time she selected.  Except what related to the confession, she and her confessor had no time to say anything to each other.  The cabinet in which she confessed to him was contiguous to the room occupied by the King, and when the latter thought the confession too long, he opened the door and called her.  Grimaldo being gone, they prayed together, or sometimes occupied themselves with spiritual reading until supper.  It was served like the dinner.  At both meals there were more dishes in the French style than in the Spanish, or even the Italian.

After supper, conversation or prayers conducted them to the hour for bed, when nearly the same observances took place as in the morning.  Finally, their Catholic Majesties everywhere had but one wardrobe between them, and were never in private one from another.

These uniform days were the same in all places, and even during the journeys taken by their Majesties, who were thus never separated, except for a few minutes at a time.  They passed their lives in one long tete-a-tete.  When they travelled it was at the merest snail’s pace, and they slept on the road, night after night, in houses prepared for them.  In their coach they were always alone; when in the palace it was the same.

The King had been accustomed to this monotonous life by his first queen, and he did not care for any other.  The new Queen, upon arriving, soon found this out, and found also that if she wished to rule him, she must keep him in the same room, confined as he had been kept by her predecessor.  Alberoni was the only person admitted to their privacy.  This second marriage of the King of Spain, entirely brought about by Madame des Ursins, was very distasteful to the Spaniards, who detested that personage most warmly, and were in consequence predisposed to look unfavourably upon anyone she favoured.  It is true, the new Queen, on arriving, drove out Madame des Ursins, but this showed her to be possessed of as much power as the woman she displaced, and when she began to exercise that power in other directions the popular dislike to her was increased.  She made no effort to mitigate it—­hating the Spaniards as much as they hated her—­and it is incredible to what an extent this reciprocal aversion stretched.

When the Queen went out with the King to the chase or to the atocha, the people unceasingly cried, as well as the citizens in their shops, “Viva el Re y la Savoyana, y la Savoyana,” and incessantly repeated, with all their lungs, “la Savoyana,” which is the deceased Queen (I say this to prevent mistake), no voice ever crying “Viva la Reina.”  The Queen pretended to despise this, but inwardly raged (as people saw), she could not habituate herself to it.  She has said to me very frequently and more than once:  “The Spaniards do not like me, and in return I hate them,” with an air of anger and of pique.