contented himself with sending the Cardinal del Guidice to his grandfather, whilst Madame des Ursins employed with the same monarch the customary influence of Madame de Maintenon. The latter, in fact, so the Marquis de Saint Philippe tells us, made excuses for Madame des Ursins to Louis XIV., and the other advocate of the Court of Madrid obtained the order for the march of the troops destined for the siege of Barcelona, whose success, looked upon as certain, ought likewise to render the Austrians more disposed to treat upon the question of her principality. But that was not the only expedient employed by Madame des Ursins. The English ambassador, Lord Lexington, besides Gibraltar and Port Mahon, relied upon obtaining for the English a free trade in the brandies of Tarragon; this the Princess conceded to him. He desired also that they might be allowed to construct, upon the River de la Plata, a fort for their protection, and as a depot for negroes, in order that in future they might alone supply the Spanish colonies with slaves: this monopoly was also accorded. In return, Lord Lexington signed a convention with her, in which Queen Anne "_engaged to secure her a sovereignty_."[60] At such price the adhesion of England seemed secured. She reckoned also on obtaining that of Holland by analogous commercial advantages, and, in fact, she obtained them. But how to win back Louis XIV. was the question! For that she had a secret project, which, as she thought, ought to rehabilitate her in that monarch's eyes, in representing her as guided by a love of France more than by vanity. Louis XIV. was not to derive any territorial advantage from the Treaty of Utrecht. But Madame des Ursins was desirous so soon as the cession was made of the said principality of giving it up immediately to that King, in exchange for an equivalent life-interest in Touraine, within French territory. With that view she had a clause inserted in the letters-patent of Philip V., empowering her to alienate during her lifetime that principality in whatever way she chose. Such was her design; and that it had evidently been divined by the sagacious Madame de Maintenon would appear from the following passage in a letter of about that date addressed to the Princess: "Side by side with all your merits, you have _a concealed project_, which, if I guess aright, has got the uppermost of all those qualities."[61] [60] So runs the textual engagement of Queen Anne, taken from the Royal Archives of the Hague, and communicated to M. Geffroy. [61] Lettres de Madame de Maintenon et de Madame des Ursins, tom. ii., pp. 7, 8.