allegiance: and later, summoned to take up arms against the
Archduke, he had refused. From that moment he became a suspected person.
His sole refuge was a conspiracy: and that was his destruction. Arrested
by order of the new administration, he was conducted to the fortress of
Pampeluna, afterwards to Bordeaux, whence his vain and tardy
protestations in favour of Philip V. failed to extricate him. This
energetic blow struck terror into the hearts of the grandees and
prepared the triumphal return of the Princess.

CHAPTER VIII.

THE PRINCESS TRIUMPHS AT VERSAILLES.

IN the balls given at Marly, she appeared loftily self-possessed, easy
and familiar by turns, ogling people one after another with her
eye-glass; and at one of these balls she made her appearance with a tiny
spaniel under her arm, as though she had been in her own house, and
(which was more remarked than anything else) the King caressed the
little dog on several different occasions, when he went up to converse
with her, and he did so nearly throughout the evening. "She had never
before been seen to take so grand a flight."

Madame des Ursins, who, though a woman of imagination, was, as we have
said, but little liable to be dazzled, might still have been pardoned
giving way during these months of royal favour to an excess of
intoxication; but above all, and at the same time that she displayed the
treasures of her continual and inexhaustible conversation, she evinced a
lively appreciation of the King's mental qualities. She returns to the
subject afterwards too frequently, and enters too minutely into detail
of what she discovered in him, not to show on her part a truthfulness
stronger than flattery. She never speaks of the King otherwise than as
_l'homme du monde le plus aimable_, as the _meilleur ami_, and _le plus
honnete homme du monde_.

"If I had further, Madam, as you observe to me (she writes to Madam
de Maintenon) the happiness of his being more accustomed to me, I
ingenuously confess to you that it only depends upon his Majesty to
perceive that I find him _very good company_. Really, although I
can boast of having, in my time, entertained in France, Italy, and
Spain, all the wittiest and most agreeable persons therein, I have
never been so much pleased with them as with his Majesty. You must
own that this is a very frank avowal."

There were not wanting those who even went so far as to suppose t