A marriage with the daughter of the Elector of Bavaria, of a firm ally of Louis XIV. and Philip V., might well be the boon and the bond of an old friendship, but could not procure for Spain any compensation for the sacrifices imposed upon her by the terms of the recent peace. The Princess of Parma, as a guarantee of security, if not of material advantage, did not at the first glance seem more eligible. "Besides that she was the issue of a double bastardy, of a pope on her father's side, of a natural daughter of Charles V. on her mother's side, she was the daughter of a petty duke of Parma and a thoroughly Austrian mother, who was herself the sister of the dowager-empress, of the dowager-queen of Spain, who was so unpopular that she was exiled; and further of the Queen of Portugal, who had persuaded her husband to receive the Archduke at Lisbon, and to carry the war into Spain."[72] On that account such was not an eligible choice for the King of Spain. It was certain, moreover, although Madame des Ursins was unaware of it, that "she was of a haughty disposition, and that she had been brought up at Parma with the same thoroughly French freedom which reigned at Turin."[73] But by her uncle, the reigning Duke of Parma, who had no children, and was no longer of an age to have any, she was heiress to the duchies of Parma, Plaisance, and Guastalla, and by another uncle, the aged Gaston de Medicis, Duke of Tuscany, she had the expectation of Tuscany itself, and the isle of Elba, a dependance of it. United to Philip V. she might therefore some day, and perhaps shortly, bring Spain into Italy, alongside of its ancient possessions, from which the treaty of Utrecht had driven her. This consideration had much weight with Madame des Ursins, to whom that treaty, as we have seen from a letter of Madame de Maintenon, had appeared disgraceful for Spain, as well as detrimental to herself. Doubtless there was something disquieting in the family alliances of this princess; but it might be thought that the perspective of an union with one of the most illustrious crowned houses of Europe, and moreover the crown of a queen which would bind her brow, would render her favourable to Madame des Ursins, upon whom a marriage so brilliant depended, and which far surpassed Elizabeth's utmost expectations. The former thought to find in the Farnese, brought up in a modest and virtuous court, a simple-minded, timorous girl. Gratitude for such a service appeared to Madame des Ursins a certain security for her future tranquillity; but a skilful intriguer who had but very slightly rendered himself agreeable to the princess--Alberoni, a native of Parma--afterwards celebrated throughout Europe as the Cardinal Alberoni, but then occupying a subordinate position in Spain, conceived at that moment one of those vast plans to which his fertile genius was wont to give birth, and which would have placed him in the foremost rank of great men had a like success equally crowned them all.