In the spring of 1680, on a disputed question of etiquette, the King took away some of the diplomatic privileges of the French ambassador, and the Duke of Orleans wrote to his daughter the Queen, asking her to speak to her husband about it. When Marie Louise did so, Charles sulkily told her to mind her own business, and not to speak to him on such affairs. She pressed her point, however, and he replied: ‘They will recall this ambassador, and send me another gabacho instead.’[306] Some months later, whilst Mme. Villars was on one of her frequent visits to the Queen, the King, who had taken a special dislike to her, and often listened behind the arras to the conversation in the hope of detecting an indiscretion, broke out from his hiding-place in insulting abuse of the ambassadress. Villars lays all this trouble at the door of the Duchess of Terranova and the Marquis of Astorga, the Queen’s master of the household, both appointed by Don Juan, and praises Mariana to the skies for her gentleness to Marie Louise, and her desire that she should have her own way and see as many French people as she liked.[307] After a time the Duchess of Terranova, finding that the harshness of her methods, contrasting with the gentleness of her opponents, was destroying her influence, softened her manners to some extent, and went so far as to rebuke the King—even to scold him—when he said unkind things to his wife about her countrywomen, but her desire to mould Marie Louise into the traditional Spanish Queen never ceased, and if her advice had been followed, unpalatable and cross-grained as it was, the unhappy girl would have been saved much of her misery. Every small device that the King could adopt, Villars says on the advice of the Duchess, was brought into play to separate the Queen from French influence. She was kept so short of money that most of her beloved horses, which she was not allowed to ride, and their French grooms, had to be sent back to France, all her French men servants, even her doctor, were dismissed, though he, from his name (Dr. Talbot), would seem to have been an Englishman.