Note 317 — Chapter XVI · ON THE STATE OF THE CONSTITUTION IN THE REIGNS OF ANNE, GEORGE I., AND GEORGE II.
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Every contemporary writer bears testimony to the exhaustion of France, rendered still more deplorable by the unfavourable season of 1709, which produced a famine. Madame de Maintenon's letters to the Princess des Ursins are full of the public misery, which she did not soften, out of some vain hope that her inflexible correspondent might relent at length, and prevail on the King and Queen of Spain to abandon their throne.