It was not long before Madame de Maintenon began to feel impatient at the long-delayed departure of Madame des Ursins.  She spoke at last upon the subject, and pressed Madame des Ursins to set out for Spain.  This was just what the other wanted.  She said that as she had been driven out of Spain like a criminal, she must go back with honour, if Madame de Maintenon wished her to gain the confidence and esteem of the Spaniards.  That although she had been treated by the King with every consideration and goodness, many people in Spain were, and would be, ignorant of it, and that, therefore, her return to favour ought to be made known in as public and convincing a manner as was her disgrace.  This was said with all that eloquence and persuasiveness for which Madame des Ursins was remarkable.  The effect of it exceeded her hopes.

The favours she obtained were prodigious.  Twenty thousand livres by way of annual pension, and thirty thousand for her journey.  One of her brothers, M. de Noirmoutiers, blind since the age of eighteen or twenty, was made hereditary duke; another, the Abbe de la Tremoille, of exceeding bad life, and much despised in Rome, where he lived, was made cardinal.  What a success was this!  How many obstacles had to be overcome in order to attain it!  Yet this was what Madame des Ursins obtained, so anxious was Madame de Maintenon to get rid of her and to send her to reign in Spain, that she might reign there herself.  Pleased and loaded with favour as never subject was before, Madame des Ursins set out towards the middle of July, and was nearly a month on the road.  It may be imagined what sort of a reception awaited her in Spain.  The King and the Queen went a day’s journey out of Madrid to meet her.  Here, then, we see again at the height of power this woman, whose fall the King but a short time since had so ardently desired, and whose separation from the King and Queen of Spain he had applauded himself for bringing about with so much tact.  What a change in a few months!

The war continued this year, but without bringing any great success to our arms.  Villars, at Circk, outmanoeuvred Marlborough in a manner that would have done credit to the greatest general.  Marlborough, compelled to change the plan of campaign he had determined on, returned into Flanders, where the Marechal de Villeroy was stationed with his forces.  Nothing of importance occurred during the campaign, and the two armies went into winter quarters at the end of October.

I cannot quit Flanders without relating another instance of the pleasant malignity of M. de Lauzun.  In marrying a daughter of the Marechal de Lorges, he had hoped, as I have already said, to return into the confidence of the King by means of the Marechal, and so be again entrusted with military command.  Finding these hopes frustrated, he thought of another means of reinstating himself in favour.  He determined to go to the waters of Aix-la-Chapelle, not, as may