r by
lack of respect, and by appearing before her in improper attire. The
amazed princess, overwhelmed by this accusation, apologized and
remonstrated, but the queen refused to listen to her, ordered her from the
room, and bade the officer of the guard to arrest and convey her beyond
the frontier.

Here was a change in the situation! The officer hesitated to arrest one
who for years had been supreme in Spain.

"Were you not instructed to obey me implicitly?" demanded Elizabeth.

"Yes, your majesty."

"Then do as I have ordered. I assume all responsibility."

"Will your majesty give me a written sanction?"

"Yes," said Elizabeth, in a tone very different from that of the
bread-and-butter miss whom Alberoni had represented her.

Calling for pen, ink, and paper, she wrote upon her knee an order for the
princess's arrest, and bade the hesitating officer to execute it at once.

He dared no longer object. The princess, in court dress, was hurried into
a carriage, with a single female attendant and two officers, being allowed
neither a change of clothing, protection against the cold, nor money to
procure needed conveniences on the road. In this way a woman of over sixty
years of age, whose will a few hours before had been absolute in Spain,
was forced to travel throughout an inclement winter night, and continue
her journey until she was thrust beyond the limits of Spain, within which
she was never again permitted to set foot.

Such was the first act of the docile girl whom the ambitious princess had
fully expected to use as a tool for her designs. Schooled by her skilled
adviser, and perhaps sanctioned by Philip, who may have wished to get rid
of his old favorite, Elizabeth at the start showed a grasp of the
situation which she was destined to keep until the end. The feeble-minded
monarch at once fell under her influence, and soon all the affairs of the
kingdom became subject to her control.

Elizabeth was a woman of restless ambition and impetuous temper, and she
managed throughout Philip's reign to keep the kingdom in constant hot
water. The objects she kept in view were two: first, to secure to Philip
the reversion of the French crown in case of the death of the then Duke of
Anjou, despite the fact that he had taken frequent oaths of renunciation;
second, to secure for her own children sovereign rule in Italy.

We cannot detail the long story of the intrigues by which the ambitious
woman sought to bring about th