THE PRINCE IN FAIRYLAND. II.—WHAT ACTUALLY OCCURRED
Charles mystifies Europe—Montesquieu knows his secret—Sources of
information—The Stuart manuscripts—Charles’s letters from Avignon—A
proposal of marriage—Kennedy and the hidden treasure—Where to look for
Charles—_Cherchez la femme_!—Hidden in Lorraine—Plans for entering
Paris—Letter to Mrs. Drummond—To the Earl Marischal—Starts for Venice—At
Strasbourg—Unhappy Harrington—Letter to James—Leaves Venice ‘A bird
without a nest’—Goes to Paris—The Prince’s secret revealed—The convent of
St. Joseph—Curious letter as Cartouche—Madame de Routh—Cartouche
again—Goring sent to England—A cypher—Portrait of Madame de
Talmond—Portrait of Madame d’Aiguillon—Intellectual society—Mademoiselle
Luci—‘Dener Bash’—The secret hoard—Results of Goring’s English
mission—Timidity of English Jacobites—Supply of money—Charles a
_bibliophile_—‘My big muff’—A patron of art—Quarrels with Madame de
Talmond—Arms for a rising—Newton on Cluny—Kindness to Monsieur Le
Coq—Madame de Talmond weary of Charles—Letters to her—Charles reads
Fielding’s novels—Determines to go to England—Large order of
arms—Reproached by James—Intagli of James—_En route_ for London—September
1750.
THE reader has had an opportunity of observing the success of Charles in
mystifying Europe. Diplomatists, ambassadors, and wits would have been
surprised, indeed, had they known that one of the most famous men of the
age possessed the secret for which they were seeking. The author of
‘L’Esprit des Lois’ could have enlightened them, for Charles’s mystery
was no mystery to Montesquieu, who was friendly with Scottish and English
Jacobites. The French Ministers, truly or falsely, always professed
entire ignorance. They promised to arrest the Prince wherever he might
be found on French soil, and transport him to sea by Civita Vecchia. {68}
It will be shown later that, at least in the autumn of 1749, this
ignorance was probably feigned.
What is really known of the movements of the Prince in 1749? Curiously
enough, Mr. Ewald does not seem to have consulted the ‘Stuart Papers’ at
Windsor, while the extracts in Browne’s ‘History of the Highland Clans’
are meagre. To these papers then we turn for information. The most
useful portions are _not_ Charles’s letters to James. These are brief
and scanty. Thus he writes from Avignon (January 15, 1749), ‘We are
enjoying here the finest weather ever was seen.’ He always remarks that
his health ‘is perfect.’ He orders patterns for his servants’ liveries
and a button, blue and yellow, still remains in a letter from Edgar! The
button outlasts the dynasty. Our intelligence must be extracted from
ill-spelled, closely scrawled, and much erased sheets of brown paper, on
which Charles has scribbled drafts for letters to his household, to
Waters, his banker in Paris, to adherents in Paris or London, and to
ladies. The notes are almost, and in places are quite, illegible. The
Prince practised a disguised hand, and used pseudonyms instead of names.
Many letters have been written in sympathetic ink, and then exposed to
fire or the action of acids. However, something can be made out, but not
why he concealed his movements even from his banker, even from his
household, Oxburgh, Kelly, Harrington, and Graeme. It is certain that he
started, with a marriage in his eye, from Avignon on February 28, 1749,
accompanied by Henry Goring, of the Austrian service. There had already
been a correspondence, vaguely hinted at by James’s secretary, Edgar,
between Charles and the Duke and a Princess of Hesse-Darmstadt. On
February 24, 1749, Charles drafted, at Avignon, a proposal for the hand
of the Duke’s daughter. He also drafted (undated) a request to the King
of Poland for leave to bring his wife, the Princess of Hesse-Darmstadt,
into Polish territory. {69} We may imagine His Polish Majesty’s answer.
Of course, the marriage did not take place.
Charles had other secrets. On February 3, 1749, he wrote to Waters about
the care to be taken with certain letters. These were a correspondence
with ‘Thomas Newton,’ (Major Kennedy), at Mr. Alexander Macarty’s, in
Gray’s Inn, London. Newton was in relations with Cluny Macpherson,
through a friend in Northumberland. Cluny, skulking on his Highland
estates, was transmitting or was desired to transmit a part of the
treasure of 40,000 _louis d’or_, buried soon after Culloden at the head
of Loch Arkaig. {70a} Of this fatal treasure we shall hear much. A
percentage of the coin was found to be false money, a very characteristic
circumstance. Moreover, Cluny seems to have held out hopes, always
deferred, of a rising in the Highlands. Charles had to be ready in
secrecy, to put himself at the head of this movement. There was also to
be an English movement, which was frowned on by official Jacobitism. On
February 3, 1749, Charles writes from Avignon to ‘Thomas Newton’
(Kennedy) about the money sent south by Cluny. He repeated his remarks
on March 6, giving no place of residence. But probably he was
approaching Paris, dangerous as such a visit was, for in a note of March
6 to Waters, he says that he will ‘soon call for letters.’ {70b} His
_noms de guerre_ at this time were ‘Williams’ and ‘Benn’; later he chose
‘John Douglas.’ He was also Smith, Mildmay, Burton, and so forth.
There should have been no difficulty in discovering Charles. Modern
police, in search of a person who is ‘wanted,’ spy on his mistress. Now
the Princesse de Talmond, when out of favour at Versailles, went to
certain lands in Lorraine, near her exiled king, Stanislas. In Lorraine,
therefore, at Lunéville, the Court of the ex-king of Poland, or at
Commercy, Bar-le-Duc, or wherever the Princesse de Talmond might be,
Charles was sure to be heard of by an intelligent spy, if permitted to
enter the country. Consequently, we are not surprised to find Charles
drafting on April 3, at Lunéville (where he resided at the house of one
Mittie, physician of the ex-king of Poland), a ‘Project for My arrival in
Paris. Mr. Benn [himself] must go straight to Dijon, and his companion,
Mr. Smith [Goring], to Paris. Mr. Smith will need a chaise, which he
must buy at Lunéville. Next he will take up the servant of C. P. [Prince
Charles] at Ligny, but on leaving that place Mr. Smith must ride on
horseback, and the chaise can go there as if for his return to Paris; the
person in it seeming to profit by this opportunity. Mr. Benn [the
Prince] must remain for some days, as if he wanted to buy a trunk, and
will give his own as if in friendship to Mr. Smith; all this seeming mere
chance work. Next, Mr. Smith will go his way and his friend will go his,
after waiting a few days, and on arriving at Dijon must write to nobody,
except the letter to W— [Waters]. The Chevalier Graeme, whom he must see
(and to whom he may mention having been at Dijon on the Prince’s
business, without naming his companion, but as if alone), knows nothing,
and Graeme must be left in the dark as if he (Mr. Smith) [Goring] were in
the same case, and were waiting new orders in total ignorance, not having
seen me for a long time.’ {71}
There follow a few private addresses in Paris; and the name, to be
remarked, of ‘Mademoiselle Ferrand.’
All this is very puzzling; we only make out that, by some confusion of
the personalities of ‘Benn’ (the Prince) and ‘Mr. Smith’ (Goring),
Charles hoped to enter Paris undetected. Yet he _was_ seen ‘entering a
gate of Paris in disguise.’ Doubtless he had lady allies, but a certain
Mademoiselle Ferrand, to whom he wrote, he seems not to have known
personally. We shall find that she was later of use to him, and indeed
his most valuable friend and ally.
Next, we find this letter of April 10 to Madame Henrietta Drummond,
doubtless of the family of Macgregor, called Drummond, of Balhaldie.
Charles appears to have had enough of Paris, and is going to Venice. He
is anxious to meet the Earl Marischal.
‘April 10, 1749.
‘I have been very impatient to be able to give you nuse of me as I am
fully persuaded of yr Friendship, and concern for everything that
regards me; I send you here enclosed a Letter for Ld Marishal, be
pleased to enclose it, and forward it without loss of time; the
Bearer (he is neither known by you or me), is charged to receive at
any time what Letters you want to send me, and you may be shure of
their arriving safe. Iff Lord Marishal agrees with my Desier when
you give his Packet to yr Bearer, you must put over it _en
Dilligence_, iff otherwise, direct by my Name as I sign it here. I
flatter myself of the Continuation of your Friendship, as I hope you
will never doubt of mine which shall be constant. I remain yr moste
obedient humble Servant
‘JOHN DOUGLAS.
‘P.S.—Tell ye Bearer when to comback for the answer of ye enclosed or
any other Letters you want to send me.
‘P.S. to Lord Marischal.—Whatever party you take, be pleased to keep
my writing secret, and address to me at Venise to the Sig. Ignazio
Testori to Mr. de Villelongue under cover to a Banquier of that town,
and it will come safe to me.
‘To Md. Henrietta Drummond.’
Charles, on April 20, wrote another letter to the Lord Marischal,
imploring for an interview, at some place to be fixed. But the old Lord
was not likely to go from Berlin to Venice, whither Charles was
hastening.
It is perfectly plain that, leaving Avignon on February 28, Charles was
making for Paris on March 6 by a circuitous route through Lorraine (where
he doubtless met Madame de Talmond), and a double back on Burgundy. What
he did or desired in Paris we do not know. He is said to have visited
Lally Tollendal, and he must have seen Waters, his banker. By April 10
he is starting for Venice, where he had, as a boy, been royally received.
But, in 1744, the Republic of Venice had resumed relations with England,
interrupted by Charles’s too kind reception in 1737. The whole romance,
therefore, of Henry Goring’s letter, and all the voyages to Stockholm,
Berlin, Lithuania, and so forth, are visions. Charles probably saw some
friends in Paris, was tolerated in Lorraine (where his father was
protected before 1715), and he vainly looked for a home in any secular
State of Europe. This was all, or nearly all, that occurred between
March and May 1749. Europe was fluttered, secret service money was
poured out like water, diplomatists caballed and scribbled despatches,
all for very little. The best place to have hunted for Charles was
really at Lunéville, near the gay Court of his kinsman, the Duke
Stanislas Leczinski, the father of the Queen of France. There Charles’s
sometime admirer, Voltaire, was a welcome guest; thither too (as we saw)
went his elderly cousin, people said his mistress, the Princesse de
Talmond. But the English diplomatists appear to have neglected
Lunéville. D’Argenson was better informed.
On April 26 Charles was at Strasbourg. Here, D’Argenson says, he was
seen, and warned to go, by an _écuyer_ of the late Cardinal Rohan. Hence
he wrote again to the Earl Marischal at Berlin. From this note it is
plain that he had sent Goring (‘Mr. Smith’) to the Earl; Goring, indeed,
had carried his letters of April 10–20. He again proposes a meeting with
the Earl Marischal at Venice. He will ‘answer for the expenses,’ and
apologises for ‘such a long and fatiguing journey.’ He wrote to Waters,
‘You may let Mr. Newton know that whenever he has thoroly finished his
Business, Mr. Williams [the Prince] will make him very wellcum in all his
Cuntrihouses.’
The ‘business’ of ‘Mr. Newton’ was to collect remittances from Cluny.
On April 30, the Prince, as ‘Mr. Williams,’ expresses ‘his surprise and
impatience for the delay of the horses [money] and other goods promised
by Mr. Newton.’
On May 3, Charles wrote, without address, to Goring, ‘I go strete to
Venice, and would willingly avoid your Garrison Towns, as much as
possible: _id est_, of France. I believe to compass that by goin by
Ruffach to Pfirt: there to wate for me. The Chese [chaise] you may
either leve it in consine to your post-master of Belfort, or, what is
still better, to give it to the bearer.’
Goring and Harrington were to meet the bearer at Belfort, but Harrington
seems to have been mystified, and to have failed in effecting a junction.
The poor gentleman, we learn, from letters of Stafford and Sheridan,
Charles’s retainers at Avignon, could scarcely raise money to leave that
town. Sir James Harrington was next to meet Charles at Venice. He was
to carry a letter for Charles to a Venetian banker. ‘Nota bene, that
same banquier, though he will deliver to me your letter, knows nothing
about me, nor who I am. . . . Change your name, and, in fine, keep as
private as possible, till I tell you what is to be done.’ Harrington
failed, and lay for months in pawn at Venice, pouring out his griefs in
letters to Goring. He was a lachrymose conspirator.
These weary affairs are complicated by mysterious letters to ladies: for
example to Mademoiselle Lalasse, ‘Je vous prie, Mademoiselle, de rendre
justice à mon inviolable attachement . . .’ (May 3). He gives her
examples of his natural and of his disguised handwriting; probably she
helped him in forwarding his correspondence. Charles’s chief anxiety was
to secure the Lord Marischal. Bulkeley and the official English
Jacobites kept insisting that he should have a man with him who was
trusted by the party. Kelly was distrusted, though Bulkeley defends him,
and was cashiered in autumn. Charles’s friends also kept urging that he
must ‘appear in public,’ but where? Bulkeley suggested Bologna. The
Earl Marischal, later (July 5), was for Fribourg. No place was really
both convenient and possible. On May 17 Charles wrote from Venice to the
Earl Marischal, ‘I am just arrived, but will not be able for some days,
to know what reception to meet with.’ He fears he ‘may be chased from
hence,’ and his fears were justified. On the same day (May 17) he wrote
to Edgar in Rome, ‘Venice, next to France, is the best for my interest,
and the only one in Italy.’
Venice ejected the Prince. On May 26 he wrote to his father:
‘Sir,—I received last night from ye Nuntio a definitive answer about
my project, which is quite contrary to my expectation; as I have
nothing further to do here, and would not run the least risk of being
found out, I depart this very evening, having left a direction to the
said Nuntio how to forward my letters for me.’ On the same day he
wrote to Chioseul de Stainville, the minister at Versailles of the
Empress, ‘Could an anonymous exiled Prince be received by the Kaiser
and the Queen of Hungary? He would remain incognito.’
On June 3 Charles wrote to James, without address or news, and to
Bulkeley. ‘Now my friend must skulk to the perfect dishonour and glory
of his worthy relations, until he finds a reception fitting at home or
abroad.’ On the back of the draft he writes:
‘What can a bird do that has not found a right nest? He must flit
from bough to bough—_ainsi use les Irondel_.’
Probably Charles, after a visit, perhaps, to Ferrara, returned to Paris
and his Princess. We find a draft thus conceived and spelled:
‘ARRENGEMENT.
‘Goring to come here immediately, he to know nothing but that I am
just arrived. I am not to go to Paris, but at the end of the month,
as sooner no answer can be had, moreover perhaps obliged to wait
another, which would oblige me to remain to long in P.’ He also
(June 3) wrote to Montesquieu, from whom (I think) there is an
unsigned friendly letter. He sent compliments to the Duchesse
d’Aiguillon, a lady much attached to Montesquieu. An unsigned
English letter (June 5) advised him to appear publicly. People are
coming to inquire into reports about his character, ‘after which it
is possible some proposals may be made to you.’ The writer will say
more when ‘in a safer place.’
Newton (Kennedy), meanwhile, had been imprisoned and examined in London,
but had been released, and was at Paris. He bought for the Prince ‘a
fine case of double barrill pistols, made by Barber,’ and much admired
‘on this side.’ Charles expresses gratitude for the gift. Newton had
been examined by the Duke of Newcastle about the 40,000 _louis d’or_
buried at Loch Arkaig in 1740, but had given no information. On June 26
Charles again asks Bulkeley, ‘What _can_ a bird do that has found no
right nest?’
On June 30 the Prince was probably in Paris, whither we have seen that he
meant to go. He had ‘found a right nest,’ and a very curious nest he had
found. The secret of the Prince’s retreat became known, many years
later, to Grimm, the Paris correspondent of Catherine the Great.
Charles’s biographers have overlooked or distrusted Grimm’s gossip, but
it is confirmed by Charles’s accidentally writing two real names, in
place of pseudonyms, in his correspondence. The history of his ‘nest’
was this. After her reign as favourite of Louis XIV., Madame de
Montespan founded a convent of St. Joseph, in the Rue St. Dominique, in
the Faubourg St. Germain. Attached to the convent were rooms in which
ladies of rank might make a retreat, or practically occupy chambers. {79}
About this convent and its inmates, Grimm writes as follows:
‘The unfortunate Prince Charles, after leaving the Bastille [really
Vincennes] lay hidden for three years in Paris, in the rooms of
Madame de Vassé, who then resided with her friend, the celebrated
Mademoiselle Ferrand, at the convent of St. Joseph. To Mademoiselle
de Ferrand the Abbé Condillac owed the ingenious idea of the statue,
which he has developed so well in his treatise on “The Sensations.”
The Princesse de Talmond, with whom Prince Charles was always much in
love, inhabited the same house. All day he was shut up in a little
_garderobe_ of Madame de Vassé’s, whence, by a secret staircase, he
made his way at night to the chambers of the Princesse. In the
evening he lurked behind an alcove in the rooms of Mademoiselle
Ferrand. Thus, unseen and unknown, he enjoyed every day the
conversation of the most distinguished society, and heard much good
and much evil spoken of himself.
‘The existence of the Prince in this retreat, and the profound
mystery which so long hid him from the knowledge of the world, by a
secret which three women shared, and in a house where the flower of
the city and the Court used to meet, seems almost miraculous. M. de
Choiseul, who heard the story several years after the departure of
the Prince, could not believe it. When Minister of Foreign Affairs
he wrote to Madame de Vassé and asked her for the particulars of the
adventure. She told him all, and did not conceal the fact that she
had been obliged to get rid of the Prince, because of the too lively
scenes between him and Madame de Talmond. They began in tender
effusions, and often ended in a quarrel, or even in blows. This fact
we learn from an intimate friend of Madame de Vassé.’ {80}
There is exaggeration here. The Prince was not living a life ‘fugitive
and cloistered’ for three whole unbroken years. But the convent of St.
Joseph was one of his hiding-places from 1749 to 1752. Of Madame de
Vassé I have been unable to learn much: a lady of that name was presented
at Court in 1745, and the Duc de Luynes describes her as ‘conveniently
handsome.’ She is always alluded to as ‘La Grandemain’ in Charles’s
correspondence, but once he lets her real name slip out in a memorandum.
Mademoiselle Ferrand’s father is apparently described by d’Hozier as
‘Ferrand, Ecuyer, Sieur des Marres et de Ronville en Normandie.’ Many of
Charles’s letters are addressed to ‘Mademoiselle Luci,’ _sister_ of ‘La
Grandemain.’ Now Madame de Vassé seems, from a passage in the Duc de
Luynes’s ‘Mémoires,’ to have been the only daughter of her father, M. de
Pezé. But once, Charles, writing to ‘Mademoiselle Luci,’ addresses the
letter to ‘Mademoiselle La Marre,’ for ‘Marres.’ Now, as _Marres_ was an
estate of the Ferrands, this address seems to identify ‘Mademoiselle
Luci’ with Mademoiselle Ferrand, the intimate friend, not really the
sister, of Madame de Vassé. Mademoiselle Ferrand, as Grimm shows, had a
taste for philosophy. We shall remark the same taste in the Prince’s
friend, ‘Mademoiselle Luci.’
Thus the secret which puzzled Europe is revealed. The Prince, sought
vainly in Poland, Prussia, Italy, Silesia, and Staffordshire, was really
lurking in a fashionable Parisian convent. Better had he been ‘where the
wind blows over seven glens, and seven Bens, and seven mountain moors,’
like the Prince in the Gaelic fairy stories.
We return to details. On June 30, 1749, the Prince, still homeless,
writes a curious letter to Mademoiselle Ferrand:
‘The confidence, Mademoiselle, which I propose to place in you may
seem singular, as I have not the good fortune to know you. The
Comtesse de Routh, however, will be less surprised.’ This lady was
the wife of an Irishman commanding a regiment in the French service,
one of those stationed on the frontier of Flanders. ‘You
[Mademoiselle Ferrand], who have made a _Relation de Cartouche_ [the
famous robber], may consent to be the depositary of my letter. I
pray you to give this letter to the Comtesse de Routh, and to receive
from her all the packets addressed to Monsieur Douglas.’ He then
requests Madame de Routh not to let the Waterses know that she is the
intermediary.
The reason for all this secrecy is obvious. D’Argenson (not the _Bête_,
but his brother) had threatened Waters with the loss of his head if he
would not tell where the Prince was concealed {82}. The banker did not
want to know the dangerous fact, and was able to deny his knowledge with
a clear conscience.
On July 23 Charles again wrote to Mademoiselle Ferrand: ‘It is very bold
of Cartouche to write once more, without knowing whether you wish to be
concerned with him, but people of our profession are usually impudent,
indeed we must be, if we are to earn our bread. . . . I pray you to have
some confidence in this handwriting, and to believe that Cartouche,
though he be Cartouche, is a true friend. As for his smuggling business,
even if it does not succeed as he hopes, he will be none the less
grateful to all who carry his flag, as he will be certain that, if he
fails, it is because success is impossible.’ {83}
This letter was likely to please a romantic girl, as we may suppose
Mademoiselle Ferrand to have been, despite her philosophy.
Stafford and Sheridan now kept writing pitiful appeals for money from
Avignon. Charles answers (July 31, 1749):
‘I wish I were in a situation at present to relive them I estime, in
an exotick cuntry that desiers nothing else but to exercise their
arbitrary power in distressing all honest men, even them that [are]
most allies to their own Soverain.’
Charles, in fact, was himself very poor: when money came in, either from
English adherents or from the Loch Arkaig hoard, he sent large
remittances to Avignon.
Money did come in, partly, no doubt, from English adherents. We find the
following orders from the Prince to Colonel Goring.
_From the Prince to Goring_.
‘Ye 31st July, 1749.
‘I gave you Lately a proof of my Confidence, by our parting together
from Avignion, so that you will not be surprized of a New Instance.
You are to repair on Receipt of this to London, there to Let know to
such friends as you can see, my situation, and Resolutions; all
tending to nothing else but the good and relieve of our Poor Country
which ever was, and shall be my only thoughts. Take Care of yr.Self,
do not think to be on a detachement, but only a simple Minister that
is to comback with a distinct account from them parts, and remain
assured of my Constant friendship and esteem.
‘C. P. R. For GORING.
‘P.S.—Cypher.
‘I. S h a l. C o n q u e r.
‘3 w k y p t d b q x m f.
‘My name shall be John Douglas.
‘Jean Noé D’Orville & fils. A Frankfort sur Maine, a Banquier of
that Town.’
The Prince may have been at Frankfort, but, as a rule, he was hiding in
Lorraine when not in Paris or near it, and, as we have seen, was under
the protection of various French and fashionable Flora Macdonalds. Of
these ladies, ‘Madame de Beauregard’ and the Princesse de Talmond are
apparently the same person. With them, or her (she also appears as _la
tante_ and _la vieille_), Charles’s relations were stormy. He wearied
her, he broke with her, he scolded her, and returned to her again.
Another protectress, Madame d’Aiguillon, was the mistress of the
household most frequented by Montesquieu, _le filosophe_, as Charles
calls him. Madame du Deffand has left to us portraits of both the
Princesse de Talmond and Madame d’Aiguillon.
‘Madame de Talmond has beauty and wit and vivacity; that turn for
pleasantry which is our national inheritance seems natural to her. . . .
But her wit deals only with pleasant frivolities; her ideas are
the children of her memory rather than of her imagination. French in
everything else, she is original in her vanity. Ours is more
sociable, inspires the desire to please, and suggests the means.
Hers is truly Sarmatian, artless and indolent; she cannot bring
herself to flatter those whose admiration she covets. . . . She
thinks herself perfect, says so, and expects to be believed. At this
price alone does she yield a semblance of friendship: semblance, I
say, for her affections are concentrated on herself . . . She is as
jealous as she is vain, and so capricious as to make her at once the
most unhappy and the most absurd of women. She never knows what she
wants, what she fears, whom she loves, or whom she hates. There is
no nature in her expression: with her chin in the air she poses
eternally as tender or disdainful, absent or haughty; all is
affectation. . . . She is feared and hated by all who live in her
society. Yet she has truth, courage, and honesty, and is such a
mixture of good and evil that no steadfast opinion about her can be
entertained. She pleases, she provokes: we love, hate, seek, and
avoid her. It is as if she communicated to others the eccentricity
of her own caprice.’
Where a character like hers met a nature like the Prince’s, peace and
quiet were clearly out of the question.
Madame du Deffand is not more favourable to another friend of Charles,
Madame d’Aiguillon. This lady gave a supper every Saturday night, where
neither her husband, the lover of the Princesse de Conti, nor her son,
later the successor of Choiseul as Minister of Louis XV., was expected to
appear. ‘The most brilliant men, French or foreign, were her guests,
attracted by her abundant, active, impetuous, and original intellect, by
her elevated conversation, and her kindness of manner.’ {86} She was,
according to Gustavus III., ‘the living gazette of the Court, the town,
the provinces, and the academy.’ Voltaire wrote to her rhymed epistles.
Says Madame du Deffand, ‘Her mouth is fallen in, her nose crooked, her
glance wild and bold, and in spite of all this she is beautiful. The
brilliance of her complexion atones for the irregularity of her features.
Her waist is thick, her bust and arms are enormous. yet she has not a
heavy air: her energy gives her ease of movement. Her wit is like her
face, brilliant and out of drawing. Profusion, activity, impetuosity are
her ruling qualities . . . She is like a play which is all _spectacle_,
all machines and decorations, applauded by the pit and hissed by the
boxes. . . . ’
Montesquieu was hardly a spectator in the pit, yet he habitually lived at
Madame d’Aiguillon’s; ‘she is original,’ he said, and she, with Madame
Dupré de Saint-Maur, watched by the death-bed of the philosopher. {87}
In unravelling the hidden allusions of Charles’s correspondence, I at
first recognised Madame d’Aiguillon in Charles’s friend ‘La Grandemain.’
The name seemed a suitable _sobriquet_, for a lady with _gros bras_, like
Madame d’Aiguillon, might have large hands. The friendship of ‘La
Grandemain’ with the _philosophe_, Montesquieu, also pointed to Madame
d’Aiguillon. But Charles, at a later date, makes a memorandum that he
has deposited his strong box, with money, at the rooms of La Comtesse de
Vassé, in the Rue Saint Dominique, Faubourg St. Germain. That box,
again, as he notes, was restored by ‘La Grandemain.’ This fact, with
Grimm’s anecdote, identifies ‘La Grandemain,’ not with Madame
d’Aiguillon, but with Madame de Vassé, ‘the Comtesse,’ as Goring calls
her, though Grimm makes her a Marquise. If Montesquieu’s private papers
and letters in MS. had been published in full, we should probably know
more of this matter. His relations with Bulkeley were old and most
intimate. Before he died he confessed to Father Routh, an Irish Jesuit,
whom Voltaire denounces in ‘Candide.’ This Routh must have been
connected with Colonel Routh, an Irish Jacobite in French service,
husband of Charles’s friend, ‘la Comtesse de Routh.’ Montesquieu
himself, though he knew, as we shall show, the Prince’s secret, was no
conspirator. Unluckily, as we learn from M. Vian’s life of the
philosopher, his successors have been very chary of publishing details of
his private existence. It is, of course, conceivable that Helvetius, who
told Hume that his house had sheltered Charles, is the _philosophe_
mentioned by Mademoiselle Luci and Madame de Vassé. But Charles’s proved
relations with Montesquieu, and Montesquieu’s known habit of frequenting
the society of his lady neighbours in the convent of St. Joseph, also his
intimacy with Charles’s friend Bulkeley, who attended his death-bed, all
seem rather to point to the author of ‘L’Esprit des Lois.’ The
_philosophes_, for a moment, seem to have expected to find in Prince
Charlie the ‘philosopher-king’ of Plato’s dream!
The Prince’s distinguished friends unluckily did not succeed in inspiring
him with common sense.
On August 16 he defends the conduct of _cette home_, _ou tête de fer_
(himself), and he writes a few aphorisms, _Maximes d’un l’ome sauvage_!
He aimed at resembling Charles XII., called ‘Dener Bash’ by the Turks,
for his obstinacy, a nickname also given by Lord Marischal to the Prince.
Like Balen, he was termed ‘The Wild,’ ‘by knights whom kings and courts
can tame.’ He writes to the younger Waters,
_To Waters_, _Junior_.
‘Ye 21st August, 1749.
‘I receive yrs. of ye 8th. Current with yr two as mentioned and I
heve send their Answers for Avignon, plese to Enclose in it a Credit
for fifteen thousand Livers, to Relive my family there, at the
disposal of Stafford and Sheridan. I am sorry to be obliged oftener
to draw upon you, than to remit, and cannot help Reflection on this
occasion, on the Misery of that poor Popish Town, and all their
Inhabitants not being worth four hundred Louidors. Mr. B. [Bulkeley]
Mistakes as to my taking amis anything of him, on the contrary I am
charmed to heve the opinion of everybody, particularly them Like him,
as I am shure say nothing but what they think: but as I am so much
imbibed in ye English air, where My only Concerns are, I cannot help
sometimes differing with ye inhabitants of forain Climats.
‘I remain all yours.
‘15,000 ff. Credit for Stafford and Sheridan at Avignon.’
‘Newton’ kept writing, meanwhile, that Cluny can do nothing till winter,
‘on account of the sheilings,’ the summer habitations of the pastoral
Highlanders. There may have been sheilings near the hiding-places of the
Loch Arkaig treasure. On September 30 we find Charles professing his
_inébranlable amitié_ for Madame de Talmond. He bids his courier stop at
Lunéville, as she may be at the Court of Stanislas there.
The results of Goring’s mission to England may be gleaned from a cypher
letter of ‘Malloch’ (Balhaldie) to James. Balhaldie had been in London;
he found the party staunch, ‘but frighted out of their wits.’ The usual
names of the official Jacobites are given—Barrymore, Sir William Watkyns
Wynne, and Beaufort. But they are all alarmed ‘by Lord Traquair’s silly
indiscretion in blabbing to Murray of Broughton of their concerns,
wherein he could be of no use.’ They had summoned Balhaldie, and
complained of the influence of Kelly, an adviser bequeathed to Charles by
his old tutor, Sir Thomas Sheridan, now dead. ‘They saw well that the
Insurrection Sir James Harrington was negotiating, to be begun at
Litchfield Election and Races, in September ’47, was incouraged, and when
that failed, the Insurrection attempted by Lally’s influence on one
Wilson, a smuggler in Sussex, which could serve no end save the
extinction of the unhappy men concerned in them; therefore they had taken
pains to prevent any. They lamented the last steps the Prince had taken
here as scarcely reparable.’
Goring had now been with them, and they had insisted on the Prince’s
procuring a reconciliation with the French Court. ‘Goring’s only
business was to say that the Prince had parted with Kelly, Lally, Sir
James Graeme, and Oxburgh, and the whole, and to assure friends in
England that he would never more see any one of them.’ Charles was,
therefore, provided by his English friends with 15,000_l._, and the
King’s timid party of men with much to lose won a temporary triumph. He
sent 21,000 livres to his Avignon household, adding, ‘I received yours
with a list of my bookes: I find sumne missing of them. Particularly Fra
Paulo [Sarpi] and Boccaccio, which are both rare. If you find any let me
know it.’
Charles was more of a bibliophile than might be guessed from his
orthography.
On November 22, 1749, Charles, from Lunéville, wrote a long letter to a
lady, speaking of himself in the third person. All approaches to Avignon
are guarded, to prevent his return thither. ‘Despite the Guards, they
assure me that he is in France, and not far from the capital. The
Lieutenant of Police has been heard to say, by a person who informed me,
that he knew for certain the Prince had come in secret to Paris, and had
been at the house of Monsieur Lally. The King winks at all this, but it
is said that M. de Puysieux and the Mistress (Madame de Pompadour) are as
ill disposed as ever. I know from a good source that 15,000_l._ has been
sent to the Prince from England, on condition of his dismissing his
household.’ {91}
The spelling of this letter is correct, and possibly the Prince did not
write it, but copied it out. That Louis XV. winked at his movements is
probable enough; secretive as he was, the King may have known what he
concealed even from his Minister, de Puysieux.
On December 19, the Prince, who cannot have been far from Paris, sent
Goring thither ‘to get my big Muff and portfeul.’ I do not know which
lady he addressed, on December 10, as ‘l’Adorable,’ ‘avec toute la
tendresse possible.’ On November 28, ‘R. Jackson’ writes from England.
He saw Dr. King (of St. Mary Hall, Oxford), who had been at Lichfield
races, ‘and had a list of the 275 gentlemen who were there.’ This Mr.
Jackson was going to Jamaica, to Henry Dawkins, brother of Jemmy Dawkins,
a rich and scholarly planter who played a great part, later, in Jacobite
affairs.
In 1750, February found Charles still without a reply to his letter of
May 26, in which he made an anonymous appeal for shelter in Imperial
territories. Orders to Goring, who had been sent to Lally, bid him ‘take
care not to get benighted in the woods and dangerous places.’ A good
deal is said about a marble bust of the Prince at which Lemoine is
working, the original, probably, of the plaster busts sold in autumn in
Red Lion Square. ‘Newton’ (January 28) thinks Cluny wilfully dilatory
about sending the Loch Arkaig treasure, and Æneas Macdonald, the banker,
one of the Seven Men of Moidart, accuses ‘Newton’ (Kennedy) of losing
800_1._ of the money at Newmarket races! In fact, Young Glengarry and
Archibald Cameron had been helping themselves freely to the treasure at
this very time, whence came endless trouble and recriminations, as we
shall see. {92}
On January 25 the Prince was embroiled with Madame de Talmond. He
writes, obviously in answer to remonstrances:
‘Nous nous prometons de suivre en tout les volontés et les
arrangemens de notre fidèle amie et alliée, L. P. D. T.; nous retirer
aux heures qu’il lui conviendra a la ditte P, soit de jour, soit de
nuit, soit de ses états, en foy de quoi nous signons. C.’
He had begun to bore the capricious lady.
Important intrigues were in the air. The Prince resembled ‘paper-sparing
Pope’ in his use of scraps of writing material. One piece bears notes
both of February and June 1750. On February 16 Charles wrote to Mr.
Dormer, an English Jacobite:
‘I order you to go to Anvers, and there to execute my instructions
without delay.’
Goring carried the letter. Then comes a despatch of June, which will be
given under date.
Concerning the fatal hoard of Loch Arkaig, ‘Newton’ writes thus:—
_Tho. Newton to_ —
‘March 18, 1750.
‘You have on the other side the melancholy confirmation of what I
apprehended. Dr. Cameron is no doubt the person here mentioned that
carryd away the horses [money], for he is lately gone to Rome, as is
also young Glengery, those and several others of them, have been very
flush of money, so that it seems they took care of themselves. C.
[Cluny] in my opinion is more to be blamed than any of them, for if
he had a mind to act the honest part he certainly could have given up
the whole long since. They will no doubt represent me not in the
most advantageous light at Rome, for attempting to carry out of their
country what they had to support them. I hope they will one day or
other be obliged to give an acct. of this money, if so, least they
shd. attempt to Impose upon you, you’l find my receipts to C. will
exactly answer what I had already the honour of giving you an acct.
of.’
Again ‘Newton’ writes:
(_Tho. Newton_—_From G. Waters’s Letter_.)
‘April 27, 1750.
‘I am honored with yours of the 6th. Inst. and nothing could equal my
surprize at the reception of the Letter I sent you. I did not expect
C [Cluny] was capable of betraying the confidence you had in him, and
he is the more culpable, as I frequently put it in his power to
acquit himself of his duty without reproach of any side. Only
Cameron is returned from Rome greatly pleased with the reception he
met there. I have not seen him, but he has bragged of this to many
people here since his return. I never owned to any man alive to have
been employed in that affair.’
In spite of Newton, it is not to be credited that Cluny, lurking in many
perils on Ben Alder, was unfaithful about the treasure.
Meanwhile, Young Glengarry (whose history we give later), Archibald
Cameron (Lochiel’s brother), Sir Hector Maclean, and other Jacobites,
were in Rome, probably to explain their conduct about the Loch Arkaig
treasure to James. He knew nothing about the matter, and what he said
will find its proper place when we come to investigate the history of
Young Glengarry. The Prince at this time corresponded a good deal with
‘Mademoiselle Luci,’ that fair philosophical recluse who did little
commissions for him in Paris. On April 4 he wants a list of the books he
left in Paris, and shows a kind heart.
‘Pray take care of the young surgeon, M. Le Coq, and see that he wants
for nothing. As the lad gets no money from his relations, he may be in
need.’ Charles, on March 28, writes thus to ‘Madame de Beauregard,’
which appears to be an alias of Madame de Talmond:
_The Prince_.
March 28, 1750.
‘A Md. Bauregor. Je vois avec Chagrin que vous vous tourmentes et
mois aussi bien innutillement, et en tout sans [sens]. Ou vous
voules me servire, ou vous ne Le voules pas; ou vous voules me
protege, ou non; Il n’y a acune autre alternative en raison qui puis
etre. Si vous voules me servire il ne faut pas me soutenire toujours
que Blan [blanc] est noire, dans Les Chose Les plus palpable: et
jamais Avouer que vous aves tort meme quant vous Le santes. Si vous
ne voules pas me servire, il est inutile que je vous parle de ce qui
me regarde: si vous voules me protege, il ne faut pas me rendre La
Vie plus malheureuse qu’il n’est. Si vous voules m’abandoner il faut
me Le dire en bon Francois ou Latin. Visus solum’ [sic].
Madame de Talmond sheltered the Prince both in Lorraine and in Paris.
They were, unluckily, born to make each other’s lives ‘insupportable.’
Charles wrote this letter, probably to Madame d’Aiguillon, from Paris:
May 12, 1750.
‘La Multitude d’affaire de toute Espèce dont j’ai été plus que
surchargé, Madame, depuis plus de quatre Mois, Chose que votre
Chancelier a du vous attester, ne m’ avois permis de vous rappeller
Le souvenir de vos Bontés pour Moi; qualque Long qu’ait ete Le
Silance que j’ai gardé sur Le Desir que j’ai d’en mériter La
Continuation j’espère qu’il ne m’en aura rien fait perdre: j’ose meme
presumer Encore asses pour me flater qu’une Longue absence que je
projette par raison et par une necessite absolue, ne m’efacera pas
totalement de votre souvenir; Daigne Le Conserver, Madame a quelquun
qui n’en est pas indigne et qui cherchera toujours a Le meriter par
son tendre et respectueux attachement—a Paris Le 12 May, 1750.’
A quaint light is thrown on the Prince’s private affairs (May 12) by
Waters’s note of his inability to get a packet of Scottish tartan, sent
by Archibald Cameron, out of the hands of the Custom House. It was
confiscated as ‘of British manufacture.’ Again, on May 18, Charles wrote
to Mademoiselle Luci, in Paris. She is requested ‘de faire avoire une
ouvrage de Mr. Fildings, (auteur de Tom Jones) qui s’apel _Joseph
Andrews_, dans sa langue naturelle, et la traduction aussi.’ He also
wants ‘Tom Jones’ in French, and we may infer that he is teaching to some
fair pupil the language of Fielding. He asks, too, for a razor-case with
four razors, a shaving mirror, and a strong pocket-book with a lock. His
famous ‘chese de post’ (post-chaise) is to be painted and repaired.
Business of a graver kind is in view. ‘Newton’ (April 24) is to get
ready to accompany the Prince on a long journey, really to England, it
seems. Newton asked for a delay, on account of family affairs. He was
only to be known to the bearer as ‘Mr. Newton,’ of course not his real
name.
On May 28, Charles makes a mote about a mysterious lady, really Madame de
Talmond.
_Project_.
‘If ye lady abandons me at the last moment, to give her the letter
here following for ye F. K. [French King], and even ye original, if
she thinks it necessary, but with ye greatest secrecy; apearing to
them already in our confidence that I will quit the country, if she
does not return to me immediately.’
Drafts of letters to the French King, in connection with Madame de
Talmond—to be delivered, apparently, if Charles died in England—will be
given later. To England he was now bent on making his way. ‘Ye Prince
is determined to go over at any rate,’ he wrote on a draft of May 3,
1750. {97} ‘The person who makes the proposal of coming over assures
that he will expose nobody but himself, supposing the worst.’ Sir
Charles Goring is to send a ship for his brother, Henry Goring, to
Antwerp, early in August. ‘To visit Mr. P. of D. [unknown] . . . and to
agree where the arms &c. may be most conveniently landed, the grand
affair of L. [London?] to be attempted at the same time.’ There are
notes on ‘referring the Funds to a free Parliament,’ ‘The Tory landed
interest wished to repudiate the National Debt,’ ‘To acquaint particular
persons that the K. [King] will R—’ (resign), which James had no
intention of doing.
In preparation for the insurrection Charles, under extreme secrecy,
deposited 186,000 _livres_ (‘livers!’) with Waters. He also ordered
little silver counters with his effigy, as the English Government came to
know, for distribution, and he commanded a miniature of himself, by Le
Brun, ‘with all the Orders.’ This miniature may have been a parting gift
to Madame de Talmond, or one of the other protecting ladies, ‘adorable’
or quarrelsome. It is constantly spoken of in the correspondence.
[Picture: Prince Charles in 1750. From a miniature in Her Majesty’s
Collection at Windsor Castle]
The real business in hand is revealed in the following directions for
Goring. The Prince certainly makes a large order on Dormer, and it is
not probable, though (from the later revelations of James Mohr Macgregor)
it is possible, that the weapons demanded were actually procured.
June 8.
_Letter and Directions for Goring_.—‘Mr. Dutton will go directly to
Anvers and there wait Mr. Barton’s arrival and asoon as you have
received his Directions you’l set out to join me, in the mean time
you will concert with Dormer the properest means of procuring _the
things_ [‘arms,’ erased] I now order him, in the strictest secrecy,
likewise how I could be concealed in case I came to him, and the
safest way of travelling to that country?’
* * * * *
_For Mr. Dormer_. _Same Date_. _Anvers_.
‘As you have already offered me by ye Bearer, Mr. Goring, to furnish
me what Arms necessary for my service I hereby desire you to get me
with all ye expedition possible Twenty Thousand Guns, Baionets,
Ammunition proportioned, with four thousand sords and Pistols for
horces [cavalry] in one ship which is to be ye first, and in ye
second six thousand Guns without Baionets but sufficient Amunition
and Six thouzand Brode sords; as Mr. Goring has my further Directions
to you on them Affaires Leaves me nothing farther to add at present.’
On June 11, Charles remonstrated with Madame de Talmond: if she is tired
of him, he will go to ‘le Lorain.’ ‘Enfin, si vous voulez ma vie, il
faut changer de tout.’ On June 27, Newton repeated his expressions of
suspicion about Cluny, and spoke of ‘disputes and broils’ among the
Scotch as to the seizure of the Loch Arkaig money.
On July 2, Charles, in cypher, asked James for a renewal of his
commission as Regent. Goring, or Newton, was apparently sent at least as
far as Avignon with this despatch. He travelled as Monsieur Fritz, a
German, with complicated precautions of secrecy. James sent the warrant
to be Regent on parchment—it is in the Queen’s Library—but he added that
Charles was ‘a continual heartbreak,’ and warned his son not to expect
‘friendship and favours from people, while you do all that is necessary
to disgust them.’ He ‘could not in decency’ see Charles’s envoy (August
4). On the following day Edgar wrote in a more friendly style, for this
excellent man was of an amazing loyalty.
_From James Edgar_.
‘August 5, 1750: Rome.
‘Your Royal Highness does me the greatest pleasure in mentioning the
desire you have to have the King’s head in an intaglio. There is
nobody can serve you as well in that respect as I, so I send you by
the bearers two, one on a stone like a ruby, but it is a fine
_Granata_, and H.M.’s hair and the first letters of his name are on
the inside of it. The other head is on an emerald, a big one, but
not of a fine colour; it is only set in lead, so you may either set
it in a ring, a seal, or a locket, as you please: they are both cut
by Costanzia, and very well done.’
These intagli would be interesting relics for collectors of such flotsam
and jetsam of a ruined dynasty. On August 25, Charles answered Edgar.
He is ‘sorry that His Majesty is prevented against the most dutiful of
sons.’ He sends thanks for the engraved stones and the powers of
Regency. This might well have been James’s last news of Charles, for he
was on his way to London, a perilous expedition. {101}