VII I.] POWER OF THE CROWN. 153 nality of mind made his measures good, and he is specially to be remarked as one of the few French rulers who have been steady in friendship with England. But he hated trouble, and left much to his former tutor, the Abbi Diibois. Thisman was oneof thegreedyand vicious adventurers who ssvarmed about the court, who had received the tonsure in order that preferment might be heaped upon them, but who owned no clerical duty. Dubois in the end became Archbishop of Cambray and a Cardinal, and, bad as his character was, his statesmanship, including friendship with England, was not to be denied. 25. The Quadruple Alliance, 1718. — It is singular that, so soon after a French prince had been set on the throne of Spain, the two kingdoms of France and Spain should be at war with one another, but so it was. Spain was now ruled by the Cardinal Alberoni, whose object was to win back for the Spanish crown all that it had lost. To hinder this was formed in 171 8 the Quadruple Alliatice between England, France, the United Provinces, and the Emperor. A war followed, in which Spain actually won back Sicily ; but she could not hold up against the allies together, and in the end, in 1720, Spain had to agree to the terms of the Quadruple Alliance, and to keep herself within the limits of the Peace of Utrecht. The Emperor and the King of Sicily, as the Duke of Savoy had now become, exchanged the islands of Sardinia and Sicily, and the Dukes of Savoy were henceforth Kings of Sardinia. Meanwhile the wild experiments oi James Laiv the Scotchman, who may almost be called the father of speculation, at raising money on national credit, and on schemes for a great loan on a settlement on the Missis- sippi, did but increase the general distress by the ruin of those who had been led into his schemes.
- 6. Death of the Regent Orleans, 1723. — In 1723 the
king, being fourteen years old, was declared of age, but the authority of the Duke of Orleans and Dubois went on, but before the year was over they both died. The Duke of Bourbon, grandson of the great Conde, became head of affairs. He so hated the Spaniards as to send home the little Infanta, who was actually at Paris, being bred up as the future wife of Lewis XV., that the boy might wed at once, hoping that the birth of a Dauphin might disconcert the hopes of returning to France which had filled Philip the Fifth's hopes of the crown of France. The lady was not to be either too high-born or too clever, lest she should
