Marie-Louise had not been less carefully brought up than
her sister, the Duchess of Burgundy, nor less well instructed. She had
innate talent, and, in her early youth showed intelligence, good sense,
firmness, and was capable of being advised and restrained, and who
later, when her character became more developed and formed, manifested a
constancy and courage which the natural graces of that same intelligence
infinitely enhanced. A lively sympathy between the two women alone
determined the authority of the older over the younger, and if the
King's confidence in the _camerara-mayor_ was a homage rendered to the
real superiority of her intelligence, it might be said that a happy
conformity of tastes, views, and dispositions, attached his Queen to the
Princess des Ursins.

Two political systems confronted each other at Madrid. The one
ultra-French, the other purely Spanish, represented by the grandees and
inclining towards the Archduke of Austria, the competitor of Philip V.
The first-named had for champions, Cardinal Porto-Carrero, "virtually
the actual prime minister," the Archbishop of Seville, Arias, the
provisional president of the Council of Castille, the Marquis de
Louville, and all the King's French household; subsequently it was
directed by the Cardinal and the Abbe d'Estrees, Ambassadors of France.
The second party re-united the most illustrious names of the monarchy.
It had for its chiefs, successively, the Count de Melgar, Admiral of
Castile, the Marquis de Leganez, and the Duke de Medina-Coeli. The
first-named policy tended to destroy, by its exclusive ideas, the
popularity of Philip V., the second prepared to betray him. They were
both reduced to impotence, and became fatal to those who ventured to
defend them. Madame des Ursins combated the one and the other, and aimed
at inaugurating in Spain a mixed policy, heeding the cabinet of
Versailles without annihilating the cabinet of Madrid, satisfying the
just desires of Spain and the susceptibilities of the nation, without
disdaining the sometimes useful advice and the ever requisite resources
of France. Such was, therefore, the plan adopted by the young Queen.
But, in order to realise it, it was necessary to have the field open, it
was necessary that Madame des Ursins should be delivered from her
rivals, and should reign as absolutely in the councils of the Crown as
in the minds of the King and Queen.

The principal chief of the Austrian party, the Admiral of