affair
proved to Philip V.; he was greatly discomfited by it, and when the
second night came, as the Queen had not recovered her good humour, it
was he, who acting upon the advice of the Duke of Medina Sidonia and
Count San Estevan de Gormas, anticipated a fresh refusal, by causing her
to be told that he would not now share her couch. That spontaneous
determination was adroit, and produced its effect. Marie-Louise was
exceedingly piqued at it in the depth of her girlish _amour-propre_, and
ended by making an honourable _amende_ to the King, blaming and
condemning her own childishness. She promised to conduct herself for the
future like a woman and a queen, and on the arrival of the third night,
the nuptial bed at length reunited the hitherto dissevered husband and
wife. The next day they left Figuieras, touched at Barcelona, and thence
hastened on to Madrid, wherein they made their triumphal entry by the
Alcala Gate, towards the end of October, 1701, amidst a great concourse
of nobles and populace. There also the Princess des Ursins was installed
definitively in her functions of _camerara-mayor_. These she was
destined to fulfil during a period of thirteen years, from 1701 to 1714,
and by favour of that influential position, to exercise a virtual
sovereignty, the acts of which it will now be our task to duly
appreciate.

CHAPTER V.

ONEROUS AND INCONGRUOUS DUTIES OF THE _CAMERARA MAYOR_--SHE RENDERS THE
YOUNG QUEEN POPULAR WITH THE SPANIARDS--POLICY ADOPTED BY THE PRINCESS
FOR THE REGENERATION OF SPAIN--CHARACTER OF PHILIP V. AND
MARIE-LOUISE--TWO POLITICAL SYSTEMS COMBATED BY MADAME DES URSINS--SHE
EFFECTS THE RUIN OF HER POLITICAL RIVALS, AND REIGNS ABSOLUTELY IN THE
COUNCILS OF THE CROWN.

THE sudden departure of all her Italian waiting-women had, as we have
seen, on first setting her foot in Spain, for a moment thrown the young
Queen into a condition bordering on despair. By advice, however, the
respectful devotedness of which served to soften its austerity, and by
an absolute abnegation of herself, Madame des Ursins drew closely
towards her the broken-hearted princess by discreetly assuaging all her
first girlish sorrows. She became a friend, a sister, almost a mother to
the exiled-one, and her influence profited no less by the first
embarrassments of the conjugal union than by the unbridled passion which
ere long placed under the yoke of his wife a husband of eighteen, chaste
as St. Louis,