son of Don Carlos. The Conde de Toreno, for a moment weak enough to enter into her views, endeavoured to prepare the public for their disclosure, by announcing in the Cortes, that wars like the one then devastating Spain could only be terminated by a compromise--meaning a marriage. The Cortes thought differently, and, by other means, the war was brought to a close. The year 1840 witnessed the expulsion of Christina from Spain, and the appointment of Espartero to the Regency. During his three years' sway, that general refused to make or meddle in any way with the Queen's marriage. He said, that as she was not to marry till her majority, and as he should then no longer be Regent, his government had no occasion to busy itself with the matter. The friends of Spain have reason to wish that the Duke de la Victoria had shown himself less unassuming and reserved with respect to that most important question. Whilst it was thus temporarily lost sight of at Madrid, the queen-mother, in her retirement at Paris, took counsel with the most wily and far-sighted sovereign of Europe, and from that time must doubtless be dated the plans which Christina and Louis Philippe have at last so victoriously carried out. They had each their own interests in view--their own objects to accomplish--and it so chanced that those interests and objects were easily made to coincide. Concerning those of Christina, we shall presently speak at some length; those of the French king are now so notorious, that it is unnecessary to do more than glance at them. His first plan--a bold one, certainly--was to marry the Queen of Spain to the Duke d'Aumale. To this, Christina did not object. Her affection for her daughter--since then grievously diminished--prompted her to approve the match. The duke was a fine young man, and very rich. To a tender mother--which she claimed to be--the temptation was great. Doubtless, also, she received from Louis Philippe, as price of her concurrence, an assurance that certain private views and arrangements of her own should not to be interfered with--certain guardianship accounts and unworthy peculations not too curiously investigated. Of this, more hereafter. The result of the intrigues and negotiations between the Tuileries and the Hotel de Courcelles, was the diplomatic mission of M. Pageot, who was sent to London and to the principal continental courts, to announce, on the part of the King of the French, that, considering himself the chief of the Bourbon family, he felt called upon to declare that, according to the spirit of the treaty of Utrecht, the Queen of Spain could marry none but a Bourbon prince. The success of this first move, intended as a feeler to see how far he could venture to put forward a son of his own, was not such as to flatter the wishes of the French monarch. The reply of the British government was, that, according to the constitution of Spain, the Cortes must decide who was to be the