Political Women, Vol. 2

by active 1840-1883 Sutherland Menzies

CHAPTER I.

THE PRINCESS DES URSINS—HER DELICATE AND PERILOUS POSITION.

Madame des Ursins had long continued fearlessly to face the storm that growled all around her, and by degrees the horizon showed signs of clearing. As it often happens in the course of human affairs, the occupation of the capital by the enemy had an effect contrary to that which it was very natural to expect. The allies, who had entered Madrid as conquerors, found within that city none of the elements necessary for the definitive establishment of the Archduke who was proclaimed amidst a chilling silence. If the grandees almost to a man evinced their sympathy for the House of Austria, if the staff of the administration and the personal machinery of all the public departments, remained at their posts at the price of an oath which did not seem to cost more in those days than at present, the populace of Madrid showed an aversion to the foreigners which soon manifested itself in numerous assassinations. How could it be otherwise than that the ancient soil of Castile should heave on finding itself trampled on by the partisans of a loyalty hailed with acclamation at Saragossa and Barcelona; on witnessing those outbursts of insolent triumph on the part of the Portuguese, who, in the eyes of every Spaniard, were still rebels; and the contemptuous phlegm of Lord Galloway’s army, commanded, as it was, by a heretic condottiere? Outside the official spheres, the isolation was therefore complete, and during that three months’ crisis the errant royalty of Philip V., represented by his courageous consort, struck indestructible roots in the hearts of his subjects. The northern shores and the great province of Andalusia, joining to those divers motives the hatred with which England inspired the maritime population, resolutely declared for the House of Bourbon, to such an extent that, beyond the territories of the ancient realm of Arragon, the moral conquest of the kingdom was very nearly consummated, despite the foreign occupation, and through the effect of that very same occupation. The position of the foreigners at Madrid had never been anything else than provisory; and it was with transports of joy that the Anglo-Portuguese troops were seen to hastily evacuate the capital on the approach of another French army, which advanced through Navarre under the command of the Duke of Berwick.[54] Philip V. was soon able to re-enter Madrid as a liberator, and a galleon from Mexico brought him most opportunely a million of crowns. On the 25th of April, 1707, Berwick completely defeated the allies near Almanza, and the Duke of Orleans covered himself with glory by the capture of Lerida, which had previously resisted the great Condé.

The influence of Madame des Ursins became greatly enhanced after these unhoped-for successes, and both Philip V. and the cabinet of Versailles equally testified their gratitude to her. She had manifested an inflexible devotedness in the midst of reverses, and adversity had taken its full measure of her. Never, throughout the course of her chequered career, had Madame des Ursins shown more activity than during the six months which intervened between the return of the Court to Madrid and the battle of Almanza. Her position was as delicate as it was perilous. It was necessary to stigmatise flagrant defections, but without driving anyone altogether to desperation. She profited by the confidence she had won to bring about happily an important reform. Spain, composed of divers kingdoms successively annexed, had not yet attained unity. More than ever, after the experiences of 1706, was seen the necessity of a centralisation which should re-unite in the hands of the new dynasty the entire strength of the government, which should extinguish injurious rivalries between province and province, which should facilitate administrative relations, and allow of an equal action in the different parts of the monarchy. Each kingdom hitherto had had its laws, its customs, its constitution (fueros). Already in 1705 certain restrictions had been imposed by Castile upon Arragon: no more dared be attempted. The battle of Almanza and the successes of 1707 inspired still further energy. In the council, the party of Madame des Ursins, leaning on the assent of Berwick, overcame the opposition of Montellano and the friends of the old system; and the pragmatic sanction, or constitution of Castile, became the sole law of Spain.

The victory of Almanza was, in fact, the last service rendered to Philip V. by his native country. From that day forward, France, menaced upon its frontiers, constrained to appropriate all its resources to its own safety, became an obstacle and a permanent peril to Spain. The former compromised the Spanish monarchy by its military operations, and far more gravely still by its diplomatic negotiations. In this new phase, signalised by the almost constant antagonism of the two courts, the position of Madame des Ursins was one of the most critical nature; but we are about to see her, with her habitual rectitude of judgment, take unhesitatingly the part alike dictated by honour as by sound policy.

It was at this juncture that the gravity of events determined Louis XIV. upon being represented in Spain by his nephew, the Duke of Orleans. That prince, in two campaigns, had subdued the kingdom of Valentia and the greatest part of Arragon, after taking fortresses in Catalonia hitherto deemed impregnable. Inspired by the ambition of the chief of his race, he had made his military services subservient to the extension of monarchical authority, and had solemnly abolished, in the name of Philip V. in Arragon, the anarchical privileges which weakened the royal power without efficaciously strengthening the liberties of Spain. Distrusted by those he came ostensibly to defend, and, from the first, an object of suspicion to Madame des Ursins, still the correspondence of the Princess with Madame de Maintenon and the Maréchale de Noailles from April, 1707, to November, 1708, the date of the duke’s departure, shows that the relations of the latter with the camerara-mayor were for a long time maintained on the best footing, the dissolute habits of the Duke of Orleans proving less disgusting to Madame des Ursins than the accuracy of his insight into public affairs appears to have charmed her. The rupture of this good understanding, which, however, took place silently, was one among other results greatly to be regretted of the dark intrigue into which certain obscure agents momentarily led astray the ambition of Anne of Austria’s grandson—a machination the more disastrous to the prince, whose honour it impugned, than to the King of Spain, who received no injury from it during the Duke of Orleans’ sojourn within his territories; the movements of Flotte and Renault, his emissaries, having only assumed some small degree of importance after his departure.

It is a knotty point of history altogether; but the fact is clear that the Duke was the centre of the faction opposed to the Princess, and that around him were banded those with whom she had either clashed or whom she had overcome. The moment was badly chosen for intriguing; to save the state should have been the sole aim of the Duke of Orleans. The allies, for an instant discouraged after Almanza, had not lost all hope. Their successes in Italy and in Germany soon consoled them for that reverse, and their armies became once more menacing. It was then that the Duke of Orleans, it is said, conceived the hope, if not of governing all Spain, at least of obtaining the kingdoms of Murcia, Valentia, and Navarre. He himself avowed later to the Duke de Saint-Simon that, seeing Philip V. tottering, “he had allowed himself to indulge the hope of being put in his place;” hence his double-faced conduct and strange manœuvres. He might not have been willing, doubtless, to pull down the King of Spain with his own hand, but he did not, of course, steadfastly desire a triumph which marred his own fortunes. That which, however, may be affirmed with certainty is, that he maintained with different foreign generals, among others with the Earl of Stanhope, very suspicious negotiations; that he designedly did all he could to impede the progress of the Spanish Government, and seemed, in all he did, solely concerned in not overstepping that loosely-defined line at which treason begins. However that might be, Madame des Ursins, strenuously opposed to the policy which the Duke of Orleans desired to see prevail, and moreover scarcely able to endure the hostile attitude of that Prince, demanded his recall and obtained it.

After his departure she pursued him in the persons of his two agents, Renault and Flotte, whom she had arrested. As for his friend, Marshal de Bezons, whose hasty retreat upon the banks of the Segra excited the indignation of the Spanish court, he lost his command. She even denounced the Duke of Orleans to his royal uncle, and the erring nephew had very great difficulty in escaping a scandalous trial. He was forced, therefore, to renounce his ambitious hopes with regard to Spain, if ever he had seriously nourished them. Such an exposure, rendered his return to the Peninsula impossible. His faction was speedily dispersed. One of the noblemen with whom he had had very intimate relations, the Duke of Medina-Cœli, minister for foreign affairs and head of the grandee party, was suddenly arrested and taken to the Castle of Segovia. Whether, as Saint Simon intimates, it was that “weary of the yoke of Madame des Ursins, he desired pointer de son chef,” whether that, favourable to the Duke of Orleans, perhaps even to the allies, he had voluntarily caused the failure of the expedition which the Spanish government meditated against Sardinia, or whether he had dreamed of an anti-French reaction, he ended his days in a state prison.

Whilst the government of Philip V., was working its way very laboriously through that maze of conspiracies and intrigues, the allies regained the ground which Almanza had lost them. “Despite all the efforts of Madame des Ursins,” wrote the Chevalier du Bourk, her agent, at Versailles, “matters are going badly at Madrid.” France, discouraged and weighed down, moreover by its own reverses, seemed no longer able to defend Philip V.; Louis XIV., whatever might have been his secret intentions, was not willing to appear to support his grandson; the Austrians thoroughly defeated Philip at Saragossa. The severe winter of 1709 had brought the general distress to a climax; and the Archduke Charles made his entrance into Madrid. The court of Versailles became terror-stricken. Madame de Maintenon, outwearied with this everlasting strife, changed the tone of her letters to a cold and sometimes ironic vein. She went so far as to say to the Princess, “It is not agreeable to us here that women should busy themselves with state affairs.”[55] Louis XIV., himself, advised his grandson to abandon Spain in order to keep Italy.

Madame des Ursins had thus to choose between the French policy, imposed upon Louis XIV. by cruel necessity, and the Spanish policy, for which Philip V. was resolved to die. On one hand, the young mother, who had just confided to her care an infant son she had conceived in anguish, appealed most touchingly to her attachment and courage; on the other, Madame de Maintenon, whose sole solicitude was to insure repose to Louis XIV., by plucking out one after another all the thorns from his crown, reminded her that she was born a Frenchwoman, and that she owed too much to the Great King to arrogate to herself the right of contradicting him. A subject of Louis XIV., did she dare combat at Madrid the plans decided upon at Versailles? The governess of the heir to the crown of Spain, could she concur by her advice in despoiling the infant whose first caresses she was receiving? Madame des Ursins could only escape by a prompt departure from the difficulties of such an alternative. Incontestable facts prove that she so understood her position, and that she was fully determined to quit Spain towards the close of 1709; but the despair of the Queen, the state of whose health at that time gave but too serious grounds for alarm, alone hindered her from following out a project which promised more flattering results than any other in the deep depression into which the resolves of France had plunged her.