Chapter VIII: Something About Beer 248 (2)

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.

A brief space is due to those rather curious negotiations which were carried on while James was at Bar, to find the Pretender a suitable wife. According to Mrs Strickland this was rather a romantic affair. James was dying to marry his cousin, the Princess d'Este, while, on the other hand, the Princess Sobieska and Mademoiselle de Valois were both dying to marry him. In truth, there was no dying on either side, and the wooing originated, not in James's feeble affections--which were probably occupied to the full extent of their capacity with that young lady on the hill--but in the fertile brain of his scheming and restless host. Mrs Strickland, I ought to say, rather overrates the position of the Princess Sobieska, who eventually _did_ marry the Chevalier; and if there was any romance in her affection, she lived to be cured of it. Being the daughter only of an elective king, a _parvenu_ among royal personages, she was looked upon as a princess rather by courtesy than of right. Even to James, down in the world as he was, Leopold--in a manner her kinsman--did not dare to propose her except as a _pis aller_, when all hopes elsewhere were extinguished. His first proposal was an Austrian archduchess. He evidently thought the suggestion one which would do him credit. It would be a downright good "Catholic" match. It was bound to help the Pretender, and it might be agreeable to the Emperor, and so secure him, Leopold, very much on the look-out for favours as he was, gratitude in two influential quarters. The mere moral effect, he says, of an alliance entered into by the premier dynasty of Europe with the outcast Stuart prince must prove immensely to James's advantage. But there was money, too--which James particularly wanted--much money, heaped up in the Hofburg. James assented--though with nothing seemingly of eagerness; for it took him some months to grasp the full meaning of the idea. The proposal was made in March, 1714--long before the Princess Sobieska was thought of; and, as Leopold reports with unmistakable satisfaction, it was _assez goute_ at Vienna. Only, the Princess asked for--the younger daughter of the late Emperor--was very young, in fact, a child in the nursery, and the marriage could not possibly take place for some considerable time. So, the Emperor thought, the matter had best be kept quiet. Nothing daunted, rather encouraged, Leopold, with James's approval, returned to the charge in June. If the younger archduchess was too young--very well, let it be the elder, Elizabeth, who was at that time heir-presumptive to the crown. (For Maria Theresa, the reigning Emperor's daughter, was not yet born.) Vienna took time to consider. James's appetite grew keen, and in July we find him plying the Emperor with two memorials, drawn up with the help of Nairne. So elated did he grow over his supposed brilliant prospects, that he returned very cold answers indeed to Cardinal Gualterio's well-meant representations in favour of a union with another lady--was it the Princess d'Este, Gualterio's own countrywoman? There was no money in that quarter. Accordingly James haughtily pronounces the marriage "_pas faisable_." But he pushes his suit at Vienna. It must be, he urges in his first memorial, altogether to the Emperor's interest that the Archduchess Elizabeth should be married to "_une personne qui ait asses de naissance et d'autres bonnes qualites personelles pour estre choisi apres lui a remplir sa place_." Such a person James considers himself to be. And he puts his case in this way. Either the English crown will fall to him or it will not. If it does, well, then, there he is, a most desirable, wealthy, and influential nephew-in-law. If it does not, there he is, again, the fittest person in the world to succeed to the Imperial crown. In the second memorial, issued shortly after, he presses some further points. Hanover must not be allowed to grow too powerful. Indeed, as a Protestant Power, it is too "_formidable_" already, and the "_Duc d'Hannovre_" is "_un redoutable Rival_." But, "_il est certain qu'il (l'empereur) a moins a apprehender de l'Angleterre sans le Duc d'Hannovre que de le Duc d'Hannovre sans l'Angleterre_." Therefore--the reasoning does not seem quite clear--James ought to be supported; or else, certainly, the Duc d'Hannovre should be made to forego one of the two crowns--either Hanover or England, a proposal which James pronounces perfectly "_juste et nullement impracticable_." The proposal does not, however, "fetch" the Emperor, who goes on procrastinating. But, on the other hand, Louis XIV, gets wind of it, though he was not meant to, through D'Audriffet, and grows uneasy, throwing all the cold water that he can upon the scheme. Meanwhile in England things go against the Pretender. Queen Anne dies, King George succeeds, and, in spite of James's solemn protest, addressed to the Powers in English, French, and Latin, England seems perfectly content. After this it is not surprising to find Leopold, when James returns to the subject of his marriage, shaking his head discouragingly, and pointing out that the Pretender's matrimonial value has fallen appreciably in the market. He must no longer look "so high." Besides, the Emperor will not care to embroil himself by such a marriage with the Government of King George, with which he has struck up a friendship which, in Louis XIV.'s words, promises to prove alike "_solide et sincere_." Now, there is the Princess Sobieska! Leopold thinks that he could manage that. Through her mother she is a niece of the Empress Eleanor. Therefore, to a certain extent, James will still secure the Hapsburg interest. As for marrying the Archduchess, that is out of the question. James does not see it. He goes on harping upon the Archduchess Elizabeth, and worrying poor Leopold to resume negotiations.

Leopold found worry of a more serious sort besetting him, on account of James, in a different quarter. To satisfy France was all very well. But what in this matter satisfied France offended England. Now, England itself was very little to the Duke of Lorraine. Louis XIV. kept assuring him that English complaints and remonstrances should have "_point de suite_," and that he would see him through the business. He had "nothing to fear." Accordingly, when the English Houses of Parliament began, very unreasonably, to memorialise Queen Anne in favour of moving for James's expulsion from "ungrateful" Lorraine, though the Court of St Germains showed itself, as we are told, "_fort picquee de ses addresses_," Leopold simply smiled, and assured James that he would see that those addresses remained "_inutiles_." He did not quite like it when Baron Foerstner, his envoy in London, reported the two parties in England, both "Thoris" and "Wighs," to be unanimous on the point. James himself, whom he consulted without any result, confessed himself in an "_embarras de prendre le meilleur party_." However, Bolingbroke had advised Foerstner that no notice should be taken; the English nation "_se portoit tantot a une chose et tantot a une autre_;" Parliament was about to be dissolved, and in the new House the whole thing might be forgotten. King Louis explained the resolution as a Whig dodge, a shibboleth, designed to make it clear who were the Pretender's supporters. However, the remonstrances went on. Two bishops made themselves ridiculous by very indiscreet and officious interference. The Duke judges that this "_n'estoit qu'une grimace de la Cour d'Angleterre_." But after a time he grows irritable, and recalls his envoy--quite as much in disgust as for economy. That does not mend matters--no more does the Duke's letter, written at the French king's suggestion for communication to Prior. D'Audriffet's despatch of 3d May, 1714, shows that Leopold at that time quite expected that he might be made to give effect to the English demand. Meanwhile Queen Anne dies. James issues his proclamation, at which George and our Parliament take needlessly great offence, and an icy coldness springs up between the two Courts--just under circumstances under which coldness is least acceptable to Leopold. For, however little Queen Anne might have had it in her power to cross him, her successor is Elector of Hanover as well as King of England, fast friends with the Emperor, and has a great say in the bestowal of ecclesiastical patronage in Germany, for which Leopold, on behalf of his "near and dear relations" has an insatiable appetite. Accordingly he grows uncomfortable. He notices with alarm, so the letters show, that George takes an unusually long time advising him of the late Queen's death, and when the advice comes, it says nothing about his own accession. Anxious to make up the breach, Leopold at once despatches a special envoy, Lambertye, to present his congratulations. To the Duke's dismay George will not receive him. Leopold, however, bids him stay where he is, and addresses to the king his well-known memorial, which must certainly be pronounced dignified in tone and just in substance. James's proclamation, Leopold shows, was issued without any knowledge or consent on his part. Privately, he causes it to be explained that he is simply obeying dictatorial orders from Versailles. But--"_on a beau leur dire_," writes de Bosque, D'Audriffet's substitute, on the 31st of October, "_que la France a vn pouuoir arbitraire sur le Duc de Lorrain et ses Etats, cela no les contente plus_." The poor Duke grows most uncomfortable. However, in January the matter is made up, and King George consents to receive Lambertye at last--at the very time when Queen Mary Beatrice threatens once more to trouble relations just settling down again, with her visit to Luneville. In any case Lambertye's mission did not bring Lorraine any good--except, says Noel, it be the importation of a new variety of potato, which he carried home from England, and which proved much superior to the old Lorrain sort.

If our statesmen had little right to call upon Leopold to expel James, they had of course every reason to be vigilant. And they do not appear to have failed often in that duty. To be quite fair, James's followers, on the whole, made the task pretty easy for them. They were always plotting, but at the same time also always letting out their secret--a tippler talking in his cups; an officer confiding intelligence to his sweetheart; a bungling conspirator boasting in very big words. Long before October, 1715, when the great "invasion" at length took place, we have references to some intended move. All is promptly reported to England, and to Paris, where, after his arrival at his post, Stair, when not engaged in smuggling goods for his friends,--"_poil de chevre_ stockings of different colours of grey, and long enough of the feet and legs" for the Duke of Argyll, besides knives, spoons, and forks of the St. Cloud pattern, all with "chiney" handles to them; a "bodyes," a "monto," and a "peticoate" for Lady Harriet Godolphin, to oblige the Duchess of Marlborough; moreover, silk gowns for the Countess of Loudoun--spares neither pains nor money to obtain the very best and most prompt intelligence. On the whole, he is admirably served, though occasionally he finds himself on a wrong scent, and even at the critical time, notwithstanding Mrs. Strickland's statement as to Mademoiselle du Chatelet's jealous peaching, it seems as if Bolingbroke were after all right, and our Ambassador had been put upon the right tack too late.

At length, after much posting backwards and forwards of trusted but untrustworthy messengers and confidants, after more than one false alarm, and one very provoking act of treachery (on the part of a bankrupt banker), after much dissuasion from the Duke of Lorraine, who seems to have exhausted all his powers of reasonable argument in vain, after stealthy visits said to have been paid by Bolingbroke and Ormonde to Bar, and by Mar to Commercy, the great move takes place. To the end Leopold appears to have considered James's recall by the spontaneous act of the English nation a probable contingency. Now he warns him that a Hanoverian king on the English throne will play his game far more effectually than he himself possibly can by taking up arms--that, in the face of the unpopularity which the foreign ruler is sure to bring upon himself, if left alone, James will, by raising the flag of rebellion, only be cutting his own throat. However, James will pay no heed. Learning prudence, at any rate, as the time for action draws nearer, both the Chevalier and his friends grow close and uncommunicative, so as to extract complaints even from D'Audriffet, who, having been previously let into all the harmless little secrets of the plot at first hand, now finds himself reduced to coaxing intelligence out of "_une personne attachee au Chevalier de St. Georges, qui est de mes amies_." However, in October, just before the departure actually takes place, Leopold confides to him that James has expressed himself resolved to take his fortune into his own hand. He has been advised from England and Scotland that circumstances will never be more favourable. If he misses this chance, he will have no other. "_C'est tout gagner ou tout perdre._"

At this time it is that James addresses to his friend Cardinal Gualterio at Rome a curious "_Memoire sur un Lit_," which seems worth recording. He begs Gualterio to purchase, at once, as if for himself, "_un grand bois de lit a la francoise propre a coucher deux personnes, avec un dossier, mais point des pilliers. Le fond du lit de bon coutil--renforce avec sangles_." Also, "_deux bons mattelas de bonne laine d'Ang{re.} proportionnes a la grandeur du lit_." His Eminence, James adds, will easily guess the purpose for which the bed is designed--a purpose depending upon "_un certain cas qu'on espere pouuoir arriver bientot, mais qui doit etre tres secret jusqu'a ce qu'il soit asseure_." He adds that he wants "_ni couuertures, ni tour de lit, ni ciel de lit, parcequ'on a tout cela ici_." The whole thing reminds one of that famous musical armchair which was ordered on behalf of Napoleon III., to be delivered at Berlin in 1870.

The final escape of James was, on the whole, managed with secresy and some skill, though things went a little untowardly. Stair, who was sparing no pains to keep the Pretender watched to his every step, was a little deceived, partly by that false information which Bolingbroke says that he purposely gave him, partly by the equivocal bearing of the Regent and Torcy, who were both secretly befriending the Chevalier. Certainly Stair got his correct intelligence too late to be of much use, and so sent to Chateau Thierry to have James seized after the bird had flown. Cadogan in Brussels was better informed. He had stationed a "gentleman from Mecklenburgh," M. de Pless, at Nancy, ostensibly to attend the Academy, really to play the spy upon the Pretender. A letter from the Regent to D'Audriffet shows that the object of his mission was perfectly understood in the French capital. The news of the Chevalier's departure comes out through the indiscretion of some one in the secret arriving from Commercy--and immediately Pless takes formal leave of the Duke, and hurries without a moment's delay off to Brussels, where Cadogan has a courier ready, who, but for provokingly prolonged contrary winds, would have reached England in excellent time.

Finding the Chevalier's mind made up, Leopold, wishing to be kind to the last, sends his _protege_ as a parting gift, along with an affectionate valedictory letter, the acceptable present of 27,000 louis in gold, which James at once stows away in his private strong-box. This, we read, he was in the habit of always carrying about with him, placing it under his bed at night, and allowing no one to come near it. How he managed to transport it when riding on horseback from St Malo to Dunkirk, we are not told.

It is well known that James started from Commercy on the 28th of October, 1715, in disguise. But the precise manner of his escape is not generally quite correctly related. It explains why, for a full fortnight after James's disappearance, newspapers still go on reporting his supposed doings in Lorraine. The escape was of course abetted by the Prince de Vaudemont, who, to make it possible, invited a large company to Commercy for the day appointed, to hunt in his forests. James went out to hunt, and James apparently came back in the evening. But the James who returned was not the James who had gone out with the Pretender, but a follower of his, who bore a striking resemblance to his master, and had more than once been mistaken for him. Who this gentleman was I have not been able to trace. With this man James had exchanged clothes, unseen by any one, out in the forest. And so, as the Duc de Villeroy writes to Madame de Maintenon (the letter is in the Paris MSS), "_Il partit misterieusement de Commerci en chaise roulante, vestu du violet en Ecclesiastique, avec un petit colet, malgre la vigilance des Espions, sans qu'ils ayent pu auoir ni vent ni nouvelles de son depart, que deux ou trois jours apres sa sortie_." The Pretender pursued his journey, carefully avoiding highroads, reaching Peterhead safely in the end, though only after much travelling backwards and forwards, taking pains to elude Stair's spies, who were placed at all important points. At Nonancourt he narrowly missed being caught, as we know, by Captain Douglas and two other emissaries, evidently what Bunyan calls "ill-favoured ones." For the impression became general in France--over which the editor of 'The Annals of the Earls of Stair,' Mr Murray Graham, grows exceedingly indignant--that these men were assassins retained to destroy the Pretender by Lord Stair, whose passports they carried, and who promptly came to their rescue when they were brought before the Grand Prevot de la Haute Normandie. Very probably they looked cut-throats. One of them was armed. And as cut-throats, not spies, the _maitresse de la poste_ cautioned James against them, helping him off, to save his life, in a disguise and with a guide provided by herself. As supposed cut-throats they were seized by the police, and as cut-throats they were brought before the judge. Stair's interference probably it was that saved their lives. But all his explanations and all his protestations could not for a long time remove from the mind of the French people the impression that the men were assassins. The Regent, we hear, released them without inquiry, simply to avoid scandal.

How the Pretender's enterprise ended we all know. He does not appear to have been particularly attentive to his late host, the Duke of Lorraine. On the 24th of October he sent him a formal farewell; but on the 7th November we have the Duke stating as a grievance that he is without news. During November we find people in Paris growing remarkably confident. On the 2d of December Lord Stair complains that "_les plus sages a la Cour_" are just again beginning to treat the Chevalier as Pretender. Until two days before he was "King of England" to every one in Paris, "_et tout le monde avoit leve le masque_." There was not a single Frenchman, having any connection with the Court, who so much as set foot in Stair's house. Everybody thought that the Stuart cause was about to triumph. But the 11th of January, 1716, saw James back at Gravelines, "_d'ou il repassa en Lorraine_," say the MSS. in the _Archives Nationales_. Mrs Strickland will have it that he went to Paris, where Bollingbroke advised him to go straight into Lorraine, without first asking leave of the Duke--which advice he did not follow. Independent Lorrain sources state that he passed through Lorraine, "_courant la poste a 9 chevaux_." As he had left all his goods and chattels at Bar-le-Duc, that seems the more likely version. Before his departure Duke Leopold had assured the Pretender that his dominions would always be open to him, and that he "_pourroit compter sur luy en tout ce qui en pourroit dependre_." In March, however, under altered circumstances, we find him advising Queen Mary Beatrice "for the second time," that he cannot again receive her son into his duchy. The Pretender himself seems to have taken the first warning. For we read in the 'Gazette de Hollande' that his _Domestiques et Equipages_ were removed from Bar to Paris in February. According to M. Konarski (I have not verified the entry in the archives, but it is doubtless correct) James left Bar on the 9th of February, "_sans adresser ses remerciments et ses adieux au duc Leopold_," says Noel; "_comme un escroc vulgaire_," says M. Konarski. "_Ne se contentant pas de largent que Leopold lui donnait il emprunta des sommes assez fortes aux seigneurs et partit sans les rembourser._" The sum of 15,000 francs paid to his friend M. de Bassompierre, which appears in the official accounts, is only one such debt. "_Cette ingratitude de la part du Chevalier de Saint Georges_," adds Noel, "_indignait toute la Cour_." People spoke to Leopold about it. "Gentlemen," said the Duke, "you forget that this Prince is in misfortune, and that he was a king." On another occasion he remarked to M. Bardin:--"He has done me justice; he has thought that I have simply performed my duty in assisting an unfortunate."

If the direct benefits which the hospitality extended to James brought to Lorraine were less than nil, the indirect were scarcely more valuable. No doubt, the Pretender having set the example, not a few Roman Catholics from the United Kingdom, so Noel relates, sought the same hospitable refuge. Others came--among them both Noel and Marchal name the elder Pitt--to take advantage of the new Academy opened by Leopold, and rapidly blossoming into greatness under such distinguished masters as Duval and Vayringe. Some of these men brought plenty of money with them, and their liberal fees went to swell acceptably the new professors' receipts. But the number of impecunious persons, more particularly Irish, who flowed to the Lorrain Court to prey upon Leopold's generosity, seems to have been even larger. "_Nous regorgeons d'Irlandais_," writes the Duke's friend Bardin in 1719--_Irlandais_ who evidently boasted but little money and less gratitude. Bardin complains of an exceptionally bad case of the latter sort. Leopold mildly replies. "I helped him, not for his sake, but for my own."

* * * * *

In 1749, when the Duc faineant, Stanislas Leszinski, "_simple gentilhomme lithuanien_," was holding his gay little Court at Luneville, with Voltaire and Madame du Chatelet to lend brilliancy to it, and Madame de Boufflers to preside as elderly Venus, we read that the whole company were deeply touched when the great French writer, as was his wont, read out aloud his just completed chapter on the Stuarts, in the 'Siecle de Louis XV.' Everybody had a regret for the hardly used dynasty. Scarcely had Voltaire closed his book, when in rushed a messenger, bringing the tidings that James's son, Charles Edward, doubly an exile after the failure of his rebellion of 1745, had, on the demand of the English Government, been seized at Paris on leaving the Opera. "Oh heaven!" exclaimed Voltaire, "is it possible that the king can suffer such an indignity, and that his glory can have been tarnished by a stain which all the water of the Seine will not wash away!" The whole company was moved. Voltaire retired gloomily into his own room, threw down his MS. into a corner, and did not take the work up again till he found himself amid the more prosaic surroundings of Berlin. Very shortly after Charles Edward himself knocked at Stanislas' door. What he did during the nearly three years that he was a refugee at Luneville, it seems impossible to ascertain. The French State Papers are silent--at Luneville not a tradition has survived. His doings evidently were not considered worth recording. The drama of Stuart kingship was played out. The dream had come to an end. And so Courts grew cold.

* * * * *

A fate not so very dissimilar--except for one brilliant saving incident--awaited those very Dukes who had shown hospitality so freely to the Stuarts. The Stuart Pretendership and the Lorrain Dukedom came to an end at pretty nearly the same time. Hanover elbowed out the one, France the other. The Stuarts went down for good. The Lorrains found themselves transplanted to Vienna, and crowned with the Imperial diadem. They brought their new country good qualities and manners insuring popularity. But they brought it no luck. For once the old Austrian distich spoke wrong:--

"Bella gerunt alii, tu, felix Austria, nube!
Nam quae Mars aliis, dat tibi regna Venus."

Under the Lorrain Emperors came the Seven Years' War, which lost Austria Silesia; the Napoleonic wars, which lost much territory in the west; 1859, which lost part of her Italian possessions; 1866, which tore away the rest, and, moreover, turned Austria out of Germany. But the Lorrain Emperors have not forgotten their old virtue of hospitality. It may seem a strange whim of fate that at the present time the principal among those dispossessed sovereigns and unrecognised Pretenders who have flocked for protection under the hospitable "Double Cross," now carried back almost to its Eastern birthplace, should be the direct descendant and representative, six generations down, of the relentless and troublesome rival of that same Stuart James, whom, with not a little risk and cost to himself, the last really Lorrain Duke generously sheltered in the years from 1713 to 1716.

II.--RICHARD DE LA POLE, "WHITE ROSE."[4]

English visitors at Metz--there ought to be more, for there is not a little that is interesting to be seen in and around the old imperial city--are likely to have pointed out to them some venerable house or other, which, their guides will tell them, was nearly four hundred years ago the residence of a great English noble, a pretender to the crown, and the terror of Henry VIII.--the "Duke of Suffolk." Some guides may even style him "The King of England," since their distinguished townsman, Philippe de Vigneulles, gives him that title. In all probability the house shown will be the wrong one. For there is a great deal of loose and inaccurate archaeology prevalent in these parts, and one old house is very apt to be confounded with another. I myself have had a leading French archaeologist in Metz indicating to me an old Merovingian palace--highly interesting, to be sure--as the "Duc de Sciffort's" quarters. Once the building was plainly ancient, the trifling difference of eight hundred or a thousand years in the several dates made no odds to him. With the kind assistance, however, of the present archivist, Dr. Wolfram, my friend M. des Robert and the help of some old documents preserved in the local library--which in spite of repeated pilferings for the enrichment of Paris, still contains many valuable old manuscripts, I have been able pretty clearly to trace the movements in Metz of our distinguished countryman--who was indeed a claimant to the English crown, and over whose death in the battle of Pavia, in 1525, Henry VIII. exulted with such exuberance of gratitude to Providence, that he ordered a second public thanksgiving to be held "with great joy" on the 16th of March, the triumph proper for the victory of Pavia having--somewhat rashly, as it afterwards turned out--been celebrated on the 9th day of that month.

The story of this Englishman's exploits abroad affords some features of interest. It is a rather curious tale of adventure, love and war, strange escapades, intrigues, and ambition. And it may be worth telling, because I find that in English historical writings there is a gaping hiatus on the subject--which is not a little remarkable. For, considering what an ever-present weight Richard evidently was on the minds of the two last Henrys, to what all but incredible lengths those kings carried their unscrupulous persecution of him--how they offered bribes to kings to deliver him up, and to meaner men to assassinate him--how not a treaty was proposed to foreign potentates but contained a special clause forbidding the harbouring of this dangerous character--one might have supposed that our chroniclers of the time would have deemed it expedient to tell posterity something about him. Their silence is explained by a strange want of materials. So little turns out to have been known in this country about the great marpeace, that Mr. Burton, in his 'History of Scotland,' actually assigns to him the wrong christian name, calling him "Reginald." Mr Gairdner in his interesting preface to one of the volumes of 'Chronicles and Memorials' goes at some length into the history of Richard's brother Edmund. What became of Richard himself--except that he fell at Pavia--he confesses that he "cannot trace at all accurately." Napier in his 'Notices of Swyncombe and Ewelme' supplies fuller information than any other English writer. But he, too, is evidently at fault for materials. It is practically only foreign sources, very little studied in this country, to which we have to look for information on the subject of how "White Rose" employed the time of his exile, be it self-imposed or involuntary, which made up the main portion of his life.

The chief of such writers is Philippe de Vigneulles, a contemporary of Richard's, and a citizen of Metz, who has left rather curious and pretty full memoirs written in that strange-sounding, uncouth Lorrain French, which was at his time spoken at Metz. The original manuscript, formerly in the possession of Count Emmery, was some time ago purchased at a sale by M. Prost, the well-known Lorrain archaeologist. From it M. des Robert, another well-known writer, specifically connected with the ancient city of Metz--which only patriotic considerations have led him to desert--has drawn the information which some years ago he incorporated in a little monograph. Even this monograph leaves some gaps. And the author falls into one or two odd mistakes--which are no doubt excusable in a foreigner. For instance, he confounds the "rebel and traitor" Richard de la Pole with one of the most faithful followers of the Tudor kings, Sir Richard Pole, of Lordington, in ascribing to his hero, first, the office of Chamberlain to Prince Arthur, and later on the fatherhood of Reginald Pole the cardinal. But his pamphlet is decidedly useful, as supplying clues, which I have been able to follow up successfully on the spot.

Richard de la Pole was the last member of a family which, within the space of about a century of strange vicissitudes, ran through all the stages of rapid rise, almost to the height of the throne, and no less sudden, humiliating descent, to attainder, execution, confiscation, and dishonour. I cannot stop here to tell their history at length. Genealogists have been careful to point out that the French prefix _de la_ proves no Norman descent. There is no "de la Pole," nor any name resembling it, to be met with in the Battle Roll. The De la Poles' origin was, in fact, so humble, that their first distinguished member, Michael, the prosperous merchant--to whom his native town, Hull, raised a monument in 1871--afterwards Lord Chancellor of England and Knight of the Garter, is described in Camden as "basely born." His "base birth," it is true, has been disproved. But that only makes a difference of two or three generations. When Richard and his brothers came into the world, the family had had five generations of titled distinction and notoriety--partly of honour and partly of disgrace. Only one Suffolk of this creation--Richard's father--seems to have died at home and in his bed. And even his death was caused by "grief for the ruin of his family." The Lord Chancellor expired almost exactly a century before of "a broken heart" in exile. His son fell a victim to "dissentery" before Harfleur. The next Earl was honourably killed at Agincourt. His son, again, the "Duke of Suffolk" denounced in early ballads, lived to disgrace that dukedom which he had first obtained, and to die by lynch law under the form of a trial, for having had a hand in the murder of Humphrey, the "good" Duke of Gloucester, and in the surrender of Normandy and Aquitaine to France. This "bad" Duke's son rose once more to high distinction. King Edward IV. actually conferred upon him the hand of his sister Elizabeth; and Richard III., on the death of his own only son, appointed his eldest son John--created Earl of Lincoln--next heir to the throne. That appointment proved in after-time a rather questionable boon to the family. For it involved both John and his brothers in perils, and intrigues, and persecution. The Earl of Lincoln fell in the battle of Stoke, fighting for Simnel, the pretending Earl of Warwick, and by his treason and disgrace caused the death of his father. Of course his estates and titles were held to be forfeited. That forfeiture notwithstanding, the Earl of Lincoln's next brother was admitted to some part of the succession, both of estate and of title, by amicable arrangement with King Henry VII. These peerage cases were dealt with in those days in a very different manner from what they are now, as appears from the fact, that only some eight years previously, in Edward IV.'s reign, the De la Poles' rather distant cousin, the then Duke of Bedford--a Neville, not a Russell--had been deprived of his peerage by Act of Parliament on the score of poverty.

Edmund de la Pole bargained with Henry VII., and recovered part of his brother's possessions and also the humbler of his titles in the peerage, by sacrificing the higher. He was admitted to the peerage as "Earl of Suffolk." Notwithstanding his renunciation, he, later on, when in exile, again claimed the dukedom. Edmund had in his youth been reported by the University of Oxford in a letter addressed to his uncle, King Edward IV., "a penetrating, eloquent, and brilliant genius"--anything but which he proved himself to be. His letters read like the writing of a man of very poor education, even judged by the standard of those unlettered days. And at Court he played his cards so unskilfully, that he soon became, from a rather petted hanger-on, a declared "rebel and traitor," persecuted with all the unrelenting meanness and malice that the two first Tudor kings--the first, at any rate, not feeling very secure on his throne--were masters of. That almost necessarily involved his younger brother Richard in a like fate--which Richard did nothing to evade. Edmund, we read, had the misfortune to kill a "mean" person, whom he presumed to chastise for insulting him. For this he was brought before the King's Bench and adjudged guilty. The king readily granted a pardon. But the Earl took the indignity of his mere trial so much to heart, that he very unwisely fled die country. People said that he had taken refuge at the Court of his aunt Margaret, Duchess of Burgundy, which was then notoriously the gathering-place of malcontent Yorkists. This turned out incorrect. But the rumour may have helped to prejudice Henry against him. Edmund returned home for Prince Arthur's wedding in 1501, and appears to have been at pains to make his loyalty know, and to have been outwardly well received. But almost immediately afterwards he ran away a second time. And as he forthwith proclaimed himself a pretender to the throne, and obtained from the Emperor Maximilian a promise of material help--the loan of 4000 of his troops, wherewith to make good his pretention--it is not surprising that Henry should have set all his ample apparatus of crafty persecution at work against a man become so dangerous a foe. But it is surprising to find him stooping so very low in his recourse to dirty expedients. The State Papers show that bribes were offered all round--to the Emperor, to the King of France, Louis XII., to Philip of Castile and Burgundy--as much as twelve thousand crowns in gold--for Edmund's surrender or despatch. At length, in 1506, Fortune put Philip into Henry's power--a storm driving him on our coast. And Henry meanly took advantage of that opportunity to extort from the Spaniard an undertaking to surrender Edmund--then detained at Namur--agreeing, in return, to Philip's stipulation, that the prisoner's life should be spared. That promise he kept to the letter. Edmund was detained in the Tower until Henry's death--and then executed on Tower Hill by Henry VIII., in obedience to a direction set down with incredible rancour in his father's will. Dugdale suggests that, Edmund being so popular as a pretender, Henry VIII. did not like to leave the kingdom for a war projected in France, with his rival remaining in England alive. Another report says, that he was beheaded on the ground of correspondence proved to have taken place between himself and his brother, then a general in the French army.