ad some ideas about war too--we do not say they were of the best,
but she had some--and about plans of defence and the choice of generals.
She anticipated coming dangers, which she laid bare and exposed without
allowing herself to be discouraged by them. She described the native
troops in their true colours, the places of importance entirely
unprovided for, according to Spanish custom; she energetically claimed
help from France, and after asking for strong battalions in the body of
her letter, adds in a postscript that she has advised the King of Spain
to have prayers offered up. She did not forget to send appropriate
flatteries also to Madame de Maintenon.

A few days after the arrival of the Duke of Berwick, in order to thank
Madame de Maintenon for such aid, she spoke to her about Saint-Cyr, well
aware that nothing could be more agreeable, and knowing _the weakness of
mothers_.

"The Queen has highly approved of all your Saint-Cyr rules; our
ladies are anxious to have them, and I am working hard at
translating them into Spanish to afford them that satisfaction. If
her Majesty were not under engagements very different to those of
the young ladies of Saint-Cyr, I really believe that she would like
to be one of your pupils."

Her flattery knew well in what language to couch itself; but there were
moments at which, discontented at feeling Spain abandoned and lost sight
of by Versailles, she became plain spoken even to rudeness. Great
allowance, however, ought to be made for the Princess's occasional
bluntness when it is remembered that she was then in her sixty-fourth
year, suffering from rheumatism and a painful affection of one of her
eyes, a condition altogether very unpropitious in which to commence the
career of arms in the capacity of field-marshal to a youthful Queen.
Notwithstanding all this, however, she exerted herself to enliven
everybody, to console, to inspire fortitude and a spirit of joyousness
around her, never to see things on their darkest side or through her
ailing eye, but to obey rather the buoyant spirit and an inclination to
hope for the best, which was natural to her.

"It often happens, Madame," she writes to Madame de Maintenon,
"that when one thinks all is lost some fortunate circumstance
occurs unexpectedly which entirely changes the face of things." "I
think," she says in another letter, "that fortune may again become
favourable to us