The exiles of Weissembourg were not allowed to remain in doubt as to whom they were indebted for their amazing good fortune, and they displayed a gratitude proportioned to their joy. “In his correspondence with the Maréchal de Bourg,” writes M. Thirion, “the dethroned King returned constantly to the gratitude which he, his wife, and his daughter had vowed to the Marquise de Prie, to the admiration which she had inspired in them, to the affection which they all three bore her, to the respectful gratitude which they professed for _Monsieur le Duc_. It was to Madame de Prie that they addressed themselves, when they desired to know what they were expected to do, of this or that custom of the Court. And the day when, in a scene which has remained celebrated, the ex-King of Poland threw himself on his knees to return thanks to Heaven for having called his daughter to such high destinies, he thought still of the favourite. He mentioned her in his thanksgivings.” But great triumphs, whether military or political, are seldom cheaply obtained, and in the present instance the cost was very considerable. Spain had been exasperated to the last degree by the almost brutal repudiation of the Infanta and had thrown herself into the arms of Austria; the Orléans were furious at being outwitted and at the treatment to which _Monsieur le Duc’s_ action had exposed their relatives in Spain, and were more than ever determined to compass his disgrace; while a great part both of the Court and the nation was indignant at the selection of a princess without alliance, without fortune, and without credit. However, when all things were taken into account, the Prime Minister and his favourite felt that they had good cause for rejoicing, and they awaited with impatience the coming of Marie Leczinska and the consummation of their hopes. On 15 August, 1725, the Duc d’Orléans, in the name of the King of France, espoused Marie Leczinska, at Strasbourg. For obvious reasons, the duty could not have been an altogether pleasant one for his Royal Highness to perform, nor was it rendered any the more agreeable by the fact that his enemy, Madame de Prie, in her capacity as one of the twelve _dames du palais_ of the Queen of France, was a witness of his discomfiture. The favourite might have aspired to the more exalted post of _dame d’atours_ (mistress of the robes), but this she had prudently decided to forgo, lest she should be accused of wishing to dominate her Majesty too ostensibly. But the successful candidate, the Comtesse de Mailly, mother-in-law of the future mistress of Louis XV., was her selection, as were all the ladies-in-waiting.