by means of the influence of the queen, Marie of Neuburg, the sister of the Empress. [Sidenote: =Events at Madrid.=] For the moment the interest of the struggle veered to the bedside of the dying king. As the autumn sped on there could no longer be any doubt that the end of that troubled life was at hand. All remedies had been tried but had proved unavailing. The angel of death would not surrender his victim to the revolting mixtures of quack doctors, or the superstitious delusions of monkish exorcists. One duty remained to be performed by Charles ere he quitted the world in which he had lived so wearily. He had to choose, as far as the power of choice was left to him, the successor to his throne. If he chose wrongly he might plunge all Europe into a desolating war and bring his country to absolute ruin. The choice was by no means an easy one nor did his advisers make it easier for him. The Spanish people and Charles himself were united on the great principle of doing all that they could to maintain the integrity of the empire, but they differed as to the means to be adopted to achieve this end. Angry as Charles was at the news of the first Partition Treaty, he accepted it so far as to make a will in favour of the Electoral Prince, and he sent for the young prince in order to educate him in Spain as his heir. The act was popular, for both he and his people believed, no doubt rightly, that the Electoral Prince had a better chance than any other candidate of uniting the whole of the Spanish dominions under himself. But on the death of the prince it became very difficult to decide between the representatives of the Dauphin and of the Emperor. If the Emperor was the weaker, he was the nearer by the traditional ties of policy and of race. But was not France the only power in Europe strong enough to seize and keep the whole inheritance from the hand of the spoiler? It was a hard choice for a moribund king to have to make in his last days of extreme physical and mental weakness. [Sidenote: =Palace intrigues and revolution.=]