During the infancy of the Queen, Spain was the prey of unceasing party dissensions; Don Carlos again and again trying to overthrow her government, and again and again being driven a fugitive over the Pyrenees; while the Queen Regent, who was secretly married to her Chamberlain, the son of a tobacconist in Madrid, was bringing disgrace and odium upon the Liberal party which she was supposed to lead. In 1843 the Cortes declared that the Queen had attained her majority. Her disgraced mother was driven out of the country and Isabella II. ascended her throne. Isabella had a younger sister, Maria Louisa, and in 1846 the double marriage of these two children was celebrated with great splendor at Madrid. The Queen was married to her cousin Don Francisco d'Assisi, and her sister to the Duke de Montpensier, fifth son of Louis Philippe. [Illustration: From the painting by J. Siguenza y Chavarrieta. The Duke de la Torre sworn in as Regent before the Cortes of 1869.] If, upon the birth of Liberalism in Spain, that kingdom could have been governed by a wise and competent sovereign, the concluding chapters of this narrative might have been very different. No time could have been less favorable for a radical change in policy than the period during which Isabella II. was Queen of Spain. Personally she was all that a woman and a Queen should not be. With apparently not an exalted desire or ambition for her country, this depraved daughter of a depraved mother pursued her downward course until 1868, when the nation would bear no more. A revolution broke out. Isabella, with her three children, fled to France and there was once more a vacant throne in Spain. The hopes of the Carlists ran high. But the Cortes came to an unexpected decision. They would have no Spanish Bourbon, be he Carlist or Liberal. The reigning dynasty in Italy was at this moment the adored of the Liberals in Europe. So they offered the Crown to Amadeo, second son of Victor Emmanuel, King of Italy. Three years were quite sufficient for this experiment. The young Amadeo was as glad to take off his crown and to leave his kingdom, as the people were to have him do so. He abdicated in 1873. The Liberal party had been regretting their loss of opportunity in 1870. France had passed through many political phases in the last few years, and the present French Republic had just come into existence. Again Spain caught the contagion from her neighbor, and Spanish Liberalism became _Spanish Republicanism_.