Yes, within the last few weeks, wondering Europe has witnessed a strange spectacle. A queen and her sister, children in years and understanding, have been wedded--the former completely against her inclinations, the latter in direct opposition to the wishes and interests of her country, and in defiance of stern remonstrance and angry protest from allied and powerful states--to most unsuitable bridegrooms. The queen, Isabella of Spain, has, it is true, a Spaniard for her husband; and him, therefore, her jealous and suspicious subjects tolerate, though they cannot approve. Feeble and undecided of character, unstable in his political opinions--if, indeed, political opinions he have other than are supplied to him, ready formed, by insidious and unworthy advisers--Don Francisco de Assis is the last man to sit on the right hand of a youthful queen, governing an unsettled country and a restless people, to inspire her with energy and assist her with wise counsels. It redounds little to the honour of the name of Bourbon, that if it was essential the Queen should marry a member of that house, her present husband was, with perhaps one exception, as eligible a candidate as could be selected. That marriage decided upon, however, it became doubly important to secure for the Infanta Luisa--the future Queen of Spain should her sister die without issue--a husband in all respects desirable; and, above all, one agreeable to the Spanish nation. Has this been done? What advantages does the husband of the girl of fourteen, of the heir-presumptive to the Spanish crown, bring to Spain, in exchange for the rich dowery of his child-bride--for the chance, not to say the probability, of being a queen's husband--and for an immense accession of influence to his dynasty in the country where that dynasty most covets it? The advantages are all of a negative kind. By that marriage, Spain, delivered over to French intrigues, exposed to the machinations and vampire-like endearments of an ancient and hereditary foe, becomes _de facto_ a vassal to her puissant neighbour. The question of the Queen of Spain's marriage was first mooted within a very few days after her birth. In the spring of 1830, Queen Christina found herself with child for the first time; and her husband, Ferdinand VII., amongst whose many bad and unkingly qualities want of foresight could not be reckoned, published the Pragmatic Sanction that secured the crown to his offspring should it prove a girl. A girl it was; and scarcely had the infant been baptised, when her father began to think of a husband for her. "She shall be married," he said, "to a son of my brother Francisco." By and by Christina bore a second daughter, and then the King said--"They shall be married to the two eldest sons of my brother Francisco."