Kings, you know, don’t get married like common folks: they don’t do their own courting nor even their own marrying: they _send_. A deputy woos the maiden by power of attorney. He puts the ring on her finger; the priest pronounces them man and wife; and then she is the spouse not of that man but of another one whom she has never seen. Etiquette then requires not that the bridegroom go forth to meet the bride, but that she come to him. But mark the often result:--Henry VIII. married Anne of Cleves on the faith of a portrait by Holbein which flattered her. She was brought to England. When Henry came to lay eyes on her he swore they had sent him a big Flanders mare. George IV. while Regent married Caroline of Brunswick. He sent Harris Earl of Malmsbury to stand in his place at the altar, and to bring her to England. Malmsbury in his memoirs, says he foresaw trouble from the beginning. The princess was good looking and good tempered, but her want of personal neatness was beyond belief. When he presented her to the Regent she kneeled. He raised her up and kissed her; and then turning to Malmsbury, whispered: Harris for God’s sake get me some brandy! Barcelona taken, Berwick sent the fleet to Genoa, and Elizabeth was brought to Spain. As she approached Madrid, Philip and the Princess of Orsini went out together to meet her. She greeted her husband with marks of affection, but looked askance at his companion. Not long after, the Princess was suddenly seized, thrown into a carriage, and conveyed to the French frontier and dismissed with the injunction never again to set foot in Spain. Louis XIV. was incensed at this treatment of his faithful agent; but that Farnese girl was no subject of his, and she snapped her fingers at him. Philip and Elizabeth managed to live together; but whenever he desired to say his soul was his own, he took care to say it privately to his confessor. Alberoni was rewarded by being made prime minister of Spain. In 1715 Louis XIV. died after the longest reign in history. He was king at five and died at seventy-seven. He outlived his oldest son and his oldest grandson and was succeeded by his great-grandson Louis XV. another boy of five. Louis had made a will leaving in effect the regency during the minority, to the Duke du Maine his son by Madame de Montespan and the best beloved of his children; but Du Maine was immediately confronted by a spirit more potent than his own, in the person of Philip of Orleans, Louis’ nephew, a prince whom Louis had feared more than he had loved. It was this Philip who had led the household troops at Neerwinden. He had married Du Maine’s sister, but he pushed him aside and seized the regency as his birthright. Though his private morals were deplorable he governed France with vigor and ability till the majority of Louis XV.