Barillon hastened to the bedchamber, took the Duke aside, and delivered the message of the mistress. The conscience of James smote him. He started as if roused from sleep, and declared that nothing should prevent him discharging the sacred duty which had been so long delayed. Several schemes were discussed and rejected. At last the Duke commanded the crowd to stand aloof, went to the bed, stooped down, and whispered something which none of the spectators could hear, but which they supposed to be some question about affairs of state. Charles answered in an audible voice, "Yes, yes, with all my heart." None of the bystanders, except the French Ambassador, guessed that the King was declaring his wish 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 the law then stood, the person who admitted a proselyte into the Roman Catholic Church was guilty of a capital crime. John Huddleston, a Benedictine monk, however, who had, with great risk to himself, saved the King's life after the battle of Worcester, readily consented to put his life a second time in peril for his prince. Father Huddleston was admitted by the back door. A cloak had been thrown over his sacred vestments; 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 save your soul." Charles faintly answered, "He is welcome." Huddleston went through his part better than had been expected, for he was so illiterate that he did not know what he ought to say on an occasion of so much importance, and had to be instructed on the spot by a Portuguese ecclesiastic, one Castel Melhor. The whole ceremony occupied about three-quarters of an hour; and, during that time, the courtiers who filled the outer room had communicated their suspicions to each other by whispers 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 what had passed. His natural children were brought to his bedside—the Dukes of Grafton, Southampton, and Northumberland, sons of the Duchess of Cleveland; the Duke of St. Albans, son of Eleanor Gwynne; and the Duke of Richmond, son of the Duchess of Portsmouth. Charles blessed them all, but spoke with peculiar tenderness to Richmond. One face, which should have been there, was wanting. The eldest and best beloved child was an exile and a wanderer. His name was not once mentioned by his father.

During the night Charles earnestly recommended the Duchess of Portsmouth and 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 by Halifax. She said she was too much disordered to resume her post by the couch, and implored pardon for any offence which she might unwittingly have given. "She asks my pardon, poor woman!" cried Charles; "I ask hers with all my heart."

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

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 of Charles's death. According to one, the Duchess of Portsmouth had poisoned the King with a cup of chocolate; another asserted that the Queen had poisoned him with a jar of preserved pears. Time has done justice to these ridiculous suspicions; but that which will probably never be discovered is the exact nature of the unfortunate monarch's malady, whom a deplorable fatality caused to fall into the hands of ignorant 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 the poisoning of Charles, relates the following anecdote:—"Mr. Henley, of Hampshire, told me that the Duchess of Portsmouth having come to England in 1699, he learned that she had caused it to be understood that Charles II. had been poisoned, and that, being desirous of ascertaining the fact from the Duchess's own mouth, she told him that she continually urged the King to place himself at his ease as well as his people, and to live in perfect understanding with his Parliament; that he had taken the resolution of sending his brother out of the kingdom, and to convoke a Parliament, which was to have been put in execution on the day after that upon which he was seized with his first access; that, above everything, the King recommended her to keep it secret, and that she had only revealed it to her confessor; but she believed that her confessor had revealed the secret to persons who made use of that evil means of preventing the coup d'etat."

If such, indeed, was the political attitude of the Duchess during the last months of Charles's life, it may be conceived that the supreme recommendations of the dying monarch may have exercised little influence over the predetermined resolves of his ignoble successor, and it explains the sudden step she took to regain her native country. On her return to France she carried with her a large treasure in money and jewels. She had come to England poor, had lived there in splendour, but without much care for the future, and having proudly enjoyed a full-blown prosperity, was now about to endure adversity with courageous resolution. Having quarrelled with James II., the Duchess could not think of taking up her abode at Versailles, where her position would not have been tenable; she determined therefore to settle herself in Paris, where her house and surroundings became the object of a rigorous surveillance.

"It reached the King's ears," says Saint-Simon, "that great freedom of speech prevailed in her circle, and that she herself spoke very freely of him and Madame de Maintenon, upon which M. de Louvois was directed to prepare immediately a lettre de cachet to exile her far away. Courtin was an intimate friend of Louvois, who had a small house at Meudon, where the former was accustomed to enter his cabinet unceremoniously at all hours. On his entrance one evening, he found Louvois alone writing, and whilst the minister was absorbed in that occupation, Courtin perceived the lettre de cachet lying upon the bureau. When Louvois had finished writing, Courtin, with some emotion, asked him what that lettre de cachet was? Louvois told him its purpose. Courtin remarked that it was surely an ungracious act, for that, even if the report were true, the King might be content to go no further than advising her to be more circumspect. He begged and entreated him to tell the King so on his part before acting upon the lettre de cachet; and that, if the King would not believe his words, he should get him, before going further, to look at the despatches of his negotiations with England, especially those relating to the important results he had obtained through the Duchess of Portsmouth at the time of the Dutch war, and during the whole of his embassy; and that after such services rendered by her, it would be dishonour to himself to forget them. Louvois, who remembered it all very well, after Courtin had reminded him of several important facts, suspended the execution of the lettre de cachet, and gave the King an account of the interview, and of what Courtin had said; and upon such testimony, which recalled several facts to the King's mind, he ordered the lettre de cachet to be thrown into the fire, and had the Duchess of Portsmouth admonished to be more reserved in future. She defended herself 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 held at her house.

Louis XIV., become a bigot and a persecutor, suffered none but silent and submissive slaves to surround him. The Duchess showed herself docile to Courtin's advice, and passed in profound obscurity the many long years which, remained to her of existence. Saint-Simon and Dangeau say nothing more about her, save to enregister the meagre favours which the Court measured out with an avaricious hand, and that woman, to whom was owing the signature of the Treaty of Nimeguen, was reduced in 1689 to solicit a pension of 20,000 livres, which was considerably diminished when the disasters soon afterwards happened which impoverished the French nation.

Such was the parsimony exercised by the great Monarch towards a woman who had laboured strenuously for French interests so long as her sway over Charles of England lasted, and which sway only ceased with his life. "Therein she employed unceasingly all her talent for politics, all her fascinations, all her wit," says the English chronicler already cited, and whose object has been, according to his translator, anonymous like himself, to demonstrate that if Charles II. acted in a way so little conformable to the interests not only of several foreign states, but still more of his own kingdom, it was the Duchess of Portsmouth who urged him to it, through the passion with which she had inspired him, by her cunning, and the power she possessed over his mind. The same translator afterwards remarks, that "this lady obtained more easily from the King in a moment and with a coup de langue things the most unreasonable and the most contrary to true policy, than all the most judicious, the most voluble, the most insinuating persons could obtain from him in matters infinitely reasonable and just." Without attributing to the Duchess of Portsmouth a power of action so prejudicial to the interests 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 of England and the Protestant religion, as well as by a costly war with Holland, her natural ally," Hume states that "during the rest of his life Charles II. was extremely attached to Querouaille, and that this favourite contributed greatly to the close alliance between her own country and England." Voltaire, without particularising the effects of the ascendancy of the Duchess of Portsmouth over Charles II., says that that 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 that she was in England what the other beauty had been in France, but with more influence." This assertion, accurate as it is so far as concerns political influence—for Madame de Montespan never exercised any over the government of Louis XIV.—is not equally so with regard to the question of beauty. On that head, indeed, the Duchess had her detractors. "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 Spanish Succession a remarkable feature presents itself in the fact that two women were chosen to be, as it were, its advanced sentinels—the one of the 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 des Ursins, fulfilling, under the title of Camerara-Mayor, the same functions for the new Queen of Spain, Marie-Louise of Savoy, first wife of Philip V.

The perpetual struggle previously waged between France and Spain for two centuries constitutes a theme of no ordinary interest. True, that in modern times armed interventions and dynastic and family tendencies have attested the political predominance of the former power, but it was not so in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, when the bigoted Philip II. looked upon himself as the head of all Catholicism and the vicegerent of God on earth. The general character of the struggle, the events, the men, the results, are all worthy of consideration, and replete with illustrations of historical and political adventure. Every effort made by the two great adversaries shook Europe to its centre, and the ultimate result of each has always been in favour of the great cause of religious and political freedom. Two centuries of warfare between two absolute governments and two states so profoundly Catholic gave birth to the first European republic—Holland; and served to confirm the power of the great Protestant state—England; and to establish religious liberty in Germany.

A brief glance at the more immediate circumstances which brought about this War of Succession may here be necessary. The Treaty of the Pyrenees had terminated the long struggle above alluded to; peace being cemented by the marriage of the Infanta Maria Theresa, daughter of Philip IV. of Spain, to the young Louis XIV. of France, on the 3rd of June, 1660. The royal husband renounced for himself and his heirs all right of succession to the Spanish throne, but was promised in return a moderate dowry, which, however, was only partially paid. Forty years after this marriage, Charles II. of Spain, widowed, childless, and broken in health, selected as his successor Prince Leopold of Bavaria, but he died when five years old. In this difficulty Charles consulted Pope Innocent XII., who decreed that the children of the Dauphin of France were the true, only, and legitimate heirs. But this negotiation was conducted with such profound secresy that it was only after the accession of Philip V., grandson of Louis XIV., that the Pope's interference became public.

The Holy Father's reply, however, was so positive, that all the scruples of Charles II. were removed. His previous will was immediately burnt in the presence of his confessor; and a new one drawn up wherein Philip d'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; with the reservation, as regarded the two first, that they should not unite in their own persons the sovereignties of France and Spain; and in that of the third that he should renounce all claim to the empire of Germany if 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 of Charles II., it should devolve upon the Duke of Savoy without any restriction whatever.

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

The royal will—the subject of so much gloomy meditation, of discussions the most anxious in the councils of the Escurial, and of intrigues the most active on the part of the foreigner, had been accepted by Louis XIV. in the name of his grandson, the Duke d'Anjou. The cabinet of Versailles, hoping to ally the Duke of Savoy to its policy, had brought about a marriage between Philip V. and the daughter of Victor Amadeus II., Marie Louise, sister of the young Duchess of Burgundy. The House of Hapsburg, during a period of almost hopeless anarchy, had exhausted its efforts in the attempt to establish a political duality in Spain. "If the government of that monarchy be closely scrutinised," wrote Count de Rebenac,[14] "it will be found that disorder everywhere prevails to an excessive degree; but that, in the condition in which matters stand, scarcely any change can be ventured upon without risk of incurring dangers more to be dreaded than the existing evils, and a complete revolution would be necessary before perfect order in the state could be re-established." Rebenac added that it was not the elements of strength that 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 and unity. The dynasty, in fact, which reigned at Madrid at that juncture had passed from incapacity to impotence, and henceforward there only remained to Spain her law of succession to rescue her from her abasement. The miserable Charles II. was then making and unmaking his will continually—sometimes indicating a prince of Bavaria as his successor, 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 interesting France in the preservation of the duality of the monarchy. Two years afterwards one half of Europe was in arms to hurl the youthful Philip from his throne.

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



CHAPTER II.

THE PRINCESS DES URSINS.

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

AMONG the heroines of the Fronde there were certainly lofty minds and strongly tempered souls to be found; but, when the French nation remitted to those Erminias and Hermengildas the care of its destiny upon some grave emergency or decisive occasion, those very women so conspicuous for their generous impulses, delicate tastes, and unsparing self-abnegation, only profited by their possession of power to inaugurate a policy the record of which has remained branded with opprobrium in history as a treason to their country. The bare remembrance, indeed, of those sterile agitations proves the first rock upon which the memory of the Princess des Ursins suffered shipwreck. In the brilliant daughter of the Duke de Noirmoutier, heiress of a name mixed up with all the struggles of that epoch, we behold a last survivor of the Regency, and the dramatic vicissitudes of a life devoted to the pursuit of political power, have blinded the mental vision of posterity to the grandeur of a work of which that eminent woman was the principal instrument. Proud and restless, as largely dominated as any other of her sex by the vivacity of her preferences and her dislikes, but full of sound sense in her views and in the firmness of her designs, the skilful adviser of a King and Queen of Spain has not received at the hands of posterity the merit due to an idea pursued with a wonderful perseverance amidst obstacles which would have daunted men even of the strongest resolution. Because her public career ended in a catastrophe, popular opinion, which readily follows success, considers as merely abortive that long career during which her hand sustained upon the brow of a French prince the tottering crown against which the arms of Europe, the distrust of Spain, and the discouragement of France vied in conspiring.

Yet in her girlhood, during the last days of the Fronde, Marie Anne de la Tremouille must early have observed how greatly beauty can aid ambition, and how, by tact, endowments the most frivolous may be brought to the service of interests the most serious and complicated. Married in 1650 to the Prince de Chalais, of the house of Talleyrand, she conceived for her young husband the sole passion to be noted throughout a life in which, especially during its later period, love figured only in the dullest of hues. This marriage took place during the wars of the second Fronde, and at an epoch when a rage for duelling, the anarchical and ruthless effect of Frenchmen's ideas touching the "point of honour," had infused a new element into the spirit of party, and had become a veritable mania. It chanced on the occasion of one of those duels in 1663—that of the two brothers Frette—wherein four fought on either side, and in which the Duke de Beauvilliers was slain, that the Prince de Chalais figured as one of the champions. The law against duelling, enforced by Henri Quatre, and revived with so much rigour by Richelieu against the father of the famous Marshal de Luxembourg, and from which practice the blood of Bouteville had not completely delivered France, was still in full vigour. The consequences being so terrible, that the Prince de Chalais, to place himself beyond reach of them, was compelled to seek safety in flight. He succeeded in escaping to Spain, whither his wife followed him.

During this brief period of her union with the Prince de Chalais, whom she adored, Marie Anne de la Tremouille had shone as conspicuously by her wit as by her beauty in the famous circle of the Hotel d'Albret, where she first met Madame Scarron, whose destiny it was later on in life—as Madame de Maintenon—to be so closely allied with the Princess. Thus united by ties of the tenderest affection, scarcely had the young couple quitted Madrid, after a three years' sojourn, to establish themselves at Rome, when the death of M. de Chalais left her a childless widow, without protection, and almost destitute—a prey to grief apparently the most profound, and to anxieties concerning the future readily conceivable.

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

The first years of her widowhood, passed in a convent, were marked by the liveliest sorrow. By degrees, however, love of society resumed its sway over her, and she reappeared therein with all her wonted attractiveness, markedly patronised in the highest circles of Roman society by Cardinal d'Estrees, the French ambassador—assuredly not without design, since at the same time that high functionary so distinguished her, he directed the attention of Louis XIV. to the wit and capacity of the charming widow. It was, therefore, in great measure with a political purpose, and by the diplomatic tact of the two brothers d'Estrees, that the second marriage of the Princess de Chalais with Flavio Orsini, Duke di Bracciano, himself a widower, was arranged (1675). Thenceforward the Palazzo Orsini became the focus of French influence, which was further increased by a marriage promoted between her sister Louise Angelique de la Tremouille and her brother-in-law, the Duke de Lanti.

She thus, therefore, became definitively an inhabitant of Rome and quasi Roman. What did she do there? How did she consort with an Italian husband? With what ambition was she soon inspired in the more elevated position in which her second marriage placed her at Rome? What talents, what political aptitude were manifested by her, and developed at a court which at that time bore the highest repute for skill in politics and diplomacy? How did Italian finesse and cunning blend and harmonize with the quick penetration and delicate tact of the Frenchwoman? What advantage did the French government, which, after the death of the Prince de Chalais, could no longer treat her as a proscribed subject, seek to draw immediately from her position and disposition? What were her relations with the first personages at the court of France, with the Roman cardinals, with the French ambassadors at Rome, with the representatives or the principal personages of other nations, and what splendour did her palace display, whether through the influence of natural taste or a calculating ambition? In a word, what was the mode of life, and what was the career of the Duchess di Bracciano, at Rome, before she proceeded to make application of the science she must there have acquired upon another and a wider stage? These are the curious and interesting points, upon which the recent discovery in the public library at Stockholm, of copies of nearly one hundred inedited letters addressed by the Princess des Ursins to Madame la Marechale de Noailles and Madame de Maintenon, in addition to five long letters published by the Abbe Millot,[15] enable us to furnish very nearly complete details, ranging from 1675 to 1701.

[15] Among the pieces justificatives appended to the Memoires du Marechal de Noailles.

Owning as its mistress a woman so abundantly charming, the Palazzo Orsini became more than ever the rendezvous of the best society. The Duchess di Bracciano held therein an actual Court, as numerous also as it was distinguished. Each visitor delighted to frequent it, in order to witness with his own eyes to what a degree of perfection and gracefulness a French lady could attain. The men especially sought her society; for although womanly, and more so than many around her, the habitual subject of their conversations pleased her better than those of persons of her own sex, and she therein exhibited a solidity of understanding, a correctness of view, together with a perfect lucidity of expression which captivated the Roman nobles, and made them feel it a satisfaction to submit their ideas to her, and hear her discuss them. The Duke di Bracciano was not mentally up to her mark, nevertheless in the first season which followed their union, a season of complaisant affection, when susceptibility was held in check by a more spontaneous admiration, he felt himself flattered by the homage she received, and which wore the semblance of an eulogium upon his choice and good taste. But, eventually, too mediocre, or too much kept in the background, not having wit enough himself to appreciate that of his brilliant partner without blushing at his own defect, or, it might be, sufficient consideration not being given to the inevitable arousing of his masculine amour propre, he sought to attribute to himself the popularity which she obtained, and that which might have constituted his pride became his torment. It would have been wanting in dignity to himself, he felt, ever to have owned or even in the least degree betrayed the secret motive of his wounded self-love; but the excessive extravagance of his wife, and the enormous expenses in which she involved him afforded ample pretext for his complaints: such was the ground, therefore, upon which he fell back. The Princess unhappily comprehended all this, and went to greater lengths than ever: hence untoward misunderstandings ere long arose between them.

Nevertheless, through the effect of her irresistible attractions, the Duchess di Bracciano became the centre of a cosmopolitan society which, in the midst of the noisiest diversions, debated daily in the capital of the papal dominions the weightiest problems of contemporary politics. Whilst externally her palace on the Piazza Navone blazed broadly with illuminated devices and coloured fires, and made all the echoes of Rome resound in pealing harmonies with the name of Louis the Great, in the interior of her magnificent saloons the vicissitudes of the long struggle waged between that monarch and the Holy Father were watched with inquietude, whether as concerning regal claims or the question of religious freedom—a portentous strife which seemed to increase in energy at each fresh act of violence on the part of Louis XIV. against his Protestant subjects. To the arduous questions in which theology ran so closely parallel with State interests, to the burning rivalries of doctrines and persons which then set by the ears the most illustrious among Christian prelates, were added the daily accidents of a policy to which fell the burden of maintaining in all corners of the universe a constant equilibrium between the Houses of France and Austria—a permanent problem which soon helped to complicate the perspective opened by the next succession to the Crown of Spain.

In such a school—borne along the brimming tide of pleasure by the soft breeze of homage—did Madame di Bracciano's political intelligence rapidly ripen: and if by a glittering gaiety, ease of manner, and a species of decorous gallantry, her life appeared to continue the traditions of Anne of Austria's time, the restrained firmness of her opinions, her reverence for absolute authority, her settled resolve to owe nothing to any one save to her own Great King, combined to link her fast to the new school of power and respect founded by Louis XIV. in the plenitude of his sway. Thus the passion for politics and power was not slow to obtain the mastery over the mind of a woman constituted like Marie Anne de la Tremouille, who had failed to find in her second marriage any community of taste or intellect.

The disputes between Louis and Innocent XI. proved, perhaps, another source of disunion between the ducal pair. The Orsini were in some sort a sacerdotal family, at the same time that they stood at the head of the Roman aristocracy: it had always furnished Pontiffs and Cardinals to the Church. It was not, therefore, probable that the Duke di Bracciano, who was its chief, should hold, in those famous quarrels, an opinion contrary to that of the Holy Father, more especially if, as it was rumoured, having no child, he had by an adoption long kept secret, sought for a son in the family of Innocent XI. himself. The same induction cannot be drawn from acts which were comprised in the life of the Duchess di Bracciano. Whether at Rome or at Madrid, the ideas held by the Court of Versailles upon dogmatic questions, or upon the relations of the Church with the State, were hers also; and in Italy, in the halls of the Vatican, she openly evinced her detestation of the Jesuits, in whom the Ultramontane doctrines were personified. Therein, in all probability, lay a new stumbling block against which the conjugal harmony jarred, already shaken as it was by all the dissemblances of habit, appreciation, and of taste, which difference of nationality engendered. "Ce menage ne fut pas concordant," says Saint-Simon; "quoique sans brouillerie ouverte, et les epoux furent quelquefois bien aises de se separer."

To escape from these different causes of domestic ennui, the Duchess di Bracciano varied her sojourn in Italy by long and frequent visits to France, going thither to present, by clever and well-timed calculation, the spectacle of a Roman princess whom no one even within the grandiose precincts of Versailles surpassed either in true French esprit or steady devotion to the Sovereign. The Duchess formed a close intimacy with the Marechale de Noailles, to whom she was related; she made the acquaintance of the minister Torcy, who was capable of appreciating all the varied resources of her woman's nature and her woman's wit; and she was presented to Madame de Maintenon, who had become the goddess of the Court. Her second visit took place shortly after the period of the Treaty of Ryswick—that is to say, near upon that fatal conjuncture at which Louis XIV. saw England escape him for ever, supported as she was by the Dutch alliance, and had hope only from the Court of Spain to counterbalance the formidable union of his enemies. This was the reason that each of those personages, at Versailles or Paris, had for retaining the Duchess di Bracciano in the interests of France in the future succession of Spain, and recommended them to her at the Papal Court, to the Spanish Ambassador at Rome, the Duke d'Uzeda, or indeed to any other Spaniard of distinction whom she might meet with in that capital.

The letters addressed to the Duchess Lanti, her sister, which are, as it were, a last echo of the conversations of the Hotel d'Albret,[16] were for 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. The advanced age and failing health of her second husband had, in that year, summoned her back to Rome, and a kind of reconciliation, brought about chiefly through the good offices of Cardinal Porto-Carrero—soon afterwards destined to play a great part in the political affairs of his native country—had preceded that demise, which placed the Duchess in possession of estates and property reputed to be considerable, but upon which heavy incumbrances, increased by lawsuits, brought down upon her endless anxiety and almost ruin.

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

The obligation of discharging an immense amount of debt compelled Madame di Bracciano to part with the property of the duchy bearing that name. She was, therefore, forced to relinquish that title and adopt that of Princess des Ursins (Orsini), under which she has taken her place in history. The beneficence of the French King was assured beforehand to a noble widow married under his auspices, ruined, so to speak, in his service, and whose palace had become the residence of his ambassador from the moment that the Prince de Monaco had superseded the disgraced Cardinal de Bouillon in that high post. The Princess obtained, therefore, one of those Court pensions, the ordinary patrimony of all great families, and of which the good offices of the Marechale de Noailles, the staunch patroness of her kinswoman, had ere long succeeded in doubling the amount, when the death of Cardinal Maidalchini had left the considerable subsidy disposable by which that member of the Sacred College was secretly secured to the policy of Louis XIV. She had, indeed, herself solicited an increase of her pension in a charmingly witty letter, in which she undertook to prove how useful it would be for the King's service that she should be richer. "My house," says she, "is the only French abode open to the public. It is in my assemblages there that one can speak to people whom it would be difficult to meet with elsewhere." And thus she rose sufficiently high in the esteem of the cabinet of Versailles to obtain even the recall of the French Ambassador from 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 the support of the Princess des Ursins, the important business of the Spanish succession engrossed the attention of all the politicians of Europe. The question, however, still presented that undecided aspect which left the field open to every species of ambition and manoeuvre. The influence of the Court of Rome and that of the Spaniards there located was necessary to the success of the House of Bourbon. Among these latter was to be numbered the Cardinal Porto-Carrero, Archbishop of Toledo, who dreamed of being, in his own day, it is said, the Ximenes of Spain. Madame des Ursins, as already stated, had formed a close friendship with that prelate, who, as a member of the Council of Castille, exercised a powerful influence alike over the mind of Pope Innocent XI. and of King Charles II. of Spain. She led him to perceive in the choice of the Duke d'Anjou a sure means of reaching the goal of his ambition. She dazzled his mental vision with "the advantages which he might derive from the just gratitude of Louis XIV." Porto-Carrero allowed 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 Madame des Ursins and the credit of Porto-Carrero had brought to look with favour upon the pretensions of France, sent a friendly communication to the Duke d'Anjou. These counsels determined the irresolution of the Spanish King, and the Bourbons reaped the benefit of the succession of Charles V.

Thus matters stood between France and the Princess when it became necessary to choose a Camerara-Mayor for the young Queen. Madame des Ursins had given Louis XIV. ample proof of her devotion; she had in some sort enchained him: she could, therefore, with so much the more security invoke the gratitude of his court, which feeling, under existing circumstances, it was advisable for the cabinet of Versailles to make manifest. Thoroughly secure in that quarter, she wrote direct to the Duke of Savoy,—Philip V. making his father-in-law comprehend that it was the wish of France to see her installed in such post—and the Duke of Savoy referred the matter to Louis XIV. From that moment her elevation was certain. Such choice was the consummation of French policy.

There is something very striking indeed in that indomitable resolution one day to govern Spain, conceived and adopted so far from the theatre of events—to exercise the functions of Camerara-mayor to a queen of thirteen years of age, when to obtain that exalted guardianship in Court and State, every ambitious heart was throbbing from the Alps to the Pyrenees. Yet Madame des Ursins importuned no one, for no one had thought of her, Louis XIV. no more than his ministers, the Duke of Savoy no more than the King of Spain; but that remarkable woman had mentally aimed at that as the supreme object and end of her aspirations. For its realisation she combined her measures, therefore, with an activity so ardent, with an accuracy of perception so marvellous through the mesh of intrigues which spread from Versailles to Turin and to Madrid, that she succeeded in getting herself accepted simultaneously by the three courts, through letting them think that the choice of her individuality had been for each of them the effect of a spontaneous inspiration.

The principal instrument in this affair ought to have been, and was in fact, the Marechale de Noailles. No woman had a better footing at court or exercised a more incessant activity among the ministers. The young Count d'Ayen, her son, a personal friend of the Duke d'Anjou, and who derived a precocious importance from the gravity of his life, was, moreover, disposed to second at Madrid the secret negotiation first broached in the cabinet of Madame de Maintenon, the barriers of which sanctum scarcely gave way even before the Marechale. The progress of the negotiation may be followed from day to day in the letters addressed to Madame de Noailles, conducted by that lady as her indefatigable correspondent pointed out. The first idea of Madame des Ursins may be therein detected, developed as it is with equal art and caution, and strengthened by addressing itself to the mother of a numerous family in arguments which could not fail of their effect. "I conjecture from all this," wrote the Princess, "that the Duchess of Burgundy will have the satisfaction of seeing her sister queen of that great monarchy, and as there must be some lady of rank to direct that young princess, I entreat of you, madame, that you will offer my services, before the King can cast his eyes upon some one else. I venture to say that I am better fitted than any other person whomsoever for such office from the numerous friends I have in that country, and the advantage I have in being a grandee of Spain, which would lighten the difficulties another might encounter in the matter of ceremonial customs. I speak, moreover, Spanish, and further, I am certain that such choice would be agreeable to the whole nation, by whom I can boast of having always been loved and esteemed. My design, madame, would be to go to Madrid, to remain there so long as it should please the King, and afterwards to return to Court and render an account to his Majesty of my sojourn. If it were only a question of accompanying the Queen as far as the frontier, I would not think further of the matter, for that which makes me chiefly desire it, after the King's service, which with me goes before everything, is the wish that I have to prosecute personally at the Court of Madrid certain business of importance connected with the kingdom of Naples. I should be very glad also to see my friends there, and amongst others the Cardinal Porto-Carrero, with whose aid I would find means of marrying a round dozen of your daughters in that country. You must know, madame, that I reckon 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 that Court, and whether it is with too much vanity that I offer you my services therein. I did not believe that I could persuade you to enter into this matter, madame, save in making you take a weighty interest in it, for I apprehend that you may be very weary of employing longer the Cardinal 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 only person 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 combined efforts of secret influence and patient and persistent suppleness. Then when the moment had arrived at which it was necessary for the Duke of Savoy to decide upon a matter that affected so closely the personal expedience of his daughter, and to set M. de Torcy in motion, promptly rallied to the support of the candidate favoured by Madame de Maintenon, we find the Princess des Ursins tracing for the use of that minister a programme which a diplomatist already grown grey under the toils and anxieties 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 to tell you, I shall only do myself the honour to communicate to you some reflections I have made. It is certain that the success of all this depends upon His Highness the Duke of Savoy; you have written to me clearly enough upon the subject to enable me to see that, and besides the thing speaks for itself. I am seeking, therefore, the means of gaining the confidence of that Prince, who, au fond, ought not to feel the slightest repugnance in preferring me to anybody else. However, as I can promise myself nothing certain from his letter, which I have the honour to forward to you, I wish to propose one thing to you which would in no way commit the King, and which not the less would assuredly determine His Royal Highness. That is, Madame, that M. de Torcy, acting for himself, and without mixing up the King's name in any way, should in course of conversation, ask the ambassador, who is at Paris, the name of the lady whom his master destines for this post, and that he would be good enough to mention me as thoroughly adapted for it, in his estimation. Ambassadors keep journals of everything that goes on, and inform their sovereigns of the most trifling matters they hear discussed in ministerial circles. What I have suggested might be taken as an insinuation which would certainly determine the Duke of Savoy to do what we desire, whilst leaving him nevertheless at full liberty to act agreeably to his fancy. I submit this idea to your prudent judgment, and should 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 to fail of ultimate success. The Princess's letters to the Marechale, so nicely calculating in the force of every phrase throughout the course of the siege, are, after her victory, the natural and almost naive expression of delight at a success which both sides promised themselves to render fruitful. It is an instance of poor, naked human nature caught in the fact. But, as in other instances, she cannot play the woman with impunity. Madame des Ursins dwells with complacency upon her description of the fabulous cortege which he has in preparation. Lackeys innumerable, a legion of pages and gentlemen, fiocches and carriages, emblazoned with gold, a suite with which in the present day a sovereign would not encumber himself, and which ate up the remainder of her fortune, all these marvels by means of which it was proposed to win over the admiration of the Spaniards to the new dynasty, were not unserviceable also in gaining over the young Duchess of Burgundy, and the details of them were welcomed by an approving smile in the sanctuary of Madame de Maintenon. The Princess des Ursins being, moreover, too knowing to exact anything in the shape of money from the King in addition to the high favour and all-powerful protection she had just received at his hands; she showed herself, to use her own words, aussi fiere que gueuse.[19] But there is a time for all things; when we have gained possession of the tree itself, we need not be in such a hurry to strip it of its fruits.

[19] Letter to the Marechale 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 des Ursins set forth to conduct the Princess of Savoy to her husband. Our heroine was then in her fifty-ninth year (1701), according to most authorities, in her sixty-second, according to others; and either age would have been for any one else the period for retreat. But by the rare privilege of a singular energy, physical and moral, still beautiful, and having as yet only prepared herself for playing the grand part of her life's drama, she was about to make that advanced age a point of departure in her militant career, the outset of a new existence. She had not committed the error of remaining attached to old customs or old styles of dress, she had, as the present phrase runs, advanced with the age. She had sympathised with it with a juvenile ardour, she had noted, at a distance, its deviations. She was desirous, by opposing it on many points, to take advantage of its decreptitude. She could not shut her eyes to the dazzling aspect of Madame de Maintenon's laurels.

We have shown what the Princess was as a young woman, and also at the mature age of forty; but it is during the twenty-four years of her green old age (1698-1722) when having become a great political personage, we have to behold her exercising a powerful influence over the destinies of two great kingdoms, and aspiring to soar to a greater height than ever her painstaking ambition enabled her to attain. It was then that ambition began to take entire possession of her soul, and displaced in her heart every other sentiment that her previous sixty-two years had not extinguished. There can be no doubt of that fact when we discover in her letters such a glow of youthful feeling, such scarcely repressible delight, and finally that air of triumph with which she proposes to welcome and profit by her first elevation.

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

Into what profound decadence Spain had then fallen is well known to any reader of modern history, and the history of modern Europe contains no more terrible lesson. The Austrian dynasty, insatiable and jealous, had sought to impose at once upon Spain, Europe, and the world, her political and religious despotism. Charles V. had confiscated Spanish liberties and conquered the Commons. Philip II., his son, constituting himself the representative of Catholicism, had persecuted on all sides, whether by open violence or intrigue, by the aid of corruption or torture, the new principle of Protestantism. He had failed in every quarter. The sanguinary executions of the Duke of Alva had been answered by the creation of a new free State—Protestant and Republican Holland. With the Invincible Armada was engulfed the last menace of the Spanish navy, which had been answered by the triumph of Protestant England under the glorious reign of Elizabeth. The Spanish nation itself had conspired, it must be confessed, to that decadence. It had shown no reaction either against the enervating despotism of royalty, or even the nature of the climate and soil, unequal and excessive in every way. The epoch of heroic deeds once elapsed upon the glowing arena of the Middle Ages, the Spanish people had despised labour, commerce, and industry. The soil, neglected, had returned to its primitive sterility, and almost entire provinces had become solitary deserts. Indolence and poverty are evil counsellors. The Spanish people, the nation of the Cid, had transformed her noble and fervent religion of the Middle Ages into a degrading, and too often cruel superstition. It was unhappily the popular sentiment of which Philip III. was the exponent when he expelled the Moors in 1603, thus depriving Spain—poor and already depopulated—of one hundred thousand rich and industrious families; and it was national opinion also which had accepted and maintained the domination of the monks and the hateful empire of the Inquisition.

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

Such were the grave questions which the accession of Philip V. had raised. Louis XIV. had solved them in the sense most favourable to his ambition, and if he recommended his grandson not to surround himself with Frenchmen and to respect the national feeling, it was only to bend the more gently the genius of Spain to his own designs. The correspondence of Madame de Maintenon—eloquent echoes from Marly and Versailles—openly reveals that policy. No wonder that it should do so. The interests involved in the preservation of the balance of power in Europe were not those which affected the great King: those of the cabinet of Versailles, he considered ought to be the sole rule, not only for France, but for Europe entire. So thought everybody also who surrounded the pompous Louis. Those even who pretended to hold themselves aloof from his moral domination—the Duke de Beauvilliers, the Duke de Chevreuse, and the Archbishop of Cambrai—divided their hopes between the Duke of Burgundy and the new King of Spain, the brother of their well-beloved disciple; and, surrounding Philip V. with creatures of their own, would not admit that they could govern otherwise than by Frenchmen and French ideas. Even for that party which arrogated to itself the title of "honest folks," animated by noble sentiments and generous illusions, it was difficult sufficiently to enlarge the narrow patriotism of the time, and to admit within it a sympathetic alliance with 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 at Madrid in sustaining the alliance between the two countries in view of their common interests, and in attacking by reforms the deep-seated abuses which had prepared the complete ruin of Spain; she was so especially likewise in waging a determined fight against an institution the most repugnant to the character and intelligence of France—the Inquisition. But she became Spanish also when needful, whether she had to humour warily the national susceptibilities, or to confide the principal posts to Spaniards rather than to Frenchmen, or, finally, whether in 1709, when the guardianship of Philip V. had become a very heavy burden to the declining Louis, she manifested her indignation at the very idea, too readily accepted at Versailles, of abandoning Spain, and was stubbornly resolved, on her own part, to struggle by the side of Louis XIV.'s grandson to the last extremity.

The whole period which extends up to the moment of her first disgrace was solely employed by her in establishing her power by masking it. She still remained without a very precise mission; the indirect encouragement of Torcy and Madame de Maintenon, it is true, soon came to sustain 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 time on board her galley in the harbour of Villefranche, at the moment when the tearful eyes of the young princess were casting a last glance at the lovely Italian land, was that admirable queen whose life in default of mental courage became worn out by the corroding of adversity, and whose popular name has remained as a symbol in Spain of every royal and domestic virtue. Not quite fourteen at the period of that meeting, the princess was already as tall as the Duchess of Burgundy, whose perfect shape she also possessed, with a more regular cast of features and an incomparable charm in her graceful and affable manners. Smiling through her tears, and in the midst of her grief ever displaying gentleness blended with majesty, she played the queen on all occasions in a marvellous way for one so youthful, that everybody who had the honour of approaching her during the journey was struck with astonishment. Marie-Louise was a gentle and affectionate girl, of an intelligence and will in advance of her years, and which happily did not injure her natural gracefulness. For this young creature, for this child, suddenly become a wife and a queen, the presence of Madame des Ursins, still handsome even at sixty-six, sprightly and as skilful as she was eager to please, was the sole refuge beside the indolent love of a boy-king of eighteen, who gave her no protection. These two women, whom nature had created so dissimilar, were about to be united for ever in one common destiny. The young Queen appeared to be immediately struck with the value of the support which a mind so supple and vigorous offered her, and when the departure of her Piedmontese waiting-maids had torn from the poor girl-queen the last trace of family and country, she clung to her grand camerara as the ivy to the tree which supports it. On the other hand, Madame des Ursins did not fail to hold herself out as representing the respected authority of Louis XIV. and Madame de Maintenon; on the other, she knew well how to initiate herself, by means of the domestic duties, of which she designedly exaggerated the importance, into the innermost prejudices of the royal wife. She made herself useful to Marie-Louise, became indispensable amidst an intercourse so privileged and private; at the same time she afforded pleasure in so doing, and that proved during the whole period of her sojourn in Spain the most solid foundation of her favour and power.

Through the Queen the camerara-mayor was certain of governing the King. Proportionately as the absolute monarchy, in spite of the severest warnings, set up pretensions even more and more excessive and insensate, it became also more manifest that its old traditions had rendered the princes degenerate, and that the blood was equally menaced with impoverishment in the family of Louis XIV. as in that of Charles V. The new King of Spain was deficient in moral force and determination. He had generous proclivities, without the least doubt. He was gloriously born, as the phrase then ran. Like all his race, he showed bravery on the field of battle; but energetic persistence in long-continued designs firmly conceived, he was ever wanting in. Wearied to excess by the weight of a crown, he ended by resigning its functions; compelled to resume them, he succumbed beneath their weight, conceived scruples touching the legitimacy of his royalty, and sunk into a crazy melancholy, 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, the little Piedmontese port, which had been fixed upon as the place of Marie-Louise's embarkation, had merely wished to present herself to the Queen, her mistress, at the moment when the latter would be ready to enter her galley and set sail for Spain. By that means, she would avoid the necessity of putting all the royal train in mourning. For, as she had already suggested with remarkable foresight to the Marechale de Noailles—the Court of Turin was then in mourning, and there would have been a necessity to conform to the French custom, followed by the Dukes of Savoy: on the contrary, by stopping at Villefranche and meeting the Queen at the moment of her embarkation, she would merely have to observe the usage of Spain, which only enjoined mourning upon the master and mistress of a house.

Authorised to do what seemed fit to her on that score, she had awaited therefore the arrival of the young princess at Villefranche, and with so much the more satisfaction, that at Turin she would have been exposed to a thousand annoyances. There she would have encountered the Princess de Carignan—the great lady who had taken care of her niece, Marie-Louise of Savoy, and like many other Piedmontese ladies, she wished very much to follow her into Spain, and perhaps remain there. There were many little projects, it appears, formed at Turin with the view of governing the young Queen.[21] For a long while it was thought that they would be realised, because the report ran that the Princess de Carignan would in fact accompany her niece to Madrid. But Louis XIV., foreseeing that source of embarrassment, had given an order to dismiss all the Piedmontese ladies at the frontier, so soon as the Queen should meet her Spanish household. Those ladies were aware of this; but their discontent was only the greater, and it was much to be feared lest if Madame des Ursins should herself repair to Turin, to present herself to the young Queen, she might be exposed to some insult on their part. Who could tell whether, at that court, before the departure of Marie-Louise had removed all hope, her "position might not be menaced"? In that, then, there arose an additional motive, and the principal one, to stop at Villefranche, in order not to see the Queen before the moment of embarking with her, and of entering immediately and irrevocably upon the exercise 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, the anchor of her galley was instantly weighed and sail set for Nice, where a 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, at Marseilles, and at Montpellier, and despatch thence, by way of thanks for the splendid fetes given by the local authorities, a salvo of homage to the Great King at Versailles. Madame des Ursins was seated in the royal litter, at the Queen's side, and everywhere had her share of the honours rendered to that princess in the various cities of France and Italy. At length the Spanish frontier was reached, and there the Piedmontese ladies, to the great regret of Marie-Louise and their own, were compelled to stop and retrace their steps to Turin. The Spanish dames, appointed by Philip V., replaced them. The young Queen thereupon lost much of her characteristic amenity, and Madame des Ursins gained nothing on the score of benevolence of intention; but the jealousy of the Spanish ladies was less formidable to her.

The marriage by procuration had been performed at Turin. The definitive espousals, it was settled, should be accomplished at Figuieras, on Spanish soil, in order that Marie-Louise might not enter into the country, where she was destined to reign, save with the irrevocable titles of wife and queen. Thither was to come, on an appointed day, King Philip V. He did not keep his bride waiting for him, for, impatient to behold her to whom, by procuration, he had already given his hand, and whose charms had been highly extolled to him, he passed beyond the place fixed upon for the official reception, and went forwards disguised, without pomp or noise, to meet her. He was followed by a very small number of cavaliers, and so soon as he perceived the queen's retinue approaching the town of Hostalnovo, he quitted his attendants, and "pricked forward like a courier" towards the royal litter. Desirous of preserving his incognito, he presented himself as a king's messenger, sent to get the earliest tidings of the Queen, and he addressed himself in Spanish to the Princess des Ursins, to receive the information which he asserted he was ordered to obtain. The Queen immediately guessed that the 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 her journey, and it was continued for about a quarter of an hour. For some time the Queen pretended not to recognise him; but, at last, her emotion getting the better of her, she broke through the assumed incognito in which the King had shrouded himself, and was anxious to alight from her litter. Philip, without further revealing himself, stayed her with his hand. Whereupon, she grasped hold instantly of that royal hand, which by an attention, divined by her heart, was rendered so dear to her; "she took 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 returned satisfied to Figuieras."[22]

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

There was celebrated the marriage of Philip V. with Marie-Louise of Savoy. But oh, unforeseen mischance! Several days were destined to elapse ere he could really possess her the sight of whom had only had the effect of redoubling the ardour of his desires. His happiness was retarded by an incident of a very extraordinary nature, one which caused him personally much unpleasantness, and moreover, gave his young bride a bad 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 French fashion, because at Turin the art of the celebrated Chef Vatel had been adopted. But the Spanish ladies whose duty it was, under the direction of Madame des Ursins, to serve the dishes, did not expect such a strange commencement of their functions. All their national susceptibilities were aroused at the sight, and determined to wean abruptly their new Queen from the customs of her own country, and to impose upon her, from the moment of her very first repast, the diet of Spain, they did not hesitate to upset all the French dishes, without a single exception, in order to serve up nothing but Spanish cookery. The King said nothing; and the Princess des Ursins, notwithstanding her stupefaction and secret wrath, was unwilling to commence her career in Spain by scenes of reproach and severity. The Queen also, whose natural vivacity and tender age could not be expected to observe the same restraint, had, nevertheless, sufficient control over herself at first to keep silence. But when she found herself with the King and Madame des Ursins in the apartment allotted to their privacy, her displeasure burst forth, and with so much the greater force that it had been so long restrained and that no foreign eye hindered its manifestation. She shed tears plentifully, sobbed, regretted the absence of her Piedmontese ladies, waxed indignant at the audacity and rudeness of the Spanish dames, and even declared that she would proceed no further, but would return to Piedmont. Night came on, the king left her to undress, and waited to be summoned to his bride's apartment; but the young Queen, "entetee, comme une enfant qu'elle etait," says Saint Simon, "for she was scarcely fourteen," appeared disposed to attribute to the King himself, the rude conduct of his subjects; and in spite of all reasoning on the subject, and the remonstrances of Madame des Ursins, replied that she would sleep alone and go back as quickly as possible to Turin. It may easily be guessed how untoward and disagreeable such an affair proved to Philip V.; he was greatly discomfited by it, and when the second night came, as the Queen had not recovered her good humour, it was he, who acting upon the advice of the Duke of Medina Sidonia and Count San Estevan de Gormas, anticipated a fresh refusal, by causing her to be told that he would not now share her couch. That spontaneous determination was adroit, and produced its effect. Marie-Louise was exceedingly piqued at it in the depth of her girlish amour-propre, and ended by making an honourable amende to the King, blaming and condemning her own childishness. She promised to conduct herself for the future like a woman and a queen, and on the arrival of the third night, the nuptial bed at length reunited the hitherto dissevered husband and wife. The next day they left Figuieras, touched at Barcelona, and thence hastened on to Madrid, wherein they made their triumphal entry by the Alcala Gate, towards the end of October, 1701, amidst a great concourse of nobles and populace. There also the Princess des Ursins was installed definitively in her functions of camerara-mayor. These she was destined to fulfil during a period of thirteen years, from 1701 to 1714, and by favour of that influential position, to exercise a virtual sovereignty, the acts of which it will now be our task to duly appreciate.



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 have seen, on first setting her foot in Spain, for a moment thrown the young Queen into a condition bordering on despair. By advice, however, the respectful devotedness of which served to soften its austerity, and by an absolute abnegation of herself, Madame des Ursins drew closely towards her the broken-hearted princess by discreetly assuaging all her first girlish sorrows. She became a friend, a sister, almost a mother to the exiled-one, and her influence profited no less by the first embarrassments of the conjugal union than by the unbridled passion which ere long placed under the yoke of his wife a husband of eighteen, chaste as St. Louis, with the amorous temperament of Henry IV. In order to strengthen that ascendency and to remain exclusive mistress of a confidence of which power was the price, the Princess des Ursins flinched neither under fatigue calculated to exhaust the sturdiest frame, nor before services the nature of which would have outraged her pride, had it not been to her, as Saint-Simon says, une meme chose d'etre et de gouverner. That gilded servitude is described with a charmingly punctilious complaisance in her letters to the Marechale de Noailles and the Marquis de Torcy, and notwithstanding the commiseration which she claims for it, it may be clearly seen that Madame des Ursins enters into the details of her domestic service far less for the purpose of carrying a complaint to Versailles, than to have it there set down to her credit.

"Gracious Heaven! to what sort of occupation, madame, have you destined me? I have not a moment's repose, and cannot find time even to speak to my secretary. There is no longer any question about resting after dinner, nor of eating when I am hungry. I am but too glad to be able to make a bad dinner standing, and moreover it is very rare that I am not summoned away before swallowing the first mouthful. In truth, Madame de Maintenon 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 receiving the King of Spain's dressing-gown when he gets into bed, and of handing it to him along with his slippers when he rises. So far as that goes I don't lose my patience; but every night when the King enters the Queen's chamber to go to bed, the Count de Benavente confides to my care the King's sword, a certain utensil, and a lamp, the contents of which I generally manage to spill over my dress,—rather too good a joke. The King 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 the Queen's chamber whilst they were abed. Very lately, the lamp went out because I had spilled half the oil. I could not find where the windows were, 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 hour stumbling against each other in trying to find them. Her Majesty has got so used to me that sometimes she is good enough to call me up two hours earlier than I should otherwise care to rise.... The Queen delights in this sort of pleasantry; still, however, she has not yet regained the confidence 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 would not wash her feet or pull off her shoes as readily as I do."[23]

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

How unlike a contemporary mistress of the robes in England, the haughty Duchess 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 a solitary royalty seemed to exist without keeping up any relations with the human race, nothing could have been more easy than for the camerara mayor to have provided substitutes for the performance of her unbecoming duties. One of the recommendations of Louis XIV. to his grandson had been, in fact, that whilst scrupulously respecting all popular customs, to wage an implacable war in his court against the monstrous etiquette which, under the last Austrian princes, had palsied Spanish royalty. This was one of the labours to which the camerara mayor devoted herself; but she took good care not to reform anything appertaining to her own functions, comprehending clearly enough the policy of keeping to herself sole access to the royal personages, and sacrificing without grudge her dignity to her power and influence. A contrary policy, as will be seen, caused the downfall of Queen Anne's potent favourite.

But we must pass over these domestic duties to speak of state affairs and the gradual initiation therein by the Princess of this young couple. During the campaign of Italy in which Philip V. was anxious to take part, Madame des Ursins, suitably to the duties and prerogatives of her charge, did not quit the Queen for a single moment. She was present with her on every occasion at the sittings of the Junta, and, under pretext of familiarising her with politics, she herself penetrated every state secret. The Princess well knew how to make etiquette subserve her purpose, to maintain it to the utmost, modify or slacken it according to her interests. She understood what kind of concessions the genius of the Spanish nation demanded, and also what reforms it permitted. She judged at a glance of the disposition of the grandees, and yielded to no illusion relative to the degree of support she might expect from them. "With these sort of folks," she wrote to the Marquis de Torcy, "the surest way is to show firmness. The closer I observe them, the less do I find that they merit the esteem which I thought it would have been impossible not to accord them." According to the Princess, the Spanish nation in the persons of its grandees, had yielded obedience to a son of France only, under the idea that France alone could defend and protect it. France remaining powerful and victorious, Spain would be safe: but, at each defeat that occurred in Flanders or Germany from the irresistible sword of Marlborough, the eyes of the grandees were turned towards the Archduke, and their fidelity was shaken. The skill and merit of Madame des Ursins was to perceive how, in so short a time, to derive so much advantage from the grace and affability of the Queen, whom she made really popular among the faithful people of central Spain, and it was wonderful to see the roots of that new royalty strike so quickly in the hearts of the old Castilians, as to render it able later during the stormy times to weather every rude attack. With an intuitive foresightedness not a little remarkable, the Princess des Ursins had from the first proposed to herself a twofold object. She sought to become the intermedium of the close alliance formed between the grandsire and the grandson, in order to regenerate Spain by causing French measures to prevail in the government of that misruled country; but to the extent only that their application should appear possible without wounding the national sentiment. That policy was the wisest and assuredly the most useful for the Peninsula in the extremity to which the inept power it had just escaped from had brought it. Among the princes who were neither vicious nor cruel, there are none who had done more harm to mankind than the last descendants of Charles V. At the end of the seventeenth century, the immense empire of Philip IV. and Charles II., reduced to a feebleness which the Ottoman empire in our own days has scarcely felt, was nothing more than the phantom of a nation. The House of Austria had triumphed over feudality and municipal resistance as completely as the House of Bourbon; but the successes of monarchical power had been as sterile on one side of the Pyrenees as they had been profitable to it on the other, for in Spain the impotence of the vanquisher had still surpassed that of the vanquished.

So much blood shed by axe and sword, so many lives sacrificed under torture, had scarcely tended further to strengthen royal authority or cement the union of the Spanish kingdoms; and those princes whose domains still spread widely across the globe, had no longer to oppose to 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 unhappy country to its ancient grandeur was assuredly the least fitting to accomplish such a task. But seventeen years old, when Charles II. chose him for his successor, the Duke d'Anjou was indebted both to nature and education for a mind rather constituted to serve than reign. Brother of the heir to the French throne, he had been reared in studied subordination towards the latter, and the discipline of Beauvilliers and Fenelon, which had curbed the violence of character in the Duke of Burgundy, had produced less beneficial effects in the melancholy temperament of his younger brother. With a natural rectitude of thought and a pride which at times revealed the hereditary haughtiness of his race, Philip V. had in the same degree as his nephew Louis XV., whom he resembled in many ways, that morbid weariness of life, that contempt for mankind and distaste for business. He was afflicted, moreover, with that fatal impotence of will which makes a libertine king the slave of his mistresses, and, a faithful husband the passive instrument of a charming queen who may happen to be prompted by the most skilful of councillors.

But nothing had as yet indicated the melancholy condition of mind which later drove the young King to the confines of despair and insanity. On his first entrance into his kingdom, escorted by a crowd of brilliant nobles, Philip was radiant with youth and hope. He strode forwards sustained by the strong arm of a people who thought to escape, by the intervention of the most powerful sovereign in Europe, from the evils of war, and more especially from that severance of the Spanish monarchy more dreaded by the nation than all its other woes together. In a capital which he was forced to quit on two several occasions, in a court soon afterwards prostrated before his rival, and even in those provinces of Arragon and Catalonia, the burning centres of civil war, nothing at first was heard save shouts of joy and protestations of fidelity. Nevertheless it did not need great sagacity to foresee the perils reserved for the new establishment. The French regime disquieted interests too numerous and prejudices too powerful throughout the Peninsula not to explode at the first difficulty which it might encounter on its path.

Thunderstruck by the unforeseen will of Charles II., Europe, which at the first moment had seemed indisposed to contest its dispositions, had not long deferred their reconsideration. Persuaded that the aggrandisement of his family was equivalent in the eyes of Louis XIV. to an aggrandisement of territory, England, Holland, and Portugal, taking in hand the successorial pretentions of the house of Austria, out of which those cabinets had made such a good bargain in two treaties of partition, sent fleets into every sea, whilst awaiting the moment to carry into the heart of Spain, hostilities which the emperor had already commenced in Italy. An implacable coalition, of which the Peace of Ryswick 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 just and honest cause; but the war was scarcely begun ere the certitude was acquired that in doubling the dangers of France, Spain would add nothing to its resources. With what contemptuous bitterness did Spain, in fact, watch the long train of disasters which from the pinnacle of power brought Louis XIV. to the brink of an abyss by one of those vicissitudes the effect of which is never more rapid upon the popular mind than when fortune deserts men who have been long powerful and flourishing!

Such was the theatre upon which Providence had placed a timid and ailing prince, but which event threatened to endanger even the very existence of the French monarchy itself. Louis XIV. seemed to have attained his object in the guidance of his grandson, who followed the great monarch's injunctions with filial docility. The Queen governed Philip V., and Madame des Ursins governed the Queen. Saint Simon thus explains this ascendancy:—"She guided the Queen," says he, "who had placed in her all the affection and all the confidence of a young person who knew no other adviser, 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 genius and strength." Marie-Louise had not been less carefully brought up than her sister, the Duchess of Burgundy, nor less well instructed. She had innate talent, and, in her early youth showed intelligence, good sense, firmness, and was capable of being advised and restrained, and who later, when her character became more developed and formed, manifested a constancy and courage which the natural graces of that same intelligence infinitely enhanced. A lively sympathy between the two women alone determined the authority of the older over the younger, and if the King's confidence in the camerara-mayor was a homage rendered to the real superiority of her intelligence, it might be said that a happy conformity of tastes, views, and dispositions, attached his Queen to the Princess des Ursins.

Two political systems confronted each other at Madrid. The one ultra-French, the other purely Spanish, represented by the grandees and inclining towards the Archduke of Austria, the competitor of Philip V. The first-named had for champions, Cardinal Porto-Carrero, "virtually the actual prime minister," the Archbishop of Seville, Arias, the provisional president of the Council of Castille, the Marquis de Louville, and all the King's French household; subsequently it was directed by the Cardinal and the Abbe d'Estrees, 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 of Castile, the Marquis de Leganez, and the Duke de Medina-Coeli. The first-named policy tended to destroy, by its exclusive ideas, the popularity of Philip V., the second prepared to betray him. They were both reduced to impotence, and became fatal to those who ventured to defend them. Madame des Ursins combated the one and the other, and aimed at inaugurating in Spain a mixed policy, heeding the cabinet of Versailles without annihilating the cabinet of Madrid, satisfying the just desires of Spain and the susceptibilities of the nation, without disdaining the sometimes useful advice and the ever requisite resources of 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, it was necessary that Madame des Ursins should be delivered from her rivals, and should reign as absolutely in the councils of the Crown as in the minds of the King and Queen.

The principal chief of the Austrian party, the Admiral of Castile, was the first to become dangerous. "He loved the house of Austria, for which he had fought, under the preceding reign, by sea and land, and from which he had received the highest honours." On the contrary he detested the house of Bourbon, against which he had strongly "pronounced" at the time when the last will of Charles II. was in preparation.[24] But he had confronting him the vigilance of Madame des Ursins. She fathomed his intrigues and baffled his early manoeuvres; though she had not always to struggle openly against him. He rendered himself justice; he comprehended his own impotence, and had recourse to treason. He had frequent conferences with a Dutch spy, plotted with him the downfall of Philip V., and the elevation of the Archduke, and finally handed him a correct topographic plan of Andalusia and Estremadura. The cabinets of Vienna and London assured of such an aid, declared war against Philip V. Nevertheless, although the Spanish government was duly apprised of these proceedings, it still wanted that boldness which the continuous use of power and long-indulged prosperity give. It only determined upon dispatching the admiral abroad, and appointed him ambassador to the French Court; a dubious favour which at once revealed its fears and its weakness, but which at least postponed a peril it dared not yet face. The admiral saw plainly that he was suspected in Spain, and that in France he would be a cipher; nevertheless, he pretended to take his departure thither; but halted when half-way, and went to join the Portuguese troops banded with those of the allies. The cabinet of Madrid had from that time forward acquired the right of punishing him. The Count de Melgar was condemned par contumace; his friends were forced to blame his conduct openly; and his melancholy death which happened shortly afterwards, the result of an insult reserved sooner or later for all 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 des Ursins. Of this, Louville, even before the arrival of the Princess, had a presentiment. "I would much rather have Madame de Ventadour," he wrote Torcy. So early as the month of January, 1703, he saw his influence destroyed, foresaw his coming defeat and meditated a coup d'eclat—the getting rid of the camerara-mayor. He declares to the Duke de Beauvilliers,—"If prompt measures are not taken to extricate the Catholic King from his slavery, he is lost. In the first place, Madame des 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 get rid of her;" and, in July, 1703, to bring Torcy to a decision, he adds,—"She is now detested by the Spaniards." Madame des Ursins repaid him hate for hate, and never spoke of him save with a lofty contempt befitting an offended great lady. "He has cut a greater figure," she wrote to Cardinal de Noailles, "by the insolent things he has written about me, than by any merit of his own. I think that I can never forgive him if he does not first retract everything which he has advanced against me. In truth, it ought not to be permitted that so insignificant a person should outrage a woman of my rank." Matters having reached this pass, it was clear that one or the other must succumb. It was the lot of the Marquis de Louville. Two couriers reaching Versailles from Spain, determined his fall. On the 22nd of October, a despatch from the Duke de Beauvilliers announced it to him. "It is done," wrote the duke, "we are lost. The step is taken. You are to be instantly recalled."[25]