occasional alarms, when some suspicious stranger had been seized. On one
occasion, again, there is some talk of a "poisoned letter," sent in an
ingenious fashion. To Louis, we find, the Duke appeared a little too
forward in warning James of these dangers, as if he wanted to frighten his
guest into quitting Lorraine. To vary the little episodes, there was the
famous _coequre_, who so much amused Queen Mary Beatrice's companions with
his odd manners and his "thou"-ing. "The Spirit had moved him," as we
know, to inform James that he was to rule over England, in which country
there were plenty of well-wishers to support him. Were money wanted, he
said that his friends would readily combine to raise some millions. They
did not, welcome as the money would have been to James, whom we find
continually complaining of want of funds. In the cipher despatches the
common burden is, that "Mr. Parton" will not "deliver the goods." There is
another prophetic person to encourage the Pretender, a nun of the
"Monastere de Sainte Marie del Roma," near Montevallo--accredited by her
superior, who writes to the Marquis Spada that her prophecies have never
failed to come true. If he escapes the many traps set for him in 1715, so
the nun says, James will certainly become King of England. Occasionally
also there are little tiffs between English visitors and Barisien
residents. What English, Scotch, and Irish there were there, we do not
know for certain, but there were a goodly number, and not all of the best
manners. Noel, who is a good historian on Lorrain things, but a little at
fault on English, will have it that among these people was "_Lord Chatham,
qui devint plus tard si celebre_." Occasionally there was a visitor coming
on the sly with news--such as the Duke of Berwick, whose visits were at
one time frequent--or, towards the end of the sojourn, the banished Lord
Bolingbroke, and "Le Comte de Peterborough" travelling under the pseudonym
of "Schmit." Marlborough did not come himself, but he sent an aide-de-camp
on a confidential mission to Luneville, overflowing with pleasant words,
and through him be begged particularly to be well and promptly advised on
the Chevalier's movements, since "_Le salut d'Angleterre_" might depend
upon this. The Duke of Lorraine was not particularly impressed with
James's followers, especially after Lord Middleton was gone. "_Ce ne sont
que des gens d'un caractere fort mediocre_," he writes. They talk about
things which affect their chief with the utmost freedom. In Mr Higgons,
who had succeeded Lord Middleton, he could discern no merit whatever. As
for Lord Middleton, he found him "_fort reserve et voulant dominer seul_."
He gives him credit for capacity and zeal, but censures him as being
"_timide et irresolu_." All the rest, he says, are "_de jeunes gens qui ne
pouuoint souffrir ce Milord, et qui auoint eu l'imprudence de dire a
Luneville qu'il etoit si fort hay en Angleterre que les plus zelez
partisans de leur Maitre auoint temoigne qu'ils ne feroint jamais rien
pour ces interests tant qu'il l'auroit au-prez de luy_." All these men
evidently have very little knowledge of what is going on at home, he says.
There is no one in whose judgment the Pretender might repose any faith
except it be the Earl of Oxford or Lord Bolingbroke.
On the whole, the Pretender's life at Bar, though perhaps a little
monotonous, can scarcely have been unpleasant. He made friends with the
local _haute volee_, asking them to dinner, and being asked back--and
borrowed money from them whenever he could. His especial friends were the
Marquis de Bassompierre, from whom he borrowed 15,000 livres, which the
Duke repaid in 1719, and M. de Rousselle. A good deal of time the
Chevalier spent in his closet, with Nairne, or Higgons, or Middleton,
concocting plans and dictating long memorials to the Pope, or else to
Cardinal Gualterio, advocating the canonisation of Bellarmine,
recommending _proteges_ for places which they never got, and insisting on
his right to nominate bishops to Irish sees, the names of which he could
not spell. At off-times he played _reversi_, _boston_, and _ombre_, and
occasionally _petit palet_, which is an aristocratic form of
chuck-farthing. Then there was the pleasure of the chase, of which we know
from Father Leslie that James was a tolerably keen votary. In Lorraine the
diversion of _venerie_ was held in high estimation, though reserved only
for very great magnates, and guarded by a ring-fence of the strictest
enactments against vulgar intrusion. Poaching accordingly came to be a
very common offence. "Ground game," indeed--at any rate rabbits--it was
open to all to shoot. "High game"--_i.e._, deer--on the other hand, was
reserved within certain limits exclusively for the Duke. Within about
eight miles of the Duke's palaces, in what were called the ducal
_plaisirs_, not even nobles of the highest rank were permitted to shoot or
hunt. No dogs belonging to private persons were allowed in the fields near
those _plaisirs_, on any pretence whatever, be the deer, and boars, and
wolves, ever so troublesome. Even shepherds' dogs and watch-dogs must have
their hamstrings cut, or else a log tied round their necks. And in some
districts every Parish was required by law to provide a _louviere_ or
wolf's pit, 20 feet deep, 18 feet wide at its bottom, and 12 at its
opening. From "_le haut puissant messire_" Jean de Ligniville's most
amusing disquisitions on "_La Meutte et Venerie_" we learn that the
district about Bar was "_tres boise_" and well stocked with game of every
description, which, local chroniclers tell us, James was frequently
occupied in hunting. Lorrain and English hunting were not then as far
apart in their general features as one might be tempted to assume. English
kings had more than once sent presents of English hounds to Lorrain
dukes--Charles III. received from James I. a present of eighty harriers at
a time. And more than one Lorrain grandee came over to hunt and shoot
here. Ligniville himself, the Duke's _Grand Veneur_ (under Charles IV.),
had frequently hunted in England, and expressed himself especially
delighted with the sport in which he had joined in Yorkshire. On the
whole, he appears to have considered English hounds superior to
French--less eager at first, but with more stay in them--and he was proud
of having received presents of some from the Prince of Wales of his time
(Charles I.), "Milord de Hee," and from "Milord Howard." But a cross
between English and French hounds he seems to have regarded as the _ne
plus ultra_ of excellence. "Puss" was very much persecuted in the valley
of the Meuse, furnishing by its exceptional swiftness and skill in
swimming almost too good sport, "_contre montant l'eauee tellement viste
que les chiens ne les pouuoint pas aborder_." James's hunting sometimes
led him into adventures, and on one occasion nearly saddled his host with
a diplomatic difficulty. Riding hard, he once got to the little town of
Ligny at nightfall, some eight miles from Bar, in a vassal territory
belonging, under the Duke of Lorraine, to Montmorency, Duke of Luxemburg.
The Duke of Luxemburg, being rather a big vassal, was in consequence also
a very troublesome one, and the Lorrain Court and his officers frequently
found themselves at loggerheads. To James, coming from Bar, with fifty
Lorrain _gens d'armes_, besides his own suite, the _maire_ resolutely
refused to open the gates and furnish lodgings for the night, grounding
his refusal upon a decision of the Parliament of Paris passed in the year
1661. The Lorrains were quite prepared for a siege and an assault.
However, James deemed it wiser to leave things alone, and so the company
rode half a mile further, to a little village called Velaine, where they
spent a most uncomfortable night. Soon we have Montmorency complaining to
King Louis of the assumed "_nouuelles entreprises de M. le Duc de Lorrain
sur mon comte de Ligny_." Leopold revenged himself by imprisoning about a
dozen _maires_ of the Ligny county, on the plea of their having failed to
furnish the requisite waggons, and in the end bought Montmorency out with
the sum of 2,600,000 francs.
All this, however, was not enough excitement for James. In one of his
letters he plaintively calls Bar his "Todis"--by which of course he means
"Tomis." "Tomis," by a natural train of thought suggested--besides the
_tristia_, of which we have plenty--the _ars amatoria_. And to it the
Chevalier devoted not a few of his unoccupied hours. If local tradition
speaks true, he differed very materially in his prosecution of this art
from his father, of whom Catherine Sedley said that on what principle he
selected the ladies of his heart she could never make out. None of them
were good-looking, and if any of them had wit, he had not the wit to find
it out. And Mary of Modena, his wife, added that, although he was willing
to give up his crown for his faith, he could never muster sufficient
resolution to discard a mistress. His son was in both respects far more of
a man of the world.
It was in the green bosquets of those Paquis, his favourite
lounging-place, that James first discovered his human jewel. To house her
suitably, he took--at somebody else's cost--a cottage on the brow of the
hill, where the view is delightful and the air magnificent. You can still
approximately trace the site, high up in the Rue de l'Horloge, above the
Rue St. Jean, a little below the neglected terrace in the Rue
Chavee--which is well worth visiting for its prospect. As the house stood
with its back to the hill and facing only the open space, there must have
been absolute privacy. But, after moving down to the Lower Town, James
found the ascent by those _Quatre-vingt Degres_--which Oudinot rode up on
horseback--a trifle laborious. The steps lead almost straight up from his
house to the cottage, describing just enough of an angle to take in the
humble building, now marked by a tablet, in which Marshal Oudinot was
born. A more convenient arrangement could scarcely have been desired. But
the steps were sadly "_sales et delabres_." Not to inconvenience James in
his amours, the town council readily voted the requisite sum for putting
them into proper repair.
When September came on, James found the air on the castle-hill "_trop
vif_." Although his mother generally reports that "_il se porte bien_," it
is to be feared that his constitution was none of the strongest. We read
in one of D'Audriffet's despatches, "_que sa sante estoit toujours fort
delicate_." He has had a "_fluxion_" in the eye. He has "weak lungs." "He
is evidently very poorly," writes D'Audriffet to Louis. He finds himself
"_altere par l'intemperie du tems_." He takes the waters of Plombieres
four times "for his health," and wants to take those of Aix-la-Chapelle.
He talks of going to a warmer climate--Spain or Italy, or, more
specifically, Venice. But he can now obtain no fresh passport from the
Emperor. Then he goes to have a look at Saint Mihiel, likewise in the
Barrois, only a few miles from Koeurs, in which another Prince of Wales,
young Edward--the same whom Edward IV. meanly struck with his gauntlet,
and Richard of Gloucester despatched with a stab, to stop his
"sprawling"--spent his young years of exile in company with his mother,
Queen Margaret, from 1464 to 1471. But he does not like the idea of living
in the Benedictine Abbey. So the Duke orders the town council to get ready
once more M. Marchal's convenient house below, to which the Chevalier
insists that a second house adjoining shall be added, belonging to M. de
Romecourt, besides a portion of one belonging to M. Lepaige, with a
kitchen specially built, and a "gardemanger," a new door, and sundry other
conveniences, to say nothing of the hiring of further accommodation for
his horses, his kennel, his _gens de venerie_, his guards, some of his
suite--all of whom and all of which he wants very near him, and all of
which consequently, costs the town a good deal of money. M. de
Romecourt's house is a complete match to M. Marchal's, but smaller,
bringing up the frontage to thirteen windows.
However, James was not always at Bar, nor yet always, when away, at
Plombieres. Duke Leopold was constantly inviting him to Luneville, and
sometimes to Nancy, and arranging most magnificent _fetes_ in his honour.
Leopold could do things handsomely when he chose. Even when James stayed
three whole weeks, there was something new provided every day to amuse
him--"_les plaisirs de la Cour etoint entremele de repas, de collations,
de bals, de concerts, de Comedie, de promenades, de chasse, de feux
d'artifice, etc., mais chaque jour tout etoit nouveau_." Leopold's palace
at Luneville--the same in allusion to which Louis XV. said to King
Stanislas, "_Mon pere, vous etes mieux loge que moi_"--was specially laid
out for the gaiety and the varied succession of amusements for which the
Lorrain Court was famous. It was at the Lorrain Court that the _cotillon_,
that universal favourite on the Continent, was first invented. And in
Leopold's theatre it was that Adrienne Lecouvreur made her first
appearance.
To give James a right royal reception, Leopold spared neither pains nor
money. He always made a point of going to meet his guest--to Batelemont,
to Houdemont, or to Gondrecourt. To enable the Court to enter with proper
spirit into all the magnificence prepared, we read in the official
despatches, that in April, 1713, on the occasion of James's first visit,
the Duke directed that two quarters' salaries, in arrear since 1711,
should be paid to the officers of his household. D'Audriffet makes merry
over this. But in France things were no better. The Court of Versailles,
we know, was always behindhand in its payments to Queen Mary. Mrs
Strickland makes this a matter of reproach to Desmarets, as if purely the
result of his negligence. But the Court had not got the money. In 1715 we
have D'Audriffet himself sending in his little account, which shows five
years' salary to be owing, in addition to 24,800 livres of disbursements,
the whole debt amounting to 84,800 livres.
Even more brilliant than the _fetes_ given at Luneville, were those to
which James was invited at the Chateau of Commercy, the seat of the Prince
de Vaudemont. Vaudemont was rich and generous. He had occupied high
positions in the army and the administrative services both of Austria and
of Spain. He was a man pre-eminently prudent in council. Our William III.
had discovered that, and had frequently sought his opinion, more
particularly while the Treaty of Ryswick was under consideration. To James
the Prince became a most valuable friend and confidant--more especially at
that critical juncture when the Pretender's great aim was to get away
unobserved form Lorraine. In his splendid castle of Commercy, set off by
magnificent cent gardens and sheets of water throwing Versailles into the
shade, the "Damoiseau" of Commercy gave _fetes_ the description of which
baffled Court chroniclers of the period, and after which, in the words of
the "Gazette de Hollande," James found himself constrained to go back to
Bar in self-defence, "_pour s'y delasser, pour ainsi dire, de la fatigue
des plaisirs continuels_." There was such a _fete_ in June, 1713, arranged
on a peculiarly lordly scale, in which a chorus of _Pelerins de Saint
Jacques_ were brought in--appropriately hailing from "L'Isle de Cythere,"
and provided with passports from the goddess Venus--whose special object
seems to be to say pretty things to James:--
"Vous gagnez tous les coeurs, tout le monde gemit
De voir un Roy d'une bonte si rare,
Et brillant de l'eclat de toutes les vertus
Loin des Etats qui lui sont dus
Mais nous verrons un jour cette triple couronne
Qu'ont porte si longtems vos Illustres Ayeux,
Sur votre chef tomber des Cieux.
Le merite, le sang, les Loix, tout vous la donne;
Laissez le soin de soutenir ces droits
Au Dieu qui dans ses mains porte les coeurs des Rois."
Then a curious supper was given. The twenty-four most illustrious guests
present sat down at two tables, the ladies at one, the gentlemen at the
other. Each person was served with an equal portion, "_tous en vaisselle
de fayance, jusqu'aux manches des couteaux_."
"Et dans ce sobre repas
Chacun n'eut que vingt-sept plats."
In all, to these twenty-four people 648 _plats_ were served. The great
joke of the meal was, that strict silence was enjoined. "_Mais on avoit
oublie d'en bannir les Ris._" So people soon began to laugh, and then the
men accused the ladies of breaking the rule, and the ladies retorted, and
that put an end to Trappism. On another occasion, in July, 1714, when
James spent a fortnight at Commercy--while his sister was slowly
dying--the Prince, in the course of an even more brilliant _fete_,
entertained his guests with sham-fights, the siege of a castle, and other
incidents of military operations, for which the services of a French
army-corps stationed in the neighbourhood, at Troussay, under the command
of M. de Ruffey, were impressed.
Mary of Modena must have felt the removal of her only son--her only child,
since the Princess Louise, "_la Consolatrice_," was dead--very keenly. She
declared that she had no one left to open her heart to. This was not to be
understood quite literally, for we find the Queen-Dowager pouring out her
confidences very effusively to her _chere mere_ and the sisters at
Chaillot, whose journals, in fact, supply the main records of Mary's
doings. But, no doubt, she missed James much. Once after his banishment,
in July, 1714--when James rushed secretly to Paris, to consult with the
king about the steps to be taken in view of Queen Anne's impending death,
and was sent away "_fort peu satisfait_"--she had seen him for an hour or
two in the night. Very naturally, she wished to visit him at Bar, more
particularly as her doctors had advised her to try the waters of
Plombieres. It is not altogether impossible, also, although the Queen was
kept in rather tight leading-strings by Dr. Beaulieu, that, plagued as she
was with cancer in the breast, she may have wished to take the advice of a
specialist at Bar with whose fame at the time the world was ringing.
Bar-le-Duc had become strangely identified with cures for cancer. In 1663
Pierre Alliot first discovered the value of cauterising as a corrective
treatment. And early in 1714 M. le sieur Moat, another Bar doctor,
astonished the world with quite a novel method, which was probably humbug,
since it is said to have effected perfectly incredible recoveries. Some
months later we find Queen Mary preparing to set out for Bar and also for
Plombieres. Her bad health and an abnormally wet summer put a stop to the
project. This was just about the time of the death of Queen Anne, when
Leopold felt as if he were politically walking on eggs. He had given so
much umbrage in England already, that every further offence was to be
carefully avoided. If the Queen, as was to be anticipated, in going to
Plombieres, were also to visit Luneville, that must of a certainty give
rise to misunderstandings. So he sends officers and messengers to inquire
and dissuade, as diplomatically as he can. The Queen had been so ill as to
be given up, and he did not wish to pain her. But above all things he had
to think of himself.
On very different grounds the tidings of the Queen's impending visit also
fluttered the good people of Bar not a little. They had never entertained
a queen. So on the 13th of July we find the heads of the town council
carefully inquiring of the Marquis de Gerbevillers, the governor of the
district, what is the proper ceremonial to be observed. Thereupon a
deputation is named, and a present of 16 lb. of _dragees_ and forty-eight
_pots de confitures_ is voted, besides a _feuillade_ of wine for
distribution, and a special _vin d'honneur_, to be presented to the royal
visitor by the Marquis de Bassompierre, on behalf of the town. The
Barisiens are very proud both of their _confitures_ and of their wine.
Both may be had now, presumably, in the same quality in which they were
tendered to Queen Mary. The _confitures_ consist of currants, red and
white, preserved whole, in a syrup made sweet to excess. But the flavour
is good. The _vins de Bar_ have long been reckoned a delicacy, more
particularly the _clairet_--a variety having a colour half-way between red
and white. The wine is highly praised by patriotic writers as being
"_excellent, delicat, leger, et bien-faisant_," and more than any other
"_ami de l'homme_." And if you only stick to that wine alone, and take
care not to mix, you can drink, they protest, absolutely whatever quantity
you like, without feeling one whit the worse next day. To an English
palate, I am bound to say, the wine is apt to present itself as
intolerably sour.
After all, the Queen's visit did not come off till spring, 1715. That was,
again, a most inconvenient time for the Duke of Lorraine, on much the same
grounds as before. He had just made up that nasty tiff with the English
Court, arising out of the publication of the Pretender's manifesto. King
George was at length going to receive his envoy, M. de Lambertye. At such
a juncture the classical "pig among roses" would have been ten times more
welcome to nervous Leopold than Mary of Modena and her son at his Court.
So he writes to Louis, begging him for heaven's sake to stop the Queen
from coming, and despatches Baron Foerstner post-haste to Bar to
remonstrate with the Pretender. Neither attempt proved successful--but the
Queen's visit did not do much harm. Her ill-health again came in as a
special providence, detaining her till after Whitsuntide. She set out
incognita with what is represented as a very modest train--namely, four
coaches-and-six, one _littiere_, and _quelques chaises_. The Duke had the
good grace to receive her with a most hearty welcome. He sent the Marquis
de Bassompierre, her son's great friend, to meet her at Chalons. Her son
met her at Moutiers, on the border of the Barrois. For safety the forests
were once more stocked with soldiers. On the 22d of June, Mary made her
entry into Bar, putting up in James's house in the Rue des Tanneurs. The
local grandees and the town council turned out in force to receive her,
the Marquis de Bassompierre presenting the _dragees_ and the _vin
d'honneur_, while the _bailli_, M. de Gerbevillers, did the honours on
behalf of the Duke, whose Great Chamberlain he was. On the 25th Mary and
James proceed to Commercy, where everybody expresses himself and herself
delighted with _cette sainte Reine_. On the 18th of July the Queen arrives
at Nancy, where the Duke and Duchess are staying. James was at that time
in the midst of plotting. "Milord Drummond" had come from England to
confer with him. Ferrari put in one of his suspicious appearances, to the
bewilderment and annoyance of the French envoy. An Irish priest who talked
indiscreetly about a _grand coup a faire_ was seized and kept under
arrest. Couriers were rushing frantically to and fro. Something was "up."
And Lord Stair, at Paris, we find, knew of it. But the Queen did not
seemingly take a very hopeful view of things. She thanked the Duke very
pathetically for his kindness to James. It needed generosity, she avowed,
to interest one's self on behalf of a Prince "forsaken by all the world."
Her gratitude would be "eternal." The Duchess was most attentive. Both
days that the Queen was at Nancy she forestalled her in calling,
surprising her at her toilet. At Luneville, the Duchess had offered to
make the Chevalier's bed with her own hands. From Nancy Mary Beatrice
proceeded to Plombieres _via_ Bar, returning to St Germains on the 22d of
August. The waters had not done her much good.