ourage, these
haughty nobles are ceaseless in their attempts to overthrow the
authority of their king, and against whom I am incensed beyond
measure for all which they did so long as they had the uppermost in
the _Despacho_ (Privy Council)."

The virile tone of that paragraph carries us far beyond Madame de
Maintenon. There was one thing, however, of more importance to Madame
des Ursins than appeasing the grandees, and that was to procure troops
and find the means of paying them. That done, she might laugh at every
other difficulty. "Would to heaven," she exclaimed, "that it were as
easy to get the uppermost over the priests and monks, who are the cause
of all the revolts you hear of!"

The first portion of the Princess's labours was accomplished. Her most
dangerous enemies had fallen: she reigned. But there yet remained a few
hostile nobles, and she resolved to strike at them. One of them,
formerly her ally, the Duke de Montellano, president of Castile, excited
the suspicion of this mistrustful woman. She manifested towards him,
from the moment of her return, a haughty coldness. She dreaded to see in
a post of such eminence a man placed by his birth amongst her worst
enemies. Montellano, offended at her attitude towards him, tendered his
resignation. The King hesitated, but the Princess made him accept it,
and the corregidor of Madrid, Ronquillo, a man of obscure origin, was
nominated to the presidentship. Amelot was equally mistrustful of
certain grandees in the Privy Council, as was the Princess; and, whether
they tendered their resignation or that it was required of them, the
Duke de Montalto and the Count de Monterei were replaced by devoted
partisans of the Princess. The high aristocracy, indignant at this
manoeuvre, worked against her in an underhanded opposition, in which the
double character of the Duke de Medina-Coeli was more and more
developed. Their plans were foiled in the very outset, but we shall see
them again make their appearance upon the political arena at a moment
when it required nothing less than all the power and skill of Madame des
Ursins to triumph over them.

The Princess was, in fact, triumphing on the very brink of a volcano.
Spain was in a blaze, and every day seemed to call in question the
existence of that throne under the shadow of which she had come to
reign. Lord Peterborough had torn Barcelona from Philip V., and the
greater part of its garrison had recognised t