o not repair by my attentions the coldness of the Duchess
of Burgundy, the indifference of the king and the curtness of the other
princes, she will go away displeased with our court, and it is expedient
that she should praise it, and speak well of it in Spain."

It was, in fact, through Madame de Maintenon and her correspondence with
the Princess des Ursins, that the private business between the two courts
of France and Spain was often carried on. At Madrid, far more than at
Versailles, the influence of women was all-powerful. The queen ruled her
husband, who was honest and courageous, but without wit or daring; and
the Princess des Ursins ruled the queen, as intelligent and as amiable as
her sister the Duchess of Burgundy, but more ambitious and more haughty.
Louis XIV. had several times conceived some misgiving of the _camarera
major's_ influence over his grandson; she had been disgraced, and then
recalled; she had finally established her sway by her fidelity, ability,
dexterity, and indomitable courage. She served France habitually, Spain
and her own influence in Spain always; she had been charming, with an air
of nobility, grace, elegance, and majesty all together, and accustomed to
the highest society and the most delicate intrigues, during her sojourn
at Rome and Madrid; she was full of foresight and calculation, but
impassioned, ambitious, implacable, pushing to extremes her amity as well
as her hatred, faithful to her master and mistress in their most cruel
trials, and then hampering and retarding peace for the sake of securing
for herself a principality in the Low Countries. Without having risen
from the ranks, like Madame de Maintenon, she had reached a less high and
less safe elevation; she had been more absolutely and more daringly
supreme during the time of her power, and at last she fell with the
rudest shock, without any support from Madame de Maintenon. The
pretensions of Madame des Ursins during the negotiations had offended
France; "this was the stone of stumbling between the two supreme
directresses," says St. Simon; after this attempt at sovereignty, there
was no longer the same accord between Madame de Maintenon and Madame des
Ursins, but this latter had reached in Spain a point at which she more
easily supposed that she could dispense with it. The Queen of Spain had
died at the age of twenty-six, in 1714; did the princess for a moment
conceive the hope of marrying Philip V. in spite of the disp