Without having risen from the ranks, like Madame de Maintenon, she had reached a less high and less safe elevation; she had been more absolutely and more daringly supreme during the time of her power, and at last she fell with the rudest shock, without any support from Madame de Maintenon.

The pretensions of Madame des Ursins during the negotiations had offended France; "this was the stone of stumbling between the two supreme directresses," says St.Simon; after this attempt at sovereignty, there was no longer the same accord between Madame de Maintenon and Madame des Ursins, but this latter had reached in Spain a point at which she more easily supposed that she could dispense with it.

The Queen of Spain had died at the age of twenty-six, in 1714; did the princess for a moment conceive the hope of marrying Philip V.in spite of the disproportion in rank and age?
Nobody knows; she had already been reigning as sovereign mistress for some months, when she received from the king this stunning command: "Look me out a wife." She obeyed; she looked out.

Alberoni, an Italian priest, brought into Spain by the Duke of Vendome, drew her attention to the Princess of Parma, Elizabeth Farnese.

The principality was small, the princess young; Alberoni laid stress upon her sweetness and modesty.