ence.

Marlborough sailed from Dover to Ostend in October, 1712, and his wife
followed him in a few months afterwards, she having remained behind to
arrange his or her own affairs. The Duke was furnished with a passport,
it is said, by the instrumentality of his early favourite and secret
friend Bolingbroke. His request to see the Queen before his departure
from her dominions was refused; and the apathetic Anne never again saw
her great general, or the woman for whom she once professed so strong an
attachment. When it was told her that both he and the Duchess had left
England, she coolly remarked to the Duchess of Hamilton--"the Duke of
Marlborough has done wisely to go abroad."

Thus was the illustrious soldier, then sixty-two years of age, and the
Duchess in her fifty-second year, driven from their country by the
machinations of a party too strong for them to resist without the
especial favour of the Queen.

BOOK III.

CHAPTER I.

THE PRINCESS DES URSINS--HER DELICATE AND PERILOUS POSITION.

MADAME DES URSINS had long continued fearlessly to face the storm that
growled all around her, and by degrees the horizon showed signs of
clearing. As it often happens in the course of human affairs, the
occupation of the capital by the enemy had an effect contrary to that
which it was very natural to expect. The allies, who had entered Madrid
as conquerors, found within that city none of the elements necessary for
the definitive establishment of the Archduke who was proclaimed amidst a
chilling silence. If the grandees almost to a man evinced their sympathy
for the House of Austria, if the staff of the administration and the
personal machinery of all the public departments, remained at their
posts at the price of an oath which did not seem to cost more in those
days than at present, the populace of Madrid showed an aversion to the
foreigners which soon manifested itself in numerous assassinations. How
could it be otherwise than that the ancient soil of Castile should heave
on finding itself trampled on by the partisans of a loyalty hailed with
acclamation at Saragossa and Barcelona; on witnessing those outbursts of
insolent triumph on the part of the Portuguese, who, in the eyes of
every Spaniard, were still rebels; and the contemptuous phlegm of Lord
Galloway's army, commanded, as it was, by a heretic _condottiere_?
Outside the official spheres, the isolation was therefore complete, and
during that three m