To recapitulate, its history in this place, and at this period, would be impertinent; with the aid of a slight introduction, and a few connecting remarks, enough of the nature of the transaction for the present purposes may be gathered from the correspondence of Thiers and Panizzi, as given below. The affair seems to have come under serious diplomatic notice about the beginning of 1842, when Queen Isabella was in the twelfth year of her age. For a rough sketch of its origin, let the following suffice. M. Guizot, apprehensive that if a Prince of other than French or Spanish blood were to share the throne of Spain, France might be placed as it were between two fires, and patriotically wishing to make Spain, so far as possible, dependent upon his own country, insisted on limiting Queen Isabella’s choice of a husband to the descendants of the Bourbon Philip V.; at the same time, however, disclaiming any intention of including among the aspirants to the Queen’s hand any son of the King of the French. The candidates spoken of at the time were—1st. Prince Leopold of Saxe-Cobourg, brother of the Queen of Portugal, and by no means a stranger to French blood, whose claim, if it can be so called, though causing the greatest disquiet to M. Guizot, was more a subject of conversation than reality. Indeed, except for a kind of counter-intrigue of a suspicious character, purporting to be in his favour, this competitor, can hardly be said to have been in the race. 2nd. Prince Metternich’s candidate, the Count de Montemolin, son of Don Carlos, who, although within M. Guizot’s conditions, had but little chance of success from the beginning. The third candidature was that of Count de Trapani, brother of the King of Naples, whose chance, as it turned out, was about equal to that of Count de Montemolin. To complete the list followed Don Francisco d’Assise, Duke of Cadiz, and his brother Don Enrique, Duke of Seville, sons of the Infant Don Francisco de Paula. The design of the French Minister was communicated by M. Pageot, whom he sent for that purpose, to Lord Aberdeen, then Secretary for Foreign Affairs. The English Minister heard, with considerable astonishment, and with no little indignation, the unwarrantable proposal to restrict the Spanish Queen’s selection of her consort. He replied, however, that in a matter of a nature so entirely domestic it was not the wish of this country to interfere. M. Pageot thereupon endeavoured to obtain from the Foreign Secretary an expression of a like disinclination to intervene in case Queen Isabella were to fix her choice on her cousin, the Duc d’Aumale. The answer to this invidious hypothesis was that it was based upon a very different footing, and involved the question of the maintenance of the balance of power in Europe, as settled by Treaty.