of a king of Spain made it impossible for him to believe ill of one who stood toward him in such a relation. Never for a moment was he known to swerve in his loyalty. Of all supposed facts in history, scandal about women was the commonest and least to be trusted. Queen Luisa’s character may have been good, notwithstanding the gossip of diplomats and courtiers; but her real or supposed vices, and her influence over the King had much to do with the fate of Louisiana. Sooner or later, no doubt, Louisiana must have become a part of the American Union; but if court intrigues had little to do with actual results, they had, at least in Spain, everything to do with the way in which results were reached. At the court of Madrid the Queen was, in some respects, more influential than the King, and a man who was supposed to be one of the Queen’s old lovers exercised the real authority of both. In the year 1792 King Charles, then in his forty-fifth year, suddenly raised to the post of his prime minister a simple gentleman of his guard, Don Manuel Godoy, barely twenty-five years old. The scandalous chronicle of the court averred that two of the Queen’s children bore on their faces incontrovertible evidence of their relation to Godoy. From 1792 until 1798 he was prime minister; he conducted a war with France, and made a treaty which procured for him the remarkable title of the Principe de la Paz,--the Prince of Peace. In 1798 he retired from office, but retained his personal favor. In 1800 he was not a minister, nor did even the scandal-mongers then charge him with improper relations with the Queen, for all were agreed that the Queen had found another lover. The stories of the palace were worthy of Saint-Simon. The King himself was far from refined in manners or conversation, and gave even to his favors some of the roughness of insults. If a servant suffered from any personal infirmity, he was forced to hear cruel derision from the King’s lips; while the commonest of royal jokes was to slap courtiers and grooms on the back with a violence that brought tears into their eyes, followed by shouts of royal laughter and by forced smiles from the victim. This roughness of manner was not confined to the King. Most of the stories told about the Queen would not bear repeating, and, whether true or false, reflected the rottenness of a society which could invent or believe them; but among the many tales echoed by the gentlemen and ladies who were nearest her chamber was one worthy of Gil Blas, and as such was officially reported to Talleyrand and Bonaparte. The Queen’s favorite in the year 1800 was a certain Mallo, whom she was said to have enriched, and who, according to the women of the bed-chamber, beat her Majesty in return as though she were any common Maritornes. One day in that year, when the Prince of Peace had come to San Ildefonso to pay his respects to the King, and as usual was having his interview in the Queen’s presence, Charles