despatched to Guadalaxara. The night was so dark that it was only by
means of the snow that anything could be seen.

It is not easy to represent the state of Madame des Ursins in the coach.
An excess of astonishment and bewilderment prevailed at first, and
suspended all other sentiment; but grief, vexation, rage, and despair,
soon followed. In their turn succeeded sad and profound reflections upon
a step so violent, so unheard-of, and so unjustifiable as she thought.
Then she hoped everything from the friendship of the King of Spain and
his confidence in her; pictured his anger and surprise, and those of the
group of attached servitors, by whom she had surrounded him, and who
would be so interested in exciting the King in her favour. The long
winter's night pissed thus; the cold was, terrible, there was nothing to
ward it off; the coachman actually lost the use of one hand. The morning
advanced; a halt was necessary in order to bait the horses; as for the
travellers there is nothing for them ever in the Spanish inns. You are
simply told where each thing you want is sold. The meat is ordinarily
alive; the wine, thick, flat, and strong; the bread bad; the water is
often worthless; as to beds, there are some, but only for the mule-
drivers, so that you must carry everything with you, and neither Madame
des Ursins nor those with her had anything whatever. Eggs, where they
could find any, were their sole resource; and these, fresh or not, simply
boiled, supported them during all the journey.

Until this halt for the horses, silence had been profound and
uninterrupted; now it was broken. During all this long night the
Princesse des Ursins had had leisure to think upon the course she should
adopt, and to compose her face. She spoke of her extreme surprise, and
of the little that had passed between her and the Queen. In like manner
the two officers of the guard accustomed, as was all Spain, to fear and