Queen Isabella sought to encourage and support her mother, but she saw that the stream of public hatred was now too strong to be stemmed. The arrival of Espartero in Madrid, on July 29, raised the siege of the palace, and the people, delighted at the sight of their favourite leader, gave a loyal ovation to Queen Isabella when she appeared at a window of the palace. The days from July 17 to August 28 were fraught with anxiety for the Queen of Spain. The cries for the dismissal of the Queen-mother, and for her trial for the appropriation of State moneys, could no longer be silenced, and the day came when the royal lady found that her personal safety demanded her departure from the country. So, accompanied by a mounted escort, Maria Cristina submitted to the decision of Espartero, as the mouthpiece of the people, and she finally bade farewell to her weeping daughter at the palace door, and left the country, never more to return. Espartero made a crusade against the undue priestly influence at Court. The weak-minded King was quite under the power of “the bleeding nun,” as Patrocinio was called, and his constant visits to her apartments in the palace were said to have been in search of spiritual counsel, with which she was supposed to be miraculously endowed by reason of the wounds in her forehead and hands, which refused to be healed, as they were said to be illustrative of those of the Saviour. The Queen and all the Royal Family became hysterically hypnotized by this phenomenon. But Espartero soon put an end to the matter by having the lady put under the authoritative care of a doctor, who had her hands tied so as to prevent her irritating the wounds; and thus in a short time the supposed miracle was over, and the power of the religieuse and her brother, the Archbishop Claret, was at an end. Espartero had O’Donnell as his Minister of War. Dissensions broke out again in the Cabinet, and O’Donnell reaped the success of his _camarilla_ influence at the midnight Council meeting held before the Queen in July, 1856. For when Espartero found that his measures for the new Constitution were rejected, he offered his resignation; and then, to his surprise, the Queen, by a prearranged concert, turned to his colleague with her sweetest smile, saying, “I am sure you won’t abandon me, will you?” and he was sworn in as Prime Minister the following day. But O’Donnell had a powerful rival for favour at the palace in the person of Narvaez, a General of some fame, whose alert, dapper little figure, said to have been improved by corsets, made him popular at Court as a dancer. This officer was extremely arrogant, and noting that the grandees, by right of their special prerogative, stood covered in the royal presence during the ceremony of the King washing the feet of the poor, and feeding them in the historical Hall of Columns, he promptly put his own cocked hat on his head, and bade his officers do the same.