FOOTNOTES:

FOOTNOTES:[15]Among thepièces justificativesappended to the Mémoires du Maréchal de Noailles.[16]Collection of M. Geffroy, pp. 1-25.

[15]Among thepièces justificativesappended to the Mémoires du Maréchal de Noailles.

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

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

Atthe 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 manœuvre. 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 andthe 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 aCamerara-Mayorfor 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 ofCamerara-mayorto 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 ofperception 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 Maréchale 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 whichsanctumscarcely gave way even before the Maréchale. 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 theadvantage 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]

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]

The trenches thus cleverly opened, the fair besiegers were not likely to fail of ultimate success. The Princess’s letters to the Maréchale, so nicely calculating in the force of every phrase throughout the course of the siege, are, after her victory, the natural and almost naïve 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 fabulouscortégewhich he has in preparation. Lackeys innumerable, a legion of pages and gentlemen,fiocchesand 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 highfavourand all-powerful protection she had just received at his hands; she showed herself, to use her own words,aussi fière 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.

FOOTNOTES:[17]Collection of M. Geffroy, p. 88.[18]Collection of M. Geffroy, p. 90.[19]Letter to the Maréchale de Noailles of 21st June, 1701.

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

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

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

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

Itwas, 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) whenhaving 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 theInvincible Armadawas 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 centralisationconsort 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 thetitle 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 Queenof Spain. Marie-Louise of Savoy, whom herCamerara-mayormet 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 grandcameraraas theivy 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 thecamerara-mayorwas 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]

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 Maréchale 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 wasthought 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.

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 fêtes 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 ofKing 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]

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 celebratedChefVatel 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 thecustoms 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, “entêtée, comme une enfant qu’elle était,” 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 girlishamour-propre, and ended by making an honourableamendeto 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 ofcamerara-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.

FOOTNOTES:[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.[21]Memoirs of Louville, tom. i., and those of De Noailles, tom. ii., pp. 164, 165.[22]MS. Hist. de l’élévation de Philip V., p. 372.

[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.

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

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

ONEROUS AND INCONGRUOUS DUTIES OF THECAMERARA 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.

Thesudden 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 servicesthe nature of which would have outraged her pride, had it not been to her, as Saint-Simon says,une même chose d’être et de gouverner. That gilded servitude is described with a charmingly punctilious complaisance in her letters to the Maréchale 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 findwhere 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]

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 thecamerara mayorto 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 thecamerara mayordevoted 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 itwas 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 opposeto Europe, during the long agony in which their race was perishing, either an army, a fleet, a general, or even a statesman.

The first of the sovereigns summoned to assist in restoring this 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 Fénelon, 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 sovereignin 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. Withwhat 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 thecamerara-mayorwas a homagerendered 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 Abbé d’Estrées, Ambassadors of France. The second party re-united the most illustrious names of the monarchy. It had for its chiefs, successively, the Count de Melgar, Admiral of Castile, the Marquis de Léganez, and the Duke de Medina-Cœli. 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 manœuvres; 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 acquiredthe right of punishing him. The Count de Melgar was condemnedpar 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.

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 acoup d’éclat—the getting rid of thecamerara-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 deLouville. 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]

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’Estrées, recently nominated ambassador 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’Estrées, 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 auditorship 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’Estrées, 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 embarrassment. On receiving a letterfrom 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 manœuvre 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’Estrées 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 thecamerara-mayorcould 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’Estrées 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 passed 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 thecamerara-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 suchearnest 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 partition: 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.

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