ions
obtained by France at the peace of Utrecht.

CHAPTER II.

THE PRINCESS'S SHARE IN THE TREATY OF UTRECHT.

IF the new ministry of Queen Anne succeeded in inducing the English
nation to support the treaty of Utrecht, that was nothing less than to
prove undeniably, without fear of contradiction, that the establishment
of the French dynasty in the Peninsula had there acquired the authority
of a fact irrevocably accomplished. The resuscitation of the Spanish
nation had, therefore, a decisive effect upon European affairs; and
whilst, by leaving France almost intact, the treaties of Utrecht had
parcelled out the monarchy of the catholic kings, the authors of the
great popular movement crowned by the victory of Villaviciosa might
consider without prejudice their country as sacrificed, notwithstanding
the weight which it had flung into the scales.

In this work Madame des Ursins had had certainly a very considerable
share, and it was with a very legitimate pride that through it she was
enabled to prevail at Versailles as at Madrid. A perseverance unexampled
both in idea and conduct, a rare suppleness in the means, had made her
the principal instrument of an enterprise in which a virile ambition,
united to a deep devotedness, sustained her. Undismayed by reverses,
never intoxicated by success, she tempered by her equanimity the at
times imprudent ardour of the young Queen, and reanimated by her
firmness the frequent retrocessions of her morose consort. She
rejoiced, therefore, with a scarcely veiled pride in that security for
the future which Spain had conquered before France, and in her
correspondence with Madame de Maintenon her letters began to assume a
somewhat protective tone. It was at this culminating point of her
greatness that fate was preparing to inflict upon her the humiliating
catastrophe which again obscured the remembrance of her services and
even the honour of her name.

It is unnecessary to recapitulate the means by which peace was
re-established, how the fall of the Whig ministry and the elevation of
the Archduke to the imperial throne after the death of Joseph I. brought
England and the other allied powers into the treaties which confirmed
Philip V. in the peaceable possession of the Spanish monarchy. We will
not dwell upon these details, nor upon divers acts of interior policy
which followed upon the victory of Villaviciosa. Let us confine our
attention solely to those in which the Princes