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172 failed, why, it must be set down, not to him, but to Fate.

"Would to St. Peter," he sometimes exclaimed, "that the offices of priest and prophet had been united, as of old, in my person! My niece would now be Queen of that island, whose worst fault is that it never knows its own mind, and whose politics are as uncertain as its climate. France would now have an ally, instead of an enemy that has hitherto been a thorn in her side. Well, well, who can foresee the impossible?—and impossible it appeared to all rational calculation that these raving fanatics should suddenly veer round, and become as mad on loyalty as they were on doctrine. We must do what we can; beauty and gold can still accomplish much, or his recent majesty has strangely altered."

To form a strict alliance between the cabinets of Paris and London—which meant, that he should influence both,—to induce Charles to marry the loveliest of his nieces, Hortense—thus making a common interest between them, were now the great objects with the Cardinal; and the present visit was of his projecting. The Queen Mother, Henriette, was strongly in the French interest. Nothing ever seems to have taught her the character of the English nation; and at this very