demanded them of his confessor, the only man to whom he could speak who
was not under the thumb of Madame des Ursins. The clever and courageous
Robinet, as disturbed as others at the progress of the design, which
nobody in the two Courts of France and Spain doubted was in execution,
allowed himself to be pressed by questions--in an embrasure where the
King had drawn him--played the reserved and the mysterious in order to
excite curiosity more. When he saw it was sufficiently excited, he said
that since he was forced to speak, his news from France was the same as
that at Madrid, where no one doubted that the King would do the Princesse
des Ursins the honour to espouse her. The King blushed and hastily
replied, "Marry her! oh no! not that!" and quitted him.

Whether the Princesse des Ursins was informed of this sharp repartee, or
whether she despaired already of success, she changed about; and judging
that this interregnum in the Palace of Medina-Celi could not last for
ever, resolved to assure herself of the King by a Queen who should owe to
her such a grand marriage, and who, having no other support, would throw
herself into her arms by gratitude and necessity. With this view she
explained herself to Alberoni, who, since the death of the Duc de
Vendome, had remained at Madrid charged with the affairs of Parma; and
proposed to him the marriage of the Princess of Parma, daughter of the
Duchess and of the late Duke of Parma, who had married the widow of his
brother.

Alberoni could with difficulty believe his ears. An alliance so
disproportioned appeared to him so much the more incredible, because he
thought the. Court of France would never consent to it, and that without
its consent the marriage could not be concluded. The Princess in
question was the issue of double illegitimacy; by her father descended
from a pope, by her mother from a natural daughter of Charles Quint. She