longer perform it:
"It is in the eye of heaven that I should be humbled," said she, "and I
am so."

Every reader of Saint Simon must be deeply impressed with his narrative
of that terrible night of December 24th, 1714. Who can fail to picture
to himself the rude expulsion of the Princess des Ursins from the
Queen's apartment in her full dress of ceremony, suddenly packed off in
a carriage, without proper clothing or change of linen, and without
money, to be whirled away through a winter's night so severe that her
driver lost one of his hands from frost-bite, over mountain passes where
the roads had disappeared beneath the snow, towards an unknown
destination? Who cannot picture to himself hunger coming to add fresh
tortures to those of the prolonged nightmare under which that
unfortunate lady must have suffered the keenest pangs of incertitude, of
astonishment, and of humiliation? Such, however, was the fate reserved
for a woman who had inscribed her name among those of the founders of a
dynasty and the liberators of a great kingdom!

For some time previous to the occurrence of that strange event--so
unlooked for, so inconceivable--the Princess had not been free from
inquietude with respect to the preservation of her prestige and
authority, as also on the score of constantly recurring difficulties
with the Court of Versailles, wherein she had numerous enemies keeping
up an active correspondence with the still more numerous enemies by whom
she was surrounded at Madrid; the affairs of the sovereignty, the
isolation in which Philip was kept; the marriage of that Prince,
determined upon and almost concluded without the consent of his
grandfather--all which had deeply angered Louis the Fourteenth.

Though all this tended by turns to inspire the Princess with fear and
disgust, still, she could not anticipate an ignominious treatment coming
from that quarter. Soon, however, her wonted courage got the uppermost
in her bosom; besides, she had hopes both from her justification and
from the King of Spain, whose confidence she thought unshakeable, of a
return to Court, difficult, nevertheless, after such a shock. Meanwhile,
the Queen vouchsafed no replies to her letters; the King announced to
her that he was unable to refuse the maintenance of the measure taken at
the instance of the Queen, but assured her that pensions would be
conferred upon her. Having reached St. Jean de Luz, Madame des Ursins
wrote to Versailles, and shortl