THE PRINCESS’S SHARE IN THE TREATY OF UTRECHT.

If the new ministry of Queen Anne succeeded in inducing the English nation to support the treaty of Utrecht, that was nothing less than to prove undeniably, without fear of contradiction, that the establishment of the French dynasty in the Peninsula had there acquired the authority of a fact irrevocably accomplished. The resuscitation of the Spanish nation had, therefore, a decisive effect upon European affairs; and whilst, by leaving France almost intact, the treaties of Utrecht had parcelled out the monarchy of the catholic kings, the authors of the great popular movement crowned by the victory of Villaviciosa might consider without prejudice their country as sacrificed, notwithstanding the weight which it had flung into the scales.

In this work Madame des Ursins had had certainly a very considerable share, and it was with a very legitimate pride that through it she was enabled to prevail at Versailles as at Madrid. A perseverance unexampled both in idea and conduct, a rare suppleness in the means, had made her the principal instrument of an enterprise in which a virile ambition, united to a deep devotedness, sustained her. Undismayed by reverses, never intoxicated by success, she tempered by her equanimity the at times imprudent ardour of the young Queen, and reanimated by her firmness the frequent retrocessions of her morose consort. She rejoiced, therefore, with a scarcely veiled pride in that security for the future which Spain had conquered before France, and in her correspondence with Madame de Maintenon her letters began to assume a somewhat protective tone. It was at this culminating point of her greatness that fate was preparing to inflict upon her the humiliating catastrophe which again obscured the remembrance of her services and even the honour of her name.

It is unnecessary to recapitulate the means by which peace was re-established, how the fall of the Whig ministry and the elevation of the Archduke to the imperial throne after the death of Joseph I. brought England and the other allied powers into the treaties which confirmed Philip V. in the peaceable possession of the Spanish monarchy. We will not dwell upon these details, nor upon divers acts of interior policy which followed upon the victory of Villaviciosa. Let us confine our attention solely to those in which the Princess des Ursins took an active part. The first was the pursuance of the administrative centralisation of which we have spoken; the abolition of the council exclusively called the Council of Castile, for which she caused to be substituted a council of state, the members of which should be chosen from every part of Spain, and which became the centre of the government. The second was a reform in the finance department; Orry being in these measures the Princess’s instrument, and he justified the long-continued esteem with which she had honoured his talents. It was thus that after having successively saved the monarchy from a policy exclusively French, and from the factious pretensions of the grandees, after having contributed to the defeat of Austria, Madame des Ursins sought to consolidate on firm bases the power of Philip V. and prepare a happier future for Spain.

She was not destined, however, to long enjoy the fruits of her triumph. It was a symptomatic sign of this new phase of her life, the universally unfavourable interpretation given to an affair which should rather be looked upon in the light of a check than of a fault. It is well known that Philip, desirous of recognising the devotedness of his son’s governess, and of assuring to that noble lady an independent position which should not be below her birth, had stipulated, at the time of the preliminaries of peace, for the reservation of a territory in the Spanish low countries ceded to Austria, which he destined to form into a sovereignty for Marie Anne de la TrÉmouille. This negotiation, which bore successively upon the county of Limbourg and the small seigniory of La Roche-en-Ardennes, had been received at first at Versailles with the most entire approbation, for the reproach of “playing the queen” only occurred as an after-thought. The gratitude of their Catholic Majesties was found to be quite natural, and was warmly praised, especially by Madame de Maintenon. It is not at all to be wondered at, consequently, if Madame des Ursins should blandly contemplate such a prospect, especially in anticipation of the approaching demise of her well-beloved protectress, who could not fail to be soon replaced in the confidence and couch of her consort. The Court of France did not change its opinion until that affair of La Roche, very annoyingly taken by the Dutch, had become the occasion of a delay in the signing of the general peace. Then Madame des Ursins was overwhelmed by reproaches on all sides, and those which came from Saint Cyr were of a peculiarly acrimonious character, which we must not join the Duke de Saint Simon in attributing to a jealousy of which there exists no trace, but which is explained by Madame de Maintenon’s desire to secure repose to Louis XIV. at any cost. These reproaches, moreover, were without foundation, for the accusers of the Princess should have considered that, if France had the right to await with lively impatience the signature of a treaty which secured to her almost all her conquests, it was quite otherwise with Spain, called upon by that same treaty to pay alone the costs of the pacification. The measures of 1713, the conclusion of which was in fact retarded for a few months by the interest and intervention of Madame des Ursins, had been received with a very natural indignation in the monarchy of Charles V., from which they tore away the Milanese, the Two Sicilies, Sardinia, the Low Countries, Port Mahon, and Gibraltar. So France can now easily decide whether it had been in 1815 an unpardonable crime in her eyes to cause by a dilatory question the adjournment of the signing of the treaties of Vienna.

That check was the first in a series of misfortunes which death alone was henceforward destined to bring to a close. Early in 1714 died very suddenly, at the age of twenty-six, Marie Louise of Savoy, her delicate frame worn out by an ardent temperament, which had sustained it whilst the storm raged, and which declined when the breath of the hurricane had ceased to kindle it further. The remains of the young Queen had scarcely descended into the vaults of the Escurial ere the nation demanded to know who was to be the new queen-consort; and the same question was addressed to Madame des Ursins by the Court of Versailles, so well were known there both the requirements and the austerity of the King of Spain. What passed during the eight months of that widowhood so painfully borne? What mysteries did the Medina Coeli palace witness, in which Madame des Ursins shut up closely Philip V. from the gaze of every prying eye? Such questions can never now be answered with certainty, for the reports put into circulation in France by Saint Simon and Duclos, in Italy by Poggiali, and in England by Fitz-Maurice, had their common source in the conversations of Alberoni, one of the least scrupulous actors in the drama of the Quadruple Alliance. Did the elderly camerara mayor, already three-score and ten, dare to spread alluring snares wherein to entrap an amorous prince of thirty? And did such tentative, more strange than audacious, succeed to the extent of binding Philip’s conscience in some way? History will never answer the question. Instead, therefore, of hazarding conjectures, it will be well to confine our attention to the well-authenticated political acts of the Princess at this, to her, serious conjuncture.

In losing her royal mistress, the powerful favourite lost along with her the greatest portion of her strength. It was the remote signal which heralded her fall. At the same time it did not appear that her energy had become diminished, or her intelligence clouded, but that her ordinary prudence had abandoned her. Perhaps, having attained such an elevation, she dreaded no further reverse, and believed herself secure enough, in the universal esteem and admiration in which she was held, to venture upon anything. However that might be, as though her brain had grown dizzy, she destroyed with her own hands, not her skilfully raised political edifice, but the structure of her individual fortunes.

Her first imprudence was to attack the Spanish Inquisition. Spain was not then ripe for that reform accomplished only a century later. Much less, as it appears to us, should Madame des Ursins, under the influence of a preconceived religious opinion, with the object of strengthening the royal authority, have attempted its sudden suppression. Far be it from us, certainly, to think of defending the Spanish Inquisition. But it cannot be denied that that institution had vigorously defended Philip V., and in the eyes of the people was part and parcel, as it were, of Spain itself. It seemed as though French ideas alone demanded such a reform, and hence popular suspicion was excited. The Princess failed in her attempt; but she had voluntarily created for herself a host of enemies, who from that moment laboured to effect her ruin.

We have already said that, cherishing the hope of obtaining for herself an independent sovereignty, the difficulties arising from her pretensions had delayed the conclusion of the treaty of peace. Louis XIV. was indignant at finding his negotiations fettered and himself involved in an unavoidable opposition to the wishes of his grandson. As for Madame de Maintenon, whether the interests of France, compromised by these delays, had alone provoked her resistance, or whether, as Saint Simon declares, that that independent sovereignty which she herself felt was so little beyond her reach offended her pride by making her feel the distance between their several ranks and births, she opposed the desire of her old friend, and peace was concluded by the authority of Louis XIV. But the King had a grudge against the Princess for having driven him to such extremity. Besides, just then his own dynasty had been fatally stricken. The Duke of Burgundy and his eldest son, the Duke of Brittany, had died. The heir to the throne was an infant only three years old. The Court foresaw the Regency of the Duke of Orleans, a personal enemy of Madame des Ursins, and it was dangerous, by leaving her at the head of affairs in Spain, to prepare, probably, for the future a disastrous rivalry.

The storm thus darkened thickly over the head of this imperious woman, who, supported against her enemies so long as she had been useful, was subject to the common law of favourites, and began to totter when she appeared no longer so. One resource remained to her—to remarry Philip V. She was anxious to find a consort who could replace in her interests Marie Louise, and restore her waning influence. Her incertitude was great: she felt truly that in spite of past services her future fate depended upon her choice. At length she cast her eyes upon Elizabeth Farnese, daughter of the last Duke of Parma, and niece of the then existent Duke, and thought that gratitude for such an extraordinary turn of fortune would for ever secure the attachment of a princess who, without her influence, could never have had pretensions to such an union. But she was anxious to ascertain whether Elizabeth Farnese was one of those who would submit to be ruled, and she opened her mind upon the subject to a man then obscure but afterwards celebrated—Alberoni, who had been sent as consular agent from Parma to Madrid. He had frequent conversations with the great favourite, and readily succeeded in insinuating himself into her good graces. He described the Princess of Parma as simple minded, religious, ignorant of the world from which she had always lived secluded—in short, perfectly fitting to forward the design of the Princess. In making such statements he reckoned at the same time upon pleasing his own Court, and bringing about the fall of Madame des Ursins; for he knew well that Elizabeth, whose character was very different from that which he had represented, 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.