trials, and then hampering and retarding peace for the sake of securing
for herself a principality in the Low Countries. Without having risen
from the ranks, like Madame de Maintenon, she had reached a less high and
less safe elevation; she had been more absolutely and more daringly
supreme during the time of her power, and at last she fell with the
rudest shock, without any support from Madame de Maintenon. The
pretensions of Madame des Ursins during the negotiations had offended
France; "this was the stone of stumbling between the two supreme
directresses," says St. Simon; after this attempt at sovereignty, there
was no longer the same accord between Madame de Maintenon and Madame des
Ursins, but this latter had reached in Spain a point at which she more
easily supposed that she could dispense with it. The Queen of Spain had
died at the age of twenty-six, in 1714; did the princess for a moment
conceive the hope of marrying Philip V. in spite of the disproportion in
rank and age? Nobody knows; she had already been reigning as sovereign
mistress for some months, when she received from the king this stunning
command: "Look me out a wife." She obeyed; she looked out. Alberoni, an
Italian priest, brought into Spain by the Duke of Vendome, drew her
attention to the Princess of Parma, Elizabeth Farnese. The principality
was small, the princess young; Alberoni laid stress upon her sweetness
and modesty. "Nothing will be more easy," he said, "than for you to
fashion her to Spanish gravity, by keeping her retired; in the capacity
of her _camarera major,_ intrusted with her education, you will easily be
able to acquire complete sway over her mind." The Princess des Ursins
believed him, and settled the marriage. "Cardonne has surrendered at
last, Madame," she wrote on the 20th of September, 1714, to Madame de
Maintenon; "there is nothing left in Catalonia that is not reduced. The
new queen, at her coming into this kingdom, is very fortunate to find no
more war there. She whom we have lost would have been beside herself
with delight at enjoying peace after having experienced such cruel