, left London for Kensington Palace. 

Explicit, however, as was this step, it did not stop the Duchess. Shedespatched a letter to the Queen, in which she excused herself, on thescore of the impossibility of writing such a justification, andrequested an interview--a proposition the most alarming conceivable tothe poor Queen, on account of the advantage which her antagonistpossessed in powers of tongue. She therefore parried it as long aspossible, and would evidently have not assented at all, had not theDuchess extorted the permission by stratagem. Unfortunately, however, for her success, she had told the Queen, in a letter which preceded it, that she only desired to be seen and be heard by her Majesty. There wasno necessity, she said, for the Queen to answer. The Queen, in fact, hadanswered so many of her tormentor's letters in the negative, that theDuchess, not foreseeing what would be the consequence of this generalpreclusion of response in her Majesty's favour, was resolved to preventfurther epistolary acknowledgment by following up her last letter inperson. She says, in the foolish "Account" which she gave to the worldof her "Conduct, " and which had the reverse effect of what she intended(which is the usual case with violent relaters of their own story):--

"I followed this letter to Kensington, and by that means prevented theQueen's writing again to me, as she was preparing to do. The page whowent in to acquaint the Queen that I was come to wait upon her stayedlonger than usual; long enough, it is to be supposed, to give time todeliberate whether the favour of admission should be granted, and tosettle the measure of behaviour if I were admitted. But, at last, hecame out and told me I might go in. "

The Queen was alone, engaged in writing. "I did not open your lettertill just now, " she said, "and I was going to write to you. "

"Was there anything in it, Madam, that you had a mind to answer?"

"I think, " continued poor Anne, who even now endeavoured to stop thecoming torrent of words, "I think there is nothing you can have to saybut you may write it. "

But as this was the very thing over which the Duchess thought she hadtriumphed, she must have heard the proposal with contemptuous delight;and she proceeded accordingly to pour forth her complaints. 

"I cannot write such things, " exclaimed the haughty Sarah, alluding tothe grossness of the language attributed to her, adding, "Won't yourMajesty give me leave to tell it you?"

"Whatever you have to say, you may write it, " was the royal answer. 

"I believe your Majesty never did so hard a thing to anybody as torefuse to hear them speak--even the meanest person that ever desiredit. "

"Yes, " said the Queen, "I _do_ bid people put what they have to say inwriting, when I have a mind to it. "

"I have nothing to say, Madam, " replied the Duchess, "upon the subjectthat is so uneasy to you. That person (Lady Masham) is not, that I knowof, at all concerned in the account that I would give you. "

"You can put it into writing, " reiterated the Queen, who, desirous atany cost of avoiding a quarrel, which, from the temper of her quondamfavourite, seemed inevitable, repeated the same words several times, purposely interrupting the Duchess, who was already beginning to defendherself. 

In spite of the Queen's injunctions, Sarah continued to affirm that shewas no more capable of making such disrespectful mention of her Majestythan she was of killing her own children, to which Anne coolly remarked, "There are, doubtless, many lies told on 'both sides. '"

During a whole hour, nevertheless, the Duchess strove to establish herinnocence by protestations or prayers. But the Queen's heart wasirrevocably closed. Desirous of terminating an interview that grew moreand more embarrassing, and remembering the scene in St. Paul's, when herMistress of the Robes had told her to be silent and make no answer, andthat lately, in writing to her, the Duchess had said that she requiredno answer, or that she would not trouble the Queen to give her one, Annesaid, "You did not require an answer from me, and I will give you none. "This frigid resistance exasperated the Duchess, who, astounded to findherself caught in her own trap, and taken at her word, declared, ofcourse, that the phrase was not intended to imply what it did; but theQueen, she says, repeated it again and again, "without ever receding. "

The Duchess protesting that her only design was to clear herself, theQueen repeated over and over again, "You desired no answer, and shallhave none. "

The angry but still politic Sarah next passed from prayers toreproaches. "I will leave the room, " said Anne, with dignity. 

"I then begged to know if her Majesty would tell me some other time. "

"You desired no answer, and you shall have none. "

On hearing these words, which left no further hope, the Duchess burstinto tears; then, as though ashamed of her weakness, she withdrew intothe gallery to suppress her passionate fit of weeping. Returning afterthe lapse of a few minutes, she tried a last and decisive application:

"I have been thinking, " said the Duchess, "whilst I sat there, that ifyour Majesty came to the Castle at Windsor, where I heard you were soonexpected, it would not be easy to see me in public now, I am afraid. Iwill therefore take care to avoid being at the Lodge at the same time, to prevent any unreasonable clamour or stories that might originate inmy being so near your Majesty without waiting on you. "

"Oh, " said the Queen, promptly, "you may come to me at the Castle: itwill not make me uneasy. "

The Duchess, however, still persevered. "I then appealed to her Majestyagain, if she did not herself know, &c. And whether she did not know meto be of a temper incapable of, &c. "

"You desired no answer, and you shall have none. "

Finding Anne thus inflexible, the Duchess rose up in a towering rage athaving vainly humiliated herself, and gave vent to her passion in astorm of recrimination. 

"This usage, " concludes the Duchess, "was so severe, and these words, sooften repeated, were so shocking, &c, that I could not conquer myself, but said the most disrespectful thing I ever spoke to the Queen in mylife; and that was, that I was confident her Majesty would suffer forsuch an instance of inhumanity. "

She quitted the presence, in fact, exclaiming, "God will punish you, Madam, for your inhumanity. "

"That only concerns myself, " drily answered the Queen. 

"And thus ended, " says the Duchess, "this remarkable conversation, thelast I ever had with her Majesty. " (April 6th, 1710. )

Such, too, was the end of a thirty years' friendship, and the lastinterview between Anne and her once-cherished favourite. [49] The Duchessremained in the household for a short time afterwards, but never saw herroyal mistress save on public occasions; and from that day the Queennever spoke to her again. 

 [49] Private Correspondence of the Duchess of Marlborough, vol. 1, p. 301. 

CHAPTER IV. 

 THE DISGRACE OF THE DUCHESS. 

THE disgrace of the Duchess involved the fall of the Whigs. A few daysafter the scene at Kensington, Anne named two Tories to courtappointments, and next dismissed successively all the Whigs from theMinistry--Boyle, Russell, Godolphin, and Walpole. They were replaced byBolingbroke, Harley, the Earl of Jersey, and the Dukes of Ormonde andShrewsbury. Anne spared only the Duke and Duchess of Marlborough--notfrom compassion but through fear. The irate Mistress of the Robes droveabout London daily in her splendid equipage, and repeated at every visitshe made that she would publish the Queen's letters, and that some daythe infamous motives which had brought about her disgrace would bedisclosed. Whilst the timid Anne grew terrified at these menaces, theformidable Sarah remained at St. James's, holding her head aloft anddealing out bitter denunciations against her enemies the victoriousTories. 

When the Duke of Marlborough came back from Flanders, during theChristmas holidays, he met with the coldest reception possible. Theusual motion of thanks to him had been dropped by his friends for fearof its being negatived by the Tory majority. The new ministers, however, waited upon him, promising that he should have all his present militarycommands, and also the nomination of the generals who were to serveunder him. His wife had never ceased making efforts at court, by meansof "_one_ person" there, who happened to be in good favour with theQueen, and to whom the Duchess wrote long accounts of the past, justifying herself, and exposing the ingratitude, as well as malice, ofher enemies. All these accounts that gentleman read to Anne; but hemight as well have read them to a stock or stone. According to herGrace, the Queen never offered a word, good or ill, except on oneparticular point. Lady Masham and Harley had employed Swift and otherwriters to accuse the Duchess of having grossly cheated her royalmistress of vast sums of money; and on that occasion her Majesty waspleased to say, "Everybody knows cheating is not the Duchess ofMarlborough's crime. " Where there was so much received in what wasdeemed an honourable as well as regular way, [50] there was no greattemptation to embezzle and cheat; and the Duchess was in all respects ahigher-minded person than her husband, in whom love of money became atlast the ruling passion to such a degree as to make him stoop to allkinds of mean and paltry actions. The Duchess, as Mistress of the Robes, boasts that she had dressed the Queen for nine years for thirty-twothousand and some odd hundred pounds; and she asks if ever Queen ofEngland had spent so little in robes! "It evidently appears, " says herGrace, "that, by my economy in the nine years I served her Majesty, Isaved her near ninety thousand pounds[51] in clothes alone. Notwithstanding this, " continues the Duchess, "my Lord-Treasurer(Harley) has thought fit to order the _Examiner_ (Swift) to represent mein print as a pick-pocket all over England; and for that honestservice, and some others, her Majesty has lately made him a Dean. "

 [50] The Marlborough family were said to be in the receipt of £90, 000 a year, including all their places and pensions. 

 [51] Anne's sister, Queen Mary, had been charged £12, 600 for her dresses one year, and £11, 000 another year. 

Just at this moment, the Duchess thought herself obliged to appear atCourt "on account of some new clothes which, as Groom of the Stole, shehad by her mistress's orders bought for her;" but the Queen charged theonly friend her Grace had there to advise her, as from himself, not tocome. It was scarcely possible, after this to think of retaining heroffice; and it appears that the Duchess, of her own accord, sent in herresignation. Lord Dartmouth, however, gives another version of thematter, as follows:--

Emboldened and urged by her Ministers, Anne requested Marlborough todemand the return of the golden Keys which were the symbols of heroffice. The Duke, who dreaded the consequences of such a step, entreatedthe Queen to wait till the end of the campaign, promising that he wouldthen retire with his wife. But Anne was driven to extremity by calumniesthat reddened her cheek with shame, and she demanded the immediatereturn of the Keys. Marlborough threw himself on his knees, andentreated her to give him at least ten days' respite. Anne consented tothree days, and that interval having expired, renewed her commands. TheDuke hastened to the palace, and demanded to be ushered into thepresence. But Anne refused to receive him until she received back hergold Keys from the Duchess, and Marlborough at length resigned himselfto encounter his wife's anger. On reaching home, he told the Mistress ofthe Robes that she must give up the golden insignia of office, which sheat first refused; but on his persistently intimating the necessity ofher resignation, she threw her gold Key on the floor, and told him to dowhat he liked with it; and that then Marlborough caught it up andcarried it to the Queen. [52]

 [52] The Duchess herself says, "When, after a very successful campaign, the Duke of Marlborough was returned to London, the Queen most readily accepted the resignation that _he_ carried _from me_ of my offices. "--_Account. _

About one point there is no doubt--Anne accepted the resignation witheagerness and joyfulness, and divided the Duchess's Court places betweenLady Masham and the Duchess of Somerset. It astonished most people tosee the Duke consent to serve when his wife was dismissed--to see himcontinue to hold command of the troops under the Ministry which hadsprung out of a bed-chamber squabble, and which was sure to thwart himin all his measures. His enemies have generally accounted for this byassuming that the Duke's avarice was at the bottom of it; but his ladyassigns very different reasons. "The Duke of Marlborough, " she says, "notwithstanding an infinite variety of mortifications, by which it wasendeavoured to _make_ him resign his commission, that there might be apretence to raise an outcry against him, as having quitted his Queen'sand his country's service merely because he could not govern in thecabinet as well as in the field, continued to serve yet anothercampaign. All his friends here, moved by a true concern for the publicwelfare, pressed him to it, the confederates called him with the utmostimportunity, and Prince Eugene entreated him to come with all theearnestness and passion that could be expressed. " These were certainlypowerful inducements, and they may have mingled (together with thatpassionate fondness for a fine army which every good general mustcontract) with Marlborough's love of money. 

Mr. Hallam says, with strong and proper feeling, "It seems rather ahumiliating proof of the sway which the feeblest prince enjoys even ina limited monarchy, that the fortunes of Europe should have been changedby nothing more noble than the insolence of one waiting woman and thecunning of another. It is true that this was effected by throwing theweight of the crown into the scale of a powerful _faction_; yet theHouse of Bourbon would probably not have reigned beyond the Pyrenees butfor Sarah and Abigail at Queen Anne's toilette. "[53]

 [53] Hallam--Constitutional History. 

The Queen, altogether unmindful of her former warm attachment to herMistress of the Robes, overjoyed to find herself free, wrote, with herown hand, the dismissal of the Duchess, and gave herself up to herenemies. 

The Duchess, quite beside herself with chagrin and fury, only thought ofsome means or other of revenge. As a first step she demanded payment ofthe arrears of her pension--a boon she had with great high-mindednessrefused on Anne's accession. But that was not all. When she was about toquit the sphere of her palace triumphs, she gave directions for theremoval of the locks from the doors and the marble chimney-pieces shehad put up at her own cost in her apartments. "It is all very well, "remarked the Queen to her Secretary of State, "but tell the Duchess ifshe demolishes the fittings-up of my palace, she may depend upon it thatI will not build hers at Woodstock. " The Duchess consented to abandonthe chimney-pieces, and withdrew at once to her country seat, near St. Alban's, where she lived in a style of great magnificence. 

In the retirement of private life, Marlborough, worn out with the harassattendant upon such a lengthened succession of arduous campaigns, andwearied with political intrigue, now hoped to enjoy that which he hadfor years longed for--the society of those so dear to him, from whom hehad been so many years separated. But it was not to be. Quiet happinessin the evening of his eventful life was not destined to be his lot. Hiswife, for whom he had ever shown such strong and unalterable affection, was a woman thwarted in all her designs--outraged, injured, mortified, and disgusted with the court and with the world. She was no longeryoung, nor possessed of the great attractions which had formerly throwna veil over the deformities of her temper, which, always violent, hadnow become soured by adversity. She had no indulgence left for others. Dissatisfied with her friends, her children, and everything about her, she was disposed to wrangle and dispute on the slightest provocation. 

Next came a great affliction--more deeply felt by both, perhaps, thaneither the fickleness of the Queen or the virulence of their politicalenemies--the death under their own roof at St. Alban's of theirlong-tried, attached, and amiable friend, Lord Godolphin. This sad eventdetermined Marlborough to reside abroad until happier days dawned--theirungrateful country no longer offering any charms for them. Hislong-cherished desire for rural leisure, retirement, and the quietenjoyments of private life had ended in disappointment. The master ofwealth and great possessions, palatial edifices rising around him, andrank, glory, and well-earned honour his own; yet was he the mark ofenvy, hatred, and jealousy. Not even could he and the Duchess enjoy andreturn the ordinary courtesies of society without incurring observationand provoking suspicion. His enemies had triumphed, his Queen was coldand unjust, and now his dearly-loved friend, his adviser and confidant, the sharer of his sorrows, his consoler and encourager, was no more. Ablight had fallen upon his existence. 

Marlborough sailed from Dover to Ostend in October, 1712, and his wifefollowed him in a few months afterwards, she having remained behind toarrange his or her own affairs. The Duke was furnished with a passport, it is said, by the instrumentality of his early favourite and secretfriend Bolingbroke. His request to see the Queen before his departurefrom her dominions was refused; and the apathetic Anne never again sawher great general, or the woman for whom she once professed so strong anattachment. When it was told her that both he and the Duchess had leftEngland, she coolly remarked to the Duchess of Hamilton--"the Duke ofMarlborough has done wisely to go abroad. "

Thus was the illustrious soldier, then sixty-two years of age, and theDuchess in her fifty-second year, driven from their country by themachinations of a party too strong for them to resist without theespecial favour of the Queen. 

BOOK III. 

CHAPTER I. 

 THE PRINCESS DES URSINS--HER DELICATE AND PERILOUS POSITION. 

MADAME DES URSINS had long continued fearlessly to face the storm thatgrowled all around her, and by degrees the horizon showed signs ofclearing. As it often happens in the course of human affairs, theoccupation of the capital by the enemy had an effect contrary to thatwhich it was very natural to expect. The allies, who had entered Madridas conquerors, found within that city none of the elements necessary forthe definitive establishment of the Archduke who was proclaimed amidst achilling silence. If the grandees almost to a man evinced their sympathyfor the House of Austria, if the staff of the administration and thepersonal machinery of all the public departments, remained at theirposts at the price of an oath which did not seem to cost more in thosedays than at present, the populace of Madrid showed an aversion to theforeigners which soon manifested itself in numerous assassinations. Howcould it be otherwise than that the ancient soil of Castile should heaveon finding itself trampled on by the partisans of a loyalty hailed withacclamation at Saragossa and Barcelona; on witnessing those outbursts ofinsolent triumph on the part of the Portuguese, who, in the eyes ofevery Spaniard, were still rebels; and the contemptuous phlegm of LordGalloway's army, commanded, as it was, by a heretic _condottiere_?Outside the official spheres, the isolation was therefore complete, andduring that three months' crisis the errant royalty of Philip V. , represented by his courageous consort, struck indestructible roots inthe hearts of his subjects. The northern shores and the great provinceof Andalusia, joining to those divers motives the hatred with whichEngland inspired the maritime population, resolutely declared for theHouse of Bourbon, to such an extent that, beyond the territories of theancient realm of Arragon, the moral conquest of the kingdom was verynearly consummated, despite the foreign occupation, and through theeffect of that very same occupation. The position of the foreigners atMadrid had never been anything else than provisory; and it was withtransports of joy that the Anglo-Portuguese troops were seen to hastilyevacuate the capital on the approach of another French army, whichadvanced through Navarre under the command of the Duke of Berwick. [54]Philip V. Was soon able to re-enter Madrid as a liberator, and a galleonfrom Mexico brought him most opportunely a million of crowns. On the25th of April, 1707, Berwick completely defeated the allies nearAlmanza, and the Duke of Orleans covered himself with glory by thecapture of Lerida, which had previously resisted the great Condé. 

 [54] Natural son of James II. Of England, by Arabella Churchill, sister of the Duke of Marlborough. 

The influence of Madame des Ursins became greatly enhanced after theseunhoped-for successes, and both Philip V. And the cabinet of Versaillesequally testified their gratitude to her. She had manifested aninflexible devotedness in the midst of reverses, and adversity had takenits full measure of her. Never, throughout the course of her chequeredcareer, had Madame des Ursins shown more activity than during the sixmonths which intervened between the return of the Court to Madrid andthe battle of Almanza. Her position was as delicate as it was perilous. It was necessary to stigmatise flagrant defections, but without drivinganyone altogether to desperation. She profited by the confidence she hadwon to bring about happily an important reform. Spain, composed ofdivers kingdoms successively annexed, had not yet attained unity. Morethan ever, after the experiences of 1706, was seen the necessity of acentralisation which should re-unite in the hands of the new dynasty theentire strength of the government, which should extinguish injuriousrivalries between province and province, which should facilitateadministrative relations, and allow of an equal action in the differentparts of the monarchy. Each kingdom hitherto had had its laws, itscustoms, its constitution (_fueros_). Already in 1705 certainrestrictions had been imposed by Castile upon Arragon: no more dared beattempted. The battle of Almanza and the successes of 1707 inspiredstill further energy. In the council, the party of Madame des Ursins, leaning on the assent of Berwick, overcame the opposition of Montellanoand the friends of the old system; and the pragmatic sanction, orconstitution of Castile, became the sole law of Spain. 

The victory of Almanza was, in fact, the last service rendered to PhilipV. By his native country. From that day forward, France, menaced uponits frontiers, constrained to appropriate all its resources to its ownsafety, became an obstacle and a permanent peril to Spain. The formercompromised the Spanish monarchy by its military operations, and farmore gravely still by its diplomatic negotiations. In this new phase, signalised by the almost constant antagonism of the two courts, theposition of Madame des Ursins was one of the most critical nature; butwe are about to see her, with her habitual rectitude of judgment, takeunhesitatingly the part alike dictated by honour as by sound policy. 

It was at this juncture that the gravity of events determined Louis XIV. Upon being represented in Spain by his nephew, the Duke of Orleans. Thatprince, in two campaigns, had subdued the kingdom of Valentia and thegreatest part of Arragon, after taking fortresses in Catalonia hithertodeemed impregnable. Inspired by the ambition of the chief of his race, he had made his military services subservient to the extension ofmonarchical authority, and had solemnly abolished, in the name of PhilipV. In Arragon, the anarchical privileges which weakened the royal powerwithout efficaciously strengthening the liberties of Spain. Distrustedby those he came ostensibly to defend, and, from the first, an object ofsuspicion to Madame des Ursins, still the correspondence of the Princesswith Madame de Maintenon and the Maréchale de Noailles from April, 1707, to November, 1708, the date of the duke's departure, shows that therelations of the latter with the _camerara-mayor_ were for a long timemaintained on the best footing, the dissolute habits of the Duke ofOrleans proving less disgusting to Madame des Ursins than the accuracyof his insight into public affairs appears to have charmed her. Therupture of this good understanding, which, however, took place silently, was one among other results greatly to be regretted of the dark intrigueinto which certain obscure agents momentarily led astray the ambition ofAnne of Austria's grandson--a machination the more disastrous to theprince, whose honour it impugned, than to the King of Spain, whoreceived no injury from it during the Duke of Orleans' sojourn withinhis territories; the movements of Flotte and Renault, his emissaries, having only assumed some small degree of importance after his departure. 

It is a knotty point of history altogether; but the fact is clear thatthe Duke was the centre of the faction opposed to the Princess, and thataround him were banded those with whom she had either clashed or whomshe had overcome. The moment was badly chosen for intriguing; to savethe state should have been the sole aim of the Duke of Orleans. Theallies, for an instant discouraged after Almanza, had not lost all hope. Their successes in Italy and in Germany soon consoled them for thatreverse, and their armies became once more menacing. It was then thatthe Duke of Orleans, it is said, conceived the hope, if not of governingall Spain, at least of obtaining the kingdoms of Murcia, Valentia, andNavarre. He himself avowed later to the Duke de Saint-Simon that, seeingPhilip V. Tottering, "he had allowed himself to indulge the hope ofbeing put in his place;" hence his double-faced conduct and strangemanoeuvres. He might not have been willing, doubtless, to pull down theKing of Spain with his own hand, but he did not, of course, steadfastlydesire a triumph which marred his own fortunes. That which, however, maybe affirmed with certainty is, that he maintained with different foreigngenerals, among others with the Earl of Stanhope, very suspiciousnegotiations; that he designedly did all he could to impede the progressof the Spanish Government, and seemed, in all he did, solely concernedin not overstepping that loosely-defined line at which treason begins. However that might be, Madame des Ursins, strenuously opposed to thepolicy which the Duke of Orleans desired to see prevail, and moreoverscarcely able to endure the hostile attitude of that Prince, demandedhis recall and obtained it. 

After his departure she pursued him in the persons of his two agents, Renault and Flotte, whom she had arrested. As for his friend, Marshal deBezons, whose hasty retreat upon the banks of the Segra excited theindignation of the Spanish court, he lost his command. She evendenounced the Duke of Orleans to his royal uncle, and the erring nephewhad very great difficulty in escaping a scandalous trial. He was forced, therefore, to renounce his ambitious hopes with regard to Spain, if everhe had seriously nourished them. Such an exposure, rendered his returnto the Peninsula impossible. His faction was speedily dispersed. One ofthe noblemen with whom he had had very intimate relations, the Duke ofMedina-Coeli, minister for foreign affairs and head of the grandeeparty, was suddenly arrested and taken to the Castle of Segovia. Whether, as Saint Simon intimates, it was that "weary of the yoke ofMadame des Ursins, he desired _pointer de son chef_, " whether that, favourable to the Duke of Orleans, perhaps even to the allies, he hadvoluntarily caused the failure of the expedition which the Spanishgovernment meditated against Sardinia, or whether he had dreamed of ananti-French reaction, he ended his days in a state prison. 

Whilst the government of Philip V. , was working its way very laboriouslythrough that maze of conspiracies and intrigues, the allies regained theground which Almanza had lost them. "Despite all the efforts of Madamedes Ursins, " wrote the Chevalier du Bourk, her agent, at Versailles, "matters are going badly at Madrid. " France, discouraged and weigheddown, moreover by its own reverses, seemed no longer able to defendPhilip V. ; Louis XIV. , whatever might have been his secret intentions, was not willing to appear to support his grandson; the Austriansthoroughly defeated Philip at Saragossa. The severe winter of 1709 hadbrought the general distress to a climax; and the Archduke Charles madehis entrance into Madrid. The court of Versailles becameterror-stricken. Madame de Maintenon, outwearied with this everlastingstrife, changed the tone of her letters to a cold and sometimes ironicvein. She went so far as to say to the Princess, "It is not agreeable tous here that women should busy themselves with state affairs. "[55] LouisXIV. , himself, advised his grandson to abandon Spain in order to keepItaly. 

 [55] Recueil de M. Geffroy, p. 395. 

Madame des Ursins had thus to choose between the French policy, imposedupon Louis XIV. By cruel necessity, and the Spanish policy, for whichPhilip V. Was resolved to die. On one hand, the young mother, who hadjust confided to her care an infant son she had conceived in anguish, appealed most touchingly to her attachment and courage; on the other, Madame de Maintenon, whose sole solicitude was to insure repose to LouisXIV. , by plucking out one after another all the thorns from his crown, reminded her that she was born a Frenchwoman, and that she owed too muchto the Great King to arrogate to herself the right of contradicting him. A subject of Louis XIV. , did she dare combat at Madrid the plans decidedupon at Versailles? The governess of the heir to the crown of Spain, could she concur by her advice in despoiling the infant whose firstcaresses she was receiving? Madame des Ursins could only escape by aprompt departure from the difficulties of such an alternative. Incontestable facts prove that she so understood her position, and thatshe was fully determined to quit Spain towards the close of 1709; butthe despair of the Queen, the state of whose health at that time gavebut too serious grounds for alarm, alone hindered her from following outa project which promised more flattering results than any other in thedeep depression into which the resolves of France had plunged her. 

Madame des Ursins had no sooner taken the resolution of remaining uponthe theatre of events, and of sustaining the King of Spain in the noblecareer to which his conscience and the national will alike bound him, than she threw herself headlong into the _mêlée_, caring nothing morefor the Versailles policy, and burning her ships with a boldness ofwhich her gentleness of character seemed to have rendered her incapable. Her epistolary style undergoes also a marked change, and rises with theloftiness of her part and character. In reproaching Madame de Maintenonfor preferring the King's ease to that of his honour, she launchesshafts against her which, though tipped with elegance, are none the lesssharp-pointed, sometimes in the shape of studied reproaches, but morefrequently still with the spontaneous overflowings of a towering wrath. The writer then reveals herself from beneath the guise of the woman ofthe world, and it is clearly seen that in that encompassed life theheart has for a moment triumphed over the intelligence. 

Madame des Ursins alone, however, remained unshaken. She might wellhave, it is true, some moments of misgiving; such as when she wrote toMadame de Noailles, "I have foreseen, for a long time, the precipiceover which they would hurl us, and to the brink of which we ourselvesare hurrying, and I know not, by Heaven, who can save us from it. " Withadmirable eloquence she encouraged Madame de Maintenon, who appeared todespair of the divine protection; and she inspired Philip V. With anenergy truly worthy of the throne, shown in that noble letter in whichthe King of Spain declared to his grandfather "that, in spite of themisfortune which confronted him, he would never abandon his subjects. "Madame des Ursins in all probability dictated the phraseology, and allthe glory of it resulted from her firmness. 

She thoroughly comprehended that it became sovereigns worthy of theirposition to speak loftily, were it from the depth of an abyss, and thatthat supreme courage is itself the first indication of a return of goodfortune. She soon found that it was so; for from the moment that theKing's cause seemed to be lost, the animosities of the grandees gave waybefore their patriotism. Whether they were at length inspired by so muchenergy, whether the expulsion of the French from every post throughoutthe state, decreed by Philip V. Under the advice of Madame des Ursins, had well disposed their minds, "almost all, by a sudden awakening ofchivalrous fidelity, " submitted to the House of Bourbon. The Archdukeawaited in vain their homage and their oaths. At the moment of hisentrance into the capital, curiosity itself failed to attract any one tocross his path; a solitude and sullen gloom pervaded all the publicplaces. He did not even proceed so far as the royal palace, but went outby the Alcala gate, muttering, "It is a deserted city. "

Without hesitation, therefore, Madame des Ursins placed herself at thehead of the national movement, seeking to pluck the safety of Spain fromthe very abandonment in which France had left that monarchy. Withoutbreaking off confidential relations with her usual correspondents atVersailles, she enveloped them in the thickest possible veil, her soleidea being to stimulate Castilian patriotism, appearing to adopteverything Spanish from its popular costumes, even to its hatreds andits prejudices. By the aid of a _sombrero_ and a _gollil_[56] Don Luisd'Aubigny had become a perfect _caballero_; the like transformationbeing effected throughout the entire staff of the palace household, andshortly afterwards a very decided step characterised the novel attitudeassumed by Philip and his court. Madame des Ursins, who reckoned herchief enemies amongst the monarch's French household, decided thatprince upon the dismissal in mass of all his non-Spanish domestics--anunexpected resolve which produced an immense sensation on both sides ofthe Pyrenees; because, whilst subserving a personal vengeance skilfullydissimulated, it gave sanction to a policy the harshness of which waspushed even to ingratitude. 

 [56] A sort of collar. 

To throw Philip V. Into the arms of the Spaniards, was to flatter alikethe democracy and the grandees. To the populace Madame des Ursinspresented, amidst the most fervent benediction, the Prince of Asturias;to the grandees, of whom she had long been the declared enemy, shecaused to be given a striking proof of the royal confidence. The Duke deBedmar, appointed to the ministry of war, was charged with theorganization of the new levies, and the direction of the troops in allparts of the kingdom. To transform the grandson of Louis XIV. Into apeninsula king was to furnish the best argument to the partisans ofpeace, already numerous in the British parliament. On the other hand, that same policy could not very seriously disquiet the cabinet ofVersailles. The King knew that he might count upon every sacrifice fromthe respectful attachment of his grandson, save that of the throne; andalthough he had adhered officially to the principle of the dispossessingof Philip V. , he could not regret, either as sovereign or as grandsire, the obstacles which the more resolute attitude of Spain then opposed tothe enemies of the two crowns. Louis XIV. Therefore continued, notwithstanding his diplomatic engagements, to secretly assist in thePeninsula what might be called the party of _fara da se_. Madame desUrsins had recovered her influence at Versailles from the moment atwhich it was found necessary to depend, in order to prolong thestruggle, rather upon the military resources of Spain than upon those ofFrance at bay. To impart more gravity to the national movement, to whichshe gave the impulse in order to remain the moderatrix, she had requiredthe recall of Amelot, who had long assumed at Madrid the attitude of aprime minister rather than that of an ambassador; and Louis XIV. , deferring to that wish, had replaced that experienced agent by a simple_chargé d'affaires_. Orry was in like manner sacrificed, despite hisinvaluable services; but, at the same time that she gave satisfaction bythe withdrawal of her friends in deference to the popularsusceptibilities, the Princess earnestly implored that the Duke deVendôme might be sent to take command of the Spanish forces; and LouisXIV. , on his part, at the moment that he was compelled to withdraw fromSpain the last French soldier, despatched thither the general who wasdestined to save his grandson's crown. 

Arriving in Spain sometime during the summer of 1710, Vendôme displayedan activity which did not seem to comport with his habits, in order toreunite and arm the volunteers, who, from the summit of the Sierras, descended in swarms upon the plains of the two Castiles at the summonsof a monarch become the personification of a patriot. He speedilytransformed into a powerful and well-trained army the undisciplined_guerillas_ whose bravery had hitherto been useless; in a few months, the Anglo-Austrian army, at the head of which the prince who calledhimself Charles III. Had been able to show himself for a few hours inthe deserted capital, was confronted by disciplined troops prepared toretake territories which until then had not been seriously disputed. Under the irresistible impulse of a noble patriotism which had at lastrecovered itself, the English force of Lord Stanhope capitulated atBrihuega after a terrible carnage, and Stahrenberg, crushed in his turnat Villaviciosa, carried away by his flight the last hopes of the Houseof Austria. 

By the victory of Villaviciosa the House of Bourbon was definitivelyseated on the throne of Charles the Fifth. Philip V. Slept that night(10th December, 1710) upon a couch of standards taken from the enemy:the Austrian cause was lost; and Madame des Ursins, who, in spite ofEurope coalesced, in spite of Louis XIV. Hesitating and disquieted, inspite of so many disasters, had never trembled, received the title ofHIGHNESS, and saw her steadfast policy at length crowned by accomplishedfacts. 

Spain had thus solved by her own efforts solely the great question whichhad kept Europe so long in arms. At the commencement of 1711, Philip V. Had acquired for his throne a security that Louis XIV. Had not yetobtained for the integrity of his own frontiers, and without mistakingthe influence of the victory of Denain, so wonderfully opportune, it isjust, we think, to allow a far larger share than is customary to thethoroughly Spanish victory of Villaviciosa in the unhoped-for conditionsobtained by France at the peace of Utrecht. 

CHAPTER II. 

 THE PRINCESS'S SHARE IN THE TREATY OF UTRECHT. 

IF the new ministry of Queen Anne succeeded in inducing the Englishnation to support the treaty of Utrecht, that was nothing less than toprove undeniably, without fear of contradiction, that the establishmentof the French dynasty in the Peninsula had there acquired the authorityof a fact irrevocably accomplished. The resuscitation of the Spanishnation had, therefore, a decisive effect upon European affairs; andwhilst, by leaving France almost intact, the treaties of Utrecht hadparcelled out the monarchy of the catholic kings, the authors of thegreat popular movement crowned by the victory of Villaviciosa mightconsider without prejudice their country as sacrificed, notwithstandingthe weight which it had flung into the scales. 

In this work Madame des Ursins had had certainly a very considerableshare, and it was with a very legitimate pride that through it she wasenabled to prevail at Versailles as at Madrid. A perseverance unexampledboth in idea and conduct, a rare suppleness in the means, had made herthe principal instrument of an enterprise in which a virile ambition, united to a deep devotedness, sustained her. Undismayed by reverses, never intoxicated by success, she tempered by her equanimity the attimes imprudent ardour of the young Queen, and reanimated by herfirmness the frequent retrocessions of her morose consort. Sherejoiced, therefore, with a scarcely veiled pride in that security forthe future which Spain had conquered before France, and in hercorrespondence with Madame de Maintenon her letters began to assume asomewhat protective tone. It was at this culminating point of hergreatness that fate was preparing to inflict upon her the humiliatingcatastrophe which again obscured the remembrance of her services andeven the honour of her name. 

It is unnecessary to recapitulate the means by which peace wasre-established, how the fall of the Whig ministry and the elevation ofthe Archduke to the imperial throne after the death of Joseph I. BroughtEngland and the other allied powers into the treaties which confirmedPhilip V. In the peaceable possession of the Spanish monarchy. We willnot dwell upon these details, nor upon divers acts of interior policywhich followed upon the victory of Villaviciosa. Let us confine ourattention solely to those in which the Princess des Ursins took anactive part. The first was the pursuance of the administrativecentralisation of which we have spoken; the abolition of the councilexclusively called the Council of Castile, for which she caused to besubstituted a council of state, the members of which should be chosenfrom every part of Spain, and which became the centre of the government. The second was a reform in the finance department; Orry being in thesemeasures the Princess's instrument, and he justified the long-continuedesteem with which she had honoured his talents. It was thus that afterhaving successively saved the monarchy from a policy exclusively French, and from the factious pretensions of the grandees, after havingcontributed to the defeat of Austria, Madame des Ursins sought toconsolidate on firm bases the power of Philip V. And prepare a happierfuture for Spain. 

She was not destined, however, to long enjoy the fruits of her triumph. It was a symptomatic sign of this new phase of her life, the universallyunfavourable interpretation given to an affair which should rather belooked upon in the light of a check than of a fault. It is well knownthat Philip, desirous of recognising the devotedness of his son'sgoverness, and of assuring to that noble lady an independent positionwhich should not be below her birth, had stipulated, at the time of thepreliminaries of peace, for the reservation of a territory in theSpanish low countries ceded to Austria, which he destined to form into asovereignty for Marie Anne de la Trémouille. This negotiation, whichbore successively upon the county of Limbourg and the small seigniory ofLa Roche-en-Ardennes, had been received at first at Versailles with themost entire approbation, for the reproach of "_playing the queen_" onlyoccurred as an after-thought. The gratitude of their Catholic Majestieswas found to be quite natural, and was warmly praised, especially byMadame de Maintenon. It is not at all to be wondered at, consequently, if Madame des Ursins should blandly contemplate such a prospect, especially in anticipation of the approaching demise of her well-belovedprotectress, who could not fail to be soon replaced in the confidenceand couch of her consort. The Court of France did not change its opinionuntil that affair of La Roche, very annoyingly taken by the Dutch, hadbecome the occasion of a delay in the signing of the general peace. ThenMadame des Ursins was overwhelmed by reproaches on all sides, and thosewhich came from Saint Cyr were of a peculiarly acrimonious character, which we must not join the Duke de Saint Simon in attributing to ajealousy of which there exists no trace, but which is explained byMadame de Maintenon's desire to secure repose to Louis XIV. At any cost. These reproaches, moreover, were without foundation, for the accusers ofthe Princess should have considered that, if France had the right toawait with lively impatience the signature of a treaty which secured toher almost all her conquests, it was quite otherwise with Spain, calledupon by that same treaty to pay alone the costs of the pacification. Themeasures of 1713, the conclusion of which was in fact retarded for a fewmonths by the interest and intervention of Madame des Ursins, had beenreceived with a very natural indignation in the monarchy of Charles V. , from which they tore away the Milanese, the Two Sicilies, Sardinia, theLow Countries, Port Mahon, and Gibraltar. So France can now easilydecide whether it had been in 1815 an unpardonable crime in her eyes tocause by a dilatory question the adjournment of the signing of thetreaties of Vienna. 

That check was the first in a series of misfortunes which death alonewas henceforward destined to bring to a close. Early in 1714 died verysuddenly, at the age of twenty-six, Marie Louise of Savoy, her delicateframe worn out by an ardent temperament, which had sustained it whilstthe storm raged, and which declined when the breath of the hurricane hadceased to kindle it further. The remains of the young Queen had scarcelydescended into the vaults of the Escurial ere the nation demanded toknow who was to be the new queen-consort; and the same question wasaddressed to Madame des Ursins by the Court of Versailles, so well wereknown there both the requirements and the austerity of the King ofSpain. What passed during the eight months of that widowhood sopainfully borne? What mysteries did the Medina Coeli palace witness, inwhich Madame des Ursins shut up closely Philip V. From the gaze of everyprying eye? Such questions can never now be answered with certainty, forthe reports put into circulation in France by Saint Simon and Duclos, inItaly by Poggiali, and in England by Fitz-Maurice, had their commonsource in the conversations of Alberoni, one of the least scrupulousactors in the drama of the _Quadruple Alliance_. Did the elderly_camerara mayor_, already three-score and ten, dare to spread alluringsnares wherein to entrap an amorous prince of thirty? And did suchtentative, more strange than audacious, succeed to the extent of bindingPhilip's conscience in some way? History will never answer the question. Instead, therefore, of hazarding conjectures, it will be well to confineour attention to the well-authenticated political acts of the Princessat this, to her, serious conjuncture. 

In losing her royal mistress, the powerful favourite lost along with herthe greatest portion of her strength. It was the remote signal whichheralded her fall. At the same time it did not appear that her energyhad become diminished, or her intelligence clouded, but that herordinary prudence had abandoned her. Perhaps, having attained such anelevation, she dreaded no further reverse, and believed herself secureenough, in the universal esteem and admiration in which she was held, toventure upon anything. However that might be, as though her brain hadgrown dizzy, she destroyed with her own hands, not her skilfully raisedpolitical edifice, but the structure of her individual fortunes. 

Her first imprudence was to attack the Spanish Inquisition. Spain wasnot then ripe for that reform accomplished only a century later. Muchless, as it appears to us, should Madame des Ursins, under the influenceof a preconceived religious opinion, with the object of strengtheningthe royal authority, have attempted its sudden suppression. Far be itfrom us, certainly, to think of defending the Spanish Inquisition. Butit cannot be denied that that institution had vigorously defended PhilipV. , and in the eyes of the people was part and parcel, as it were, ofSpain itself. It seemed as though French ideas alone demanded such areform, and hence popular suspicion was excited. The Princess failed inher attempt; but she had voluntarily created for herself a host ofenemies, who from that moment laboured to effect her ruin. 

We have already said that, cherishing the hope of obtaining for herselfan independent sovereignty, the difficulties arising from herpretensions had delayed the conclusion of the treaty of peace. LouisXIV. Was indignant at finding his negotiations fettered and himselfinvolved in an unavoidable opposition to the wishes of his grandson. Asfor Madame de Maintenon, whether the interests of France, compromised bythese delays, had alone provoked her resistance, or whether, as SaintSimon declares, that that independent sovereignty which she herself feltwas so little beyond her reach offended her pride by making her feel thedistance between their several ranks and births, she opposed the desireof her old friend, and peace was concluded by the authority of LouisXIV. But the King had a grudge against the Princess for having drivenhim to such extremity. Besides, just then his own dynasty had beenfatally stricken. The Duke of Burgundy and his eldest son, the Duke ofBrittany, had died. The heir to the throne was an infant only threeyears old. The Court foresaw the Regency of the Duke of Orleans, apersonal enemy of Madame des Ursins, and it was dangerous, by leavingher at the head of affairs in Spain, to prepare, probably, for thefuture a disastrous rivalry. 

The storm thus darkened thickly over the head of this imperious woman, who, supported against her enemies so long as she had been useful, wassubject to the common law of favourites, and began to totter when sheappeared no longer so. One resource remained to her--to remarry PhilipV. She was anxious to find a consort who could replace in her interestsMarie Louise, and restore her waning influence. Her incertitude wasgreat: she felt truly that in spite of past services her future fatedepended upon her choice. At length she cast her eyes upon ElizabethFarnese, daughter of the last Duke of Parma, and niece of the thenexistent Duke, and thought that gratitude for such an extraordinary turnof fortune would for ever secure the attachment of a princess who, without her influence, could never have had pretensions to such anunion. But she was anxious to ascertain whether Elizabeth Farnese wasone of those who would submit to be ruled, and she opened her mind uponthe subject to a man then obscure but afterwards celebrated--Alberoni, who had been sent as consular agent from Parma to Madrid. He hadfrequent conversations with the great favourite, and readily succeededin insinuating himself into her good graces. He described the Princessof Parma as simple minded, religious, ignorant of the world from whichshe had always lived secluded--in short, perfectly fitting to forwardthe design of the Princess. In making such statements he reckoned at thesame time upon pleasing his own Court, and bringing about the fall ofMadame des Ursins; for he knew well that Elizabeth, whose character wasvery different from that which he had represented, would not submit tobe governed by any one. Dazzled, therefore, with the smiling vista whichchance had so unexpectedly opened to him, and understanding all theimportance which he might derive from the negotiation of such marriage, and finding, moreover, Madame des Ursins well disposed beforehandtowards him, and, by a singular blindness, inclined to put implicitconfidence in one whose interest it was to conceal the truth, hesecretly set off for Parma on his delicate mission. By this first movethe Princess's game was lost. 

CHAPTER III. 

 THE PRINCESS FRIENDLESS IN SPAIN. 

IT was the peculiar misfortune of Madame des Ursins to scarcely meetwith a single sincere friend in Spain: she was submitted to there, rather than accepted. She had been sought after through interest or fearrather than through sympathy; but especially since the Queen's decease, since no one save herself was seen by the King's side, and that thestrokes of her power were dealt without any apparent intermediator, shewas no longer tolerated, save with infinite difficulty. Neither can itbe concealed that, at this period, she had not acted in a way todiminish the number of her enemies, or to conciliate them. She was ofopinion that the Duke of Berwick had not sufficiently defended her atVersailles against their machinations: she broke with him in 1714, before he returned from Catalonia. She did her utmost to have Tesséchosen to replace him, whom she pronounced quite capable of takingBarcelona; and, on learning that Berwick was nevertheless appointed, shehastened to banish Ronquillo, for something he had uttered against theGovernment, but in reality because he was the intimate friend of thatgeneral. [57] Two nobles were also imprisoned at this time--Don Manuel deSylva, commandant of the galleys of Sicily, already temporarily exiledin 1709 for having (so said the sentence) "spoken ill of her, " and DonValerio d'Aspetia, Lieutenant-General. Both were declared enemies ofMadame des Ursins, and the first had moreover the fault of being closelyconnected with the Duke d'Uzeda. Valerio d'Aspetia died in prison, atthe age of seventy, and after fifty years of service, a lamentable loss, and which involved that of his still young and lovely wife, whose dayswere cut short through grief and poverty. Besides all this, must benoticed a suspicious jealousy of domination over Philip V. , which wasfearfully developed when that prince found himself a widower, and whichbetrayed itself in very disagreeable actions. 

 [57] Memoirs of Saint Philippe, tom. Iii. , p. 88. 

Saint Simon tells us that, after the death of Marie Louise of Savoy, Madame des Ursins usually supped with the King, and had him transferredfrom the palace of the Buen-Retiro, in which the Queen had died, to thatof Medina Coeli. There she caused a corridor to be constructed, leadingfrom the King's cabinet to the apartments of the young princes, whereinshe was lodged; and it was not, as may be imagined, to facilitatecommunications between a bereaved father and his children, who hadbecome doubly dear to him, but, according to our authority, in orderthat it might never be known whether the King was alone or with her. Shewas in such haste to see this secret passage completed, that, to thegreat scandal of Catholic Spain, she had the work carried on duringSundays and saints' days as well as upon ordinary days. This was pushedto such an extent, that a great number of pious persons no less thanthrice asked Father Robinet, the most exemplary of the confessors PhilipV. Ever had, if he were not aware of such unlawful labour, and when itwas that he intended it should cease. To which the subtle Jesuit, whowas unwilling to be accused of laxity in morals, replied that the Kinghad not spoken to him upon the subject, alluding to his relations withPhilip as his Confessor, in which relation alone he wished it to beunderstood that he was to be considered--always adding, for theirsatisfaction, that if he had been consulted in the matter, he would nothave failed to say that, to complete that criminal corridor, work shouldnever have been so permitted, but that to effect its destruction, thelabourers might have worked at it even on Easter Day. [58]

 [58] Mémoires de Saint Simon, tom. Xx. , p. 171, 172. 

This statement of Saint Simon, quite insupportable as it is, wouldnevertheless leave subsisting, in the melancholy position of thechildren and their father, a means of justification to Madame desUrsins, did not Duclos deprive her of it; and who, less charitable thanthe authority whom he generally cites when treating of this celebratedwoman, tells us purely and simply that she desired to facilitate thecommunication of her own apartments with those of the King, which leavesample room for slander and suspicion. He goes still further. Improvingupon Saint Simon, and showing himself better acquainted with theparticulars than the Duke, he mentions a very aggravating fact, whichwas, that, in order to construct that very suspicious means ofcommunication, it was necessary to demolish a monastery of Capuchins, and that in consequence "dead bodies were disinterred, the HolySacrament dislodged from the church, the monks quitting it inprocession, amidst exclamations of "Oh, sacrilege! Oh, profanation!"from all Madrid. "[59]

 [59] Memoirs of Duclos (Petitot's Collection), tom. I. , p. 230. 

Happily, Duclos is merely in this the servile copyist of a Spanishauthor, whose contradictions and bad feeling it would be very easy toexpose. He has reproduced word for word the version to be found in the_Mémoires sur l'Espagne_, printed as a sequel to the letters ofFitz-Maurice. What! to make a simple corridor from one apartment toanother, nothing less was required than to demolish an entire monastery, large as they were, in Spain especially, with its church and everythingdevoted to its religious purposes, and the dwellings of the monks? AndSaint Simon knew nothing of all this? For, had he known it, mostassuredly he would not have failed to fling it in the face of Madame desUrsins. That the Marquis de Saint Philippe, who was upon the spot, a manso religious, and who could not endure Madame des Ursins, should say notone word, without fear of derogating from his customary gravity, of thatimpious scandal, of such a Vandalism as had revolted all Madrid! Wethink that if M. Duclos had better informed himself upon the point andof the source whence he derived it, he, too, would have complained ofexaggeration, and would not have given it out as a fact. 

The part played by Madame des Ursins would assuredly have been granderif she had herself renounced the regal boon proffered by Philip V. , assoon as it promised to be an obstacle to the pacification of Europe; ifshe had preferred the general good to her own particular advantage, andsustained her lofty character to the end, she would have preserved by sodoing the prestige of grandeur and disinterestedness which hadconstantly surrounded her. A love of power would have been pardoned inher, always foreign to considerations of personal advantage; and, asambition, like other human passions, may become a source of crime, though it is not itself a crime, in her case it would have been praised, because she would have unceasingly shunned the vanity which lessens it, the self-interest which debases it, and that continual recurrence toegotism which travesties it in intrigue. But she failed to crown hercareer by that true glory. Seeing the King and Queen of Spain very muchoffended at the retrograde step of Louis XIV. , she further irritatedthem by her peevish attitude and marked discontent. The Marquis deBrancas, sent by Louis into Spain, proceeded to represent the articlesof the Treaty of Utrecht to Philip V. In such wise as the Emperor andhis allies wished them to stand; Philip replied that he would not signthem, unless there was a special clause added in favour of Madame desUrsins. That ambassador returned furious, crying out against the SpanishGovernment, and especially against Madame des Ursins, who directedeverything, he said, and who had played at cross-purposes in order tocause his mission to miscarry. He succeeded in drawing down upon theCourt of Madrid the heavy rebuke of Louis XIV. This, however, provedaltogether useless; for Philip persisted in his resolution, andcontented himself with sending the Cardinal del Guidice to hisgrandfather, whilst Madame des Ursins employed with the same monarch thecustomary influence of Madame de Maintenon. The latter, in fact, so theMarquis de Saint Philippe tells us, made excuses for Madame des Ursinsto Louis XIV. , and the other advocate of the Court of Madrid obtainedthe order for the march of the troops destined for the siege ofBarcelona, whose success, looked upon as certain, ought likewise torender the Austrians more disposed to treat upon the question of herprincipality. 

But that was not the only expedient employed by Madame des Ursins. TheEnglish ambassador, Lord Lexington, besides Gibraltar and Port Mahon, relied upon obtaining for the English a free trade in the brandies ofTarragon; this the Princess conceded to him. He desired also that theymight be allowed to construct, upon the River de la Plata, a fort fortheir protection, and as a depôt for negroes, in order that in futurethey might alone supply the Spanish colonies with slaves: this monopolywas also accorded. In return, Lord Lexington signed a convention withher, in which Queen Anne "_engaged to secure her a sovereignty_. "[60] Atsuch price the adhesion of England seemed secured. She reckoned also onobtaining that of Holland by analogous commercial advantages, and, infact, she obtained them. But how to win back Louis XIV. Was thequestion! For that she had a secret project, which, as she thought, ought to rehabilitate her in that monarch's eyes, in representing her asguided by a love of France more than by vanity. Louis XIV. Was not toderive any territorial advantage from the Treaty of Utrecht. But Madamedes Ursins was desirous so soon as the cession was made of the saidprincipality of giving it up immediately to that King, in exchange foran equivalent life-interest in Touraine, within French territory. Withthat view she had a clause inserted in the letters-patent of Philip V. , empowering her to alienate during her lifetime that principality inwhatever way she chose. Such was her design; and that it had evidentlybeen divined by the sagacious Madame de Maintenon would appear from thefollowing passage in a letter of about that date addressed to thePrincess: "Side by side with all your merits, you have _a concealedproject_, which, if I guess aright, has got the uppermost of all thosequalities. "[61]

 [60] So runs the textual engagement of Queen Anne, taken from the Royal Archives of the Hague, and communicated to M. Geffroy. 

 [61] Lettres de Madame de Maintenon et de Madame des Ursins, tom. Ii. , pp. 7, 8. 

But that was just what the allies most feared. The faculty given toMadame des Ursins in Philip's deed of gift had made them suspect thatintention of a surrender or an exchange, and they were on the watch foreverything which might arise to support their suppositions. In suchconjuncture, Madame des Ursins was wanting, as it appears to us, inprudence and address. Instead of postponing, until the cession hadbecome an accomplished fact, the question of the exchange, she pursuedthe two objects simultaneously. To negotiate the second with Torcy, shesent D'Aubigny secretly to France, and the latter, after some overtures, gave her hopes of entire success. Transported with delight, she gaveherself up to all the illusions of what the future had in store for herof happiness. She was not, therefore, destined to descend either in rankor honours after quitting the Court of Madrid. Here she had ruledbeneath the shadow of a phantom King; there she would command directlyand in person. In Spain, she had only been a subordinate; in France shewould have no superior, and would be more mistress of herself. All thesesatisfactions were increased a hundredfold by the proud feeling ofreturning to her native country as a sovereign princess, in a state sostrictly levelled by royalty, wherein no one would have a conditionequal to her own, and in which she would display with jestinghaughtiness the pomp inseparable from her title before her abashedenemies. She had so much faith in the hopes with which d'Aubignyinspired her, and by which that cunning favourite thought perhapsalready to profit, that she instructed him to go into Touraine and topurchase land in the neighbourhood of Amboise whereon to erect achateau, which should be called the manor of Chanteloup. [62] It wassomething like selling the skin of the bear before slaying her bruin;but with the formal and written engagement of England, with the supportof Holland, which she also had, with Louis XIV. , whom she sought to winback through the influence of Madame de Maintenon, and by the calculatednobleness of her intentions, she would overcome the resistance ofAustria, and her victory was certain. 

 [62] Mémoires de Saint Simon, tom. Xviii. , p. 104. 

Unfortunately, that which she ought to have anticipated actually came topass. England first discovered the occult negotiations of d'Aubigny atVersailles, and, unwilling that the Princess des Ursins should bestowanything upon France, she changed her tone, and became almost adefaulter to her. A Valentian gentleman, Clemente Generoso, says Duclos, still copying textually from Fitz-Maurice, blamed Lord Lexington, whoseagent and interpreter he had been from the beginning of the war, forhaving committed the Queen of England so far to Madame des Ursins, andadvised him to tear up the convention. [63] By the intervention of thatlady, England had obtained all it required, and the written consent ofPhilip V. Rendered the concessions irrevocable; there was no danger, therefore, of want of good faith on the part of Madame des Ursins. 

 [63] Memoirs of Duclos, tom. I. , p. 190. 

The towering rage of the latter may be imagined when she heard thisnews. She made the most earnest entreaties to Queen Anne not to abandonher. All that she could obtain was that that Princess "would use hergood offices" to procure her the object of her desires. An elastic andsomewhat embarrassing promise of protection was substituted for a formaland signed engagement, which bound Queen Anne to the interests of Madamedes Ursins as to those of a contracting power. The English had trickedher; they had surpassed her in cunning. A short time afterwards, if wemay believe Fitz-Maurice and his Spanish interlocutors, she madeClemente Generoso pay dearly for his evil counsel. One day when he wasreturning from London to Madrid, with instructions for Lord Lexington, some Irishmen, in the service of Philip V. , attacked him, and, as he wasendeavouring to take refuge in a church, they killed him, conformably tothe orders which they had received, it is said, from the Princess desUrsins and Orry. 

We only give this statement, be it well understood, under reservation, because nowhere else have we found any confirmation or even indicationof it. But thus much is certain, that the chances which Madame desUrsins had on the part of the Queen of England were greatly diminished, and that it was necessary to look elsewhere for more reliable aid. Shequickly despatched, therefore, her favourite d'Aubigny to Utrecht. "But, " says Saint Simon, "_c'était un trop petit Sire_; he was notadmitted beyond the antechambers. " But Saint Simon often falls intoerror through excessive contempt for those below his own level. Bycertain documents recently discovered at the Hague and communicated toM. Geffroy, it may be seen that the members of the congress of Utrechtdeliberated with d'Aubigny, and that they designated him _theplenipotentiary_ of Madame des Ursins. However that may be, d'Aubignydid not obtain much; in fact, he spoilt everything by offering the Dutchgreater advantages than had been accorded to the English. So the latterat least pretended, in order, no doubt, to have a pretext for whollyabandoning Madame des Ursins and for resuming their haughty attitudetowards her, after having courted her for awhile. Queen Anne feigned, infact, to be hurt that the Dutch had been more favoured than her ownsubjects, and exclaimed, with a readiness that betrayed an inwardsatisfaction: "Since the Princess des Ursins has recourse to others, Iabandon her. "[64] D'Aubigny, as the sole result, obtained only vaguehopes on the part of the Dutch, who were as inimical as the English asto any exchange with France. 

 [64] Memoirs of Duclos, tom. I. , p. 191. 

Without being angry with her "man of business, " whom she allowed even toreturn to Amboise to complete the erections already begun, Madame desUrsins selected, to continue the negotiations, a more importantpersonage--a young nephew of Madame de Noailles, named de Bournonville, Baron de Capres. But he covered himself with ridicule at this game ofprivate intrigue rather than real diplomatic negotiation; and, notwithstanding all the trouble he took, he obtained nothing by it, "thegratitude of Madame des Ursins excepted, who made Philip V. Give him theGolden Fleece, the rank of grandee, the Walloon company of thebodyguard--everything, in fact, he could desire. "[65]

 [65] MS. Letters of the Baron de Capres to Mad. Des Ursins, xxxi. , xxxii. 

The successive check of her two diplomatists was not, however, asufficient warning to Madame des Ursins. Ever in pursuit of a position, which had become nothing more than a chimera after having served as alure on the part of the English, she relied for success upon thepersistent and obstinate will of Philip V. , who made it a question of_amour propre_ for himself as much as a just recompense for Madame desUrsins. It was under these circumstances that this Prince refused tosign the treaty of Utrecht, that treaty which Louis XIV. Had signed andsealed with his own royal hand, and engaged to make him accept it, eventhough the allied powers should not grant him what he desired tobequeath to Madame des Ursins. [66] Such a firm attitude proved plainlyenough that there was good reason for reliance upon him. 

 [66] Memoirs of Duke of Berwick, tom. Ii. , pp. 164-169. 

But this affair "hung up" the peace, to use Saint Simon's phrase--thepeace that Louis XIV. Could now sign, because it was honourable. Hisdispleasure was extreme. It was all very well for Madame des Ursins tosay that she had nothing to do with the matter, that the King of Spainwas only following his own inclination, and that after all she despisedthe malevolent designs of his enemies; still the delay experienced inthe conclusion of the general peace was imputed to her. She was accusedof occupying herself too exclusively with her own interests, and ofplacing in the scales the repose of Europe entire: it was said that sheabused Philip's good-nature, and that she ought not to have availedherself of her ascendancy over that conscientious prince save to releasehim from his promise, to free him from all trammel, and incline himtowards the wishes of his grandfather. 

It was from the French ministry that these complaints came, and Torcy, so greatly humiliated in 1704, at length had his revenge. Madame deMaintenon herself made remarks upon her, based upon the same motives;only that she threw more form into them, contenting herself with givingthe Princess to infer that of which the others did not spare her theharshest expression. "You have good reason to let folks chatter;" shewrote, "_provided that you have nothing to reproach yourself with_.... For, you must know, we here look upon the treaty of Spain with Holland, such as it is, as equally necessary, _as you think it shameful atMadrid_.... Make up your mind, therefore, Madam, and do not allow it tobe said _that you are the sole cause of the prolongation of the war_. Icannot believe it, and think it very scandalous that others should. "[67]

 [67] Letters of Madame des Ursins to Madame de Maintenon, tom. Ii. , 7th Aug. , 1713; 3rd Sept. , 1713; 16th June, 1714. 

But these warnings and exhortations, imparted with such delicate tact, had no more effect at Madrid than the harsh severity of the ministerialreprimands. Louis XIV. Then made his solemn voice heard. "Sign, " saidhe, tartly, to his grandson, "or no aid from me. Berwick is on his marchfor Barcelona--I will recall him; then I will make peace privately withthe Dutch and with the Emperor; I will leave Spain at war with those twopowers, and I will not mix myself up further in any of your affairs, because I do not choose, for the private interest of Madame des Ursins, to defer securing the repose of my people, and perhaps plunge them intofresh sufferings. "[68]

 [68] Mémoires de Saint Philippe, tom. Iii. , p. 91, and Duclos, tom. I. , p. 100. 

When Louis XIV. Had thus proffered his last word, Philip V. Even yeturged some objections, and the Princess des Ursins on her part, movedher friends into action; but there was no means of converting Louis XIV. To what the Court of Madrid demanded, since not one of the allies waswilling either; and, as for the acquisition of those few manors inLuxembourg, in exchange for an equivalent in Touraine, he preferredpersonally to have nothing upon any frontier, than to gain so little, and owe such feeble legacy to an intrigue, unworthy of his character, unworthy of a great nation, and only fit to serve as a text for thebiting irony of foreigners or that of his own subjects. 

Madame des Ursins is indeed no longer comprehensible throughout thisaffair. She, hitherto so noble-minded, so devoted to high-classpolitics, so prudent, so full of tact. Oh! how far off are we fromrealising that lofty sentiment of hers:--

 "Sans peine je passerais de la dictature à la charrue!"

There was nothing left, however, but to give way. The treaty of Utrechtwas signed by Philip V. , and unconditionally. The net gain in thebusiness fell to d'Aubigny; he received for his trouble as a negotiator, and for his constancy in another way, the manor of Chanteloup, revealedthe motive of its construction--yet an enigma to everybody in France, says Saint Simon[69]--installed himself therein, and, for the rest, madehimself loved and esteemed there. To Madame des Ursins there onlyremained the mortification of having failed, a mortification the greaterthat her pretensions had been so lofty and tenacious. It was furtherincreased, also, by having turned the Court of France against her, andengendered a coolness towards her on the part of Madame de Maintenonherself, who up to that juncture had always approved of her manner ofacting and her system of government, but who now, seizing the occasionof Orry having established some imposts upon the Catalans, did nothesitate to say very harshly and laconically: "We do not think Orry fitfor his post, for Spain is very badly governed. "[70]

 [69] Mémoires de Saint Simon, tom. Xviii. , p. 104. 

 [70] Lettres, tom. Iii. , p. 448, year 1714. 

Those were accents which must have deeply grieved the heart of thePrincess. Next came Berwick, who was by no means, as we have seen, to beranked amongst her friends--Berwick, whom Louis XIV. Had sent in spiteof her, in spite of what she had said of Tessé, who, by his own account, had failed the first time before Barcelona only because he had beenprevented from commencing the siege soon enough. Her influence, it wasimpossible to longer doubt, had been greatly lessened at Versailles, ifit had not perished altogether. 

Trembling for herself, she continued naturally to lean upon the King ofSpain, who was devoted to her. In order that this plank of safety shouldnot escape her grasp, she permitted only those she liked to have accessto him; she regulated all his proceedings; she kept him from all privateaudience; she seemed jealous of it, whilst she was only so as regardedher own preservation. Scandal, as may be imagined, was again busy withher name. It was again whispered that she was in hopes that the King, scarcely yet thirty-two, would not be repelled by the faded charms of aseptuagenarian; that he would marry her, that was certain; and in everysaloon throughout the world of fashion in France, circulated thefollowing anecdote, which Saint Simon duly registered in his Memoirs, and in which further figured, to render it more piquante and authentic, the Reverend Father Robinet. The King certainly had one eveningwithdrawn with his confessor into the embrasure of a window. The latterappearing reserved and mysterious, the curiosity of Philip V. Wasexcited, and the King questioned his confessor as to the meaning of theunwonted mood in which he found him. Upon which Father Robinet replied, that since the King forced him to it, he would confess that nobodyeither in France or Spain doubted but that he would do Madame des Ursinsthe honour of espousing her. "I marry her!" hastily rejoined the King. "Oh! as to that, certainly not!" and he turned upon his heel as heuttered the sentence. It was the pendant of "_Oh! pour mariée, non!_" ofthe famous letter of the Abbé d'Estrées, related by the same historian. Saint Simon's two pictures are delightful; in either of the two, thepriest, whether cunning or malignant, figures conspicuously, attractsattention, and keeps up one's curiosity. 

For some time, Philip V. Treated these reports as mere inventions andcalumnies, "the offspring of envy, hatred, and ambition. " All that wassaid concerning the omnipotence of Madame des Ursins, of her empire overhim, of her hopes, her designs, of that same corridor, of their privateinterviews, left him unmoved and indifferent. The Count de Bergueick, until then a stanch adherent of the Princess des Ursins, himselfdeclared that that omnipotence had become insupportable, and he askedpermission to return to Flanders, whence he had been summoned. Philip V. Allowed him to depart, and Madame des Ursins lost not one jot of herauthority. But the complaints, the murmurs, the idle talk continued, theincessant repetition of which could not fail at last to make animpression upon a weak mind. In the end the King grew wearied, andvexed, especially at the reports relating to such a ridiculous marriage, to a matrimonial project which wounded his self-love as a man as well ashis royal dignity, and tormented besides by the exigencies of atemperament, in which the flesh was far too predominant over thespirit--"Find me a wife, " said he, one day to Madame des Ursins, "our_tête-à-têtes_ scandalise the people. "[71]

 [71] Mémoire de Duclos, tom, i. , p. 230. 

CHAPTER IV. 

 THE PRINCESSES ELIGIBLE TO BECOME PHILIP'S CONSORT. 

"FIND me a wife!" The sentence was like a thunderclap in the ears ofMadame des Ursins, so long accustomed as she had been to govern anddomineer. Where to find one--one like Marie Louise of Savoy, who wouldconsent to retain her in the same functions, and who, like her, withintelligence and firmness of mind, would have a boundless confidence inher _camerara mayor_, and a docility proof against everything? LouisXIV. , being consulted, replied to his grandson that he gave him hischoice between a princess of Portugal, a princess of Bavaria, and aprincess of Parma. The first was greatly to the taste of the Castilians;they had always had reason to praise their Portuguese queens, and theyattached to such choice hopes of renewed political unity for the Spanishpeninsula to the profit of Castile, which thus, by marriages, wouldabsorb, on the left, Portugal, as it had appropriated on the right, thekingdom of Arragon. But the Court of the King of Portugal, the brotherof that princess, had been the rendezvous and the asylum of aristocraticand Austrian opposition. These antecedents alarmed Madame des Ursins onher own account, and did not appear much more assuring for Philip V. Wasit not known, on the other hand, that Portugal--especially since thetreaty of Utrecht, since the Bourbons had become, in spite of thatnation, the immutable possessors of Spain--dreaded those neighbouringkings, after having previously loved them so much as liberators, and onthat account had placed herself under the protection of England, theenemy of all the reigning branches of that powerful and ambitious house?

A marriage with the daughter of the Elector of Bavaria, of a firm allyof Louis XIV. And Philip V. , might well be the boon and the bond of anold friendship, but could not procure for Spain any compensation for thesacrifices imposed upon her by the terms of the recent peace. 

The Princess of Parma, as a guarantee of security, if not of materialadvantage, did not at the first glance seem more eligible. "Besides thatshe was the issue of a double bastardy, of a pope on her father's side, of a natural daughter of Charles V. On her mother's side, she was thedaughter of a petty duke of Parma and a thoroughly Austrian mother, whowas herself the sister of the dowager-empress, of the dowager-queen ofSpain, who was so unpopular that she was exiled; and further of theQueen of Portugal, who had persuaded her husband to receive the Archdukeat Lisbon, and to carry the war into Spain. "[72] On that account suchwas not an eligible choice for the King of Spain. It was certain, moreover, although Madame des Ursins was unaware of it, that "she was ofa haughty disposition, and that she had been brought up at Parma withthe same thoroughly French freedom which reigned at Turin. "[73] But byher uncle, the reigning Duke of Parma, who had no children, and was nolonger of an age to have any, she was heiress to the duchies of Parma, Plaisance, and Guastalla, and by another uncle, the aged Gaston deMedicis, Duke of Tuscany, she had the expectation of Tuscany itself, andthe isle of Elba, a dependance of it. United to Philip V. She mighttherefore some day, and perhaps shortly, bring Spain into Italy, alongside of its ancient possessions, from which the treaty of Utrechthad driven her. This consideration had much weight with Madame desUrsins, to whom that treaty, as we have seen from a letter of Madame deMaintenon, had appeared disgraceful for Spain, as well as detrimental toherself. Doubtless there was something disquieting in the familyalliances of this princess; but it might be thought that the perspectiveof an union with one of the most illustrious crowned houses of Europe, and moreover the crown of a queen which would bind her brow, wouldrender her favourable to Madame des Ursins, upon whom a marriage sobrilliant depended, and which far surpassed Elizabeth's utmostexpectations. The former thought to find in the Farnese, brought up in amodest and virtuous court, a simple-minded, timorous girl. Gratitude forsuch a service appeared to Madame des Ursins a certain security for herfuture tranquillity; but a skilful intriguer who had but very slightlyrendered himself agreeable to the princess--Alberoni, a native ofParma--afterwards celebrated throughout Europe as the Cardinal Alberoni, but then occupying a subordinate position in Spain, conceived at thatmoment one of those vast plans to which his fertile genius was wont togive birth, and which would have placed him in the foremost rank ofgreat men had a like success equally crowned them all. He concealed, asalready said, the real character of the Princess of Parma, who, moreover, could not then have been known to be what she afterwardsturned out. The marriage was concluded, the new Queen set out forSpain, and Madame des Ursins went forward to meet her at Xadraque, asmall town some few leagues from Madrid. 

 [72] Memoirs of St. Simon, tom. Xx. , p. 175. 

 [73] Histoire Secrete de la Cour de Madrid, année 1714, p. 315. 

A dispensation from the Pope--for the future Queen was a near relativeof Gabrielle of Savoy--had been promptly obtained. Already did thefavourite indulge herself with the contemplation of the illimitableprospect of domination which the future seemed to open up for her, whenshe received more truthful information relative to the character ofElizabeth Farnese. Her letters during the latter part of 1714, notwithstanding their great reserve, reveal a manifest uneasiness, andit is with an ill-concealed emotion that she relates, without preciselydetailing them, the contradictory reports which reach her relative tothe Princess. It seems impossible to doubt that, during the few monthswhich preceded the arrival of the Princess of Parma, the presence ofMadame des Ursins had not become a torment to the Spanish King, and thathe had not secretly lent his hand to a _coup d'état_ carried outsubsequently with a barbarous determination by his new consort. It was, in fact, by showing to the officers of the guard a plenary power fromthe King that Elizabeth triumphed over their hesitation, and that shesecured their assistance in the execution of a measure which perhapswould have been less cruel if it had been more sanguinary; but if, sincethe death of Marie Louise of Savoy, the relations of the King of Spainwith Madame des Ursins had assumed an obscure character, the activeintervention of the latter in the second marriage of that Prince atleast excludes the idea that she could have dreamed of a royal positionfor herself, as her enemies accused her. Granted that the Abbé Alberonimay have transformed the most ambitious princess in Europe into "ajolly _Parmesane_ fattened upon cheese and butter, "[74] and that thehabitual circumspection of Madame des Ursins did not protect her againstthe clumsiness of such a snare may be true, however unlikely; but it isat least doubtful that the _camerara mayor_ could have cherished suchillusion when she presented herself for the first time before the newQueen at the interview at Xadraque. 

 [74] "Questo abbate pur freddamente, e come a mezza voce la nomino, aggiugnendo per altro, ch'ella era una buona Lombarda, impastata da buttero et fromagio picentino, elevata alla casalingua, ed avezza di non sentirsi di altro parlare che di mertelli ricami e tele. "--_Memorie Istoriche_ di Poggiali, p. 279. 

Whether the indiscretions of others had revealed to her the truecharacter of Elizabeth Farnese, whether she had foreseen the manoeuvresof the Inquisition with the future Queen, whether she had dreaded theanger of Louis XIV. , who had not been consulted; whether the triumphantattitude of her enemies had opened her eyes, certain it is, however, that the Princess attempted to break off the match. But it was in vainthat she despatched a confidential agent to Parma for that purpose. Onhis arrival, the messenger was thrown into prison and threatened withdeath, and so failed in his mission. The marriage by procuration wascelebrated on the 16th of August, 1714. That unskilful and tardyopposition released the Princess Farnese from all feelings of gratitude, furnished the enemies of Madame des Ursins with a deadly weapon, byappearing to justify their accusations in a striking manner, and soprepared her ruin. 

Her disgrace was prompt, cruel, decisive. The plan had evidently beenconcerted long beforehand. [75] Confirmed in her design by her interviewat Saint Jean de Luz with the Queen Dowager, widow of Charles II. Andher relative, and at Pampeluna with Alberoni, Elizabeth held on her wayto Madrid. The King advanced to meet her on the road to Burgos, andMadame des Ursins, as has been said, went on before as far as the littletown of Xadraque. When the Queen arrived there on the 23rd of December, 1714, Madame des Ursins received her with the customary reverences. Afterwards, having followed her into a cabinet, she perceived herinstantly change her tone. By some it is said that Madame des Ursins, being desirous of finding fault with something about the Queen'shead-dress, whilst she was at her toilette, the latter treated it as animpertinence, and immediately flew into a rage. Others relate (and thesedifferent accounts tally with each other in the main) that Madame desUrsins having protested her devotedness to the new Queen, and assuredher Majesty "that She might always reckon upon finding her stand betweenthe King and herself, to keep matters in the state in which they oughtto be on her account, and procuring her all the gratifications which shehad a right to expect--the Queen, who had listened quietly enough sofar, took fire at these last words, and replied that she did not wantanyone near the King; that it was an impertinence to make her such anoffer, and that it was presuming too much to dare to address her in sucha fashion. " Thus much is certain, that the Queen, outrageously thrustingMadame des Ursins out of her cabinet, [76] summoned M. D'Amezaga, lieutenant of the bodyguard, who commanded the escort, and ordered himto arrest the Princess, to make her get immediately into a carriage, andhave her driven to the French frontiers by the shortest road, andwithout halting anywhere. As d'Amezaga hesitated, the Queen asked himwhether he had not received a special command from the King of Spain toobey her in everything and without reserve--which was quite true. Madamedes Ursins was arrested, therefore, and carried off instantaneously, just as she was, in her full dress of ceremony, and hurried across Spainas fast as six horses could drag her. It was mid-winter--no provisionsto be found in the inns of Spain; no beds; not a change of clothes--theground covered with frost and snow; and the Princess was then in herseventy-second year. A lady's maid and two officers of the guardaccompanied her in the carriage. 

 [75] "I only ask one thing of you, " wrote Elizabeth Farnese to Philip V. ; "that is the dismissal of Madame des Ursins;" and the king had replied--"At least do not spare your blow; for if she only talk to you for a couple of hours, she will enchain you, and hinder us from sleeping together, as happened to the late Queen. "--Duclos. 

 [76] Madame des Ursins, stupified, sought to make excuses. "La Reine alors, redoublant de furie et de menaces, se mit à crier qu'on fît sortir cette folle de sa présence et de son logis, et l'en fit mettre dehors par les épaules. "--Saint Simon. 

"I know not how I managed to endure all the fatigue of that journey, "she wrote Madame de Maintenon, whilst wandering about the Frenchfrontiers, eighteen days after the scene at Xadraque. "They compelled meto sleep upon straw, and to breakfast in a very different style to therepast to which I had been accustomed. I have not forgotten in thedetails which I have taken the liberty to send the King (Louis XIV. )that I ate only two stale eggs daily; it struck me that such a factwould excite him to take pity upon a faithful subject who has notdeserved, it seems to me, in any way such contemptuous treatment. I amgoing to Saint Jean de Luz to take a little repose and learn what it mayplease the King to do in my behalf. "

And from this last-named town--at which she was set at liberty--and upto her arrival at which she had unfalteringly maintained the strengthand constancy of her character, neither a tear nor a complaint escapingher--a few days later she wrote again to Madame de Maintenon:

"Here I shall await the King's commands. I am in a small house--theocean before me, sometimes calm, sometimes agitated: it is an image ofwhat passes in courts. You know what has happened to me; I shall notimplore in vain your generous compassion. I agree perfectly with youthat stability is only to be found in God. Assuredly it is not to befound in the human breast; for who could be more certain than I was ofthe King of Spain's heart?"

Everything leads us to infer, in fact, that it was Philip V. Who, forgetting the long and faithful services of Madame des Ursins, andwearied of a domination from which he had not the courage to freehimself, gave authority to his new consort to take everything uponherself; and the latter, who, like Alberoni, her crafty adviser, belonged to the intrepid race of political gamesters, did not hesitatefor a single instant to commence her regal play with the execution ofsuch a master-stroke. Elizabeth of Parma felt herself to be toofirst-rate a personage to condescend to figure side by side on the samestage with Madame des Ursins. 

It was of this same Elizabeth, born for a throne, that Frederick theGreat said: "The pride of a Spartan, the obstinacy of a Briton, added toItalian finesse and French vivacity, formed the character of thissingular woman. She advanced audaciously to the accomplishment of herdesigns; nothing astonished her, nothing could stop her. " Possessed ofsuch qualities it is not surprising to find that she profited by thesmallest opening to sweep the ground clear on her arrival. 

Recovering from this stunning downfall, Madame des Ursins, after thefirst moments of surprise, recovered all her strength, her sang-froid, her wonted equanimity. Not a complaint or unbecoming reproach or weakword escaped her lips. She had formed a just estimate beforehand of allthat human instability; she said to herself, on beholding her enemiestriumphant and her friends in consternation, that there was no reason tobe greatly astonished. That this world was only a stage over which manyvery poor actors strutted, that she had thereon played her part betterthan many others perhaps, and that her enemies ought not to haveexpected to see her so humiliated that she could no longer perform it:"It is in the eye of heaven that I should be humbled, " said she, "and Iam so. "

Every reader of Saint Simon must be deeply impressed with his narrativeof that terrible night of December 24th, 1714. Who can fail to pictureto himself the rude expulsion of the Princess des Ursins from theQueen's apartment in her full dress of ceremony, suddenly packed off ina carriage, without proper clothing or change of linen, and withoutmoney, to be whirled away through a winter's night so severe that herdriver lost one of his hands from frost-bite, over mountain passes wherethe roads had disappeared beneath the snow, towards an unknowndestination? Who cannot picture to himself hunger coming to add freshtortures to those of the prolonged nightmare under which thatunfortunate lady must have suffered the keenest pangs of incertitude, ofastonishment, and of humiliation? Such, however, was the fate reservedfor a woman who had inscribed her name among those of the founders of adynasty and the liberators of a great kingdom!

For some time previous to the occurrence of that strange event--sounlooked for, so inconceivable--the Princess had not been free frominquietude with respect to the preservation of her prestige andauthority, as also on the score of constantly recurring difficultieswith the Court of Versailles, wherein she had numerous enemies keepingup an active correspondence with the still more numerous enemies by whomshe was surrounded at Madrid; the affairs of the sovereignty, theisolation in which Philip was kept; the marriage of that Prince, determined upon and almost concluded without the consent of hisgrandfather--all which had deeply angered Louis the Fourteenth. 

Though all this tended by turns to inspire the Princess with fear anddisgust, still, she could not anticipate an ignominious treatment comingfrom that quarter. Soon, however, her wonted courage got the uppermostin her bosom; besides, she had hopes both from her justification andfrom the King of Spain, whose confidence she thought unshakeable, of areturn to Court, difficult, nevertheless, after such a shock. Meanwhile, the Queen vouchsafed no replies to her letters; the King announced toher that he was unable to refuse the maintenance of the measure taken atthe instance of the Queen, but assured her that pensions would beconferred upon her. Having reached St. Jean de Luz, Madame des Ursinswrote to Versailles, and shortly afterwards despatched thither one ofher nephews. The Great Monarch was compelled to be guided by thedecision of his grandson; Madame de Maintenon replied by evasivecompliments. The Princess could then see that all was at an end, asregarded her resumption of power. She pursued her way through France, and arrived in Paris. The King received her coldly; her stay in Francewas not prolonged without difficulty. Moreover, she foresaw theapproaching decease of Louis the Fourteenth, and a regency under theDuke of Orleans. Their old quarrels, the open hatred which had sinceexisted between them, causing her uneasiness and misgivings, sheresolved to quit France. She wished to visit the Low Countries, but wasnot permitted. She proceeded to Savoy, thence to Genoa, and at lastreturned to Rome, where she once more fixed her abode. There a suitableexistence was secured to her, for Philip kept his promise, and causedher pension to be punctually paid. 

Habituated to the stir of courts and the excitement of state affairs, she could not condemn herself, notwithstanding her age, to an absoluterepose. Prince James Stuart, called _the Pretender_, having withdrawn toRome, Madame des Ursins attached herself to him and his fortunes; shedid the honours of his house: and thus she remained until her death, which took place December 5th, 1722, at the age of fourscore andupwards. 

It has been sought to divine the real authors of the Princess'sdisgrace; for it has been considered, not without good reason, that itwas very improbable that no other cause save a sudden impulse arisingfrom a feeling of anger, barely justifiable on the Queen's part, hadurged her to put in execution a resolution which brought about nothingless than an actual political revolution. 

BOOK IV. 

CLOSING SCENES. 

CHAPTER I. 

 THE PRINCESS DES URSINS. 

THE Princess des Ursins, as it will be seen, shared the fate ofPortocarrero, of Medina-Coeli, and of all those whose power she hadbroken or whose designs she had frustrated; and who, after theirdecease, were immediately buried in silence and oblivion. Divided intotwo parts by the death of Marie-Louise of Savoy, her political life inSpain had not always assumed the same character, a like aspect. Thefirst had been marked by useful or glorious actions, and was of realgrandeur; the second was more remarkable for its weakness. Side by sidewith a bold and honourable, although unsuitable enterprise, ridiculousand extravagant pretensions were coupled. Finding herself alone at theright hand of Philip the Fifth, she became puffed up with her exclusiveinfluence, her new rank and title. She exaggerated her personalimportance. She was possessed with the secret desire of being in Spain, with a young sovereign, and he too on the eve of marriage, what Madamede Maintenon was in France, with an aged monarch, and for a while sheattained that object, as flattering to her feminine vanity as to herambition. 

In this there was only one difference, a difference arising from therespective characters of these two ladies and of those two kings; whichwas that the ascendant of the one, taking the form of friendship themost discreet, was lasting, whilst the other, exercising a direct, immediate, and too overt domination, was destined, sooner or later, toend in tiring out a monarch infinitely less capable than Louis theFourteenth, but quite as jealous of sway. The Princess bore, therefore, rather the semblance of an intriguante, as people remarked, than of aserious woman, having large views, of will alike firm and prompt, ofenlightened and, in a certain sense, liberal mind, with an entireabnegation of self--seeking the welfare of the State alone, and theinterests only of the two great countries. Except those whom she hadserved, or who had sent her to Spain, few had approved her acts at anyperiod of her favour. The misfortunes and the abuses that marked herpossession of power, when it had reached its apogee, confirmed them intheir opinion, especially when they saw, in France, the severest censurelaunched against her even from high places, whence until then praise haddescended. Others, to whom her previous conduct was less known, judgedher only by what seemed ridiculous or faulty at that period of her life, and the last impression received was that which they retained, which hasbeen transmitted to posterity; which was regarded as that most to berelied upon, and which the almost exclusive perusal of Saint Simon, farfrom modifying in any way that impression, only served to confirm it. That consummate courtier has well said, in his Memoirs, that "herhistory deserved to be written, " implying the deep interest which wouldbe derivable from it. The narrative, apart from its interest, isvaluable for the lesson it conveys of the fruitlessness of the devotionof a most gifted woman's life to the pursuit of politics on the grandestand most elevated scale. During twelve years the Princess des Ursinsexercised a power almost absolute. If, however, the beneficent traces ofher influence and sway are sought for, the search proves futile; thoughdoubtless, after so many crises and revolutions Spain has experiencedsince her time, that ungovernable country must have lost all suchadvantages; but at any rate posterity would have preserved a remembranceof them. We must not, however, accuse Madame des Ursins too severely. One of those vigorous geniuses was needed which but too seldom maketheir appearance upon the scene of events to resuscitate and sustain theSpanish monarchy amidst circumstances so untoward and difficult. Aftercivil and foreign war which had driven Philip to the brink of aprecipice, he had succeeded in reducing to obedience the last city ofhis kingdom, only a few days before the fall of Madame des Ursins. Andthen began a peaceful sway, which allowed useful reforms and beneficentameliorations to be thought of. 

The subject of so many accusations, and probably misconceptions, thePrincess possessed a large, fine, and cultivated mind, a rare aptitudefor business, a force of character little common among persons of hersex. Warm in her affections, she was naturally so in her hatreds; andthough but too easily accessible to unjust prejudices, was prompt alsoto seek out and encourage merit. She has been reproached for herintrigues, but the same weapons with which she was assailed she turnedagainst her enemies, and their number was great. How manifold must havebeen the animosities excited by the position of a woman who, standingonly at the foot of the throne, governed both its possessors and theirCourt, created and directed its ministers, generals, and ambassadors!Fervent attachment to her sovereigns, eminent services rendered to themand their countries, an astonishing capacity, a profound knowledge ofmankind, a rare presence of mind, and an unshakeable firmness insituations the most perilous and misfortunes the most unlooked-for, such attributes cannot be denied without injustice to the Princess desUrsins, and which, however futile the result of her political career, ought to consecrate the memory of her labours and her name. 

It was a generous impulse which prompted Madame des Ursins to commence afresh attack upon the Spanish Inquisition. Can it be said that the warshe waged against it remained without any result? Assuredly not. By heractive intervention the English Government obtained the privilege thatthe palace of its ambassador at Madrid should enjoy the right of anasylum against all the proceedings of the Inquisition, and the sameprivilege was acquired for British vessels in the ports of Spain. AProtestant nation thus opened in the capital of the Catholic King aperpetual refuge against the rigours of the Holy Office. It was a greatinnovation; it was the first blow dealt by the spirit of modern timesagainst that of those Spanish institutions which represented the mostfaithfully the blind and almost barbarous religion of the Middle Ages. 

It is difficult to decide whether it was a misfortune or an advantage toher to figure in the gallery of the ducal memoir-writer, Saint Simon. That portrait, sketched with a breadth and freedom by which her womanlycharacter has somewhat suffered, depicts her as devoured by a thirst forpower, without even allowing the important services which she renderedto the two nations to be so much as suspected. The great master has notgiven us a bust-portrait of Madame des Ursins, but a full-lengthlikeness, with that lavish excess of colour flung upon the canvas whichimparts more life than truth, more of relief than perspective to themajority of his pictures. If in that brilliant delineation the greatlady shines with a somewhat theatrical majesty, the national objectwhich she pursued is in no wise indicated--a grave though naturalomission on the part of a man in whom a passionate fondness for detailsalmost always blinds him to the collective point of view, and who is notthe first of portraitists only because he is the least reliable ofhistorical painters. He, nevertheless, in her case, always manifests thefeeling that she is worthy of a careful, special, and patient study, andhe points out such study for the edification of posterity. "She reignedin Spain, " he remarks, "and her history deserves to be written. "

We will now reproduce his elaborate portrait of the Princess. "Rathertall than short of stature, she was a brunette with blue eyes whoseexpression incessantly responded to everything that pleased her; with aperfect shape, a lovely bosom, and a countenance which, withoutregularity of feature, was more charming even than the purelysymmetrical. Her air was extremely noble, and there was somethingmajestic in her whole demeanour, and a grace so natural and continual inall she did, even in things the most trivial and indifferent, that Ihave never seen anyone approach to, either in form or mind. Her wit wascopious and of all kinds. She was flattering, caressing, insinuating, moderate, desirous to please for pleasing sake, and with charmsirresistible when she strove to persuade and win over. Accompanying allthis, she possessed a grandeur that encouraged rather than repelled. Adelightful tone of conversation, inexhaustible and always mostamusing--for she had seen many countries and peoples. A voice and way ofspeaking extremely agreeable and full of sweetness. She had read muchand reflected much. She knew how to choose the best society, how toreceive it, and could even have held a Court; was polite anddistinguished; and, above all, careful never to take a step in advancewithout dignity and discretion. She was eminently fitted for intrigue, in which, from taste, she had passed her time at Rome. With muchambition, but of that vast kind far above her sex and the common run ofmen--a desire to occupy a great position and to govern. An inclinationto gallantry and personal vanity were her foibles, and these clung toher until her latest days; consequently she dressed in a way that nolonger became her, and as she advanced in life departed further frompropriety in this particular. She was an ardent and excellent friend--ofa friendship that time and absence never enfeebled; and therefore animplacable enemy, pursuing her hatred even to the infernal regions. Whilst caring little for the means by which she gained her ends, shetried as much as possible to reach them by honest means. Secret, notonly for herself, but for her friends, she was yet of a decorous gaiety, and so governed her humours, that at all times and in everything she wasmistress of herself. "

Such was the Princess des Ursins, as sketched by that painstakinglimner, Saint-Simon; throughout whose "Memoirs" many other scatteredtraits are to be found of this celebrated woman, who so long and sopublicly governed the Court and Crown of Spain, and whose fate it was tomake so much stir in the world alike by her reign and her fall. 

CHAPTER II. 

 SARAH, DUCHESS OF MARLBOROUGH. 

THROUGHOUT the political conflicts which agitated the Court of Englandsince the Duke and Duchess of Marlborough had left their native shores, the Duke maintained a steady correspondence with his friends, butexpressed a firm refusal to deviate from those principles which hadoccasioned his exile, or to approve of the Peace of Utrecht, or toabandon his desire for the Hanoverian succession. Distrusting thesincerity of Harley's pretended exertions, he resolutely refused to holdintercourse with a Minister of whose hollowness he had already receivedmany proofs. Nor was the Duchess less determined never to pardon theinjuries which she conceived herself and her husband to have sustainedfrom Harley. All offers of his aid, all attempts to lend to him theinfluence which Marlborough's military and personal character stillcommanded, were absolutely rejected. 

At the Court of Hanover, the Duke and Duchess saw, as it were, reflectedthe cabals of their native country. Little, indeed, that was reassuringreached them in their foreign retreat, relative to public affairs. Theexisting policy of Anne's Ministers seemed likely to destroy all thathis labours had effected during a long life of toil and danger; and thesacrifice of thousands of lives had gained no advantage which the maliceof his enemies could not undo. In short, the friendly relations whichwere brought about between France and England threatened to change theface of things altogether. 

The result of the shrewd Duchess's experience of political life androyal favour was embodied in the sound advice she gave her illustrioushusband on his return to England, shortly after the death of Anne, andprevious to the arrival of her successor, George I. "I begged of theDuke upon my knees, " relates the Duchess, "that he would never acceptany employment. I said everybody that liked the Revolution and thesecurity of the law had a great esteem for him, that he had a greaterfortune than he wanted, and that a man who had had such success, withsuch an estate, would be of more use to any court than they could be tohim; that I would live civilly with them, if they were so to me, butwould never put it into the power of any King to use me ill. He wasentirely of this opinion, and determined to quit all, and serve themonly when he could act honestly and do his country service at the sametime. "

Though the Duchess witnessed the triumph of the Whigs on their return topower at the accession of George I. , she was very far from possessingthe influence she had enjoyed during Anne's reign. Her feverish thirstfor political and courtly intrigues had returned upon her, despite somany bitter deceptions and the advance of old age. She scoldedincessantly her husband for his indolence, when he had really becomeincapable of any longer taking an active part in public affairs. Heconfined himself to the enjoyment of his opulence and his high position. In May, 1716, he experienced a violent attack of paralysis, which forsome time deprived him of speech and recollection. His health continuedto decline more and more to the close of his life in June, 1722, thoughthe notion of his imbecility appears to have been erroneous. 

The Duke of Marlborough was one of the bravest and most kindly-temperedof men. His gentleness and devotion towards his wife and love of hischildren were not the only proofs which he gave of a kindly nature, andmany curious anecdotes are related of the way in which he governed hisimperious consort when he had to encounter her tears, sulks, andtorrents of passionate reproaches, which were among the favourite andirresistible features of her conjugal eloquence. The fiery Duchesssurvived her illustrious husband the long period of twenty-two years. Notwithstanding her age, and probably on account of her immense fortune, she was sought in marriage by the Duke of Somerset and Lord Coningsby. The reply she made to the offer of the first-named, an old friend, the"proud Duke, " was admirable. She declined a second marriage asunsuitable to her age; but added--"Were I only thirty, and were you ableto lay the empire of the world at my feet, I would not allow you tosucceed to that heart and hand which has always been devoted wholly toJohn, Duke of Marlborough. " A proof of her good judgment and truedignity! At the same time, it must be owned that, alike through prideand gratitude, she truly owed such a testimony of respect to the memoryof a husband who had left behind so great a name, and who was throughouthis married life full of amiability, deference, and tenderness towardsher, and who had suffered with an exemplary patience all thecapriciousness of her imperious character. 

The instructive lesson derivable from the extraordinary career andsignal disgrace of this remarkable political woman is emphatically givenby the Duchess herself, on her retirement, as the results of her ownexperience of royal favour. 

"After what has passed, I do solemnly protest, that if it were in mypower I would not be a favourite, which few will believe; and since Ishall never be able to give any demonstration of that truth, I had asgood say no more of it. But as fond as people are of power, I fancy thatanybody that had been shut up so many tedious hours as I have been witha person that had no conversation, and yet must be treated with respect, would feel something of what I did, and be very glad when theircircumstances did not want it, to be freed from such a slavery, whichmust be uneasy at all times; though I do protest, that upon the accountof her loving me, and trusting me so entirely as she did, I had aconcern for her, which is more than you will easily believe, and I wouldhave served her with the hazard of my life upon any occasion; but aftershe put me at liberty by using me ill, I was very easy, and liked betterthat anybody should have her favour than myself, at the price offlattery without which I believe nobody can be well with a King orQueen, unless the world should come to be less corrupt or they wiserthan any I have seen since I was born. "

In another place she says: "Women signify nothing unless they are themistresses of a Prince or a Prime Minister, which I would not be if Iwere young; and I think there are very few, if any, women that haveunderstanding or impartiality enough to serve well those they reallywish to serve. "

The wife of the great captain and hero of Queen Anne's time--the mostremarkable woman of her own, or perhaps of any epoch--lived to the ageof eighty-four. 

"So singular was the fate of this extraordinary woman in private life, "it has been truly observed, "that scarcely did she possess a tie whichwas not severed or embittered by worldly or political considerations. "

Those who hopelessly covet wealth, honour, and celebrity through theavenues of political strife may contemplate the career of Sarah Duchessof Marlborough with profit, and rise from the study reconciled to acalmer course of life and resigned to a humbler fate. 

INDEX. 

 ALBERONI, Julio Abbé (afterwards cardinal), Prime Minister of Spain, deceives Madame des Ursins as to the character of Elizabeth Farnese, 270-289; his representation of that most ambitious princess as "a jolly Parmesane fattened upon cheese and butter, " 291; concerts with the Princess of Parma the ruin of Madame des Ursins, 292; belonged to the intrepid race of political gamesters, 294. 

 AMELOT, the President, nominated ambassador for Spain by Madame des Ursins, 191. 

 ANNE of AUSTRIA (mother of Louis XIV. ), an example among all queens, and almost among all women, of constancy in adversity, 17; her reception of Mazarin after his exile, 18. 

 ANNE, Queen of England, her feeling towards the Whigs purely official, and not a genuine sympathy, 206; she secretly leans towards the Tories, as defender of the royal prerogative, 206; indolent and taciturn, she yields without resistance to the ascendency of Sarah Jennings, 215; her unhappy married life, 215; the Queen and Sarah treat each other as equals, writing under assumed names, 215; state of parties on her accession, 218; chooses a ministry combining both Whigs and Tories, 218; entertains the Archduke Charles with truly royal magnificence, 218; the Duchess of Marlborough surrounds the Queen with the chiefs of the Whigs against her will, 222; an endless succession of jars and piques between the Queen and the Duchess, 222; the insolence of the Mistress of the Robes towards the Queen, 226; gives her favour and confidence to Mrs. Masham, 227; Anne cautiously creeps out of her subjection to the Duchess, 230; has some pangs of conscience in ill-treating Marlborough, 232; gives up all regard for the Duchess or gratitude to the Duke, 233; emancipates herself from obligations regardless of the confusion into which she casts the country, 234; intrigues of the bed-chamber, 234; a weak woman domineered over by one attendant and wheedled and flattered by another, 234; gives herself up entirely to Mrs. Masham, 236; dreading the furious violence of the Duchess, Anne leaves London, 237; spares the Duke and Duchess not from compassion but fear, 242; terrified at the Duchess's threat to publish her letters, 242; exonerates the Duchess from the charge of cheating, 243; demands the return of the gold key from the Duchess, 244; divides her Court places between Mrs. Masham and the Duchess of Somerset, 245; writes with her own hand the dismissal of the Duchess, and gives herself up to her enemies, 246; her apathetic remark on hearing that the Duke and Duchess had left England, 248; she never sees again her great general or the woman to whom she was once so strongly attached, 248; her conduct towards Madame des Ursins in the repudiation of Lexington's convention, 281. 

 AUBIGNY, Louis d', equerry of Madame des Ursins, 178; his character and familiar relations with the Princess, 178; the intercepted letter intimating that they were married, 178; becomes a perfect _caballero_, 260; sent secretly to France by Madame des Ursins to negotiate with Torcy, 278; despatched to Utrecht to negotiate the principality, 280; obtains only vague hopes on the part of the Dutch, 281. 

 AUSTRIA, Charles, Archduke of, the reservation, by will of Charles II. , to renounce all claim to the empire of Germany, 129; competitor of Philip V. For the crown of Spain, 169; proclaimed Charles III. Of Spain by the Emperor, 186; lands at Lisbon and opens the campaign, 187; lands in Catalonia, 191; enters Barcelona as King of Spain, 197; proclaimed in Saragossa and Valentia, 197; his chief reliance the support of England, 207; entertained with truly royal magnificence at Windsor, 208; highly praises the beauty of Englishwomen, 218; his gallantry to the Queen and Duchess of Marlborough, 219; proclaimed at Madrid amidst a chilling silence, 251; awaits in vain the homage and oaths of the grandees, 259; is elevated to the imperial throne by the death of Joseph I. , 265. 

 BARRILLON (the French ambassador), brings about the signature of the treaty of Niméguen by the help of the Duchess of Portsmouth, 113; carries the message of the dying king's (Charles) mistress to the Duke of York, 117. 

 BEAUFORT, Francis de Vendôme, Duke de, commands the troops of Gaston and weakens the army by his dissensions with Nemours, his brother-in-law, 3; kills Nemours in a duel, 14; satisfied at seeing Madame de Montbazon satisfied, he retires to Anet, 21; submits to the royal authority and obtains command of the fleet, 67; commands the French men-of-war against England and Holland, 67; goes to the aid of the Venetians against the Turks in Candia, and is cut to pieces in a sortie, 67; he carries with him to Candia, disguised as a page, Louise Quérouaille, 95. 

 BERWICK, Duke of (natural son of James II. ), does justice to Orry, 177; commands the French corps in Spain, 179; commands an Anglo-Portuguese army in Estramadura, 197; his hatred pursues Louis XIV. On every field of battle, 197; completely defeats the allies near Almanza, 252. 

 BOLINGBROKE, Henry St. John, Viscount, his remark to Voltaire concerning Marlborough, 212; his career, character, and abilities, 220; possessed the talents and vices which have immortalised as well as disgraced Mirabeau, 221. 

 BOUILLON, Duke de, advises an immediate attack on Condé at the Faubourg St. Antoine, 8; a first-class politician, but with only one thought--the aggrandisement of his house, 22; a glance at his antecedents, 22; obtains the title of Prince, 23; is cut short in his ambitious career by death, 24. 

 BOULAY, Marquis de la, prevented from crossing swords with his rival, de Choisy, by Madame de Châtillon seizing a hand of each, 5. 

 BUCKINGHAM, George Villiers, second Duke of, sent to Paris to inquire into the sudden death of Henrietta of England, 107; he persuades Louise de Quérouaille to transfer herself to the service of the Queen of England, 108; seeks to turn her to his own advantage by raising up a rival to the Duchess of Cleveland in the king's affections, 108; offers to escort her to England, but forgets both the lady and his promise, and leaves her at Dieppe, 109. 

 BUSSY-RABUTIN, Count de, his account of a scene in public between Charles II. And the Duchess of Portsmouth, 113. 

 CAMBIAC, Abbé, enamoured of the Duchess de Châtillon, 4; retires on finding Condé is his rival, 5. 

 CAPRES, Bournonville, Baron de, negotiates with the Dutch touching the principality for Madame des Ursins, 281; liberally rewarded by Philip V. , 281. 

 CARIGNAN, Princess de, her projects for governing her niece the Queen of Spain, 155. 

 CHARLES II. Of England, the unbounded power over his mind possessed by his sister Henrietta, Duchess of Orleans, 97; falls into the snare laid for him by Louis XIV. , and is captivated by Louise Quérouaille, 99; the secret negotiation initiated at Dover by the Duchess, 99; the key to his will found in La Quérouaille, 100; the main features of the secret negotiation, 101; he is rendered doubly a traitor by his abandonment of the latter condition, 101; indignantly refuses to receive the Duke d'Orleans' letter acquainting him with his sister's death, 106; he pretends to believe the explanations offered him, 106; sends Buckingham to Paris ostensibly to inquire into the catastrophe, but in reality to conclude the treaty, 108; France gives three million of livres for Charles's conversion to Popery, and three for the Dutch war, 108; creates Louise Quérouaille _Duchess of Portsmouth_, 110; creates his son by her Duke of Richmond, 111; Madame de Sévigne's amusing account of Charles's duplicate amours, 111; his fatal seizure, 115; declares his wish to be admitted into the Church of Rome, 117; receives the offices of Father Huddlestone, 118; in his last moments commends the Duchess of Portsmouth to the care of his brother James, 118; the alleged poisoning of Charles II. , 119. 

 CHARLES II. , King of SPAIN, secretly consults Pope Innocent XII. On the succession, 128; declares Philip d'Anjou absolute heir to his crown, 129; consults the mortal remains of his father, mother, and wife upon the sacred obligations of the will, and dies, 129. 

 CHÂTILLON, Isabelle Angelique de Montmorency-Bouteville, Duchess de, visits Nemours when wounded under various disguises, 4; Condé not the only rival Nemours had to contend with, 4; her condescension towards Cambiac, an intriguing, licentious priest, 4; procures her an enormous legacy from the Princess-Dowager de Condé, 4; Vineuil makes himself very agreeable to her, 5; meeting her after the combat of St. Antoine, Condé shows by his countenance how much he despises her, 12; is unable longer to counterbalance the counsels and influence of Madame de Chevreuse, 14; her shameful league with La Rochefoucauld against Madame de Longueville, 38. 

 CHEVREUSE, Marie de Rohan, Duchess de. She ultimately becomes resigned to Mazarin, 19; warmly welcomes the return of the cardinal, 20; summary of her political career, 49; her elevated position side by side with Richelieu and Mazarin, 49; her "marriage of conscience" with the Marquis de Laigues, 50; marries her grandson, the Duke de Chevreuse, to Colbert's daughter, 52; survives all whom she had either loved or hated, 52; dies in obscurity at Gagny, 53. 

 CHOISY, Count de, enamoured of Madame de Châtillon, is bent on fighting a duel about her with the Marquis de la Boulay, 5. 

 CHURCHILL, Arabella, mistress of the Duke of York, obtains her brother John (afterwards Duke of Marlborough) a pair of colours in the Guards, 208. 

 CLEVELAND, Barbara Palmer, Duchess of, violently enamoured of the handsome John Churchill, 209; presents him with 5000_l. _ for his daring escape from the window of her apartment, 209; Buckingham raises up a rival to her in the King's affections in Louise Quérouaille, 108. 

 CONDÉ, Louis de Bourbon, Prince de, his small success in pleasing the fair sex, 4; almost always badly dressed, 4; his party very sensibly weakened by rivalries and gallant intrigues among the political heroines, 5; fixes his head-quarters at St. Cloud, 6; is distracted by different passions and feelings, 6; betrayed on all sides amidst a series of impotent intrigues, 7; his error in having preferred the counsels of his fickle mistress, Madame de Châtillon, to those of his courageous and devoted sister, 7; his talent and courage in the struggle at the Faubourg St. Antoine, 8; is saved from perishing by the noble conduct of Madame de Montpensier, 10; his sore distress at the loss of his slain friends, 11; his mind disabused with regard to Madame de Châtillon, he shows by his countenance how much he despises her, 12; proposes such hard conditions to the Royalists that all accord with him becomes impossible, 13; he retires to the Netherlands, and becomes _generalissimo_ of the Spanish armies, 13; is declared guilty of high treason and a traitor to the State, 14; plunges deeper than ever into the Spanish alliance and the war against France, 14; restored to his honours and power, the Princess de Condé becomes once more the despised, alienated, humiliated wife, 86; he keeps her imprisoned until his death, and recommended that she should be kept so after his decease, 88. 

 CONDÉ, Claire Clémence Maillé de Brézé, Princess de (wife of the Great Condé), married at thirteen to the Duke d'Enghien, who yielded only to compulsion, 80; the unenviable light in which she was held by her husband and relatives, 80; a fair estimate of her qualities, 81; her fidelity to her husband during adversity, 81; her zeal during the Woman's War, 81; her truly deplorable existence from earliest childhood, 82; her hour of fame and distinction, 83; her letters to the Queen and Ministers stamped with nobility and firmness, 83; she escapes from Chantilly on foot with her son and reaches Montrond, 83; she escapes from Montrond under cover of a hunting party, 83; escorted to Bordeaux by the Dukes de Bouillon and de la Rochefoucauld, 84; becomes an amazon and almost a heroine in the insurrection at Bordeaux, 84; scene in the Parliament chamber, 84; her particular talent for speaking in public, 84; works with her own hands at the fortifications of the city, 85; all the conditions by the Princess, save one, conceded, 85; Condé's remark that "whilst he was watering tulips, his wife was making war in the south, " 85; her rapturous reception of a tender note from Condé, 85; she again becomes the despised and humiliated wife, 86; a tragic event adds itself to the train of her tribulations, outrages, and troubles, 87; imprisoned by the Prince at Châteauroux until his death, 88; Bossuet in his panegyric of the hero gives not one word of praise to the ill-fated Princess, 89. 

 CONTI, Armand de Bourbon, Prince de, weakens the party of the Princes by his dissensions with his sister, Madame de Longueville, 3. 

 DARTMOUTH, Lord, his version of the affair of the gold keys, 244. 

 ESTRÉES, Cardinal d', directs the ultra-French political system at Madrid, 169; a formidable adversary of Madame des Ursins, 172; her tool, without knowing it, 173; he demands his recall in accents of rage and despair, 175. 

 ESTRÉES, the Abbé d', is laughed at and despised by Madame des Ursins, 176; his letter to Louis XIV. Scandalising her intercepted by her, 176; the letter of Louis XIV. Recalling him, 180. 

 FARNESE, Elizabeth, Princess of Parma, afterwards second consort of Philip V. Of Spain, her lineage and true character, 294; chosen by Madame des Ursins as consort of Philip V. , 289; her outrageous dismissal of the _camerara-mayor_, 292; her character as sketched by Frederick the Great, 294. 

 FERTÉ-SENNETERRE, Marshal de la, brings powerful reinforcements to the royal army from Lorraine, 7. 

 FIESQUE and FRONTENAC, the Countesses, the adjutant-generals of Madame de Montpensier in "the Women's War, " 69. 

 FORCE, Duke de la (father-in-law of Turenne), made Marshal of France, 24. 

 FRONDE, the army of the, discouraged and divided (July, 1652); the fight at the Faubourg St. Antoine an act of despair, 7; the defeat of Condé destroys the Fronde, 11; approaching its last agony, it treats with Mazarin for an amnesty, 13; contrasted with the Great Rebellion in England, 29; the revolt of the Fronde belonged especially to high-born Frenchwomen, 35. 

 GWYNNE, Nell, her rivalry of the Duchess of Portsmouth, 111; difference in character of their respective triumphs, 112. 

 GUISE, Henri, Duke de, rallies to Mazarin after the Fronde, 28; his violent passion for Mdlle. De Pons, 59; elected by the Neapolitans their leader after Masaniello, 59; defeats the Spanish troops and becomes master of the country, 59; is betrayed through his gallantries and carried prisoner to Madrid, 60; attempts to reconquer Naples but fails, 60; is appointed Grand Chamberlain of France, 60; his duels, his romantic amours, his profusion, and the varied adventures of his life, 60. 

 HALLAM, Henry (the historian), his remarks: "that the fortunes of Europe would have been changed by nothing more noble than the insolence of one waiting-woman and the cunning of another, " 246; that "the House of Bourbon would probably not have reigned beyond the Pyrenees but for Sarah and Abigail at Queen Anne's toilette, " 246. 

 HARCOURT, Duke d', intercedes for the exiled Princess des Ursins, 185. 

 HARLEY (afterwards Earl of Oxford), his talents and character, 219; uses his relation, the bed-chamber woman, as a political tool, 222; his plan to overthrow the Whigs by degrees, 233. 

 LEGANEZ, Marquis de, conspires in favour of the Archduke Charles, 191; arrested and imprisoned at Pampeluna, 191. 

 LEXINGTON, Lord, signs a convention which engages to secure to Madame des Ursins "a sovereignty, " 277. 

 LONGUEVILLE, Anne de Bourbon, Duchess de, no longer guided by La Rochefoucauld, she loses herself in aimless projects and compromises herself in intrigues without result, 3; the most ill-treated of all the political women of the Fronde, 36; a retrospection of her career during the Fronde, 36; though no longer the brilliant Bellona of Stenay, she does not dream of separating her fate from that of Condé, 38; her conversion to be dated from her sojourn in the convent at Moulins, 38; she implores pardon of her husband, 39; she is taken from Moulins to Rouen by her husband, 39; the fair penitent finds a ghostly guide in M. Singlin, 40; who advises her to remain in the outer world, 40; her desire to abstain from political intrigue looked upon incredulously for some years, 41; still placed by Mazarin (in 1659) among the feminine trio "capable of governing or overturning three great kingdoms, " 41; results of her long and rigid penitence, 41; protects the Jansenists and earns the designation of "Mother of the Church, " 41; acquires great reputation at the Court of Rome, 41; the austerities and self-mortification of her widowhood, 42; the death of her son, Count de St. Paul, the last blow of her earthly troubles, 43; the scene depicted by Madame de Sevigné on the arrival of the fatal tidings, 43; her death at the Carmelites, 44; the funeral oration by the Bishop of Autun, 44; three well-defined periods in her agitated life, 45; Mrs. Jameson's ideas of the mischievous tendencies of political women, as shown in the career of the Duchess, 46; Mrs. Jameson's erroneous estimate of the character of Madame de Longueville, 46-47. 

 LOUIS XIV. , King of France; his triumphant entry into Paris with his mother and Turenne, 15; his attention drawn to the wit and capacity of Madame des Ursins, 134; acts of violence against his Protestant subjects, 136; endeavours to bend Spain to his own designs, 151; recommends to his grandson an implacable war against Spanish Court etiquette, 163; the long train of disasters which brought Louis to the brink of an abyss, 168; the succession of Philip V. Threatens to endanger the very existence of the French monarchy, 168; desires to recall Madame des Ursins, but finds his hand arrested, 175; writes to the Abbé d'Estrées touching the complaints against Madame des Ursins, 179; his letters to the King and Queen of Spain, 183; his insuperable objection to a government of Prime Ministers, and still more of women, 187; in his restoration of the Princess des Ursins his sagacity triumphs over his repugnance, 188; represented in Spain by his nephew, the Duke of Orleans, 254; secretly assists the party in Spain of _fara da se_, 261; his displeasure at Madame des Ursins delaying the signature of the Treaty of Utrecht, 282; his tart letter to his grandson, 283; limits Philip's choice of a consort to three princesses, 287. 

 LOUVILLE, Marquis de, the duel with Madame des Ursins, 171; his fall: recalled from Madrid, 172; accuses Madame des Ursins of being "hair-brained in her conduct, " 177. 

 MAINTENON, Françoise d'Aubigny, Marquise de, her star rises slowly above the political horizon, 114; the secret of Madame des Ursins' appointment first broached in her cabinet, 143; favours that candidature, 145; the dazzling aspect of her laurels in Madame des Ursins' eyes, 148; her letters reveal the policy of Louis XIV. With regard to Spain, 151; her favourable intervention in behalf of the exiled Madame des Ursins, 185, 186; her motives for supporting the Princess, 186; dwells upon her equanimity, 193; changes the tone of her letters to a cold and sometimes ironic vein, 257; opposes the design of her old friend for a "sovereignty, " 269; she divines the concealed project of Madame des Ursins, 277. 

 MANCINI, Hortensia, Duchess de Mazarin, cuts to the quick Charles II. Of England, 114. 

 MARLBOROUGH, Sarah Jennings, Lady Churchill, and subsequently Duchess of, her birth and parentage, 207; peculiar graces of her mind and person, 208; Swift renders homage to her virtue, 208; aspirants to her hand, 208; altogether portionless, wooed and won by the avaricious John Churchill, 208; hard, vindictive, insatiable of wealth and honours, 210; united to the pride of a queen the rage of a fury, 210; brought up in close intimacy with the Princess Anne, her early assumed absolute ascendency, 215; the grounds on which she obtained and held place in Anne's service, 215; intoxicated with her almost unlimited sway, 218; no longer deigns to ask, but commands, 218; her influence well understood by the Continental powers, 218; domination her favourite passion, 221; exercised her absolute sway over the Queen with an imprudent audacity, 222; endless succession of piques, jeers, and misunderstandings between her and the Queen, 222; become a Princess of the Empire, subordinate duties are repugnant to her, 223; her benefactions to Abigail Hill's relatives, 224; perceiving the Queen's confidence in Mrs. Masham, she heaps upon her every species of contempt, sarcasm, and insult, 225; her insulting behaviour to the Queen at St. Paul's, 225; another altercation unduly breaks the links of their friendship, 226; discovers that her empire over the Queen is gone, 228; traces the whole system of deception carried on to her injury, 228; curious predicament between sovereign and subject, 230; her uprightness and singleness of mind, openness, and honesty, 230; long-repressed malice pours forth its vengeance on the disgraced favourite, 234; a fresh outbreak of violence precipitates her final disgrace, 236; her account of her last interview with the Queen at Kensington, 237; terrifies Anne by threatening to publish her letters, 242; her economy in dressing the Queen, 242; the return of the gold key, 244; the resignation accepted with eagerness and joyfulness, 245; the Duchess thinks only of some means or other of revenge, 246; her directions when about to quit the sphere of her palace triumphs, 246; withdraws to her country seat near St. Albans, 246; becomes soured by adversity and disgusted with the Court and the world, 247; disposed to wrangle and dispute on the slightest provocation, 247; a great affliction in the death of a long-tried friend, Lord Godolphin, 247; the Duke and Duchess leave England, 248; the attitude assumed by the Duke and Duchess throughout the political conflicts which agitated the Court during her residence abroad, 307; returns to England shortly after the death of Anne, 308; very far from possessing the influence she had enjoyed during Anne's reign, 308; her feverish thirst for political and courtly intrigues return upon her despite the advance of old age, 308; her shrewd and sound advice to her husband, 308; survives her illustrious husband twenty-two years, 309; her reply to the "proud Duke" of Somerset on the offer of his hand, 309; the testimony of respect she owed to the memory of a husband who left so great a name, 309; the instructive lesson derivable from her extraordinary and signal disgrace, as emphatically given by herself, 309, 310; her death at eighty-four, 310; her singular fate in private life--"that scarcely did she possess a tie which was not severed or embittered by worldly or political considerations, " 310. 

 MARLBOROUGH, John Churchill, afterwards Duke of, son of a poor cavalier knight, he enters the army at sixteen, 208; love, not war, the first-stepping-stone to his high fortunes, 208; obtains a pair of colours in the Guards through the interest of his sister Arabella, 208; known to the French soldiery as "the handsome Englishman, " 208; complimented by Turenne on his gallantry and serene intrepidity, 209; Turenne's wager, 209; solicits unsuccessfully the command of a regiment from Louis XIV. , 209; declared by Lord Chesterfield "irresistible either by man or woman, " 209; rises rapidly at Court, 209; his daring adventure with the Duchess of Cleveland, 210; presented by her with 5000_l. _, with which he buys an annuity, 210; marries Sarah Jennings, 210; testifies the greatest affection for his wife, 210; climbs fast up the ladder of preferment, 211; coldly forsakes his benefactor James II. , 211; created Earl and General by William III. , 211; Duke and Commander of the British armies by Queen Anne, 211; his deceitful and selfish character, 211; if his soul was mean and sordid, his genius was vast and powerful, 212; his neglected education and consummate oratory, 212; the most powerful personage in England, 214; rules the household, parliament, ministry, and the army, 214; rules the councils of Austria, States-General of Holland, Prussia, and the Princes of the Empire, 214; as potent as Cromwell, and more of a king than William III. , 214; writes a stern letter to his wife on her dissensions with the Queen, 229; detained in England by "the quarrel among the women about the Court, " 231; Dean Swift's unjust insinuations, 234; his courage called in question, and he is represented as the lowest of mankind, 234; his cold reception on his return from Flanders, 242; his ruling passion--love of money--made him stoop to mean and paltry actions, 243; his motives for retaining command of the army under a Tory Ministry, 245; the mask of envy, hatred, and jealousy, 247; the death of Lord Godolphin determines him to reside abroad, 247; his request to see the Queen before his departure refused, 248; furnished with a passport by his secret friend Lord Bolingbroke, 248; his steady correspondence with his friends, 307; refuses to approve of the Peace of Utrecht, or abandon his desire for the Hanoverian succession, 307; sees the cabals of his native country reflected in the Court of Hanover, 307; returns to England shortly after the death of Queen Anne, 308; witnesses the triumph of the Whigs on their return to power at the accession of George I. , 308; reproached by the Duchess for no longer taking an active part in public affairs, 308; attacked with paralysis which deprives him of speech and recollection, 308; his death (in 1722), 308; his gentleness and devotion towards his wife and children, 309; how he governed his imperious consort, 309; the testimony of respect shown to his memory by the Duchess refusing offers of marriage from Lord Coningsby and the Duke of Somerset, 309. 

 MASHAM, Mrs. (afterwards Lady), her origin, related to the Duchess of Marlborough and Harley, 221; appointed bed-chamber woman to the Queen, 221; married to Masham when Abigail Hill, 221; her lowly, supple, artful character, 222; her servile, humble, gentle and pliant manner towards the Queen, 224; coincides with Anne in political and religious opinions, 224; strives to sap the power and credit of the Whigs and to displace Marlborough, 225; after an altercation with the Duchess, the Queen gives her entire confidence to Mrs. Masham, 226; ever on the watch to turn such disagreements to skilful account, 227; gradually worms herself into the Queen's affections and undermines the Mistress of the Robes, 227; the petty and ungrateful conduct of the bed-chamber woman, 227; mean and paltry instances of treachery to her benefactress, 227; the upstart favourite exhibits all the scorn and insolence of her nature, 229; an instance of Mrs. Masham's stinging impertinence towards the Duchess, 230; the influence of the favourite, 233. 

 MAZARIN, Cardinal, his exclamation on hearing that Mademoiselle de Montpensier had fired upon the king's troops, 10; quits France once more to facilitate a reconciliation with the Frondeurs, 13; received on his return by the Parisians with demonstrations of delight, 15; his triumph over the Fronde, the result of his prudent line of conduct, 16; his reception at the Louvre by Anne of Austria and the Court, 17; the heads of the two powerful families of Vendôme and Bouillon become the firmest supporters of his greatness, 20; his good fortune opens the eyes of every one to his merit, 31; his solemn reception by the King and Queen not an idle pageant or empty ceremony, 32. 

 MEDINA-COELI, Duke de, head of the purely political Spanish system, 169; his double character, 196; is arrested by Madame des Ursins, and ends his days in prison, 256. 

 MEILLERAYE, Marshal la, advances against the Princess de Condé at Montrond, 83. 

 MELGAR, Admiral Count de, plots the downfall of Philip V. And the elevation of the Archduke, 170; traitorously joins the Portuguese and their allies, 170; his death from an insult, 171. 

 MERCOEUR, Duke de (eldest son of Cæsar, Duke de Vendôme), married to the amiable and virtuous Laura Mancini, 21; made Governor of Provence, 21. 

 MONTBAZON, Marie d'Avangour, Duchess de, one of those who made most noise at Anne of Austria's Court, 61; summary of her character, 61; a list of all her lovers, titled and untitled, not to be attempted, 61; very nearly the cause of a duel at the door of the king's apartments, 62; often used as an instrument by Madame de Chevreuse, 62; a dangerous rival to Madame de Guéméné, 62; instigates the Count de Soissons to add outrage to desertion of Madame de Guéméné, 62; her long exercised influence over Beaufort useful to the Court, 62; wanting in all the better qualities of a political woman, 62; proposes to enter into a treaty of alliance with De Retz, 63; very mercenary both in love and politics, 64; tricked out of 100, 000 crowns by Condé and the Princess Palatine, 64; returns to Court after an exile of five years, 65; Madame de Motteville's description of her well-preserved beauty, 65; dies of the measles--three hours only accorded to her to prepare for death, 66; looked back with horror on her past life, 66; little regretted by any one save De Rancé, 66; the sight of her sudden death determines De Rancé to withdraw from the world, 67; Laroque's version of the catastrophe, 67. 

 MONTPENSIER, Anne Marie Louise d'Orleans, called _La Grande Mademoiselle_ Duchess de, mingles in all the intrigues of the Fronde, 6; adopts unwise means to force herself as a bride upon the young king, 6; by her noble conduct in the struggle at the Faubourg St. Antoine, she saves the live of Condé, 10; her description of Condé's most pitiable condition, 11; characterises the Bourbons as much addicted to trifles, 69; a hint by which, looking at her portrait, her character may readily be read, 69; the commencement of her political and military career, 69; her companions-in-arms, the Countesses Fiesque and Frontenac, 70; she hoped to exchange the helmet of the Fronde for the crown of France, 70; she describes the Civil War as being a very amusing thing for her, 70; her defence of Orleans against the royal troops, 71; thrust through the gap of an old gateway and covered with mud, 71; hastens to arrest the massacre at the Hotel de Ville, 71; driven out of doors by her father--her wanderings, 72; expiates her pranks by four years' exile at St. Fargeau, 72; numerous pretenders to her hand, 72; the masquerades of 1657 carry the day over the political aims of 1652, 73; is reconciled to her cousin, Louis XIV. , 73; conflicts of the heart succeed to political storms, 73; destined to extinguish with the wet blanket of vile prose the brilliancy of a long and romantic career, 73; history ought not to treat too harshly the Frondeuse of the blood-royal, 73; the supreme criterion for the appreciation of certain women is the man whom they have loved, 74; Lauzun makes an impression upon her at first sight, 74; her own account of the discovery of her love for him, 75; asks the king's permission to marry the Gascon cadet, 75; after giving permission, Louis XIV. Retracts, 75; Mad. De Sevigné's laughable account of Mademoiselle's grief, 76; probability that a clandestine marriage had been accomplished, 76; Anquetil's account of a putative daughter, 76; a secret chamber occupied by Lauzun in the Château d'Eu, 76; she obtains Lauzun's release after ten years' captivity, 77; he shows her neither tenderness nor respect, but beats her, 78; they separate and never meet again, 78; her death at the Luxembourg, 78; her creditable position among French writers and her encouragement of literary men, 79

 MONTELLANO, Duke de, replaces Archbishop Arias in the presidency of Castile, 172; counterbalances the authority of Porto-Carrero, 172; offended at the attitude of the princess, he resigns, 196. 

 NEMOURS, Charles Amadeus of Savoy, Duke de, wounded in the Fronde war, is visited in various disguises by the Duchess de Châtillon, 4; wounded in several places in the combat at the Faubourg St. Antoine, 9; is killed in a duel with his brother-in-law, Beaufort, 14. 

 NOIRMOUTIER, Duke de, circulates his sister's annotated letter throughout Paris, 179. 

 ORLEANS, Gaston, Duke d', but for his daughter, his inaction would have allowed Condé to perish, 10; his interview with Condé after the fight, 12; exiled to Blois, 15; passes there the remainder of his contemptible existence, 25. 

 ORLEANS, Henrietta of England, daughter of Charles I. , Duchess d', admits Louise Quérouaille into her household as maid-of-honour, 96; intrusted with the negotiating of detaching England from the interests of Holland, 97; her character and personal attributes at five-and-twenty, 97; her unbounded power over her brother, Charles II. , 97; the secret of Louis XIV. 's progress to Flanders, known only to her, 99; embarks from Dunkirk for Dover, with La Quérouaille and initiates the secret negotiation with her brother, 99; Charles falls into the snare and Henrietta carries most of the points of that disgraceful treaty, 99; takes her maid-of-honour back to France to incite Charles's desire to retain her in his Court, 100; the Duchess thought more of augmenting the greatness of Charles than of benefiting England, 100; her motives for undertaking all this shameful bargaining, 102; on her return to Paris, a cabal in her household seeks to effect her destruction, 102; the motives originating the plot, 103; she is seized with a mortal illness at St. Cloud, 104; the heartless indifference of all around her, save Madlle. De Montpensier, 105; her dying declaration that she was poisoned, 105; Bossuet consoles her in her last moments, 106; the cause of her death falsely attributed to _cholera-morbus_, 106; St. Simon's statement of the poison being sent from Italy by the Chevalier de Lorraine, 107; the intrigues which led to the murder present a scene of accumulated horrors and iniquity, 107; the last political act of the Duchess calculated to secure the subjection of the English nation, 107. 

 ORLEANS, Philip II. (nephew of Louis XIV. And afterwards Regent), Duke d', represents Louis XIV. In Spain, 254; distrusted by, but remains on the best footing with Mad. Des Ursins, 254; indulged the hope of being put in the place of Philip V. , 255; his suspicious negotiations with the Earl of Stanhope, 255; Mad. Des Ursins demands his recall and obtains it, 255; denounced by Mad. Des Ursins, and with difficulty escapes a scandalous trial, 256. 

 ORRY, Jean Louville's accusations against him, 177; Mad. Des Ursins' letter with friendly remembrances to d'Aubigny's wife, 183; recalled to France, 187; reinstated by Mad. Des Ursins, 190. 

 PALATINE, Anne de Gonzagua, Princess, if the Fronde could have been saved, her advice would have saved it, 18; is associated with Mazarin's triumph, 19; her political importance dates from the imprisonment of the Princess, 54; uses the feminine factionists as so many wires by which to move the men whom they governed, 54; the opinions of De Retz and Mazarin upon her stability of purpose and capacity to work mischief, 54; appointed superintendent of the young Queen's household, 55; retires from Court, and ends her days in seclusion, 56; her conversion and penitence, 57; Bossuet's funeral oration, 57; her account of her conversion addressed to the celebrated Abbé de Rancé, founder of La Trappe, 58; a glance at the singular fortunes of the Duke de Guise, her first lover, 59. 

 PETERBOROUGH, Lord, tears Barcelona from Philip V. , 197. 

 PHILIP V. (Duke d' Anjou, grandson of Louis XIV. ), King of Spain, grave questions raised by his accession, 151; his character, 154; Mad. Des Ursins governs him through the Queen, 154; in disguise, meets his bride at Hostalnovo, 157; his mental defects--rather constituted to serve than reign, 166; his first entrance into Spain radiant with youth and hope, 166; Europe forms a coalition to snatch the two peninsulas from the domination of France, 167; compels the recall of Cardinal d'Estrées, 174; takes command of the army on the frontiers of Portugal, 179; baffled at Barcelona, and takes, in mortal agony, the road to France, 198; re-enters Madrid as a liberator, 252; is thoroughly defeated by the Austrians at Saragossa, 257; Louis XIV. Advises him to abandon Spain in order to keep Italy, 257; his noble letter in reply, 259; his dismissal in mass of his French household, 260; after the victory of Villaviciosa, sleeps on a couch of standards, 262; in behalf of Mad. Des. Ursins, refuses to sign the treaty of Utrecht, 281; he signs the treaty unconditionally, 284; his choice of a wife limited to three princesses by Louis XIV. , 287; secretly lends his hand to a _coup d'état_ against Mad. Des Ursins, 291; gives authority to his new consort to take everything upon herself, 294; succeeds in reducing Spain to obedience only a few days before the fall of Mad. Des Ursins, 303. 

 PORTO-CARRERO, Cardinal, exercises a powerful influence on Innocent XI. And Charles II. Of Spain, 141; is won over by Mad. Des Ursins to favour the pretensions of the Duke d'Anjou, 142; champion of the ultra-French political system, 169; abruptly changes his policy, 172; becomes a formidable adversary of the Princess des Ursins, 172; refuses to act with Cardinal d'Estrées and resigns, 172; the turncoat from every cause, and as a politician is annihilated, 173; his intractable and arrogant temper, 173; his cabal rakes into the private life of the _camerara-mayor_ without success, 173; he quits Madrid with all the French household, 174. 

 PORTSMOUTH, Louise Penhouet Quérouaille, Duchess of, the political errors of Charles II. Primarily traced to her, 93; more than any other of his mistresses odious to the English, 93; the acme of splendour and corruption reached by the French court in 1670, 93; the household of his sister-in-law, Henrietta of England, supplies Louis XIV. With a diplomatist in petticoats, 93; the royal family used her as an instrument without caring about her origin, 94; what Mad. De Sevigné says of her antecedents, 94; revelations of the _Histoire Secrète_, 94; the Duke de Beaufort enamoured of her, 95; carries her off to Candia disguised as a page, 95; on his being cut to pieces, she returns to France, 96; this prank of hers proves the foundation of her fortunes, 96; Henrietta of England, interested in her romantic tale, admits her as one of her maids-of-honour, 96; Louis XIV. Finds her an apt and willing instrument in the secret negotiation, 98; the pretext of a progress to Flanders resorted to by Louis XIV. To bring La Quérouaille under the notice of Charles II. , 98; she embarks with the Duchess at Dunkirk for Dover, where she captivates the king, 99; Louise returns to France with the Duchess of Orleans, 100; the key to the will of Charles II. Found in Louise, 100; Louis XIV. Promises of handsomely rewarding the compliant maid-of-honour, 102; the Duke of Buckingham seeks to turn her to his own advantage as a rival to the Duchess of Cleveland, 108; an invitation formally worded sent her from the English Court, 109; is left in the lurch at Dieppe by Buckingham, 109; Lord Montague has her conveyed to England in a yacht, 109; she is appointed maid-of-honour to the queen, 109; the intoxication of Charles at "les graces décentes" of Louise, 109; the purpose of her receiving an appointment at the Court of St. James's foretold by Madame de Sevigné, 109; St. Evremond's equivocal advice, 110; created Duchess of Portsmouth, 110; the domain of d'Aubigny conferred upon her by Louis XIV. , 111; Charles Lennox, her son by Charles II. , created Duke of Richmond, 111; put out of countenance by Nell Gwynne, 112; in conjunction with Barillon obtains an order which suddenly changed the face of Europe, 113; her triumphant sway in political matters, 113: generously sacrifices her political _rôle_ in the matter of the "bill of exclusion, " 114; her correspondence with Madame de Maintenon, 115; Louis XIV. Confers upon her the title of Duchess d'Aubigny, 115; her creditable behaviour during the fatal seizure of Charles II. , 115; magnificence of her apartments, 116; Barillon finds her in an agony of grief, 116; the message of the mistress to the dying king's brother, 117; her political attitude during the last months of Charles's life, 119; she returns to France with a large treasure of money and jewels, 120; is the object of a rigid surveillance, 120; Louvois, Courtin, and the _lettre de cachet_, 120; passes in profound obscurity the remainder of her life, 121; so reduced as to solicit a pension, 121; the power she possessed over the mind of Charles II. , 122; her beauty not comparable to that of Madame de Montespan, 123. 

 RANCÉ, Armand, Jean Le Bouthillier (the reformer of La Trappe), the lover who regretted Madame de Montbazon the most sincerely, 6; the sight of her sudden death determines him to withdraw from the world, 67; the skull of the Duchess said to have been found in his cell at La Trappe, 67. 

 RETZ, Cardinal de, chills the Duke d'Orleans into inaction during the struggle of Condé with Turenne, 10; imprisoned at Vincennes, 15; obtains the red hat from Louis XIV. , 26; entering upon his old intrigues, he is arrested and imprisoned, 26. 

 ROCHEFOUCAULD, Francis, Duke de la, blinded by a ball through his face in the fight at the Faubourg St. Antoine, 9; retires to his estates, and for a few years buries himself in obscurity, 27; is again received into favour, and obtains a thumping pension, 28. 

 SAINT-SIMON, Duke de, his explanation of the ascendency of Madame des Ursins, 168; his elaborate portrait of the Princess, 304. 

 SAVOY, Marie Louise of (daughter of Amadeus II. , first wife of Philip V. Of Spain), quits Italy with Madame des Ursins for Spain, 153; description of her at fourteen, 153; the _camerara-mayor_ becomes indispensable to her, 154; incidents of the journey to Spain, 156; her first interview with Philip, who is disguised as a king's messenger, 158; the marriage at Figuieras, 158; untoward incident of the supper there, 159; Spanish _versus_ French cookery, 159; her indignation at the conduct of the Spanish ladies, 159; attributes the audacity and rudeness of the Spanish dames to the King, 159; ends by making the _amende_ to Philip V. , 169; the arrival at Madrid, 160; the Queen governs Philip V. , and Madame des Ursins governs the Queen, 168; her education and mental characteristics, 168; a happy conformity of tastes, views, and dispositions attaches the Queen to Madame des Ursins, 169; maintains the royal authority by the spell of her gentle and steady virtues, 198; her destitution at Burgos, 199; forsaken by her Court, seeks an asylum in old Castile, 200; in childbirth, appeals touchingly to the attachment and courage of Madame des Ursins, 257; dies suddenly at the age of twenty-six, 267. 

 SPAIN, two political systems confront each other at Madrid, 169; both reduced to impotence by Madame des Ursins, 169; Gibraltar torn away for ever from Spain by a handful of British seamen, 187; defenceless state of the country, 187; necessary to have almost an army in each province, 199; the last remnant of the army surrenders without fighting, 199; the aim of the Great Alliance, 205; solves by her own efforts the great question which had kept Europe so long in arms, 262; called upon alone to pay the costs of the pacification (Treaty of Utrecht), 267. 

 SWIFT, Dean, covers the Duchess of Marlborough with ridicule and obloquy, 234; represents her in print as a pickpocket, 243. 

 TESSÉ, Marshal de, commands in Spain, 191; a cunning courtier but mediocre general, 197. 

 TORCY, Marquis de (Prime Minister of Louis XIV. ), favours the candidature of Madame des Ursins, 145; his confidence in her, 152; a copy of Madame des Ursins' annotated letter sent him, 179. 

 TORIES, the, ousted by the Whigs, 218; their dismissal demanded by the Queen's favourite, 219; with Harley and Bolingbroke at their head they work in the dark to regain power, 219; set up Mrs. Masham to oppose and undermine the influence of the favourite, 224; they foster the Queen's grief at the bloodshed in the Low Countries, 235; dwell upon the odious tyranny of the Duchess of Marlborough, and promise to deliver Anne from it, 236; the Whigs replaced by Bolingbroke, Harley, Earl of Jersey, and the Dukes of Ormonde and Shrewsbury, 242. 

 TURENNE, Marshal de, his error in attacking Condé without his entire force, 7; rivals Condé in boldness and obstinacy, 8; his frigid, reflective, and profoundly dissembling character, 22; carefully conciliated and caressed by Mazarin, 24; made Governor of Auvergne, and the Viscounty of Turenne erected into a principality, 24; his wager on the subject of Churchill's gallantry, 211. 

 URSINS (Orsini), Marie Anne de la Tremouille-Noirmoutier, Princess de, untoward result of the dramatic vicissitudes of a life devoted to the pursuit of political power, 131; married to the Prince de Chalais, 132; joins her husband in Spain, whither he had fled from the consequences of a duel, 133; first meeting with Madame Scarron, 133; left a childless widow on her arrival in Rome, 133; the attention of Louis XIV. Directed to her wit and capacity, 134; she marries, with a political purpose, the Duke de Bracciano, 134; her mode of life and career at Rome, 134; character of the Duke, 135; untoward misunderstandings arise through her extravagances, 136; the passion for politics and power obtains mastery over her mind, 137; the Orsini in some sort a sacerdotal family, 137; dogmatic questions prove a stumbling block to conjugal harmony, 138; forms a close intimacy with the Maréchale de Noailles, 138; her varied resources appreciated by the minister Torcy, 138; presented to Madame de Maintenon on visiting Versailles, 138; reconciled to her husband, the Duke, on his death-bed, 139; is highly esteemed by the cabinet of Versailles, 140; wins over Innocent XI. To favour the pretensions of the Duke d'Anjou, 141; she aspires to govern Spain, 142; manoeuvres to secure the post of _camerara-mayor_, 142; the art and caution with which she negotiates with the Maréchale de Noailles, 143; the astute programme traced by her for de Torcy, 145; naïve expression of delight at her success, 146; sets forth regally equipped to conduct the Princess of Savoy to her husband, 148; enters upon her militant career at an advanced age, 148; entirely possessed by her painstaking ambition, 149; enters upon her new mission with zeal, ardour, and activity, more than virile, 149; truly devoted to Spain, without failing in her devotion to France, 152; wages a determined war against the Inquisition, 152; seeks to establish her power by masking it, 152; first meets Maria Louise, of Savoy, at Villefranche, 153; makes herself acceptable to the young Queen, 153; her wrath and stupefaction at the French dishes being upset, 159; installed definitively as _camerara-mayor_ at Madrid, 160; onerous and incongruous duties of the post, 162; her policy of keeping to herself sole access to the King and Queen, 163; sacrifices her dignity to her power and influence, 163; by familiarising the Queen with politics, she penetrates every state secret, 164; renders the Queen popular among the people of central Spain, 164; her wise policy for the regeneration of Spain, 165; reduces both the ultra-French and purely Spanish political systems to impotence, 169; fathoms the intrigues and baffles the manoeuvres of Melgar, 170; Louville succumbs to her, 171; Porto-Carrero tenders his resignation, 172; Cardinal d'Estrées her tool without knowing it, 173; the Cardinal's cabal "rakes into her private life, " 173; the Queen defends her with earnest importunity, 174; holds the Abbé d'Estrées in contempt, 176; the intercepted letter and its marginal note, 176; makes a false step in her statecraft, 176; the blunder leads to a great imbroglio, 177; did she always use her influence over the young Queen in a purely disinterested way? 177; at the age of sixty still had lovers, 177; her relations with d'Aubigny, her equerry, 178; gallantry and _l'entêtement de sa personne_, St. Simon asserts to be her overwhelming weakness, 178; she rashly resents the accusation of her marriage with d'Aubigny, 179; nicely balances Louis XIV. 's power in his grandson's Court, 180; her egotistic and impatient ambition, 181; the stately haughtiness of her submission to Louis XIV. , 181; her adroit flattery of Madame de Maintenon, 182; quits Madrid as a state criminal for Italy, 184; permitted to take up her abode at Toulouse, 184; her artful letters and politic conduct, 185; receives permission to appear at Versailles and justify herself, 186; the triumph of her restoration suddenly transforms her into "a court divinity, " 188; she affects to be in no hurry to return to Spain, 189; procures the admission of d'Aubigny into the cabinets of Louis XIV. And Madame de Maintenon, 190; authorised to form her ministry, 191; her return to Spain prepared by the arrest of Leganez, 191; she triumphs at Versailles, 192; her lively appreciation of Louis XIV. 's mental qualities, 192; the question of the prospect of her replacing Madame de Maintenon, 193; Louis XIV. Seduced both by her grace and talent, 193; turns all things to her advantage through her lucid common sense, 194; returns to Spain strengthened by disgrace, 194; determines to break up the cabal of the grandees, 195; foils the underhanded opposition of the high aristocracy, 196; triumphs on the very brink of a volcano, 197; nothing more honourable to her memory than her letters at this period of disaster, 200; by speeches, letters, and overtures, she consolidates the King's authority in Old Castile, 200; one of the most vigorous instruments ever made use of by Providence, 201; she flatters Madame de Maintenon about St. Cyr, 201; suffering from rheumatism and a painful affection of her sight, acts in the capacity of field-marshal to the Queen, 202; her courage allied with good temper, amiability and _beau sang_, 203; her wretched quarters at Burgos, 203; her temperament contrasted with that of Madame de Maintenon, 204; her delicate and perilous position, 253; overcomes Montellano and the friends of the old system, 253; distrusts the Duke of Orleans, but remains on the best footing with him, 255; opposes his policy, demands his recall and obtains it, 255; has to choose between the French policy of Louis XIV. And the Spanish policy of Philip V. , 257; the young Queen appeals touchingly to her attachment and courage, 257; resolves to remain upon the theatre of events, 258; throws herself headlong into the _mêlée_, 258; reproaches Madame de Maintenon for preferring the King's case to his honour, 258; inspires Philip V. With an energy truly worthy of the throne, 259; places herself at the head of the national movement, 259; flatters alike the democracy and the grandees by throwing Philip into the arms of the Spaniards, 260; in deference to popular sensibilities she sacrifices Amelot and Orry, 261; implores that Vendôme might be sent to command the Spanish forces, 261; the victory of Villaviciosa definitely seats the Bourbons on the throne of Spain, 262; sees her steadfast policy crowned by accomplished facts, 262; receives the title of HIGHNESS, 262; her share in the treaty of Utrecht, 264; her perseverance unexampled both in idea and conduct, 264; undismayed by reverses, never intoxicated by success, 264; her letters to Madame de Maintenon assume a somewhat protective tone, 265; at this culminating point of her greatness a humiliating catastrophe is impending, 265; the measures taken by her to consolidate the power of Philip V. , 266; the question of the erection of a territory into a sovereignty for her, 266; she is overwhelmed with reproaches on all sides, 267; this check the first of a series of misfortunes which death alone closed, 267; Marie Louise, of Savoy, dies suddenly, 267; what mysteries did the Medina-Coeli palace witness? 268; the loss of her royal mistress the remote signal which heralded her fall, 268; she destroys with her own hands the structure of her individual fortunes, 268; she imprudently attacks the Spanish inquisition, 269; fails in the attempt and creates a host of enemies, 269; Louis XIV. Has a grudge against her for delaying the signature of the Treaty of Utrecht, 269; the storm darkens thickly over her head, 270; she consults Alberoni on the choice of Elizabeth Farnese as consort of Philip V. , 270; Alberoni deceives her in the representation of the Princess of Parma's character, 270; by Alberoni's first move Madame de Ursini's game was lost, 271; she finds herself friendless in Spain, 272; she neglects to conciliate her enemies, 272; suspicious jealousy of domination over Philip V. , 273; scandal of the construction of the secret corridor in the palace, 273; her error in not renouncing the idea of the principality, 275; Lord Lexington signs a convention with her in which Queen Anne "_engaged to secure her a sovereignty_, " 277; Madame de Maintenon divines her concealed project, 277; sends d'Aubigny secretly to France to negotiate with Torcy, 278; her proud feeling of returning to France as a sovereign princess, 278; her towering rage on hearing of the repudiation of the convention by Queen Anne, 279; she believes herself tricked by the English, 279; despatches d'Aubigny to Utrecht, 280; selects a more important personage to continue the negotiations--the Baron de Capres, 281; the delay in the conclusion of the general peace imputed to her, 282; Madame de Maintenon's letter to her on that subject, 282; hitherto so noble-minded, she is no longer comprehensible throughout this affair, 283; nothing left but to give way; and the Treaty is signed unconditionally, 284; her mortification at the failure of her pretensions, 284; the Court of France is turned against her, 284; she is addressed harshly and laconically by Madame de Maintenon, 284; the Duke of Berwick proves unfriendly, 284; she keeps Philip V. From all private audience, and scandal becomes again busy with her name, 285; an anecdote circulated throughout the French world of fashion--the pendant of "_Oh! pour mariée, non!_" 285; Philip grows wearied of the complaints, murmurs, and idle talk, 286; his exclamation "Find me a wife! our _tête-à-têtes_ scandalise the people, " 286; her difficulties in the choice of a consort for Philip, 287-289; selects Elizabeth Farnese, 289; her uneasiness at the contradictory reports of the Princess of Parma's character, 290; she attempts too late to break off the match, 291; that unskilful and tardy opposition prepares her ruin, 291; her prompt, cruel, and decisive disgrace, 291; her meeting with Elizabeth Farnese at Xadraque, 292; the Queen outrageously thrusts Madame des Ursins out of her cabinet, orders her to be arrested and instantaneously conveyed to the French frontiers, 293; her sufferings during the mid-winter journey, 293; her touching relation to Madame de Maintenon, 293; in her seventy-second year she sustains the strength and constancy of her character, 294; recovers all her strength, sang-froid, and wonted equanimity, 295; her just estimate of human instability, 295; St. Simon's impressive narrative of the terrible night of her rude expulsion (December 24th, 1714), 295; the hard fate reserved for a woman--the founder of a dynasty and liberator of a great kingdom, 295; the active correspondence of her numerous enemies both at Versailles and Madrid, 296; her hopes of returning to the Spanish Court frustrated, 296; the Queen leaves her letters unanswered, 296; Philip declares himself "unable to refuse the maintenance of the measure taken at the instance of the Queen, " 296; Louis XIV. Is compelled to be guided by the decision of his grandson, 296; Madame de Maintenon replies by evasive compliments, 296; she perceives that all is at an end as regarded her resumption of power, 296; arrives in Paris and is coldly received by Louis XIV. , 296; she quits France and once more fixes her abode in Rome, 297; attaches herself to the fortunes of Prince James Stuart, _the Pretender_, and does the honours of his house, 297; her death at fourscore and upwards, 297; who were the real authors of the Princess's disgrace? 297; her political life in Spain characterized, 301; the difference arising from the respective characters of Madame des Ursins and Madame de Maintenon, 301; summary of her life and character, 303; St. Simon's elaborate portrait of the Princess, 304; his remark--"She reigned in Spain, and her history deserves to be written, " 305; its lesson--the fruitlessness of the devotion of a most gifted woman's life to the pursuit of politics, 306. 

 VENDÔME, Cæsar, Duke de, blockades Bordeaux, 14; is made High Admiral and State Minister by Mazarin, 21; pursues the Spanish fleet and threatens the relics of the Fronde at Bordeaux, 21. 

 VENDÔME, Louis Joseph, Duke de (son of Cæsar), his victory at Villaviciosa, 262; it definitely seats the Bourbons on the throne of Spain, 262. 

 VINEUIL, M. De, proves a dangerous emissary in Condé's courtship of "the Queen of Hearts, " Madame de Châtillon, 5; Madame de Montbazon, Madame de Mouy, and the Princess of Wurtemberg, successively experience the effects of his seduction, 5. 

 WAR OF THE SPANISH SUCCESSION, the more immediate circumstances that brought it about, 128; Charles II. Consults Innocent XI. , and secretly bequeaths his crown to the Duke d'Anjou, 142. 

 WHIGS, the, Queen Anne's feeling towards that party purely official, 206; they labour to secure the adhesion of Lady Churchill, 207; they triumph in the first struggle, 218; they eject Mansel, Harley, and Bolingbroke, 218; they reckon amongst their ranks Marlborough, Godolphin, Walpole, the army, public opinion, and parliament, 218; the fall of the Ministry through disunion in itself, 233; Dr. Sacheverel's affair contributes to ruin the Whigs in the Queen's favour, 234; the disgrace of the Duchess involves the fall of the Whigs, 242. 

THE END. 

BRADBURY AGNEW & CO. , PRINTERS, WHITFERIARS. 

 +------------------------------------------------------------------+ |Transcriber's Note | | | |Closing quotes are missing for the sentences beginning with: | | | |Page 44: "It was not a _Tartuffe_, it was not a _Pantaloon_ | |Page 120: "that great freedom of speech prevailed in her circle, | |Page 231: "to put an end to those controversies, and to avoid | | | |The following changes were made to the original text [correction | |in brackets]: | | | |Page 83: difficulties, sometimes on horsback [horseback], at | |Page 94: a neigbouring [neighbouring] town to that in which he | |Page 147: from the King in addition to the high favonr[favour] and| |Page 181: The Cardinal d'Estrêes [d'Estrées] was desirous | |Page 187: of women, Louis XIV. Had an insuperable antipathy, [. ] It| |Page 269: driven him to such extremity, [. ] Besides, just then his | |Page 318: writes to the Abbé d'Estreés[d'Estrées] touching the | |Page 323: the household of of[omitted] his sister-in-law, | |Page 323: to a _coup d'état_ against Mad. Des Ursins, 297[291]; | |Page 327: trimphs[triumphs] on the very brink of a volcano, 197; | |Page 328: her hopes of returning to the Spansh[Spanish] Court | +------------------------------------------------------------------+