Political Women Volume II Part 7

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 d.u.c.h.ess 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 succ.u.mbed 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 fis.h.i.+ng 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 embarra.s.sment, 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 princ.i.p.al 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 sh.o.r.e to make slight halts at Toulon, at Ma.r.s.eilles, 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 t.i.tles 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 pa.s.sed 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 "p.r.i.c.ked 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 a.s.serted 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 a.s.sumed 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 r.e.t.a.r.ded 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 fas.h.i.+on, 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, antic.i.p.ated 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 n.o.bles 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 a.s.suaging 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 embarra.s.sments of the conjugal union than by the unbridled pa.s.sion 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 st.u.r.diest 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 d.u.c.h.ess 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 subst.i.tutes 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 pa.s.s 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 a.s.suredly 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 munic.i.p.al 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 surpa.s.sed 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 peris.h.i.+ng, either an army, a fleet, a general, or even a statesman.

The first of the sovereigns summoned to a.s.sist in restoring this unhappy country to its ancient grandeur was a.s.suredly 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 const.i.tuted 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 rect.i.tude 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 pa.s.sive 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 n.o.bles, 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 aggrandis.e.m.e.nt of his family was equivalent in the eyes of Louis XIV. to an aggrandis.e.m.e.nt 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 part.i.tion, 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 s.n.a.t.c.h 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 cert.i.tude 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 flouris.h.i.+ng!

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 amus.e.m.e.nts, 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 d.u.c.h.ess 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 compet.i.tor 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, Amba.s.sadors of France.

The second party re-united the most ill.u.s.trious 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 princ.i.p.al 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 "p.r.o.nounced" 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 a.s.sured 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 amba.s.sador 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 punis.h.i.+ng 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 pa.s.s, it was clear that one or the other must succ.u.mb. 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]

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

The Archbishop of Seville, Arias, who was of the same politics, was shortly afterwards sent back to his diocese. The Duke de Montellano replaced him in the presidency of Castile, and a Papal brief, obtained some months after his disgrace, enjoined him not to quit Seville again.

There remained Porto-Carrero and the Cardinal d'Estrees, recently nominated amba.s.sador of France. They were the firmest supporters of their cause and the most formidable adversaries of the Princess: Porto-Carrero, by his high position, by the recollection of services rendered at the period of the will; Cardinal d'Estrees, by his influence at the Court of Versailles, by the protection of Noailles, by the energetic support of the entire French party. The strife was fierce; but the resources of Madame des Ursins were equal to the emergency. The Duke de Montellano, president of the Council of Castille, counterbalanced the authority, until then unlimited, of Porto-Carrero; the auditors.h.i.+p of finance, which had always appertained to the prime minister, being taken from him. Weakened by this check and rivalry, the Cardinal abruptly changed his policy and placed himself at the head of the anti-French party; he refused to act with Cardinal d'Estrees, and tendered his resignation. Had he remained firm in that course, probably he might have re-enacted his political part in the ranks of his new friends, and have caused the government great embarra.s.sment. On receiving a letter from Louis XIV., he had the weakness to give way, withdrew his resignation, and resumed his seat at the council board. But factions hate and despise more intensely those who abandon their ranks than those who fight against them: that manoeuvre irritated alike the French and the Spaniards; both, in their turn, abjured. Porto-Carrero was the turn-coat from every cause: as a politician he was annihilated.

In this affair, Cardinal d'Estrees had been, without knowing it, the tool of Madame des Ursins. "He was," according to Saint Simon, "a hot, hasty, impetuous, high-handed man, who could tolerate neither superior nor equal." It will readily be imagined that the _camerara-mayor_ could not brook the ascendency which he aimed at ursurping. She resolutely resisted him in all things and on every occasion. She opposed, with might and main, the success of his policy; she set her face against his imperious manners and tedious formalities. Philip and his Queen grew tired of the strife. They took part with Madame des Ursins and wrote to Louis XIV. After that letter "the Cardinal d'Estrees was looked upon as the great stirrer-up of strife. His arrival at the Court of Madrid had interrupted the perfect harmony about to be re-established. Not a day pa.s.sed without some one suffering from his intractable and arrogant temper." Madame des Ursins worked in the same groove with Torcy. The Cardinal's cabal, by way of revenge, "raked into the private life of the _camerara-mayor_," hoping to destroy by scandalous tales her reputation in the eyes of Louis XIV. and Madame de Maintenon. Those tactics failed of success; Louis XIV., it is true, recalled Madame des Ursins; but the Queen of Spain defended her favourite with such earnest importunity, that the severity of the Court of Versailles was disarmed. An endeavour was made to reconcile the two adversaries; but that reconciliation, if sincere, was not lasting. Supreme authority admits of no equal part.i.tion: difficulties multiplied themselves. Philip V. at length declared to Louis XIV., "that if, to keep his crown, he must resign himself to have Cardinal Porto-Carrero always as his minister, he knew what 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 inflict upon 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 very serious difficulty, the _camerara-mayor_, in fact, screened herself behind the Queen, and the King of France was well aware that in recalling her he would deal a blow alike against the affection and self-love of his grand-daughter which she would never forgive--an extremity which was not less repugnant to his policy than to his good feeling. Moreover the departure of Madame des Ursins would not render the Cardinal d'Estrees' position less insupportable in a court, all the approaches to which were barred to him, and in which his isolation was a constant insult to France. There was nothing left, therefore, but to grant the latter a recall which, smarting with a humiliation so unforeseen to his overweening arrogance, he demanded in accents of rage and despair. However, in order to salve his _amour-propre_, the Abbe d'Estrees continued to discharge the functions of the emba.s.sy, as though his uncle's absence were only temporary; but that state of things did not suit either of the two factions which for more than twelve months past divided the French household of the King of Spain, surpa.s.sing each other in vituperation and calumny. Despite a sort of truce stipulated between the emba.s.sy and the palace, the Abbe d'Estrees soon found himself in the same position in which the Cardinal had been placed; for Madame des Ursins did not like the arrangement of the Abbe being left behind, but as Madame de Maintenon insisted upon it, she was obliged to accept it with as good a grace as possible.[26] The Abbe, vain of his family and his position, was not a man much to be feared as it seemed.

Madame des Ursins accordingly laughed at and despised him. He was admitted to the council, but was quite without influence there, and when he attempted to make any representations to Madame des Ursins or Orry, they listened to him without attending in the least to what he said. The Princess reigned supreme, and thought of nothing but getting rid of all who attempted to divide her authority. At last she obtained such a command over the poor Abbe d'Estrees, so teased and hampered him, that he consented to the hitherto unheard-of arrangement, that the Amba.s.sador of France should not write to the King without first concerting his letter with her, and afterwards show her its contents before he despatched it. But such restraint as this became, in a short time, so fettering, that the Abbe determined to break away from it. He wrote a letter to the King without showing it to Madame des Ursins. She soon had scent of what he had done; seized the letter as it pa.s.sed through the post, opened it, and, as she expected, found its contents were not of a kind to give her much satisfaction. In fact, in her emotion of anger and indignation she made a false step in her state-craft of a nature one can hardly imagine a person so astute as the Princess making. This blunder led to a great _imbroglio_.

[26] Saint Simon.

The question has been raised--Did Madame des Ursins always use the intimate and uncontrolled influence she had obtained over the young Queen of fourteen in a purely devoted and disinterested way? It would be difficult, certainly, to answer in the affirmative. Louville, her rival and enemy, a man of talent and ardour, but pa.s.sionate, represents her as the wickedest woman on earth, to be got rid of at the earliest possible moment and at any cost, "sordid and thievish to a marvellous degree." He raises the same accusation against Orry, a clever man whom Louis XIV.

had sent to Spain to put some order into her finances. These accusations seem to have been unjustifiable. The Marshal Duke of Berwick, who kept himself aloof from all these odious bickerings, does more justice to Orry, and everything leads the impartial student to think that Madame des Ursins on that score comes out of the scrutiny with still cleaner hands. "_Je suis gueuse, il est vrai_," she writes to Madame de Noailles on first going to Spain, "_mais je suis encore plus fiere_." Detailing to Madame de Maintenon somewhat later the indignities they both had to put up with from accusations of a like nature, she speaks of them in a tone of lofty irony and sovereign contempt which appears to exclude anything like falsehood.

But what seems more certain--if the truth must be told--is, although a little singular at first sight, that at the age of sixty and upwards, Madame des Ursins still had lovers. "She is hair-brained in her conduct,"[27] wrote Louville to the Duke and d.u.c.h.ess de Beauvilliers.

One Sieur d'Aubigny, a kind of household steward whom she had promoted to be her equerry, was lodged in the _Retiro_ palace near the apartments of her women, where he was seen one day brus.h.i.+ng his teeth very unconcernedly at the window. _C'etait un beau et grand drole tres-bien fait et tres-decouple de corps et d'esprit_,[28] and not a _bete brute_, as Louville calls him. But he was bold and somewhat insolent, as one who conceived that he had a right to be so. On another occasion, Louville and the Duke de Medina-Coeli entering the apartments of Madame des Ursins, into which she ushered them in order that they might talk more unrestrainedly, D'Aubigny who was installed at the other end, seeing only the Princess and believing her to be alone, began to apostrophise her in terms of very rude and coa.r.s.e familiarity, which threw all present into confusion. The feminine failing of Madame des Ursins, was, we are told, this; "gallantry and _l'entetement de sa personne_ was in her the dominant and overweening weakness above all else, even to the latest period of her life." So Saint Simon says, and he renders her full justice moreover for her spirited and elevated qualities.