so
much the more satisfaction, that at Turin she would have been exposed to
a thousand annoyances. There she would have encountered the Princess de
Carignan--the great lady who had taken care of her niece, Marie-Louise
of Savoy, and like many other Piedmontese ladies, she wished very much
to follow her into Spain, and perhaps remain there. There were many
little projects, it appears, formed at Turin with the view of governing
the young Queen.[21] For a long while it was thought that they would be
realised, because the report ran that the Princess de Carignan would in
fact accompany her niece to Madrid. But Louis XIV., foreseeing that
source of embarrassment, had given an order to dismiss all the
Piedmontese ladies at the frontier, so soon as the Queen should meet her
Spanish household. Those ladies were aware of this; but their discontent
was only the greater, and it was much to be feared lest if Madame des
Ursins should herself repair to Turin, to present herself to the young
Queen, she might be exposed to some insult on their part. Who could tell
whether, at that court, before the departure of Marie-Louise had removed
all hope, her "position might not be menaced"? In that, then, there
arose an additional motive, and the principal one, to stop at
Villefranche, in order not to see the Queen before the moment of
embarking with her, and of entering immediately and irrevocably upon the
exercise of her duties.

[21] Memoirs of Louville, tom. i., and those of De Noailles, tom.
ii., pp. 164, 165.

When Marie-Louise arrived there in the month of October, 1701, the
anchor of her galley was instantly weighed and sail set for Nice, where
a last farewell was taken of Piedmont and the soil of Italy; and next,
her foot touched the French shore to make slight halts at Toulon, at
Marseilles, and at Montpellier, and despatch thence, by way of thanks
for the splendid fetes given by the local authorities, a salvo of homage
to the Great King at Versailles. Madame des Ursins was seated in the
royal litter, at the Queen's side, and everywhere had her share of the
honours rendered to that princess in the various cities of France and
Italy. At length the Spanish frontier was reached, and there the
Piedmontese ladies, to the great regret of Marie-Louise and their own,
were compelled to stop and retrace their steps to Turin. The Spanish
dames, appointed by Philip V., replaced them. The young Queen thereupon
lost much of her characteri