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Porto-Carrero was the turn-coat from every cause: as a politician he was annihilated. In this affair, Cardinal d'Estrées had been, without knowing it, the tool of Madame des Ursins. "He was," according to Saint Simon, "a hot, hasty, impetuous, high-handed man, who could tolerate neither superior nor equal."
They had fully triumphed over their enemy, and were on the point of seeing her leave France for ever, without hope in Spain. Until now, Madame des Ursins amused by a residue of friends, increased by those of M. de Noirmoutiers with whom she lodged and who had money, had gently occupied herself with the arrangement of her affairs, changed as they were, and in withdrawing her effects from Spain.
In this first embarrassment Madame des Ursins, although completely unknown to the King, and but little known to the Queen, was of great service to both. Upon arriving at Figueras, the bishop diocesan married them anew, with little ceremony, and soon after they sat down to supper, waited upon by the Princesse des Ursins and the ladies of the palace, half the dishes being French, half Spanish.
No one had forgotten in Spain what Madame des Ursins had done to get rid of Louville, how the King of Spain had resisted; that she was not able to succeed without the aid of France and her intrigues with Madame de Maintenon; and that the King, afflicted to the utmost, yielding to the orders given by France to Louville, had doubled the pensions which had for a long time been paid to him, given him a sum of money in addition, and the government of Courtray, which he lost only by the misfortune of the war that followed the loss of the battle of Ramillies.
As for Madame des Ursins, he soon found a change in her manner. She endeavoured that everything should fail that passed through his hands. There are some wounds that can never be healed; and it must be admitted that the Duke's toast inflicted one especially of that sort. He felt this; did not attempt any reconciliation; and followed his usual course.
Our King showed not the least surprise at the news brought to him by a courier despatched from Guadalaxara by the Duc de Saint-Aignan, though all the Court was filled with emotion and affright after having seen Madame des Ursins so triumphant.
Madame des Ursins was less exclusively and more truly devoted to Spain, without failing in her devotion to France.
Louis XIV. was not to derive any territorial advantage from the Treaty of Utrecht. But Madame des Ursins was desirous so soon as the cession was made of the said principality of giving it up immediately to that King, in exchange for an equivalent life-interest in Touraine, within French territory.
Madame des Ursins displayed all her wit and charms at Rome; and soon her palace became a sort of court, where all the best company assembled. It grew to be the fashion to go there. The husband amidst all this counts for not much. There was sometimes a little disagreement between the two, without open rupture; yet they were now and then glad to separate.
And so Saint Simon ought to have seen, instead of representing the triumph obtained by Madame des Ursins at Versailles as the inexplicable effect of a species of sudden fascination. That victory suddenly transformed her who was but a short time previously an accused person into "a court divinity."
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