riend, Marshal de
Bezons, whose hasty retreat upon the banks of the Segra excited the
indignation of the Spanish court, he lost his command. She even
denounced the Duke of Orleans to his royal uncle, and the erring nephew
had very great difficulty in escaping a scandalous trial. He was forced,
therefore, to renounce his ambitious hopes with regard to Spain, if ever
he had seriously nourished them. Such an exposure, rendered his return
to the Peninsula impossible. His faction was speedily dispersed. One of
the noblemen with whom he had had very intimate relations, the Duke of
Medina-Coeli, minister for foreign affairs and head of the grandee
party, was suddenly arrested and taken to the Castle of Segovia.
Whether, as Saint Simon intimates, it was that "weary of the yoke of
Madame des Ursins, he desired _pointer de son chef_," whether that,
favourable to the Duke of Orleans, perhaps even to the allies, he had
voluntarily caused the failure of the expedition which the Spanish
government meditated against Sardinia, or whether he had dreamed of an
anti-French reaction, he ended his days in a state prison.

Whilst the government of Philip V., was working its way very laboriously
through that maze of conspiracies and intrigues, the allies regained the
ground which Almanza had lost them. "Despite all the efforts of Madame
des Ursins," wrote the Chevalier du Bourk, her agent, at Versailles,
"matters are going badly at Madrid." France, discouraged and weighed
down, moreover by its own reverses, seemed no longer able to defend
Philip V.; Louis XIV., whatever might have been his secret intentions,
was not willing to appear to support his grandson; the Austrians
thoroughly defeated Philip at Saragossa. The severe winter of 1709 had
brought the general distress to a climax; and the Archduke Charles made
his entrance into Madrid. The court of Versailles became
terror-stricken. Madame de Maintenon, outwearied with this everlasting
strife, changed the tone of her letters to a cold and sometimes ironic
vein. She went so far as to say to the Princess, "It is not agreeable to
us here that women should busy themselves with state affairs."[55] Louis
XIV., himself, advised his grandson to abandon Spain in order to keep
Italy.

[55] Recueil de M. Geffroy, p. 395.

Madame des Ursins had thus to choose between the French policy, imposed
upon Louis XIV. by cruel necessity, and the Spanish policy, for which
Philip V. was resolved to die. On