FOOTNOTES:

FOOTNOTES:[54]Natural son of James II. of England, by Arabella Churchill, sister of the Duke of Marlborough.[55]Recueil de M. Geffroy, p. 395.[56]A sort of collar.

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

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

[56]A sort of collar.

THE PRINCESS’S SHARE IN THE TREATY OF UTRECHT.

Ifthe new ministry of Queen Anne succeeded in inducing the English nation to support the treaty of Utrecht, that was nothing less than to prove undeniably, without fear of contradiction, that the establishment of the French dynasty in the Peninsula had there acquired the authority of a fact irrevocably accomplished. The resuscitation of the Spanish nation had, therefore, a decisive effect upon European affairs; and whilst, by leaving France almost intact, the treaties of Utrecht had parcelled out the monarchy of the catholic kings, the authors of the great popular movement crowned by the victory of Villaviciosa might consider without prejudice their country as sacrificed, notwithstanding the weight which it had flung into the scales.

In this work Madame des Ursins had had certainly a very considerable share, and it was with a very legitimate pride that through it she was enabled to prevail at Versailles as at Madrid. A perseverance unexampled both in idea and conduct, a rare suppleness in the means, had made her the principal instrument of an enterprise in which a virile ambition, united to a deep devotedness, sustained her. Undismayed by reverses, never intoxicated by success, she tempered by her equanimity the at times imprudent ardour of the young Queen, and reanimated by her firmness thefrequent retrocessions of her morose consort. She rejoiced, therefore, with a scarcely veiled pride in that security for the future which Spain had conquered before France, and in her correspondence with Madame de Maintenon her letters began to assume a somewhat protective tone. It was at this culminating point of her greatness that fate was preparing to inflict upon her the humiliating catastrophe which again obscured the remembrance of her services and even the honour of her name.

It is unnecessary to recapitulate the means by which peace was re-established, how the fall of the Whig ministry and the elevation of the Archduke to the imperial throne after the death of Joseph I. brought England and the other allied powers into the treaties which confirmed Philip V. in the peaceable possession of the Spanish monarchy. We will not dwell upon these details, nor upon divers acts of interior policy which followed upon the victory of Villaviciosa. Let us confine our attention solely to those in which the Princess des Ursins took an active part. The first was the pursuance of the administrative centralisation of which we have spoken; the abolition of the council exclusively called the Council of Castile, for which she caused to be substituted a council of state, the members of which should be chosen from every part of Spain, and which became the centre of the government. The second was a reform in the finance department; Orry being in these measures the Princess’s instrument, and he justified the long-continued esteem with which she had honoured his talents. It was thus that after having successively saved the monarchy from a policy exclusively French, and from the factious pretensions of the grandees, after having contributed to the defeat of Austria, Madame des Ursins sought to consolidateon firm bases the power of Philip V. and prepare a happier future for Spain.

She was not destined, however, to long enjoy the fruits of her triumph. It was a symptomatic sign of this new phase of her life, the universally unfavourable interpretation given to an affair which should rather be looked upon in the light of a check than of a fault. It is well known that Philip, desirous of recognising the devotedness of his son’s governess, and of assuring to that noble lady an independent position which should not be below her birth, had stipulated, at the time of the preliminaries of peace, for the reservation of a territory in the Spanish low countries ceded to Austria, which he destined to form into a sovereignty for Marie Anne de la Trémouille. This negotiation, which bore successively upon the county of Limbourg and the small seigniory of La Roche-en-Ardennes, had been received at first at Versailles with the most entire approbation, for the reproach of “playing the queen” only occurred as an after-thought. The gratitude of their Catholic Majesties was found to be quite natural, and was warmly praised, especially by Madame de Maintenon. It is not at all to be wondered at, consequently, if Madame des Ursins should blandly contemplate such a prospect, especially in anticipation of the approaching demise of her well-beloved protectress, who could not fail to be soon replaced in the confidence and couch of her consort. The Court of France did not change its opinion until that affair of La Roche, very annoyingly taken by the Dutch, had become the occasion of a delay in the signing of the general peace. Then Madame des Ursins was overwhelmed by reproaches on all sides, and those which came from Saint Cyr were of a peculiarly acrimonious character, which wemust not join the Duke de Saint Simon in attributing to a jealousy of which there exists no trace, but which is explained by Madame de Maintenon’s desire to secure repose to Louis XIV. at any cost. These reproaches, moreover, were without foundation, for the accusers of the Princess should have considered that, if France had the right to await with lively impatience the signature of a treaty which secured to her almost all her conquests, it was quite otherwise with Spain, called upon by that same treaty to pay alone the costs of the pacification. The measures of 1713, the conclusion of which was in fact retarded for a few months by the interest and intervention of Madame des Ursins, had been received with a very natural indignation in the monarchy of Charles V., from which they tore away the Milanese, the Two Sicilies, Sardinia, the Low Countries, Port Mahon, and Gibraltar. So France can now easily decide whether it had been in 1815 an unpardonable crime in her eyes to cause by a dilatory question the adjournment of the signing of the treaties of Vienna.

That check was the first in a series of misfortunes which death alone was henceforward destined to bring to a close. Early in 1714 died very suddenly, at the age of twenty-six, Marie Louise of Savoy, her delicate frame worn out by an ardent temperament, which had sustained it whilst the storm raged, and which declined when the breath of the hurricane had ceased to kindle it further. The remains of the young Queen had scarcely descended into the vaults of the Escurial ere the nation demanded to know who was to be the new queen-consort; and the same question was addressed to Madame des Ursins by the Court of Versailles, so well were known there both the requirements and the austerity of the King of Spain. What passed during theeight months of that widowhood so painfully borne? What mysteries did the Medina Cœli palace witness, in which Madame des Ursins shut up closely Philip V. from the gaze of every prying eye? Such questions can never now be answered with certainty, for the reports put into circulation in France by Saint Simon and Duclos, in Italy by Poggiali, and in England by Fitz-Maurice, had their common source in the conversations of Alberoni, one of the least scrupulous actors in the drama of theQuadruple Alliance. Did the elderlycamerara mayor, already three-score and ten, dare to spread alluring snares wherein to entrap an amorous prince of thirty? And did such tentative, more strange than audacious, succeed to the extent of binding Philip’s conscience in some way? History will never answer the question. Instead, therefore, of hazarding conjectures, it will be well to confine our attention to the well-authenticated political acts of the Princess at this, to her, serious conjuncture.

In losing her royal mistress, the powerful favourite lost along with her the greatest portion of her strength. It was the remote signal which heralded her fall. At the same time it did not appear that her energy had become diminished, or her intelligence clouded, but that her ordinary prudence had abandoned her. Perhaps, having attained such an elevation, she dreaded no further reverse, and believed herself secure enough, in the universal esteem and admiration in which she was held, to venture upon anything. However that might be, as though her brain had grown dizzy, she destroyed with her own hands, not her skilfully raised political edifice, but the structure of her individual fortunes.

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

We have already said that, cherishing the hope of obtaining for herself an independent sovereignty, the difficulties arising from her pretensions had delayed the conclusion of the treaty of peace. Louis XIV. was indignant at finding his negotiations fettered and himself involved in an unavoidable opposition to the wishes of his grandson. As for Madame de Maintenon, whether the interests of France, compromised by these delays, had alone provoked her resistance, or whether, as Saint Simon declares, that that independent sovereignty which she herself felt was so little beyond her reach offended her pride by making her feel the distance between their several ranks and births, she opposed the desire of her old friend, and peace was concluded by the authority of Louis XIV. But the King had a grudge against the Princess for having driven him to suchextremity. Besides, just then his own dynasty had been fatally stricken. The Duke of Burgundy and his eldest son, the Duke of Brittany, had died. The heir to the throne was an infant only three years old. TheCourt foresaw the Regency of the Duke of Orleans, a personal enemy of Madame des Ursins, and it was dangerous, by leaving her at the head of affairs in Spain, to prepare, probably, for the future a disastrous rivalry.

The storm thus darkened thickly over the head of this imperious woman, who, supported against her enemies so long as she had been useful, was subject to the common law of favourites, and began to totter when she appeared no longer so. One resource remained to her—to remarry Philip V. She was anxious to find a consort who could replace in her interests Marie Louise, and restore her waning influence. Her incertitude was great: she felt truly that in spite of past services her future fate depended upon her choice. At length she cast her eyes upon Elizabeth Farnese, daughter of the last Duke of Parma, and niece of the then existent Duke, and thought that gratitude for such an extraordinary turn of fortune would for ever secure the attachment of a princess who, without her influence, could never have had pretensions to such an union. But she was anxious to ascertain whether Elizabeth Farnese was one of those who would submit to be ruled, and she opened her mind upon the subject to a man then obscure but afterwards celebrated—Alberoni, who had been sent as consular agent from Parma to Madrid. He had frequent conversations with the great favourite, and readily succeeded in insinuating himself into her good graces. He described the Princess of Parma as simple minded, religious, ignorant of the world from which she had always lived secluded—in short, perfectly fitting to forward the design of the Princess. In making such statements he reckoned at the same time upon pleasing his own Court, and bringing about the fall of Madame des Ursins; for he knew well that Elizabeth, whose characterwas very different from that which he had represented, would not submit to be governed by any one. Dazzled, therefore, with the smiling vista which chance had so unexpectedly opened to him, and understanding all the importance which he might derive from the negotiation of such marriage, and finding, moreover, Madame des Ursins well disposed beforehand towards him, and, by a singular blindness, inclined to put implicit confidence in one whose interest it was to conceal the truth, he secretly set off for Parma on his delicate mission. By this first move the Princess’s game was lost.

THE PRINCESS FRIENDLESS IN SPAIN.

Itwas the peculiar misfortune of Madame des Ursins to scarcely meet with a single sincere friend in Spain: she was submitted to there, rather than accepted. She had been sought after through interest or fear rather than through sympathy; but especially since the Queen’s decease, since no one save herself was seen by the King’s side, and that the strokes of her power were dealt without any apparent intermediator, she was no longer tolerated, save with infinite difficulty. Neither can it be concealed that, at this period, she had not acted in a way to diminish the number of her enemies, or to conciliate them. She was of opinion that the Duke of Berwick had not sufficiently defended her at Versailles against their machinations: she broke with him in 1714, before he returned from Catalonia. She did her utmost to have Tessé chosen to replace him, whom she pronounced quite capable of taking Barcelona; and, on learning that Berwick was nevertheless appointed, she hastened to banish Ronquillo, for something he had uttered against the Government, but in reality because he was the intimate friend of that general.[57]Two nobles were also imprisoned at this time—Don Manuel de Sylva, commandant of the galleys of Sicily, already temporarily exiled in 1709 for having (so said the sentence) “spoken ill of her,” and DonValerio d’Aspetia, Lieutenant-General. Both were declared enemies of Madame des Ursins, and the first had moreover the fault of being closely connected with the Duke d’Uzeda. Valerio d’Aspetia died in prison, at the age of seventy, and after fifty years of service, a lamentable loss, and which involved that of his still young and lovely wife, whose days were cut short through grief and poverty. Besides all this, must be noticed a suspicious jealousy of domination over Philip V., which was fearfully developed when that prince found himself a widower, and which betrayed itself in very disagreeable actions.

Saint Simon tells us that, after the death of Marie Louise of Savoy, Madame des Ursins usually supped with the King, and had him transferred from the palace of the Buen-Retiro, in which the Queen had died, to that of Medina Cœli. There she caused a corridor to be constructed, leading from the King’s cabinet to the apartments of the young princes, wherein she was lodged; and it was not, as may be imagined, to facilitate communications between a bereaved father and his children, who had become doubly dear to him, but, according to our authority, in order that it might never be known whether the King was alone or with her. She was in such haste to see this secret passage completed, that, to the great scandal of Catholic Spain, she had the work carried on during Sundays and saints’ days as well as upon ordinary days. This was pushed to such an extent, that a great number of pious persons no less than thrice asked Father Robinet, the most exemplary of the confessors Philip V. ever had, if he were not aware of such unlawful labour, and when it was that he intended it should cease. To which the subtle Jesuit, who was unwilling to be accused of laxity in morals, replied that the King had not spoken to him upon the subject,alluding to his relations with Philip as his Confessor, in which relation alone he wished it to be understood that he was to be considered—always adding, for their satisfaction, that if he had been consulted in the matter, he would not have failed to say that, to complete that criminal corridor, work should never have been so permitted, but that to effect its destruction, the labourers might have worked at it even on Easter Day.[58]

This statement of Saint Simon, quite insupportable as it is, would nevertheless leave subsisting, in the melancholy position of the children and their father, a means of justification to Madame des Ursins, did not Duclos deprive her of it; and who, less charitable than the authority whom he generally cites when treating of this celebrated woman, tells us purely and simply that she desired to facilitate the communication of her own apartments with those of the King, which leaves ample room for slander and suspicion. He goes still further. Improving upon Saint Simon, and showing himself better acquainted with the particulars than the Duke, he mentions a very aggravating fact, which was, that, in order to construct that very suspicious means of communication, it was necessary to demolish a monastery of Capuchins, and that in consequence “dead bodies were disinterred, the Holy Sacrament dislodged from the church, the monks quitting it in procession, amidst exclamations of “Oh, sacrilege! Oh, profanation!” from all Madrid.[59]

Happily, Duclos is merely in this the servile copyist of a Spanish author, whose contradictions and bad feeling it would be very easy to expose. He has reproduced word for word the version to be found in theMémoires sur l’Espagne, printed asa sequel to the letters of Fitz-Maurice. What! to make a simple corridor from one apartment to another, nothing less was required than to demolish an entire monastery, large as they were, in Spain especially, with its church and everything devoted to its religious purposes, and the dwellings of the monks? And Saint Simon knew nothing of all this? For, had he known it, most assuredly he would not have failed to fling it in the face of Madame des Ursins. That the Marquis de Saint Philippe, who was upon the spot, a man so religious, and who could not endure Madame des Ursins, should say not one word, without fear of derogating from his customary gravity, of that impious scandal, of such a Vandalism as had revolted all Madrid! We think that if M. Duclos had better informed himself upon the point and of the source whence he derived it, he, too, would have complained of exaggeration, and would not have given it out as a fact.

The part played by Madame des Ursins would assuredly have been grander if she had herself renounced the regal boon proffered by Philip V., as soon as it promised to be an obstacle to the pacification of Europe; if she had preferred the general good to her own particular advantage, and sustained her lofty character to the end, she would have preserved by so doing the prestige of grandeur and disinterestedness which had constantly surrounded her. A love of power would have been pardoned in her, always foreign to considerations of personal advantage; and, as ambition, like other human passions, may become a source of crime, though it is not itself a crime, in her case it would have been praised, because she would have unceasingly shunned the vanity which lessens it, the self-interest which debases it, and that continual recurrence to egotism which travesties it inintrigue. But she failed to crown her career by that true glory. Seeing the King and Queen of Spain very much offended at the retrograde step of Louis XIV., she further irritated them by her peevish attitude and marked discontent. The Marquis de Brancas, sent by Louis into Spain, proceeded to represent the articles of the Treaty of Utrecht to Philip V. in such wise as the Emperor and his allies wished them to stand; Philip replied that he would not sign them, unless there was a special clause added in favour of Madame des Ursins. That ambassador returned furious, crying out against the Spanish Government, and especially against Madame des Ursins, who directed everything, he said, and who had played at cross-purposes in order to cause his mission to miscarry. He succeeded in drawing down upon the Court of Madrid the heavy rebuke of Louis XIV. This, however, proved altogether useless; for Philip persisted in his resolution, and contented himself with sending the Cardinal del Guidice to his grandfather, whilst Madame des Ursins employed with the same monarch the customary influence of Madame de Maintenon. The latter, in fact, so the Marquis de Saint Philippe tells us, made excuses for Madame des Ursins to Louis XIV., and the other advocate of the Court of Madrid obtained the order for the march of the troops destined for the siege of Barcelona, whose success, looked upon as certain, ought likewise to render the Austrians more disposed to treat upon the question of her principality.

But that was not the only expedient employed by Madame des Ursins. The English ambassador, Lord Lexington, besides Gibraltar and Port Mahon, relied upon obtaining for the English a free trade in the brandies of Tarragon; this the Princess conceded to him. He desired also that theymight be allowed to construct, upon the River de la Plata, a fort for their protection, and as a depôt for negroes, in order that in future they might alone supply the Spanish colonies with slaves: this monopoly was also accorded. In return, Lord Lexington signed a convention with her, in which Queen Anne “engaged to secure her a sovereignty.”[60]At such price the adhesion of England seemed secured. She reckoned also on obtaining that of Holland by analogous commercial advantages, and, in fact, she obtained them. But how to win back Louis XIV. was the question! For that she had a secret project, which, as she thought, ought to rehabilitate her in that monarch’s eyes, in representing her as guided by a love of France more than by vanity. Louis XIV. was not to derive any territorial advantage from the Treaty of Utrecht. But Madame des Ursins was desirous so soon as the cession was made of the said principality of giving it up immediately to that King, in exchange for an equivalent life-interest in Touraine, within French territory. With that view she had a clause inserted in the letters-patent of Philip V., empowering her to alienate during her lifetime that principality in whatever way she chose. Such was her design; and that it had evidently been divined by the sagacious Madame de Maintenon would appear from the following passage in a letter of about that date addressed to the Princess: “Side by side with all your merits, you havea concealed project, which, if I guess aright, has got the uppermost of all those qualities.”[61]

But that was just what the allies most feared. The faculty given to Madame des Ursins in Philip’s deed of gifthad made them suspect that intention of a surrender or an exchange, and they were on the watch for everything which might arise to support their suppositions. In such conjuncture, Madame des Ursins was wanting, as it appears to us, in prudence and address. Instead of postponing, until the cession had become an accomplished fact, the question of the exchange, she pursued the two objects simultaneously. To negotiate the second with Torcy, she sent D’Aubigny secretly to France, and the latter, after some overtures, gave her hopes of entire success. Transported with delight, she gave herself up to all the illusions of what the future had in store for her of happiness. She was not, therefore, destined to descend either in rank or honours after quitting the Court of Madrid. Here she had ruled beneath the shadow of a phantom King; there she would command directly and in person. In Spain, she had only been a subordinate; in France she would have no superior, and would be more mistress of herself. All these satisfactions were increased a hundredfold by the proud feeling of returning to her native country as a sovereign princess, in a state so strictly levelled by royalty, wherein no one would have a condition equal to her own, and in which she would display with jesting haughtiness the pomp inseparable from her title before her abashed enemies. She had so much faith in the hopes with which d’Aubigny inspired her, and by which that cunning favourite thought perhaps already to profit, that she instructed him to go into Touraine and to purchase land in the neighbourhood of Amboise whereon to erect a chateau, which should be called the manor of Chanteloup.[62]It was something like selling the skin of the bear before slaying her bruin; but with the formal and written engagement ofEngland, with the support of Holland, which she also had, with Louis XIV., whom she sought to win back through the influence of Madame de Maintenon, and by the calculated nobleness of her intentions, she would overcome the resistance of Austria, and her victory was certain.

Unfortunately, that which she ought to have anticipated actually came to pass. England first discovered the occult negotiations of d’Aubigny at Versailles, and, unwilling that the Princess des Ursins should bestow anything upon France, she changed her tone, and became almost a defaulter to her. A Valentian gentleman, Clemente Generoso, says Duclos, still copying textually from Fitz-Maurice, blamed Lord Lexington, whose agent and interpreter he had been from the beginning of the war, for having committed the Queen of England so far to Madame des Ursins, and advised him to tear up the convention.[63]By the intervention of that lady, England had obtained all it required, and the written consent of Philip V. rendered the concessions irrevocable; there was no danger, therefore, of want of good faith on the part of Madame des Ursins.

The towering rage of the latter may be imagined when she heard this news. She made the most earnest entreaties to Queen Anne not to abandon her. All that she could obtain was that that Princess “would use her good offices” to procure her the object of her desires. An elastic and somewhat embarrassing promise of protection was substituted for a formal and signed engagement, which bound Queen Anne to the interests of Madame des Ursins as to those of a contracting power. The English had tricked her; they had surpassed her in cunning. A short time afterwards, if we may believe Fitz-Maurice and his Spanishinterlocutors, she made Clemente Generoso pay dearly for his evil counsel. One day when he was returning from London to Madrid, with instructions for Lord Lexington, some Irishmen, in the service of Philip V., attacked him, and, as he was endeavouring to take refuge in a church, they killed him, conformably to the orders which they had received, it is said, from the Princess des Ursins and Orry.

We only give this statement, be it well understood, under reservation, because nowhere else have we found any confirmation or even indication of it. But thus much is certain, that the chances which Madame des Ursins had on the part of the Queen of England were greatly diminished, and that it was necessary to look elsewhere for more reliable aid. She quickly despatched, therefore, her favourite d’Aubigny to Utrecht. “But,” says Saint Simon, “c’était un trop petit Sire; he was not admitted beyond the antechambers.” But Saint Simon often falls into error through excessive contempt for those below his own level. By certain documents recently discovered at the Hague and communicated to M. Geffroy, it may be seen that the members of the congress of Utrecht deliberated with d’Aubigny, and that they designated himthe plenipotentiaryof Madame des Ursins. However that may be, d’Aubigny did not obtain much; in fact, he spoilt everything by offering the Dutch greater advantages than had been accorded to the English. So the latter at least pretended, in order, no doubt, to have a pretext for wholly abandoning Madame des Ursins and for resuming their haughty attitude towards her, after having courted her for awhile. Queen Anne feigned, in fact, to be hurt that the Dutch had been more favoured than her own subjects, and exclaimed, with a readiness that betrayed aninward satisfaction: “Since the Princess des Ursins has recourse to others, I abandon her.”[64]D’Aubigny, as the sole result, obtained only vague hopes on the part of the Dutch, who were as inimical as the English as to any exchange with France.

Without being angry with her “man of business,” whom she allowed even to return to Amboise to complete the erections already begun, Madame des Ursins selected, to continue the negotiations, a more important personage—a young nephew of Madame de Noailles, named de Bournonville, Baron de Capres. But he covered himself with ridicule at this game of private intrigue rather than real diplomatic negotiation; and, notwithstanding all the trouble he took, he obtained nothing by it, “the gratitude of Madame des Ursins excepted, who made Philip V. give him the Golden Fleece, the rank of grandee, the Walloon company of the bodyguard—everything, in fact, he could desire.”[65]

The successive check of her two diplomatists was not, however, a sufficient warning to Madame des Ursins. Ever in pursuit of a position, which had become nothing more than a chimera after having served as a lure on the part of the English, she relied for success upon the persistent and obstinate will of Philip V., who made it a question ofamour proprefor himself as much as a just recompense for Madame des Ursins. It was under these circumstances that this Prince refused to sign the treaty of Utrecht, that treaty which Louis XIV. had signed and sealed with his own royal hand, and engaged to make him accept it, even though the allied powers should not grant him what he desired to bequeath toMadame des Ursins.[66]Such a firm attitude proved plainly enough that there was good reason for reliance upon him.

But this affair “hung up” the peace, to use Saint Simon’s phrase—the peace that Louis XIV. could now sign, because it was honourable. His displeasure was extreme. It was all very well for Madame des Ursins to say that she had nothing to do with the matter, that the King of Spain was only following his own inclination, and that after all she despised the malevolent designs of his enemies; still the delay experienced in the conclusion of the general peace was imputed to her. She was accused of occupying herself too exclusively with her own interests, and of placing in the scales the repose of Europe entire: it was said that she abused Philip’s good-nature, and that she ought not to have availed herself of her ascendancy over that conscientious prince save to release him from his promise, to free him from all trammel, and incline him towards the wishes of his grandfather.

It was from the French ministry that these complaints came, and Torcy, so greatly humiliated in 1704, at length had his revenge. Madame de Maintenon herself made remarks upon her, based upon the same motives; only that she threw more form into them, contenting herself with giving the Princess to infer that of which the others did not spare her the harshest expression. “You have good reason to let folks chatter;” she wrote, “provided that you have nothing to reproach yourself with.... for, you must know, we here look upon the treaty of Spain with Holland, such as it is, as equally necessary,as you think it shameful at Madrid.... Make up your mind, therefore, Madam, and do not allow it to be saidthat you are thesole cause of the prolongation of the war. I cannot believe it, and think it very scandalous that others should.”[67]

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

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

Madame des Ursins is indeed no longer comprehensible throughout this affair. She, hitherto so noble-minded, so devoted to high-class politics, so prudent, so full of tact.Oh! how far off are we from realising that lofty sentiment of hers:—

“Sans peine je passerais de la dictature à la charrue!”

There was nothing left, however, but to give way. The treaty of Utrecht was signed by Philip V., and unconditionally. The net gain in the business fell to d’Aubigny; he received for his trouble as a negotiator, and for his constancy in another way, the manor of Chanteloup, revealed the motive of its construction—yet an enigma to everybody in France, says Saint Simon[69]—installed himself therein, and, for the rest, made himself loved and esteemed there. To Madame des Ursins there only remained the mortification of having failed, a mortification the greater that her pretensions had been so lofty and tenacious. It was further increased, also, by having turned the Court of France against her, and engendered a coolness towards her on the part of Madame de Maintenon herself, who up to that juncture had always approved of her manner of acting and her system of government, but who now, seizing the occasion of Orry having established some imposts upon the Catalans, did not hesitate to say very harshly and laconically: “We do not think Orry fit for his post, for Spain is very badly governed.”[70]

Those were accents which must have deeply grieved the heart of the Princess. Next came Berwick, who was by no means, as we have seen, to be ranked amongst her friends—Berwick, whom Louis XIV. had sent in spite of her, in spite of what she had said of Tessé, who, by his own account, had failed the first time before Barcelona only because he had been prevented from commencing the siegesoon enough. Her influence, it was impossible to longer doubt, had been greatly lessened at Versailles, if it had not perished altogether.

Trembling for herself, she continued naturally to lean upon the King of Spain, who was devoted to her. In order that this plank of safety should not escape her grasp, she permitted only those she liked to have access to him; she regulated all his proceedings; she kept him from all private audience; she seemed jealous of it, whilst she was only so as regarded her own preservation. Scandal, as may be imagined, was again busy with her name. It was again whispered that she was in hopes that the King, scarcely yet thirty-two, would not be repelled by the faded charms of a septuagenarian; that he would marry her, that was certain; and in every saloon throughout the world of fashion in France, circulated the following anecdote, which Saint Simon duly registered in his Memoirs, and in which further figured, to render it more piquante and authentic, the Reverend Father Robinet. The King certainly had one evening withdrawn with his confessor into the embrasure of a window. The latter appearing reserved and mysterious, the curiosity of Philip V. was excited, and the King questioned his confessor as to the meaning of the unwonted mood in which he found him. Upon which Father Robinet replied, that since the King forced him to it, he would confess that nobody either in France or Spain doubted but that he would do Madame des Ursins the honour of espousing her. “I marry her!” hastily rejoined the King. “Oh! as to that, certainly not!” and he turned upon his heel as he uttered the sentence. It was the pendant of “Oh! pour mariée, non!” of the famous letter of the Abbé d’Estrées, related by the same historian. SaintSimon’s two pictures are delightful; in either of the two, the priest, whether cunning or malignant, figures conspicuously, attracts attention, and keeps up one’s curiosity.

For some time, Philip V. treated these reports as mere inventions and calumnies, “the offspring of envy, hatred, and ambition.” All that was said concerning the omnipotence of Madame des Ursins, of her empire over him, of her hopes, her designs, of that same corridor, of their private interviews, left him unmoved and indifferent. The Count de Bergueick, until then a stanch adherent of the Princess des Ursins, himself declared that that omnipotence had become insupportable, and he asked permission to return to Flanders, whence he had been summoned. Philip V. allowed him to depart, and Madame des Ursins lost not one jot of her authority. But the complaints, the murmurs, the idle talk continued, the incessant repetition of which could not fail at last to make an impression upon a weak mind. In the end the King grew wearied, and vexed, especially at the reports relating to such a ridiculous marriage, to a matrimonial project which wounded his self-love as a man as well as his royal dignity, and tormented besides by the exigencies of a temperament, in which the flesh was far too predominant over the spirit—“Find me a wife,” said he, one day to Madame des Ursins, “ourtête-à-têtesscandalise the people.”[71]

FOOTNOTES:[57]Memoirs of Saint Philippe, tom. iii., p. 88.[58]Mémoires de Saint Simon, tom. xx., p. 171, 172.[59]Memoirs of Duclos (Petitot’s Collection), tom. i., p. 230.[60]So runs the textual engagement of Queen Anne, taken from the Royal Archives of the Hague, and communicated to M. Geffroy.[61]Lettres de Madame de Maintenon et de Madame des Ursins, tom. ii., pp. 7, 8.[62]Mémoires de Saint Simon, tom. xviii., p. 104.[63]Memoirs of Duclos, tom. i., p. 190.[64]Memoirs of Duclos, tom. i., p. 191.[65]MS. Letters of the Baron de Capres to Mad. des Ursins, xxxi., xxxii.[66]Memoirs of Duke of Berwick, tom. ii., pp. 164-169.[67]Letters of Madame des Ursins to Madame de Maintenon, tom. ii., 7th Aug., 1713; 3rd Sept., 1713; 16th June, 1714.[68]Mémoires de Saint Philippe, tom. iii., p. 91, and Duclos, tom. i., p. 100.[69]Mémoires de Saint Simon, tom. xviii., p. 104.[70]Lettres, tom. iii., p. 448, year 1714.[71]Mémoire de Duclos, tom, i., p. 230.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

[68]Mémoires de Saint Philippe, tom. iii., p. 91, and Duclos, tom. i., p. 100.

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

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

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

THE PRINCESSES ELIGIBLE TO BECOME PHILIP’S CONSORT.

“Findme a wife!” The sentence was like a thunderclap in the ears of Madame des Ursins, so long accustomed as she had been to govern and domineer. Where to find one—one like Marie Louise of Savoy, who would consent to retain her in the same functions, and who, like her, with intelligence and firmness of mind, would have a boundless confidence in hercamerara mayor, and a docility proof against everything? Louis XIV., being consulted, replied to his grandson that he gave him his choice between a princess of Portugal, a princess of Bavaria, and a princess of Parma. The first was greatly to the taste of the Castilians; they had always had reason to praise their Portuguese queens, and they attached to such choice hopes of renewed political unity for the Spanish peninsula to the profit of Castile, which thus, by marriages, would absorb, on the left, Portugal, as it had appropriated on the right, the kingdom of Arragon. But the Court of the King of Portugal, the brother of that princess, had been the rendezvous and the asylum of aristocratic and Austrian opposition. These antecedents alarmed Madame des Ursins on her own account, and did not appear much more assuring for Philip V. Was it not known, on the other hand, that Portugal—especially since the treaty of Utrecht, since the Bourbons had become, in spite of that nation, the immutable possessors of Spain—dreaded those neighbouring kings, after having previously loved them so much as liberators, and on that account had placed herself under the protection of England, the enemy of all the reigning branches of that powerful and ambitious house?

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

The Princess of Parma, as a guarantee of security, if not of material advantage, did not at the first glance seem more eligible. “Besides that she was the issue of a double bastardy, of a pope on her father’s side, of a natural daughter of Charles V. on her mother’s side, she was the daughter of a petty duke of Parma and a thoroughly Austrian mother, who was herself the sister of the dowager-empress, of the dowager-queen of Spain, who was so unpopular that she was exiled; and further of the Queen of Portugal, who had persuaded her husband to receive the Archduke at Lisbon, and to carry the war into Spain.”[72]On that account such was not an eligible choice for the King of Spain. It was certain, moreover, although Madame des Ursins was unaware of it, that “she was of a haughty disposition, and that she had been brought up at Parma with the same thoroughly French freedom which reigned at Turin.”[73]But by her uncle, the reigning Duke of Parma, who had no children, and was no longer of an age to have any, she was heiress to the duchies of Parma, Plaisance, and Guastalla,and by another uncle, the aged Gaston de Medicis, Duke of Tuscany, she had the expectation of Tuscany itself, and the isle of Elba, a dependance of it. United to Philip V. she might therefore some day, and perhaps shortly, bring Spain into Italy, alongside of its ancient possessions, from which the treaty of Utrecht had driven her. This consideration had much weight with Madame des Ursins, to whom that treaty, as we have seen from a letter of Madame de Maintenon, had appeared disgraceful for Spain, as well as detrimental to herself. Doubtless there was something disquieting in the family alliances of this princess; but it might be thought that the perspective of an union with one of the most illustrious crowned houses of Europe, and moreover the crown of a queen which would bind her brow, would render her favourable to Madame des Ursins, upon whom a marriage so brilliant depended, and which far surpassed Elizabeth’s utmost expectations. The former thought to find in the Farnese, brought up in a modest and virtuous court, a simple-minded, timorous girl. Gratitude for such a service appeared to Madame des Ursins a certain security for her future tranquillity; but a skilful intriguer who had but very slightly rendered himself agreeable to the princess—Alberoni, a native of Parma—afterwards celebrated throughout Europe as the Cardinal Alberoni, but then occupying a subordinate position in Spain, conceived at that moment one of those vast plans to which his fertile genius was wont to give birth, and which would have placed him in the foremost rank of great men had a like success equally crowned them all. He concealed, as already said, the real character of the Princess of Parma, who, moreover, could not then have been known to be what she afterwards turned out. The marriage was concluded, the new Queen set out forSpain, and Madame des Ursins went forward to meet her at Xadraque, a small town some few leagues from Madrid.

A dispensation from the Pope—for the future Queen was a near relative of Gabrielle of Savoy—had been promptly obtained. Already did the favourite indulge herself with the contemplation of the illimitable prospect of domination which the future seemed to open up for her, when she received more truthful information relative to the character of Elizabeth Farnese. Her letters during the latter part of 1714, notwithstanding their great reserve, reveal a manifest uneasiness, and it is with an ill-concealed emotion that she relates, without precisely detailing them, the contradictory reports which reach her relative to the Princess. It seems impossible to doubt that, during the few months which preceded the arrival of the Princess of Parma, the presence of Madame des Ursins had not become a torment to the Spanish King, and that he had not secretly lent his hand to acoup d’étatcarried out subsequently with a barbarous determination by his new consort. It was, in fact, by showing to the officers of the guard a plenary power from the King that Elizabeth triumphed over their hesitation, and that she secured their assistance in the execution of a measure which perhaps would have been less cruel if it had been more sanguinary; but if, since the death of Marie Louise of Savoy, the relations of the King of Spain with Madame des Ursins had assumed an obscure character, the active intervention of the latter in the second marriage of that Prince at least excludes the idea that she could have dreamed of a royal position for herself, as her enemies accused her. Granted that the Abbé Alberoni may have transformed the most ambitious princess in Europe into “ajollyParmesanefattened upon cheese and butter,”[74]and that the habitual circumspection of Madame des Ursins did not protect her against the clumsiness of such a snare may be true, however unlikely; but it is at least doubtful that thecamerara mayorcould have cherished such illusion when she presented herself for the first time before the new Queen at the interview at Xadraque.

Whether the indiscretions of others had revealed to her the true character of Elizabeth Farnese, whether she had foreseen the manœuvres of the Inquisition with the future Queen, whether she had dreaded the anger of Louis XIV., who had not been consulted; whether the triumphant attitude of her enemies had opened her eyes, certain it is, however, that the Princess attempted to break off the match. But it was in vain that she despatched a confidential agent to Parma for that purpose. On his arrival, the messenger was thrown into prison and threatened with death, and so failed in his mission. The marriage by procuration was celebrated on the 16th of August, 1714. That unskilful and tardy opposition released the Princess Farnese from all feelings of gratitude, furnished the enemies of Madame des Ursins with a deadly weapon, by appearing to justify their accusations in a striking manner, and so prepared her ruin.

Her disgrace was prompt, cruel, decisive. The plan had evidently been concerted long beforehand.[75]Confirmed inher design by her interview at Saint Jean de Luz with the Queen Dowager, widow of Charles II. and her relative, and at Pampeluna with Alberoni, Elizabeth held on her way to Madrid. The King advanced to meet her on the road to Burgos, and Madame des Ursins, as has been said, went on before as far as the little town of Xadraque. When the Queen arrived there on the 23rd of December, 1714, Madame des Ursins received her with the customary reverences. Afterwards, having followed her into a cabinet, she perceived her instantly change her tone. By some it is said that Madame des Ursins, being desirous of finding fault with something about the Queen’s head-dress, whilst she was at her toilette, the latter treated it as an impertinence, and immediately flew into a rage. Others relate (and these different accounts tally with each other in the main) that Madame des Ursins having protested her devotedness to the new Queen, and assured her Majesty “that She might always reckon upon finding her stand between the King and herself, to keep matters in the state in which they ought to be on her account, and procuring her all the gratifications which she had a right to expect—the Queen, who had listened quietly enough so far, took fire at these last words, and replied that she did not want anyone near the King; that it was an impertinence to make her such an offer, and that it was presuming too much to dare to address her in such a fashion.” Thus much is certain, that the Queen, outrageously thrusting Madame des Ursins out of her cabinet,[76]summoned M. d’Amezaga, lieutenant of the bodyguard, who commanded the escort, and ordered him to arrest the Princess, to make her get immediately into a carriage, and have her driven to the French frontiers by the shortest road, and without halting anywhere. As d’Amezaga hesitated, the Queen asked him whether he had not received a special command from the King of Spain to obey her in everything and without reserve—which was quite true. Madame des Ursins was arrested, therefore, and carried off instantaneously, just as she was, in her full dress of ceremony, and hurried across Spain as fast as six horses could drag her. It was mid-winter—no provisions to be found in the inns of Spain; no beds; not a change of clothes—the ground covered with frost and snow; and the Princess was then in her seventy-second year. A lady’s maid and two officers of the guard accompanied her in the carriage.

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

And from this last-named town—at which she was set at liberty—and up to her arrival at which she had unfalteringlymaintained the strength and constancy of her character, neither a tear nor a complaint escaping her—a few days later she wrote again to Madame de Maintenon:

“Here I shall await the King’s commands. I am in a small house—the ocean before me, sometimes calm, sometimes agitated: it is an image of what passes in courts. You know what has happened to me; I shall not implore in vain your generous compassion. I agree perfectly with you that stability is only to be found in God. Assuredly it is not to be found in the human breast; for who could be more certain than I was of the King of Spain’s heart?”

Everything leads us to infer, in fact, that it was Philip V. who, forgetting the long and faithful services of Madame des Ursins, and wearied of a domination from which he had not the courage to free himself, gave authority to his new consort to take everything upon herself; and the latter, who, like Alberoni, her crafty adviser, belonged to the intrepid race of political gamesters, did not hesitate for a single instant to commence her regal play with the execution of such a master-stroke. Elizabeth of Parma felt herself to be too first-rate a personage to condescend to figure side by side on the same stage with Madame des Ursins.

It was of this same Elizabeth, born for a throne, that Frederick the Great said: “The pride of a Spartan, the obstinacy of a Briton, added to Italian finesse and French vivacity, formed the character of this singular woman. She advanced audaciously to the accomplishment of her designs; nothing astonished her, nothing could stop her.” Possessed of such qualities it is not surprising to find that she profited by the smallest opening to sweep the ground clear on her arrival.

Recovering from this stunning downfall, Madame desUrsins, after the first moments of surprise, recovered all her strength, her sang-froid, her wonted equanimity. Not a complaint or unbecoming reproach or weak word escaped her lips. She had formed a just estimate beforehand of all that human instability; she said to herself, on beholding her enemies triumphant and her friends in consternation, that there was no reason to be greatly astonished. That this world was only a stage over which many very poor actors strutted, that she had thereon played her part better than many others perhaps, and that her enemies ought not to have expected to see her so humiliated that she could no longer perform it: “It is in the eye of heaven that I should be humbled,” said she, “and I am so.”

Every reader of Saint Simon must be deeply impressed with his narrative of that terrible night of December 24th, 1714. Who can fail to picture to himself the rude expulsion of the Princess des Ursins from the Queen’s apartment in her full dress of ceremony, suddenly packed off in a carriage, without proper clothing or change of linen, and without money, to be whirled away through a winter’s night so severe that her driver lost one of his hands from frost-bite, over mountain passes where the roads had disappeared beneath the snow, towards an unknown destination? Who cannot picture to himself hunger coming to add fresh tortures to those of the prolonged nightmare under which that unfortunate lady must have suffered the keenest pangs of incertitude, of astonishment, and of humiliation? Such, however, was the fate reserved for a woman who had inscribed her name among those of the founders of a dynasty and the liberators of a great kingdom!

For some time previous to the occurrence of that strange event—so unlooked for, so inconceivable—the Princess hadnot been free from inquietude with respect to the preservation of her prestige and authority, as also on the score of constantly recurring difficulties with the Court of Versailles, wherein she had numerous enemies keeping up an active correspondence with the still more numerous enemies by whom she was surrounded at Madrid; the affairs of the sovereignty, the isolation in which Philip was kept; the marriage of that Prince, determined upon and almost concluded without the consent of his grandfather—all which had deeply angered Louis the Fourteenth.

Though all this tended by turns to inspire the Princess with fear and disgust, still, she could not anticipate an ignominious treatment coming from that quarter. Soon, however, her wonted courage got the uppermost in her bosom; besides, she had hopes both from her justification and from the King of Spain, whose confidence she thought unshakeable, of a return to Court, difficult, nevertheless, after such a shock. Meanwhile, the Queen vouchsafed no replies to her letters; the King announced to her that he was unable to refuse the maintenance of the measure taken at the instance of the Queen, but assured her that pensions would be conferred upon her. Having reached St. Jean de Luz, Madame des Ursins wrote to Versailles, and shortly afterwards despatched thither one of her nephews. The Great Monarch was compelled to be guided by the decision of his grandson; Madame de Maintenon replied by evasive compliments. The Princess could then see that all was at an end, as regarded her resumption of power. She pursued her way through France, and arrived in Paris. The King received her coldly; her stay in France was not prolonged without difficulty. Moreover, she foresaw the approaching decease of Louis the Fourteenth, and a regency under theDuke of Orleans. Their old quarrels, the open hatred which had since existed between them, causing her uneasiness and misgivings, she resolved to quit France. She wished to visit the Low Countries, but was not permitted. She proceeded to Savoy, thence to Genoa, and at last returned to Rome, where she once more fixed her abode. There a suitable existence was secured to her, for Philip kept his promise, and caused her pension to be punctually paid.

Habituated to the stir of courts and the excitement of state affairs, she could not condemn herself, notwithstanding her age, to an absolute repose. Prince James Stuart, calledthe Pretender, having withdrawn to Rome, Madame des Ursins attached herself to him and his fortunes; she did the honours of his house: and thus she remained until her death, which took place December 5th, 1722, at the age of fourscore and upwards.

It has been sought to divine the real authors of the Princess’s disgrace; for it has been considered, not without good reason, that it was very improbable that no other cause save a sudden impulse arising from a feeling of anger, barely justifiable on the Queen’s part, had urged her to put in execution a resolution which brought about nothing less than an actual political revolution.

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