This last event precipitated matters, and the French Government resolved not to wait until the new _fiancée_ was chosen, but to inform the Court of Madrid at once of the resolution at which they had arrived. The Maréchal de Tessé, the French Ambassador, little suitable to undertake so disagreeable a commission, on account of his great attachment to Philip V., was recalled, and it was the Abbé de Livry, _chargé d’affaires_ at Lisbon, who presented to his Catholic Majesty the letter in which Louis XV. endeavoured to justify the affront which he was inflicting on his uncle. “Trembling from head to foot, the abbé presented to the King his master’s letter. The Queen was at the end of the cabinet, occupied with her correspondence. Suddenly, she heard the King strike the table violently, and cry out: ‘Ah! the traitor!’ She ran to him.... The King handed her the letter, saying: ‘Take it, Madame, read it!’ The Queen read it, and then, handing back the letter, she replied with great composure: ‘Well! We must send to receive the Infanta.’”[269] When the news was known in Madrid, the indignation of the populace knew no bounds; excited crowds paraded the streets; the King of France was burned in effigy, and the French residents trembled for their safety. Philip V. even talked of imprisoning his widowed daughter-in-law and her sister, Mlle. de Beaujolais, in some remote corner of the kingdom, where they should remain as hostages. But afterwards he changed his mind, and at the end of March they were sent back to France, the want of courtesy shown them being in striking contrast to the infinite formalities which marked the journey of the Infanta from Versailles to Bayonne. That little princess departed under the impression that she was merely going to pay a visit to her family. Meanwhile, the search for the future Queen of France was being busily prosecuted. The claims of over one hundred princesses were discussed by the Council, and one after another eliminated from the list, on the score that they were too old or too young or too poor or too delicate, until the number was reduced to three; the two youngest sisters of _Monsieur le Duc_, Mlle. de Vermandois and Mlle. de Sens, and the Princess Anne of England. The idea of a marriage between Louis XV. and one of the Condés displeased Fleury, while _Monsieur le Duc_ feared that it might expose him to the charge of having sent away the Infanta in order to elevate his own family; and it was therefore decided to demand the hand of the English princess. It seems astonishing that _Monsieur le Duc_ and his advisers should not have understood that the question of religion would prove an insuperable obstacle to the proposed alliance. They made it conditional on the Princess Anne’s conversion to Catholicism, although the Hanoverian dynasty occupied the throne of England in virtue of its Protestant professions. As every one but themselves must have foreseen, George I.’s answer was a courteous but firm refusal.