Ferdinand died; and, as he had often predicted--comparing himself to the cork of a bottle of beer, which restrains the fermented liquor--at his death civil war broke out. Isabella was still an infant; the first thing to be done was to secure her the crown; and for the time, naturally enough, few thought about her marriage. Queen Christina was an exception. She apparently remembered and respected her husband's wishes; and in her conversations and correspondence with her sister, Luisa Carlota, wife of the Infante Don Francisco de Paulo, she frequently referred to them, and expressed a strong desire for their fulfilment. In the month of June of the present year, a Madrid newspaper, the _Clamor Publico_, published a letter of hers, written most strongly in that sense. It bears date the 23d of January 1836, and is the reply to one from Doña Luisa Carlota, in which reference was made to conversations between the two sisters and Ferdinand, respecting the marriage of his daughters to the sons of Don Francisco. "The idea has always flattered my heart," Christina wrote, "and I would fain see its realisation near at hand; for it was the wish and will of the beloved Ferdinand, which I will ever strive to fulfil in all that depends on me. * * * Besides which, I believe that the national representation, far from opposing, will approve these marriages, as advantageous not only to our family, but to the nation itself, your sons being Spanish princes. I will not fail to propose it when the moment arrives." Notwithstanding these fair promises, and her respect for the wishes of Ferdinand the well-beloved, we find Christina, less than two years later, negotiating for her royal daughter a very different alliance. Irritated, on the one hand, against the Liberal party, to whose demands she had been compelled to yield; and alarmed, upon the other, at the progress of the Carlist armies, which were marching upon Madrid, then defended only by the national guards, she treated with Don Carlos for a marriage between the Queen and his eldest son. The Carlists were driven back to their mountain strongholds, and, the pressing danger over--although the war still continued with great fury--that project of alliance was shelved, and another, a very important one, broached. It was proposed to marry the Queen of Spain to an archduke of Austria, who should command the Spanish army, and to whom Christina expressed herself willing to give a share of the Regency, or even to yield it entirely. This was the motive of the mission of Zea Bermudez to Vienna. That envoy stipulated, as an indispensable condition of the success of his negotiations, that they should be kept a profound secret from the King of the French. The condition was not observed. Christina herself, it is said, unable to keep any thing from her dear uncle, told him all, and Bermudez had to leave Vienna almost before the matter in hand had been entered upon. Thereupon the queen-mother reverted to the marriage with a