uestion! For that she had a secret project, which, as she thought,
ought to rehabilitate her in that monarch's eyes, in representing her as
guided by a love of France more than by vanity. Louis XIV. was not to
derive any territorial advantage from the Treaty of Utrecht. But Madame
des Ursins was desirous so soon as the cession was made of the said
principality of giving it up immediately to that King, in exchange for
an equivalent life-interest in Touraine, within French territory. With
that view she had a clause inserted in the letters-patent of Philip V.,
empowering her to alienate during her lifetime that principality in
whatever way she chose. Such was her design; and that it had evidently
been divined by the sagacious Madame de Maintenon would appear from the
following passage in a letter of about that date addressed to the
Princess: "Side by side with all your merits, you have _a concealed
project_, which, if I guess aright, has got the uppermost of all those
qualities."[61]

[60] So runs the textual engagement of Queen Anne, taken from the
Royal Archives of the Hague, and communicated to M. Geffroy.

[61] Lettres de Madame de Maintenon et de Madame des Ursins, tom.
ii., pp. 7, 8.

But that was just what the allies most feared. The faculty given to
Madame des Ursins in Philip's deed of gift had made them suspect that
intention of a surrender or an exchange, and they were on the watch for
everything which might arise to support their suppositions. In such
conjuncture, Madame des Ursins was wanting, as it appears to us, in
prudence and address. Instead of postponing, until the cession had
become an accomplished fact, the question of the exchange, she pursued
the two objects simultaneously. To negotiate the second with Torcy, she
sent D'Aubigny secretly to France, and the latter, after some overtures,
gave her hopes of entire success. Transported with delight, she gave
herself up to all the illusions of what the future had in store for her
of happiness. She was not, therefore, destined to descend either in rank
or honours after quitting the Court of Madrid. Here she had ruled
beneath the shadow of a phantom King; there she would command directly
and in person. In Spain, she had only been a subordinate; in France she
would have no superior, and would be more mistress of herself. All these
satisfactions were increased a hundredfold by the proud feeling of
returning to her native country as a sovereign