Upon arriving he went straight to the house of the Duc de Saint-Aignan, our ambassador, and took up his quarters there.  Saint-Aignan who had received not the slightest information of his arriving, was surprised beyond measure at it.  Alberoni was something more than surprised.  As fortune would have it, Louville when at some distance from Madrid was seen by a courier, who straightway told Alberoni of the circumstance.  As may be imagined, tormented as Alberoni was by jealousy and suspicion, this caused him infinite alarm.  He was quite aware who Louville was; the credit he had attained with the King of Spain; the trouble Madame des Ursins and the deceased Queen had had to get him out of their way; the fear, therefore, that he conceived on account of this unexpected arrival, was so great that he passed all bounds, in order to free himself from it.

He instantly despatched a courier to meet Louville with an order prohibiting him to approach any nearer to Madrid.  The courier missed Louville, but a quarter of an hour after this latter had alighted at Saint-Aignan’s, he received a note from Grimaldo inclosing an order from the King of Spain, commanding him to leave the city that instant!  Louville replied that he was charged with a confidential letter from the King of France, and with another from M. le Duc d’Orleans, for the King of Spain; and with a commission for his Catholic Majesty which would not permit him to leave until he had executed it.  In consequence of this reply, a courier was at once despatched to the Prince de Cellamare, Spanish ambassador at Paris, ordering him to ask for the recall of Louville, and to declare that the King of Spain so disliked his person that he would neither see him, nor allow him to treat with any of the ministers!

Meanwhile the fatigue of the journey followed by such a reception so affected Louville, that during the night he had an attack of a disease to which he was subject, so that he had a bath prepared for him, into which he got towards the end of the morning.

Alberoni, not satisfied with what he had already done, came himself to the Duc de Saint-Aignan’s, in order to persuade Louville to depart at once.  Despite the representations made to him, he insisted upon penetrating to the sick-chamber.  There he saw Louville in his bath.  Nothing could be more civil than the words of Alberoni, but nothing could be more dry, more negative, or more absolute than their signification.  He pitied the other’s illness and the fatigue of his journey; would have wished to have known of this journey beforehand, so as to have prevented it; and had hoped to be able to overcome the repugnance of the King of Spain to see him, or at least to obtain permission for him to remain some days in Madrid.  He added that he had been unable to shake his Majesty in any way, or to avoid obeying the very express order he had received from him, to see that he (Louville) departed at once.