mitted to renounce, both for herself and her children, all claim
to the sovereignty of Spain.

This point having been conceded, immediate preparations were made for
the proclamation of the royal marriages; but the ceremony was
unavoidably delayed by the death of the Duke of Mantua, the
brother-in-law of the Regent, and did not take place until the 5th of
the following month,[139] on which day it was solemnly announced by the
Chancellor, in the presence of the Prince de Conti, the peers and
officers of the Crown, and the Spanish Ambassador, who gave his assent
to the duplicate alliance in the name of the King his master, and from
that period treated the little Princess with all the honours due to a
Queen of Spain; never addressing her save on his bended knee, and
observing many still more exaggerated ceremonies which excited at once
surprise and amusement at the French Court.

It will have been remarked that neither M. de Conde nor the Comte de
Soissons were present at the formal announcement, both having once more
withdrawn from the capital with the determination of continuing absent
until the majority of the King, in order to avoid signing the
marriage contract.

"The Queen," said M. de Soissons, when one of his friends would have
dissuaded him from so extreme a course, "is quite able to conclude
without our assistance the negotiation into which she has entered. God
grant that we at least may be spared all participation in the slight
offered to the memory of the late King, by refusing to falsify the
pledge which he gave to the Duke of Savoy, whose house has so long been
the firm ally of France."

Pity it is that this generous burst of high-mindedness and loyalty will
not bear analysis. Both the Princes had discovered that the professions
to which they had so complacently listened, and which had induced their
recent return to Court, had merely been intended to lure them thither at
a period when their presence was more than ever essential to the
interests of the Regency; and while M. de Conde found his position in
the Government as undefined and unsatisfactory as ever, and that his
vanity had been flattered at the expense of his interests, the Count on
his side saw the possession of Quilleboeuf more remote than ever, and
openly declared that they had both been duped.

This undisguised admission at once revealed the selfishness of the views
with which the malcontent Princes had lent themselves to the wishes of
Marie