esented, would not submit to
be governed by any one. Dazzled, therefore, with the smiling vista which
chance had so unexpectedly opened to him, and understanding all the
importance which he might derive from the negotiation of such marriage,
and finding, moreover, Madame des Ursins well disposed beforehand
towards him, and, by a singular blindness, inclined to put implicit
confidence in one whose interest it was to conceal the truth, he
secretly set off for Parma on his delicate mission. By this first move
the Princess's game was lost.

CHAPTER III.

THE PRINCESS FRIENDLESS IN SPAIN.

IT was the peculiar misfortune of Madame des Ursins to scarcely meet
with a single sincere friend in Spain: she was submitted to there,
rather than accepted. She had been sought after through interest or fear
rather than through sympathy; but especially since the Queen's decease,
since no one save herself was seen by the King's side, and that the
strokes of her power were dealt without any apparent intermediator, she
was no longer tolerated, save with infinite difficulty. Neither can it
be concealed that, at this period, she had not acted in a way to
diminish the number of her enemies, or to conciliate them. She was of
opinion that the Duke of Berwick had not sufficiently defended her at
Versailles against their machinations: she broke with him in 1714,
before he returned from Catalonia. She did her utmost to have Tesse
chosen to replace him, whom she pronounced quite capable of taking
Barcelona; and, on learning that Berwick was nevertheless appointed, she
hastened to banish Ronquillo, for something he had uttered against the
Government, but in reality because he was the intimate friend of that
general.[57] Two nobles were also imprisoned at this time--Don Manuel de
Sylva, commandant of the galleys of Sicily, already temporarily exiled
in 1709 for having (so said the sentence) "spoken ill of her," and Don
Valerio d'Aspetia, Lieutenant-General. Both were declared enemies of
Madame des Ursins, and the first had moreover the fault of being closely
connected with the Duke d'Uzeda. Valerio d'Aspetia died in prison, at
the age of seventy, and after fifty years of service, a lamentable loss,
and which involved that of his still young and lovely wife, whose days
were cut short through grief and poverty. Besides all this, must be
noticed a suspicious jealousy of domination over Philip V., which was
fearfully developed when that prince