_Monsieur le Duc_ and Madame de Prie were not blind to the danger which threatened from this quarter. In his quality of priest, Fleury could not fail to disapprove of the relations existing between them, and that he had communicated his sentiments to his royal pupil was very evident from the coldness with which his Majesty treated the marchioness. Nor could it be said that the King regarded _Monsieur le Duc_ with any marked degree of favour; indeed, he appeared to avoid him, and not infrequently when the Prime Minister had requested an audience, he was informed that M. de Fréjus would receive any communication that he might wish to make. Encouraged by this, the Orléans party began to make overtures to Fleury with a view to an alliance. But the preceptor preferred to retain his liberty of action, and their advances met with no formal response. It was, however, impossible to say how long he would continue to remain neutral, and the possibility of so powerful a coalition being formed against them occasioned the Duc de Bourbon and his mistress profound uneasiness. The third power was Philip V. of Spain. After the conclusion of peace between France and Spain at the beginning of 1720, the Regent and Dubois, anxious to re-establish friendly relations between the two great branches of the House of Bourbon, proposed a triple matrimonial alliance, to which Philip V. and Isabella Farnese readily consented. In accordance with this arrangement, the Infanta Isabella Luisa, then in her fifth year, was sent to the Court of France, to be brought up until she had reached a marriageable age, when she was to become the wife of Louis XV.; the fourth of the Regent’s six daughters, Mlle. de Montpensier, was married to the Prince of the Asturias, heir to the Crown of Spain; while the fifth of the Orléans princesses, Mlle. de Beaujolais, who was only six years old, was sent to Madrid, where it was proposed that, in due course, she should wed Don Carlos, the eldest son of Philip V. and his second wife, Isabella Farnese.