Madame des Ursins was then immediately arrested, and put into a coach with one of her waiting-women, without having had time to change her costume or her head-dress, to take any precaution against the cold, to provide herself with any money or other things, and without any kind of refreshment in the coach, or a chemise; nothing, in fact, to change or to sleep in!  She was shipped off thus (with two officers of the guard; who were ready as soon as the coach), in full Court dress, just as she left the Queen.  In the very short and tumultuous interval which elapsed, she sent a message to the Queen, who flew into a fresh passion upon not being obeyed, and made her set out immediately.

It was then nearly seven o’clock in the evening, two days before Christmas, the ground all covered with snow and ice, and the cold extreme and very sharp and bitter, as it always is in Spain.  As soon as the Queen learned that the Princesse des Ursins was out of Quadraque, she wrote to the King of Spain, by an officer of the guards whom she despatched to Guadalaxara.  The night was so dark that it was only by means of the snow that anything could be seen.

It is not easy to represent the state of Madame des Ursins in the coach.  An excess of astonishment and bewilderment prevailed at first, and suspended all other sentiment; but grief, vexation, rage, and despair, soon followed.  In their turn succeeded sad and profound reflections upon a step so violent, so unheard-of, and so unjustifiable as she thought.  Then she hoped everything from the friendship of the King of Spain and his confidence in her; pictured his anger and surprise, and those of the group of attached servitors, by whom she had surrounded him, and who would be so interested in exciting the King in her favour.  The long winter’s night pissed thus; the cold was, terrible, there was nothing to ward it off; the coachman actually lost the use of one hand.  The morning advanced; a halt was necessary in order to bait the horses; as for the travellers there is nothing for them ever in the Spanish inns.  You are simply told where each thing you want is sold.  The meat is ordinarily alive; the wine, thick, flat, and strong; the bread bad; the water is often worthless; as to beds, there are some, but only for the mule-drivers, so that you must carry everything with you, and neither Madame des Ursins nor those with her had anything whatever.  Eggs, where they could find any, were their sole resource; and these, fresh or not, simply boiled, supported them during all the journey.

Until this halt for the horses, silence had been profound and uninterrupted; now it was broken.  During all this long night the Princesse des Ursins had had leisure to think upon the course she should adopt, and to compose her face.  She spoke of her extreme surprise, and of the little that had passed between her and the Queen.  In like manner the two officers of the guard accustomed, as was all Spain, to fear