Happily, Duclos is merely in this the servile copyist of a Spanish author, whose contradictions and bad feeling it would be very easy to expose. He has reproduced word for word the version to be found in the _Memoires sur l'Espagne_, printed as a sequel to the letters of Fitz-Maurice. What! to make a simple corridor from one apartment to another, nothing less was required than to demolish an entire monastery, large as they were, in Spain especially, with its church and everything devoted to its religious purposes, and the dwellings of the monks? And Saint Simon knew nothing of all this? For, had he known it, most assuredly he would not have failed to fling it in the face of Madame des Ursins. That the Marquis de Saint Philippe, who was upon the spot, a man so religious, and who could not endure Madame des Ursins, should say not one word, without fear of derogating from his customary gravity, of that impious scandal, of such a Vandalism as had revolted all Madrid! We think that if M. Duclos had better informed himself upon the point and of the source whence he derived it, he, too, would have complained of exaggeration, and would not have given it out as a fact. The part played by Madame des Ursins would assuredly have been grander if she had herself renounced the regal boon proffered by Philip V., as soon as it promised to be an obstacle to the pacification of Europe; if she had preferred the general good to her own particular advantage, and sustained her lofty character to the end, she would have preserved by so doing the prestige of grandeur and disinterestedness which had constantly surrounded her. A love of power would have been pardoned in her, always foreign to considerations of personal advantage; and, as ambition, like other human passions, may become a source of crime, though it is not itself a crime, in her case it would have been praised, because she would have unceasingly shunned the vanity which lessens it, the self-interest which debases it, and that continual recurrence to egotism which travesties it in intrigue. But she failed to crown her career by that true glory. Seeing the King and Queen of Spain very much offended at the retrograde step of Louis XIV., she further irritated them by her peevish attitude and marked discontent. The Marquis de Brancas, sent by Louis into Spain, proceeded to represent the articles of the Treaty of Utrecht to Philip V. in such wise as the Emperor and his allies wished them to stand; Philip replied that he would not sign them, unless there was a special clause added in favour of Madame des Ursins. That ambassador returned furious, crying out against the Spanish Government, and especially against Madame des Ursins, who directed everything, he said, and who had played at cross-purposes in order to cause his mission to miscarry. He succeeded in drawing down upon the Court of Madrid the heavy rebuke of Louis XIV. This, however, proved altogether useless; for Philip persisted in his resolution, and