should owe to
her such a grand marriage, and who, having no other support, would throw
herself into her arms by gratitude and necessity. With this view she
explained herself to Alberoni, who, since the death of the Duc de
Vendome, had remained at Madrid charged with the affairs of Parma; and
proposed to him the marriage of the Princess of Parma, daughter of the
Duchess and of the late Duke of Parma, who had married the widow of his
brother.

Alberoni could with difficulty believe his ears. An alliance so
disproportioned appeared to him so much the more incredible, because he
thought the. Court of France would never consent to it, and that without
its consent the marriage could not be concluded. The Princess in
question was the issue of double illegitimacy; by her father descended
from a pope, by her mother from a natural daughter of Charles Quint. She
was daughter of a petty Duke of Parma, and of a mother, entirely
Austrian, sister of the Dowager Empress and of the Dowager Queen of Spain
(whose acts had excited such disapproval that she was sent from her exile
at Toledo to Bayonne), sister too of the Queen of Portugal, who had
induced the King, her husband, to receive the Archduke at Lisbon, and to
carry the war into Spain. It did not seem reasonable, therefore, that
such a Princess would be accepted as a wife for the King of Spain.

Nothing of all this, however, stopped the Princesse des Ursins; her own
interest was the most pressing consideration with her; the will of the
King of Spain was entirely subject to her; she felt all the change
towards her of our King and of Madame de Maintenon; she no longer hoped
for a return of their favour; she believed that she must look around for
support against the very authority which had established her so
powerfully, and which could destroy her; and occupied herself solely in
pushing forward a marriage from which she expected everything by making
the same use of the new queen as she had made of the one just dead. The
King of Spain was devout, he absolutely wanted a wife, the Princesse des
Ursins was of an age when her charms were but the charms, of art; in a
word, she set Alberoni to work, and it may be believed she was not
scrupulous as to her means as soon as they were persuaded at Parma that
she was serious and not joking. Orry, always united with Madame des
Ursins, and all-powerful, by her means, was her sole confidant in this
important affair.

At that time the Ma