This love of Louise for Charles of Bourbon is said to have owed most
of its ardor to her hope of coming into possession of his immense
estates. She schemed to have his title to them disputed, hoping that,
by a decree of Parliament, they might be taken from him; the idea in
this procedure was that Bourbon, deprived of his possessions, must
come to her terms, and she would thus satisfy—at one and the same
time—her passion and her cupidity.

Under her influence the character of the court changed entirely;
retaining only a semblance of its former decency, it became utterly
corrupt. It possessed external elegance and _distingué_ manners, but
below this veneer lay intrigue, debauchery, and gross immorality. In
order to meet the vast expenditures of the king and the queen-mother,
the taxes were enormously increased; the people, weighed down by the
unjust assessment and by want, began to clamor and protest. Undismayed
by famine, poverty, and epidemic, Louise continued her depredations
on the public treasury, encouraging the king in his squanderings;
and both mother and son, in order to procure money, begged, borrowed,
plundered.

Louise was always surrounded by a bevy of young ladies, selected
beauties of the court, whose natural charms were greatly enhanced by
the lavishness of their attire. Always ready to further the plans of
their mistress, they hesitated not to sacrifice reputation or honor to
gratify her smallest whim. Her power was so generally recognized that
foreign ambassadors, in the absence of the king, called her "that
other king." When war against France broke out between Spain and
England, Louise succeeded in gaining the office of constable for the
Duc d'Alençon; by this means, she intended to displace Charles of