h. It was,
in fact, an original and most distinctive feature in the Princess des
Ursins' character, that of having been known to be a person so
thoroughly calm in the main during a career so active and a destiny so
agitated; and it was to this very characteristic equanimity that she was
indebted, after so abrupt a downfall at sixty-two, for the lot reserved
for her of dying in peace and of old age at eighty. But there are many
other traits worthy of study in her composition, and which place her in
perfect contrast with her friend Madame de Maintenon.

[38] Mem. de Noailles, tom. iii., p. 375, and Letters to Mad. de
Maintenon, tom. iv., p. 163.

BOOK II.

CHAPTER I.

SARAH JENNINGS AND JOHN CHURCHILL.

THE succession of the Duke d'Anjou to the Spanish crown had, in fact,
destroyed the balance of power in Europe; and our William the Third,
then recently dead, but even beyond the grave the most resolute enemy of
Louis the Fourteenth, had bequeathed to him the new league which bore
the name of the Great Alliance, and which had for its aim to place the
Spanish crown upon the head of the Archduke Charles, the son of the
Emperor of Germany; or in default of dispossessing Philip the Fifth of
his kingdom, to trace round the two nations of France and Spain a limit
which should never be overpassed by the ambition of either. All hope of
success for the Archduke Charles--the legitimate successor to the last
four effete kings of Spain--all the means which he might have of
preserving in Europe two houses of Austria, and of continuing that grand
Austrian duality which the sceptre of Charles the Fifth had produced,
but which was then broken in twain, rested chiefly upon the English
alliance. There, for the adversaries of Louis the Fourteenth, was the
knot of the question. With the treasures of England, with her navy, with
her troops also, together with the advantage of her situation, which
allowed of her doing so much mischief to France, the Imperialists might
effect much; without her they could scarcely do anything. Hence with
them the necessity of keeping in power a party favourable to them--the
Whigs, a party which preferred that ancient duality to the new
duality--in other words, the ambition of Louis the Fourteenth to
therewith augment the House of Bourbon, and in effect more dangerous
than the other to the English nation. But that necessity created
another: it was requisite to have near Queen Anne som