this head, of credit and influence with whom I found indirect and private
ways of conversing; but it was in vain to expect any more than civil
language from them in a case which they found no disposition in their
Master to countenance, and in favour of which they had no prejudices of
their own. The private engagements into which the Duke of Orleans had
entered with his Majesty during the life of the late King will abate of
their force as the Regent grows into strength, and would soon have had no
force at all if the Pretender had met with success: but in these
beginnings they operated very strongly. The air of this Court was to
take the counterpart of all which had been thought right under Louis XIV.
“Cela resemble trop à l’ancien système” was an answer so often given that
it became a jest and almost a proverb. But to finish this account with a
fact which is incredible, but strictly true; the very peace which had
saved France from ruin, and the makers of it, were become as unpopular at
this Court as at the Court of Vienna.
The Duke of Ormond flattered himself, in this state of things, that he
had opened a private and sure channel of arriving at the Regent, and of
bending him to his purposes. His Grace and I lived together at this time
in an house which one of my friends had lent me. I observed that he was
frequently lost, and that he made continual excursions out of town, with
all the mysterious precaution imaginable. I doubted at first whether
those intrigues related to business or pleasure. I soon discovered with
whom they were carried on, and had reason to believe that both were
mingled in them. It is necessary that I explain this secret to you.
Mrs. Trant, whom I have named above, had been preparing herself for the
retired abstemious life of a Carmelite by taking a surfeit of the
pleasures of Paris, when, a little before the death of the Queen, or
about that time, she went into England. What she was entrusted either by
the Chevalier, or any other person, to negotiate there, I am ignorant of;
and it imports not much to know. In that journey she made or renewed an
acquaintance with the Duke of Ormond. The scandalous chronicle affirms
that she brought with her, when she returned into France, a woman of whom
I have not the least knowledge, but who was probably handsome, since
without beauty such a merchandise would not have been saleable, nor have
answered the design of the importer; and that she made this way her court
to the Regent. Whatever her merit was, she kept a correspondence with
him, and put herself upon that foot of familiarity which he permits all
those who contribute to his pleasures to assume. She was placed by him,
as she told me herself, where I found her some time after that which I am
speaking of, in the house of an ancient gentlewoman who had formerly been
Maid of Honour to Madame, and who had contracted at Court a spirit of
intrigue which accompanied her in her retreat.
These two had associated to them the Abbé de Tesieu in all the political
parts of their business; for I will not suppose that so reverend an
ecclesiastic entered into any other secret. This Abbé is the Regent’s
secretary; and it was chiefly through him that the private treaty had
been carried on between his master and the Earl of Stair in the King’s
reign. Whether the priest had stooped at the lure of a cardinal’s hat,
or whether he acted the second part by the same orders that he acted the
first, I know not. This is sure, and the British Minister was not the
bubble of it—that whilst he concerted measures on one hand to traverse
the Pretender’s designs, he testified on the other all the inclination
possible to his service. A mad fellow who had been an intendant in
Normandy, and several other politicians of the lowest form, were at
different times taken into this famous Junto.
With these worthy people his Grace of Ormond negotiated; and no care was
omitted on his part to keep me out of the secret. The reason of which,
as far as I am able to guess at, shall be explained to you by-and-by. I
might very justly have taken this proceeding ill, and the duke will not
be able to find in my whole conduct towards him anything like it; I
protest to you very sincerely I was not in the least moved at it.
He advanced not a step in his business with these sham Ministers, and yet
imagined that he got daily ground. I made no progress with the true
ones, but I saw it. These, however, were not our only difficulties. We
lay under another, which came from your side, and which embarrassed us
more. The first hindered us from working forward to our point of view,
but the second took all point of view from us.
A paper was sent into England just before the death of the King of
France, which had been drawn by me at Chaville in concert with the Dukes
of Ormond and Berwick, and with Monsieur de Torcy. This paper was an
answer to the memorial received from thence. The state of this country
was truly represented in it: the difference was fixed between what had
been asked, and what might be expected from France; and upon the whole it
was demanded what our friends would do, and what they would have us to
do. The reply to this came through the French Secretary of State to our
hands. They declared themselves unable to say anything till they should
see what turn affairs would take on so great an event as the death of the
King, the report of which had reached them.
Such a declaration shut our mouths and tied our hands. I confess I knew
neither how to solicit, nor what to solicit; this last message suspending
the project on which we had acted before, and which I kept as an
instruction constantly before my eyes. It seemed to me uncertain whether
you intended to go on, or whether your design was to stifle, as much as
possible, all past transactions; to lie perfectly still; to throw upon
the Court the odium of having given a false alarm; and to wait till new
accidents at home, and a more favourable conjuncture abroad, might tempt
you to resume the enterprise. Perhaps this would have been the wisest
game you could have played: but then you should have concerted it with us
who acted for you here. You intended no such thing, as appeared
afterwards: and therefore those who acted for the party at London,
whoever they were, must be deemed inexcusable for leaving things on the
foot of this message, and giving us no advice fit to be depended upon for
many weeks. Whilst preparations were to be made, and the work was to be
set a-going by assistance from hence, you might reasonably expect to hear
from us, and to be determined by us: but when all hopes of this kind
seemed to be gone, it was your part to determine us; and we could take no
resolution here but that of conforming ourselves to whatever should come
prescribed from England.
Whilst we were in this condition, the most desperate that can be
imagined, we began to receive verbal messages from you that no more time
was to be lost, and that the Chevalier should come away. No man was, I
believe, ever so embarrassed as I found myself at that time. I could not
imagine that you would content yourselves by loose verbal messages, after
all that had happened, to call us over; and I knew by experience how
little such messages are to be depended on. For soon after I engaged in
these affairs, a monk arrived at Bar, despatched, as he affirmed, by the
Duke of Ormond, in whose name he insisted that the Chevalier should
hasten into Britain, and that nothing but his presence was wanting to
place the crown on his head. The fellow delivered his errand so
positively, and so circumstantially, that the resolution was taken at Bar
to set out, and my rendezvous to join the Chevalier was appointed me.
This method to fetch a King, with as little ceremony as one would invite
a friend to supper, appeared somewhat odd to me, who was then very new in
these affairs. But when I came to talk with the man, for by good luck he
had been sent for from Bar to Paris, I easily discerned that he had no
such commission as he pretended to, and that he acted of his own head. I
presumed to oppose the taking any resolution upon his word, though he was
a monk: and soon after we knew from the Duke of Ormond himself that he
had never sent him.
This example made me cautious; but that which determined my opinion was,
that I could never imagine, without supposing you all run mad, that the
same men who judged this attempt unripe for execution, unless supported
by regular troops from France, or at least by all the other assistances
which are enumerated above, while the design was much more secret than at
present; when the King had no fleet at sea, nor more than eight thousand
men dispersed over the whole island; when we had the good wishes of the
French Court on our side, and were sure of some particular assistances,
and of a general connivance; that the same men, I say, should press for
making it now without any other preparation, when we had neither money,
arms, ammunition, nor a single company of foot; when the Government of
England was on its guard, national troops were raised, foreign forces
sent for, and France, like all the rest of the Continent, against us. I
could not conceive such a strange combination of accidents as should make
the necessity of acting increase gradually upon us as the means of doing
so were taken from us.
Upon the whole matter, my opinion was, and I did not observe the Duke of
Ormond to differ from me, that we should wait till we heard from you in
such a manner as might assure us of what you intended to do yourselves,
and of what you expected from us; and that in the meanwhile we should go
as far as the little money which we had, and the little favour which was
shown us would allow, in getting some embarkations ready on the coast.
Sir George Byng had come into the road of Havre, and had demanded by name
several ships which belonged to us to be given up to him. The Regent did
not think fit to let him have the ships; but he ordered them to be
unloaded, and their cargoes were put into the King’s magazines. We were
in no condition to repair the loss; and therefore when I mention
embarkations, you will please to understand nothing more than vessels to
transport the Pretender’s person and the persons of those who should go
over with him. This was all we could do, and this was not neglected.
We were thus employed when a gentleman arrived from Scotland to represent
the state of that country, and to require a definitive answer from the
Chevalier whether he would have the insurrection to be made immediately,
which they apprehended they might not be able to make at all if they were
obliged to defer it much longer. This gentleman was sent instantly back
again, and was directed to let the persons he came from know that the
Chevalier was desirous to have the rising of his friends in England and
Scotland so adjusted that they might mutually assist each other and
distract the enemy; that he had not received a final answer from his
friends in England, but that he was in daily expectation of it; that it
was very much to be wished that all attempts in Scotland could be
suspended till such time as the English were ready; but that if the Scots
were so pressed that they must either submit or rise immediately, he was
of opinion they should rise, and he would make the best of his way to
them.
What this forwardness in the Scots and this uncertainty and backwardness
in the English must produce, it was not hard to foresee; and, therefore,
that I might neglect nothing in my power to prevent any false measures—as
I was conscious to myself that I had neglected nothing to promote true
ones—I despatched a gentleman to London, where I supposed the Earl of Mar
to be, some days before the message I have just spoken of was sent to
Scotland. I desired him to make my compliments to Lord Mar, and to tell
him from me that I understood it to be his sense, as well as the sense of
all our friends, that Scotland could do nothing effectually without the
concurrence of England, and that England would not stir without
assistance from abroad; that he might assure himself no such assistance
could be depended upon; and that I begged of him to make the inference
from these propositions. The gentleman went; but upon his arrival at
London he found that the Earl of Mar was already set out to draw the
Highlanders into arms. He communicated his message to a person of
confidence, who undertook to send it after his lordship; and this was the
utmost which either he or I could do in such a conjuncture.
You were now visibly departed from the very scheme which you had sent us
over, and from all the principles which had been ever laid down. I did
what I could to keep up my own spirit, as well as the spirits of the
Chevalier, and of all those with whom I was in correspondence: I
endeavoured even to deceive myself. I could not remedy the mischief, and
I was resolved to see the conclusion of the perilous adventure; but I own
to you that I thought then, and that I have not changed my opinion since,
that such measures as these would not be pursued by any reasonable man in
the most common affairs of life. It was with the utmost astonishment
that I saw them pursued in the conduct of an enterprise which had for its
object nothing less than the disposition of crowns, and for the means of
bringing it about nothing less than a civil war.
Impatient that we heard nothing from England, when we expected every
moment to hear that the war was begun in Scotland, the Duke of Ormond and
I resolved to send a person of confidence to London. We instructed him
to repeat to you the former accounts which we had sent over, to let you
know how destitute the Chevalier was either of actual support or even of
reasonable hopes, and to desire that you would determine whether he
should go to Scotland or throw himself on some part of the English coast.
This person was further instructed to tell you that, the Chevalier being
ready to take any resolution at a moment’s warning, you might depend on
his setting out the instant he received your answer; and, therefore, that
to save time, if your intention was to rise, you would do well to act
immediately, on the assurance that the plan you prescribed, be it what it
would, should be exactly complied with. We took this resolution the
rather because one of the packets, which had been prepared in cypher to
give you an account of things, which had been put above three weeks
before into Monsieur de Torcy’s hands, and which by consequence we
thought to be in yours, was by this time sent back to me by this Minister
(I think, open), with an excuse that he durst not take upon him to
forward it.
The person despatched to London returned very soon to us, and the answer
he brought was, that since affairs grew daily worse, and could not mend
by delay, our friends in England had resolved to declare immediately, and
that they would be ready to join the Chevalier on his landing; that his
person would be as safe there as in Scotland, and that in every other
respect it was better that he should land in England; that they had used
their utmost endeavours, and that they hoped the western counties were in
a good posture to receive him. To this was added a general indication of
the place he should come to, as near to Plymouth as possible.
You must agree that this was not the answer of men who knew what they
were about. A little more precision was necessary in dictating a message
which was to have such consequences, and especially since the gentleman
could not fail to acquaint the persons he spoke with that the Chevalier
was not able to carry men enough to secure him from being taken up even
by the first constable. Notwithstanding this, the Duke of Ormond set out
from Paris and the Chevalier from Bar. Some persons were sent to the
North of England and others to London to give notice that they were both
on their way. Their routes were so ordered that the Duke of Ormond was
to sail from the coast of Normandy some days before the Chevalier arrived
at St. Malo, to which place the duke was to send immediate notice of his
landing; and two gentlemen acquainted with the country, and perfectly
well known to all our friends in those parts, were despatched before,
that the people of Devonshire and Somersetshire, who were, we concluded,
in arms, might be apprised of the signals which were to be made from the
ships, and might be ready to receive the duke.
On the coast of France, and before his embarkation, the duke heard that
several of our principal friends had been seized immediately after the
person who came last from them had left London, that the others were all
dispersed, and that the consternation was universal. He embarked,
notwithstanding this melancholy news, and, supported by nothing but the
firmness of his temper, he went over to the place appointed; he did more
than his part, and he found that our friends had done less than theirs.
One of the gentlemen who had passed over before him, and had traversed
part of the country, joined him on the coast, and assured him that there
was not the least room to expect a rising; in a word, he was refused a
night’s lodging in a country which we had been told was in a good posture
to receive the Chevalier, and where the duke expected that multitudes
would repair to him.
He returned to the coast of Brittany after this uncomfortable expedition,
where the Chevalier arrived about the same time from Lorraine. What his
Grace proposed by the second attempt, which he made as soon as the vessel
could be refitted, to land in the same part of the island, I profess
myself to be ignorant. I wrote him my opinion at the time, and I have
always thought that the storm in which he had like to have been cast
away, and which forced him back to the French coast, saved him from a
much greater peril—that of perishing in an attempt as full of extravagant
rashness, and as void of all reasonable meaning, as any of those
adventures which have rendered the hero of La Mancha immortal.
The Chevalier had now but one of these two things left him to do: one was
to return to Bar; the other was to go to Scotland, where there were
people in arms for him. He took this last resolution. He left Brittany,
where he had as many Ministers as there were people about him, and where
he was eternally teased with noisy disputes about what was to be done in
circumstances in which no reasonable thing could be done. He sent to
have a vessel got ready for him at Dunkirk, and he crossed the country as
privately as he could.
Whilst all these things passed I remained at Paris to try if by any means
some assistance might be at last procured, without which it was evident,
even to those who flattered themselves the most, that the game was up.
No sooner was the Duke of Ormond gone from Paris on the design which I
have mentioned, and Mrs. Trant, who had accompanied him part of the way,
returned, but I was sent for to a little house at Madrid, in the Bois de
Boulogne, where she lived with Mademoiselle de Chaussery, the ancient
gentlewoman with whom the Duke of Orleans had placed her. These two
persons opened to me what had passed whilst the Duke of Ormond was here,
and the hopes they had of drawing the Regent into all the measures
necessary to support the attempts which were making in favour of the
Chevalier.
By what they told me at first I saw that they had been trusted, and by
what passed in the course of my treating with them it appeared that they
had the access which they pretended to. All which I had been able to do
by proper persons and in proper methods, since the King of France’s
death, amounting to little or nothing, I resolved, at last, to try what
was to be done by this indirect way. I put myself under the conduct of
these female managers, and without having the same dependence on them as
his Grace of Ormond had, I pushed their credit and their power as far as
they reached during the time I continued to see them. I met with
smoother language and greater hopes than had been given me hitherto. A
note signed by the Regent, supposed to be written to a woman, but which
was to be explained to be intended for the Earl of Mar, was put into my
hands to be sent to Scotland. I took a copy of it, which you may see at
the end of these papers. When Sir John Areskine came to press for
succour, the Regent was prevailed upon by these women to see him; but he
carried nothing real back with him except a quantity of gold, part of the
money which we had drawn from Spain, and which was lost, with the vessel,
in a very odd manner, on the Scotch coast. The Duke of Ormond had been
promised seven or eight thousand arms, which were drawn out of the
magazines, and said to be lodged, I think, at Compiègne. I used my
utmost efforts that these arms might be carried forward to the coast, and
I undertook for their transportation, but all was in vain, so that the
likelihood of bringing anything to effect in time appeared to me no
greater than I had found it before I entered into this intrigue.
I soon grew tired of a commerce which nothing but success could render
tolerable, and resolved to be no longer amused by the pretences which
were daily repeated to me, that the Regent had entertained personal
prejudices against me, and that he was insensibly and by degrees to be
dipped in our measures; that both these things required time, but that
they would certainly be brought about, and that we should then be able to
answer all the expectations of the English and the Scotch. The first of
these pretences contained a fact which I could hardly persuade myself to
be true, because I knew very certainly that I had never given His Royal
Highness the least occasion for such prejudices; the second was a work
which might spin out into a great and uncertain length. I took my
resolution to drive what related to myself to an immediate explanation,
and what related to others to an immediate decision; not to suffer any
excuse for doing nothing to be founded on my conduct, nor the salvation,
if I could hinder it, of so many gallant men as were in arms in Scotland,
to rest on the success of such womanish projects. I shall tell you what
I did on the first head now, and what I did on the second, hereafter, in
its proper place.
The fact which it was said the Regent laid to my charge was a
correspondence with Lord Stair, and having been one night at his house
from whence I did not retire till three in the morning. As soon as I got
hold of this I desired the Marshal of Berwick to go to him. The Marshal
told him, from me, that I had been extremely concerned to hear in general
that I lay under his displeasure; that a story, which it was said he
believed, had been related to me; that I expected the justice, which he
could deny to no man, of having the accusation proved, in which case I
was contented to pass for the last of humankind, or of being justified if
it could not be proved. He answered that such a story had been related
to him by such persons as he thought would not have deceived him; that he
had been since convinced that it was false, and that I should be
satisfied of his regard for me; but that he must own he was very uneasy
to find that I, who could apply to him through the Marshal d’Huxelles,
could choose to treat with Mrs. Trant and the rest; for he named all the
cabal, except his secretary, whom I had never met at Mademoiselle
Chaussery’s. He added that these people teased him, at my instigation,
to death, and that they were not fit to be trusted with any business. He
applied to some of them the severest epithets. The Marshal of Berwick
replied that he was sure I should receive the whole of what he had been
pleased to say with the greatest satisfaction; that I had treated with
those persons much against my will; and, finally, that if his Royal
Highness would not employ them he was sure I would never apply to them.
In a conversation which I had not long after with him he spoke to me in
much the same terms as he had done to the Marshal. I went from him very
ill edified as to his intentions of doing anything in favour of the
Chevalier; but I carried away with me this satisfaction, that he had
assigned me, from his own mouth, the person through whom I should make my
applications to him, and through whom I should depend on receiving his
answers; that he had disavowed all the little politic clubs, and had
commanded me to have no more to do with them.