[72] Memoirs of St. Simon, tom. xx., p. 175.
[73] Histoire Secrete de la Cour de Madrid, année 1714, p. 315.
A dispensation from the Pope--for the future Queen was a near relative of Gabrielle of Savoy--had been promptly obtained. Already did the favourite indulge herself with the contemplation of the illimitable prospect of domination which the future seemed to open up for her, when she received more truthful information relative to the character of Elizabeth Farnese. Her letters during the latter part of 1714, notwithstanding their great reserve, reveal a manifest uneasiness, and it is with an ill-concealed emotion that she relates, without precisely detailing them, the contradictory reports which reach her relative to the Princess. It seems impossible to doubt that, during the few months which preceded the arrival of the Princess of Parma, the presence of Madame des Ursins had not become a torment to the Spanish King, and that he had not secretly lent his hand to a _coup d'état_ carried out subsequently with a barbarous determination by his new consort. It was, in fact, by showing to the officers of the guard a plenary power from the King that Elizabeth triumphed over their hesitation, and that she secured their assistance in the execution of a measure which perhaps would have been less cruel if it had been more sanguinary; but if, since the death of Marie Louise of Savoy, the relations of the King of Spain with Madame des Ursins had assumed an obscure character, the active intervention of the latter in the second marriage of that Prince at least excludes the idea that she could have dreamed of a royal position for herself, as her enemies accused her. Granted that the Abbé Alberoni may have transformed the most ambitious princess in Europe into "a jolly _Parmesane_ fattened upon cheese and butter,"[74] and that the habitual circumspection of Madame des Ursins did not protect her against the clumsiness of such a snare may be true, however unlikely; but it is at least doubtful that the _camerara mayor_ could have cherished such illusion when she presented herself for the first time before the new Queen at the interview at Xadraque.
[74] "Questo abbate pur freddamente, e come a mezza voce la nomino, aggiugnendo per altro, ch'ella era una buona Lombarda, impastata da buttero et fromagio picentino, elevata alla casalingua, ed avezza di non sentirsi di altro parlare che di mertelli ricami e tele."--_Memorie Istoriche_ di Poggiali, p. 279.