The Queen, under the influence of this woman, lost what little discretion and prudence she possessed. The many poor French people in the town, to whom Quantin and the other French maids were known, would congregate beneath their apartments in the palace to gossip of France, tell the news, and perhaps to beg for favours; and Marie Louise would sometimes be imprudent enough to approach the windows and exchange words with her countrymen below. Spaniards who saw it—for jealous eyes watched the Queen always—cried shame upon such a derogation from the dignity of Spanish royalty, and the scandalmongers of the capital already began to whisper that the ‘Frenchwoman,’ who would not play the part properly, and gave no signs of motherhood, might be put aside in favour of another Queen. In the Calle Mayor, a punning verse passed from hand to hand reproaching her for her sterility, and demanding in ribald rhyme that she should either give an heir to Spain, or return whence she came; and thus, as war loomed ever nearer between her two countries, the lot of the unhappy Queen grew darker. Villars began to see that he had been misled in condemning the hard rule of the Duchess of Terranova, and aiding the Queen to gain the freedom advocated for her by the amiable Mariana. ‘It was a great misfortune for the Queen,’ he wrote, ‘who now abandoned herself without restraint to a dangerous line of conduct, and it is quite a question, judging by results, whether the hard severity of the Duchess of Terranova was not better for her than the weak complaisance of the Duchess of Albuquerque.’[312] The poor misguided girl had not a single friend. Mariana kept away; for things were going admirably from her point of view; and a new alliance between Spain and the empire and other powers, against the threatened encroachments of France, was already being discussed in secret.