Here we must retrace our steps, and consider Queen Christina's motives in sacrificing what remained to her of prestige and popularity in her adopted country, to assist, through thick and thin, by deceit, subterfuge, and treachery, the ambitious and encroaching views of her French uncle. There was a time--it is now long past--when no name was more loved and respected by the whole Spanish nation, excluding of course the Carlist party, than that of Maria Christina de Borbon. She so frankly identified herself with the country in which marriage fixed her lot, that in becoming a Spanish queen she had apparently become a Spanish woman; and, in spite of her Neapolitan birth, she speedily conquered the good-will of her subjects. Thousands of political exiles, restored to home and family by amnesties of her promotion, invoked blessings on her head: the great majority of the nation, anxious to see Spain governed mildly and constitutionally, not despotically and tyrannically, hailed in her the good genius who was to accord them their desires. Her real character was not yet seen through; with true Bourbon dissimulation she knew how to veil her vices. She had the credit also of being a tender and unselfish parent, ever ready to sacrifice herself to the interests of her children. Her egotism was as yet unsuspected, her avarice dormant, her sensuality unrevealed; and none then dreamed that a day would come, when, impelled by the meanest and most selfish motives, she would urge her weeping daughter into the arms of a detested and incompetent bridegroom.