protracted; but that he
feared the respect due to a representative minister, and above all an
ambassador of France, would be disregarded.

Both Louville and Saint-Aignan clearly saw that all audience was
impossible, and that in consequence a longer stay could only lead to
disturbances which might embroil the two crowns; so that, at the end of
seven or eight days, Louville departed, returning as he came. Alberoni
began then to breathe again after the extreme fear he had had. He was
consoled by this proof of his power, which showed he need no longer fear
that any one could approach the King without his aid, or that any
business could be conducted without him. Thus Spain lost Gibraltar, and
she has never been able to recover it since.

Such is the utility of prime ministers!

Alberoni spread the report in Spain and in France, that Philip V. had
taken a mortal aversion against Louville, since he had driven him out of
the country for his insolence and his scheming; that he would never see
him, and was offended because he had passed the Pyrenees; that Louville
had no proposition to make, or commission to execute; that he had
deceived the Regent, in making him believe that if once he found a
pretext for appearing before the King of Spain, knowing him so well as he
did, that prince would be ravished by the memory of his former affection,
would reinstate him in his former credit, and thus France would be able
to make Spain do all she wished. In a word, Alberoni declared that
Louville had only come into the country to try and obtain some of the
pensions he had been promised on quitting the King of Spain, but that he
had not gone the right way to work to be so soon paid.

Nothing short of the effrontery of Alberoni would have been enough for
the purpose of spreading these impostures. No one had forgotten in Spain
what Madame des Ursins had done to get rid of Louville, how the King of
Spain had resisted; that she was not able to succeed without the aid of
France and her intrigues with Madame de Maintenon; and that the King,
afflicted to the utmost, yielding to the orders given by France to
Louville, had doubled the pensions which had for a long time been paid to
him, given him a sum of money in addition, and the government of
Courtray, which he lost only by the misfortune of the war that followed
the loss of the battle of Ramillies. With respect to the commission, to
deny it was an extreme piece of impudence, a man being