ernment of prime ministers, and still more that of women,
Louis XIV. had an insuperable antipathy. It must therefore have cost him
much to renounce the flattering hope of seeing his grandson make
practical application of the lofty instructions in which his personal
royalty reflected itself with so much splendour; but such a prince as he
knew but too well that a political idea is valueless when it remains
inapplicable. Impressed with the sorrowful conviction, he was compelled
to recognise that Philip's ailing temperament rendered all equilibrium
between intelligence and will impossible, so far so that that unhappy
Prince could not elude his fate save by escaping from himself. In the
approaching perils which the disasters of the French armies foreboded,
the hope of preserving Spain even under the dictation of Madame des
Ursins was better, after all, than the certainty of losing that crown by
estranging the _camarera-mayor_. After the battle of Blenheim, the
defection of the Duke of Savoy and the disastrous Italian campaign, the
restoration of the Princess to her charge was, on the part of Louis
XIV., a first concession to evil fortune, a determination for which his
sagacity triumphed over his repugnance. And so Saint Simon ought to have
seen, instead of representing the triumph obtained by Madame des Ursins
at Versailles as the inexplicable effect of a species of sudden
fascination.

That victory suddenly transformed her who was but a short time
previously an accused person into "a court divinity." The Spanish
ambassador, followed by a swarm of courtiers, went forth to meet her
outside the gates of Paris, and offered her his mansion during her stay
in the capital. There she received "all France" we are told.[34] Her
every look was interpreted, and the words she addressed to ladies of the
highest consideration impressed them with a rapturous sense of her
condescension. Nothing could exceed the King's attentions in every way
that could contribute to her honour and distinction, and from the
majestic fashion with which it was all received, with such a rare
admixture of grace and politeness it reminded the beholders of the early
days of the Queen-Mother. Whether the particular determination of the
King shone through this marked graciousness, or that the well-known
dexterity of the Princess did not allow of any doubt of her success, she
was welcomed on all hands, not with those timid precautions and that
ambiguous reserve which