in Hanoverian territory, by the minions of the Elector. The Earl could
not be allowed to return at once, for the clouds over Anglo-Prussian
relations were clearing, while England was at odds with France, both
about the secret fortifying of Dunkirk, contrary to treaty, about the
East Indies, and about North America. So Frederick philosophised, in
letters to the Earl, concerning the disagreeable yoke he had still to
bear, and about the inevitable hardships of mortal life in general. He
also asked the Earl to find him a truly excellent French cook. On March
31, Frederick offered the Earl the choice of any place of residence
he liked, and expressed a wish that he could retire from politics. He
foresaw the crucial struggle of his life, the Seven Years’ War. ‘But
every machine is made for its special end: the clock to mark time, the
spit to roast meat, the mill to grind. Let us grind then, since such is
my fate, but believe that while I turn and turn by no will of my own,
nobody is more interested in your philosophical repose than your friend
to all time and in all situations where you may find yourself.’
Frederick is never so amiable as in his correspondence with the old
Jacobite exile.
At this period, Frederick gave the Earl information of Austrian war
preparations, for the service of the French Ministry. Saxony and Vienna
excited his suspicions. He did not yet know that he was to be opposed
also to France. He was occupied with dramatists and actors, ‘more amusing
than all the clergy in Europe, with the Pope and the Cardinals at their
head.’ He has to diplomatise between Signor Crica and Signora Paganini,
but hopes to succeed before King George has had time to corrupt his new
Parliament. Happier letters were these to receive than the heart-broken
appeals which rained in from Prince Charles, letters which the Earl had
hoped to escape by retiring from his Embassy. Here his negotiations
‘had embroiled him with the cooks of Paris,’ but he had acquired the
friendship of d’Alembert, whom he introduced to Frederick. The King
thought d’Alembert ‘an honest man,’ and agreed with the Earl’s preference
for heart above wit. ‘They who play with monkeys will get bitten,’ which
refers to Frederick’s quarrel with Voltaire. The Earl warned the wit that
some big Prussian officer would probably box his ears if he persisted in
satirising his late host. ‘Rare it is,’ says Frederick, ‘to find, as in
you, the combination of wit, character, and knowledge, and it is natural
that I should value you all the more highly.’
In May 1754, the Earl, while still pressing to be relieved from duty, was
eager to undertake any negotiations as to an _entente_ between Prussia
and Spain, a country which he loved. There was an opportunity—General
Wall, of an Irish Jacobite house, being now minister in the Peninsula.
The Earl left Paris in the end of June (carrying with him to Berlin
poor Henry Goring, who was near death), and accepted the Government of
Neufchâtel. While (February 8, 1756) Frederick’s throne was ‘threatened
by Voltaire, an earthquake, a comet, and Madame Denis,’ the Earl was
trying to soothe Protestant fanaticism, then raging in his little realm.
‘They will tell you, my dear Lord,’ writes Frederick, ‘that I am rather
less Jacobite than of old. Don’t detest me on that account.’ It is
known, from a letter of Arthur Villettes, at Berne (May 28, 1756), to
the English Government, that the Earl was making no secret of his desire
to be pardoned.[26] The Earl spoke of the Prince, now, with ‘the utmost
horror and detestation,’ declaring that since 1744 ‘his life had been one
continued scene of falsehood, ingratitude and villainy, and his father’s
was little better.’
Such, alas! are the possibilities of prejudice. The Earl accused Charles
of telling the Scots, previous to his expedition in 1745, that the
Earl approved of it. There is no evidence in Murray of Broughton that
Charles ever hinted at anything of the kind. Charles’s life, from 1744
till he returned to France, is minutely known. He had not been false and
villainous. He had been deceived on many hands, by Balhaldie (as the
Earl strenuously asserted), by France, by Macleod, Traquair, Nithsdale,
Kenmure, by Murray of Broughton, and he inevitably acquired a habit of
suspicion. Lonely exile, bitter solitude, then corrupted and depraved
him; but the Earl’s remarks are much too sweeping to be accurate,
where we can test them. In the case of James we can test them by his
copious correspondence. His letters are not, indeed, those of a hero,
but of a kind and loving father, who continually impresses on Charles
the absolute necessity of the strictest justice and honour, especially
in matters of money, ‘for in these matters both justice and honour is
concerned’ (‘Memorials,’ p. 372, Aug. 14, 1744). As to politics, James
was absolutely opposed to any desperate adventure, any hazarding,
on a slender chance, of the lives and fortunes of his subjects. His
temper, schooled by long adversity, made him even applaud the reserve
of his English adherents, and excuse, wherever it could be excused,
the conduct of France, and attempt, by a mild tolerance, to soothe the
fatal jealousies of his agents. No Prince has been more ruthlessly and
ignorantly calumniated than he whose ‘ails’ and sorrows had converted him
into a philosopher no longer eager for a crown too weighty for him, into
a devout Christian devoid of intolerance, and disinclined to preach.
The Earl was justified in forsaking a Cause which Charles had made
morally impossible. But he believed, in spite of Charles’s contradiction,
that he had threatened to betray his adherents. This prejudice is the
single blot on a character which, once animated against a man, never
forgave.
The correspondence of Frederick with his Governor of Neufchâtel is
scanty: he had other business in hand—the struggle for existence. On
July 8, 1757, he writes from Leitmentz, thanking the Earl for a present
of peas and chocolate. On October 19, 1758, he sends the bitter news
of the glorious death of Marshal Keith, and on November 23 offers his
condolences, and speaks of his unfortunate campaign.
_Probus vixit, fortis obiit_, was the Earl’s brief epitaph on his
brother. His one close tie to life was broken. That younger brother, who
had fished and shot with him, had fought at his side at Sheriffmuir, had
shared the dangers of Glenshiel and the outlaw life, who had voyaged
with him in so many desperate wanderings, to save whom he had crossed
Europe—the brother who had secured for him his ‘philosophic repose’—was
gone, leaving how many dear memories of boyhood in Scotland, of common
perils, and common labours for a fallen Cause!
And there followed—oh philosophy!—a squabble with Keith’s mistress about
the frugal inheritance of one who scorned to enrich himself! ‘My brother
had just held Bohemia to ransom, and he leaves me sixty ducats,’ wrote
the Earl to Madame Geoffrin. In December 1758, Frederick determined to
send the Earl to Spain, where ‘nobody is so capable as you of making
himself beloved.’ He wanted peace, but peace with honour. The Earl was
merely to watch over Frederick’s interests, and to sound Spain as to her
mediation. The King feared a separate Anglo-French peace, with Prussia
left out.
By January 6, 1759, Frederick was trying to secure the Earl’s pardon in
England, and wrote to Knyphausen and Michell in London. The death of Lord
Kintore, the Earl’s cousin, devolved an estate upon him. This Marischal
wished to obtain, but he had not changed sides in hope of gaining these
lands. Andrew Mitchell wrote to Lord Holderness, on January 8, 1759, from
Breslau, saying that Frederick had remarked, ‘I know Lord Marischal to be
so thorough an honest man that I am willing to be surety for his future
conduct.’ He enclosed a letter to be discreetly submitted to George II.,
submitting Frederick’s desire for the Earl’s pardon. By February 5, news
reached Prussia that George had graciously consented.
There must have been a delay caused by formalities, for the Earl did not
send his letter of thanks from Madrid to Sir Andrew Mitchell ‘gratefully
acknowledging the goodness of the King’ till August 24, 1759.
So there was ‘the end of an auld sang.’ Charles was hanging about the
French coast, for the expedition under Conflans was preparing to carry
him, as he hoped, to England: James, in Rome, was receiving his sanguine
letters. It was 1744 over again; but the Earl was now of the other
party, and James must have felt the loss severely. The bell which was
regularly rung at home for the Earl’s birthday, cracked when the news
came to Aberdeenshire. ‘I’ll never say “cheep” for _you_ again, Earl
Marischal!’—so some local Jacobite translated the broken voice of the old
bell. But the Earl manifestly did not win his pardon by discovering and
betraying the secret of the family compact between France and Spain, as
historians have conjectured. Dates render this, happily, impossible.[27]
The Earl took a humorous view of Jacobite French adventures. ‘The
conquest of Ireland by M. Thurot has miscarried,’ he writes to Mitchell
(April 2, 1760).[28] Thurot had but two small ships.
The Earl now desired to visit England on his private affairs, and
Frederick granted permission. He went in peace, where he had gone in war,
but Scotland no longer pleased him. True, his Bill was carried through
Parliament, admitting him to the Kintore estates, and, from the Edinburgh
newspapers, he heard of a new honour—he was elected Provost of Kintore!
‘I had for me all the blew bonnets to a man, and a Lady whose good heart
I respect still more than her birth, tho it be the very highest, she made
press me (_sic_) to ask a pension, assuring me it would cost but one
word. I excused myself as having no pretention to merit it. She bid me
not name her, in leaving you to guess I do not injure her. She said the
same also to Baron Kniphausen.’
Years later, from Neufchâtel, he wrote to Andrew Mitchell, ‘The Provost
of Kintore presents his compliments,’ adding some congratulations on
Mitchell’s pension.
Not even the Provostship of Kintore reconciled the Earl, a changed man,
to a changed Scotland. Conceivably he was not welcomed by the Jacobite
remnant around the cracked bell. Bigotry, hypocrisy, and intolerable
sabbatarianism were what the Earl disliked in his own country. He was
also resolute against marrying, declined _faire l’étalon_, as Frederick
delicately put it. Early in 1761, he made up his mind to return to
Neufchâtel, and to compose the quarrels of Protestants and heretics.
At Neufchâtel the Earl made an acquaintance rather disagreeable to
most English tastes, the moral and sensible Jean-Jacques Rousseau. The
philosopher’s account of the Earl is in his ‘Confessions.’ According to
him, Marischal, beginning life as a Jacobite, ‘se dégoûta bientôt,’ which
is not historically accurate. ‘La grande âme de ce digne homme toute
républicaine’ could not endure ‘l’esprit injuste et tyrannique’ of King
James! The wicked people of Neufchâtel, whom the Earl ‘tried to make
happy,’ ‘kicked against his benevolent cares.’ A preacher ‘was expelled
for not wanting many persons to be eternally damned.’
Rousseau went to Neufchâtel to escape the persecution which never ceased
to attack this virtuous man. Frederick allowed him to hide his virtues in
this hermitage, and made some rather slender offers of provision (twelve
_louis_, says Rousseau), which exasperated the sage. On seeing the Earl
his first idea was to weep (Jean-Jacques perhaps followed Richardson in
his tearfulness), so extremely emaciated was the worthy peer. Conquering
his ‘great inclinations to cry,’ with an effort, Rousseau admired the
Earl’s ‘open, animated, and noble physiognomy.’ Without ceremony, and
acting as a Child of Nature, Jean-Jacques went and sat down beside the
Earl on his sofa. In his noble eye Rousseau detected ‘something fine,
piercing, yet in a way caressing.’ He became quite fond of the Earl.
Wordsworth has justly remarked that you seldom see a grown-up male
weeping freely on the public highway. But, had you been on the road
between Rousseau’s house and the Earl’s you might have seen the author
of the ‘Nouvelle Héloïse’ blubbering as he walked, shedding _larmes
d’attendrissement_, as he contemplated the ‘paternal kindnesses, amiable
virtues, and mild philosophy of the respectable old man.’
I know not whether I express a common British sentiment, but the tears
of Jean-Jacques over our Scottish stoic awaken in me a considerable
impatience. The Earl was incapable, for his part, of lamentations.
Jean-Jacques was too ‘independent’ to be the Earl’s guest. Later, he
conceived in that bosom tingling with sensibility that the Earl had
been ‘set against him’ by Hume—‘Ils vous ont trompé, ces barbares;
mais ils ne vous ont pas changé.’ It was true, the Earl could break
Prince Charles’s heart, but he always made allowances for Jean-Jacques.
Rousseau, not knowing that the Earl’s heart was true to him, writes: ‘Il
se laisse abuser, quelquefois, et n’en revient jamais.... Il a l’humeur
singulière, quelque chose de bizarre et étrange dans son tour d’esprit.
Ses cadeaux sont de fantaisie, et non de convenance. Il donne ou envoie
à l’instant ce qui lui passe par tête, de grand prix, ou de nulle valeur
indifféremment.’ Nevertheless the Earl was the cause of Rousseau’s ‘last
happy memories.’
The Earl left Neufchâtel; he arranged for Rousseau’s refuge in England.
David Hume, who was dear to the Earl, arranged the reception of Rousseau
in England, and every one has heard of Rousseau’s insane behaviour, and
of the quarrel with Hume. Rousseau wanted to write the History of the
Keiths, and asked the Earl for documents. Jean-Jacques was hardly the man
to write Scottish family history, and the documents were never entrusted
to him.
Here follows the letter on the topic of Rousseau, which the Earl wrote to
Hume:—
‘Jean Jaques Rousseau persecuted for having writ what he thinks
good, or rather, as some folks think, for having displeased
persons in great power who attributed to him what he never
meant, came here to seek retreat, which I readily granted,
and the King of Prussia not only approved of my so doing,
but gave me orders to furnish him his small necessarys, if
he would accept them; and tho that King’s philosophy be very
different from that of Jean Jaques, yet he does not think that
a man of an irreprochable life is to be persecuted because his
sentiments are singular, he designs to build him a hermitage
with a little garden, which I find he will not accept, nor
perhaps the rest which I have not yet offered to him. He is
gay in company, polite, and what the French call _aimable_,
and gains ground dayly in the opinion of even the clergy here;
his enemys else where continue to persecute him, he is pelted
with anonimous letters, this is not a country for him, his
attachment and love to his native Toune is a strong tye to its
neigbourhood, the liberty of England, and the character of
my good and honored friend D. Hume F⸺i D⸺r[29] (perhaps more
singular than that of Jean Jaques, for I take him to be the
only historian impartial) draws his inclinations to be near to
the F⸺i D⸺r, for my part, tho it be to me a very great pleasure
to converse with the honest savage, yet I advise him to go to
England, where he will enjoy _Placidam sub libertate quietem_.
He wishes to know, if he can print all his works, and make some
profit, merely to live, from such an edition. I entreat you
will let me know your thoughts on this, and if you can be of
use to him in finding him a bookseller to undertake the work,
you know he is not interested, and little will content him. If
he goes to Brittain, he will be a treasure to you, and you to
him, and perhaps both to me (if I were not so old).
‘I have offered him lodging in Keith Hall. I am ever with the
greatest regard your most obedient servant
M.[30]
‘Oct. 2, 1762.’
Rousseau never went so far north, never took Keith Hall for a hermitage,
nor scandalised the Kirk Session. After his quarrel with Hume, the Earl
did not write freely to him, saying that he wrote little to anyone.
He thought, he tells another correspondent, of ‘turning bankrupt in
letters.’ ‘My heart is not the dupe of these pretences,’ sighs Rousseau.
He took money from the Earl, he took money at many hands. He sent a
long deplorable lamentation to Marischal: the Earl has been deceived, a
phantom has been exhibited to him as his fond J.-J. R. Probably there was
no answer, but the Earl bequeathed to him his watch as a _souvenir_.
‘Jean Jacques est trop honête home pour ce monde, qui tâche a tourner en
ridicule sa delicatesse,’ so the Earl had written from London to Hume in
Paris.
He appears, when in England, to have met Hume at Mitcham, and he was
devoted to the stout, smiling sceptic, whom he called ‘_Defensor Fidei_.’
In 1764 the Earl left Neufchâtel for Potsdam, where Frederick built him a
house. This he describes in a letter to Hume. The following note (1765)
clearly refers to Hume’s report of Helvetius’s absurd anecdote, that
Prince Charles showed the white feather on starting for Scotland, and had
to be carried on board, tied hands and feet, by Sheridan, George Kelly,
and others of the Seven Men of Moidart. Hume repeated this incredible
nonsense in a letter to Sir John Pringle, who clearly distrusted the
evidence.[31] This appears to be the ‘certain history’ which the Earl
asks Hume to get from Helvetius, who had been ‘assured of the fact.’ By
whom?
To disseminate this fourth-hand scandal of his former master—scandal
which, if true, he himself was in a better position to have heard than
Helvetius—was perhaps the least worthy act of the Earl.
The David Floyd of whom he writes occurs often in the Stuart
Correspondence. He was of the old St. Germains set, being the son of that
Captain Floyd, so much disliked by Lord Ailesbury, who came and went
from England to James II., after 1688.
In another letter the Earl advises Hume to consult Floyd on events ‘of
which you took a confused note from me at Mitcham.’ Among these facts
may be the story, given by Hume on the Earl’s authority, of Charles’s
presence at the coronation of George III. No other evidence of this
adventure exists.
Here follows the letter:—
‘29 Aprile.
‘In answer to your question, the Don quixotisme you mention
never entered into my head. I wish I could see you to answer
honestly all your questions, for tho I had my share of follys
with others, yet as my intentions were at bottom honest, I
should open to you my whole budget, and lett you know many
things which are perhaps not all represented, I mean not truly.
I remember to have recommended to your acquaintance Mr. Floyd,
son to old David Floyd, at St. Germains, as a man of good
sense, honor, and honesty: I fear he is dead, he would have
been of great service to you in a part of your history since
1688. _A propos of history when you see Helvetius, tell I
desired you to enquire of him concerning a certain history._ I
fancy he will answer you with his usuall Frankness.’
This, then, must refer to Helvetius’s lie about the Prince’s cowardice.
[Illustration: _Walker & Boutall, ph. sc._
_The Earl Marischal_
_circ. 1750._]
The following letters to Hume illustrate the rather blasphemous
_bonhomie_ of the Earl, who, because of Hume’s genius and fatness, was
wont to speak of him as ‘_verbum caro factum_.’ He writes of his new
hermitage at Potsdam, of his garden, his favourite books (just what
we might expect them to be—Montaigne, Swift, Ariosto), of Voltaire,
d’Argens, and d’Alembert. He incidentally shows, _à propos_ of a fabled
discovery, that Mr. Darwin’s theory would not have astonished him much:—
‘Potsdam, ce 11 Sep. 1764.
‘Le plaisir de votre lettre, et l’assurance d’amitié de Madame
Geauffrin et de Monsieur d’Alembert, a été bien rabattu par
ce que vous me dites de l’etat de la santé de M. d’Alembert;
sobre comme il est a table, comment peut il avoir des meaux
d’estomac: il faut qu’il travaille trop de la tête à des
calculs, ou qu’il allume sa chandelle par les deux bouts, c’est
cela sans doute. Renvoyez-le ici a mon hermitage, je le rendray
à sa, ou ses, belles frais, reposé, se portant a merveille.
‘A propos de mon hermitage dont Mʳ de Malsan vous a fait la
description, il a voyagé avec Panurge, et a été chez _Oui-dire
tenant école de temoignerie_, primo, ma petite maison ne
subsiste pas, par consequence mon grand hôte ne pouvoit m’y
honorer de sa presence.
‘2ᵒ. Elle ne sera pas si petite, ayant 89. pieds de façade,
avec deux ailes de 45. pieds de long; le jardin est petit,
assez grand cependant pour moy, et j’ay une clef pour entrer
aux jardins de Sans-Soucy. Il y aura une belle salle avec une
vestibule, et un cabinet assez grand pour y mettre un lit, tout
a part des autres appartements, si d’Alembert venoit il pouvoit
y loger et prendre les eaux, mais il est plus que probable que
le Grand Hôte me disputeroit et emporteroit cet avantage. En
attendant son arrivee, j’y logerais mon ancien ami Michel de
Montagne, Arioste, Voltaire, Swift, et quelques autres.
‘Saul et David y seront aussi, quoyque j’aimerais mieux David
F⸺i D⸺r—m, surtout en persone, car le Verbum j’ay, la Caro me
manque. Je regrette bien de n’avoir pas sçu que Mᵉ de Boufflers
étoit en hollande quand j’y ay passé, j’aurois été heureux de
la connoitre, par tout le bien que tout le monde dit d’elle.
Son ami et le mien Jean Jaques à été en chemin pour les eaux en
Savoye.
‘Voltaire est un antichretien entousiaste, j’en ay connu plus
d’un et qui plus est sans étre poête: je ne sais rien de son
dictionaire que j’ay cherché ici inutilement, il viendra,
toutes les choses nous vienent, un peu plus tard a la vérité
par ou vous étes; mais la Société dont vous avez le bonheur de
jouir ne nous viendra pas: comme je suis tres vieux, lourd,
pesant, bon a rien, il ne faut que Placidam sub libertate
Quietem; mon hôte, pour me la donner plus entierement, me
batit ma maison; elle sera achevée en trois mois; meublée au
printems: et j’y pourray loger Octobre 1765.
‘Faites moy envisager comme pas impossible que vous pourriez y
venir, que je serois bien content, bon soir.
‘Mes respects a Madame Geauffrin.
‘Dites a d’Alembert que j’ay une vache pour lui donner de
bon lait, cela le tentera plus que le cent mil roubles qu’on
lui à offert. N’a pas bon lait qui veut, et vir sapiens non
abhorrebit eam, come disoit Maitre Janotus de ses chausses....
‘d’Argens est parti hier chercher le soleil de Provence, avant
que de se mettre en voyage, il se fit tâter le poux par son
medecin a plusieures reprises, le priant toujours bien fort de
le dire de bon foye s’il etoit en etat de faire le voyage, les
chevaux étoient deja au carosse. Il dit qu’il reviendra, et
n’en sait rien; le soleil ne le guerira pas de sa hipocondrie,
il reviendra chercher le froid, s’il ne creve pas, ce qui
est a craindre, son corps est trop delabré. Son frere, grand
Jesuite, sa vieille mere, et les Jansenistes Provençeaux tout
cela le genera, il soupirera aprés la liberté de philosopher
a Sans-Soucy, quoiqu’il se plaint quand il y est; si on lui
dit qu’il se porte bien surtout il se fache. Il seroit fort a
souhaiter que votre plume fusse employée a nous instruire de la
verité, au lieu des disputes sur l’I(l)e de la Tortuga, que je
crois l’occupe un pen a présent, mais si vous ne vous mettez
pas a écrire de votre proprement mouvement, et non pas par
complesance pour un autre, ne faites rien; il faut y étre tout
entier.
‘Le Chevalier Stuart m’a parlé des decouvertes par le
Microscope, par un certain Needham, prêtre, j’ay cherché
inutilement cette brochure. Voici le fait come le chevalier
Stuart me l’a dit. Il prit un gigot de mouton, le fit rotir
presqu’a brûler, pour detruire les animalcules ou leur œufs qui
pouvoient y étre: il en pris le jus, le mit dans une bouteille
bien bouchée, le fit cuire des heures dans l’eau bouillante,
pour detruire toute animalcule ou œuf que pouvoit si étre
introduite par l’air en mettant le jus dans la bouteille:
au bout de quelque tems le jus fermenta, et produisit des
animalcules.
‘Needham pretend que toute generation ne vient qu de
fermentation. Je vous dis mon autheur, vous le connoissez; il
ne parle legerment.
‘Cette decouverte me paroit valoir la peine a examiner; ce
pourroit étre du gibier, come dit Montagne, de M. Diderot.
Si la fermentation dans une petite bouteille produit un tres
petit animal: celle de tous les élements de notre globe, ne
pourroit elle produire, un chêne, un élephant. Je proteste que
je parle avec toute soumission à David Hume F—i D⸺i, et à la
sainte Inquisition, s’il trouve que quelque chose cloche dans
ce sistême, que je ne fais que raporter. bon soir.’