Villars writes of Marie Louise at this juncture: ‘She, with her youth and beauty, full of life and vivacity, was not of an age or character disposed to enter into the views and application necessary for her proper conduct. Her bent for liberty and pleasure, the memories of France and all she had left behind her there, had made Spain intolerable to her. The captivity of the palace, the ennui of idleness without amusement, the coarse low manners of the King, the unpleasantness of his person, his sulky humour, which she increased frequently by her lack of amiability towards him, all nourished her aversion and unhappiness. She took interest in nothing, and would take no measure, either for the present or the future; and so, putting aside all that Spain could give her, she only consoled herself with the idea of returning to France. She entertained this idea, encouraged by predictions and chimeras which formed her only amusement, for everything else bored her.’[311] In her despairing knowledge that she could never hope for happiness in Spain, Marie Louise thus grew reckless. She had no ambition to rule except in the heart of the man she loved; she was not clever enough to succeed in the subtle political intrigues that went on around her; she knew now that motherhood was hardly to be hoped for with such a husband as hers, and her one thought was of the joy of living in France. As the political relations between France and Spain grew constantly more strained and Charles’s detestation of Frenchmen increased, the visits of Mme. Villars to Marie Louise perforce grew rarer, for the suspicious King had got into his head that the French ambassadress was serving as an intermediary in the palace intrigues which were setting everybody by the ears. Marie Louise made matters worse by turning to her widowed nurse Mme. Quantin, and her inferior French maid. Quantin was a greedy, meddlesome woman, of low rank, who put up her influence over the Queen for sale, and soon embroiled matters beyond repair.