There is every reason to believe that _Luis’s_ amorous dispatches had their due effect for some weeks, and that his royal mistress lived almost exclusively upon their contents. Yet time was working a sad revolution in the fortunes of the banished lover. Manuel grew every day more interesting, and the letters less so, till the faithless confidant became the most _amusing_ of mortals to the Princess, and consequently a favourite with her good-natured husband. The death of the old King had now removed every obstacle to the Queen’s gallantries, and Manuel Godoy was rapidly advanced to the highest honours of the state, and the first ranks of the army. But the new sovereign did not yet feel quite easy upon the throne; and the dying King’s recommendation of his favourite Floridablanca, by prolonging that minister’s power, still set some bounds to the Queen’s caprices. Charles IV., though perfectly under his wife’s control, could not be prevailed upon to dismiss an old servant of his father without any assignable reason; and some respect for public opinion, a feeling which seldom fails to cast a transient gleam of hope on the first days of every reign, obliged the Queen herself to employ other means than a mere act of her will in the ruin of the premier. He might, however, have preserved his place for some time, and been allowed to retire with his honours, had not his jealousy of the rising Godoy induced him to oppose the tide of favour which was now about to raise that young man to a Grandeeship of the first class. To provide for the splendour of that elevated rank, the Queen had induced her husband to bestow upon Godoy a princely estate, belonging to the crown, from which he was to take the title of the Duke de la Alcúdia. Floridablanca, either from principle, or some less honourable motive, thought it necessary to oppose this grant as illegal; and having induced the King to consult the Council of Castille upon that point, endeavoured to secure an answer agreeable to his wishes, by means of a letter to his friend the Count Cifuentes. Most unluckily for the minister, before this letter arrived from San Ildefonso, where the court was at that time, the president was seized with a mortal complaint, and the dispatches falling into the hands of his substitute Cañada, were secretly transmitted to the Queen. It is needless to add, that the report of the council was favourable, that Godoy was made Duke de la Alcúdia, and that both he and the Queen were now wholly bent upon their opposer’s ruin.