The general outline here sketched must now be filled up in detail. The origo mali was the divisions among the Jacobites. Ever since 1715 these had existed and multiplied. Mar was thought to be a traitor. Atterbury, in exile, suspected OBrien (Lord Lismore). The Earl Marischal and Kelly 30 were set against Jamess ministers, Lord Sempil, Lord Lismore, and Balhaldie, the exiled chief of the Macgregors. Lord Dunbar (Murray, brother of Lord Mansfield) was in Jamess disgrace at Avignon. Sempil, Balhaldie, Lismore were the Kings party, opposed to Marischal, Kelly, Sheridan, Lally Tollendal, the Princes party. Each sect inveighed against the other in unmeasured terms of reproach. This division widened when Charles was in France, just before the expedition to Scotland.
One of Jamess agents in Paris, Lord Sempil, writes to him on July 5, 1745, with warnings against the Princes counsellors, especially Sir Thomas Sheridan (Charless governor, and left-handed cousin) and Kelly. They, with Lally Tollendal and others, arranged the descent on Scotland without the knowledge of James or Sempil, whom Charles and his party bitterly distrusted, as they also distrusted Lord Lismore (OBrien), Jamess other agent. While the Prince was in Scotland (17451746), even before Prestonpans, the Jacobite affairs in France were perplexed by the action of Lismore, Sempil, and Balhaldie, acting for James, while the old Earl Marischal (who had been in the rising of 1715, and the Glenshiel affair of 1719) acted for the Prince. With the Earl Marischal was, for some time, Lord Clancarty, of whom Sempil speaks as a very brave and worthy man. 31 On the other hand, Oliver Macallester, the spy, describes Clancarty, with whom he lived, as a slovenly, drunken, blaspheming rogue, one of whose eyes General Braddock had knocked out with a bottle in a tavern brawl! Clancarty gave himself forth as a representative of the English Jacobites, but dArgenson, in his Mémoires, says he could produce no names of men of rank in the party except his own. DArgenson was pestered by women, priests, and ragged Irish adventurers. In September 1745, the Earl Marischal and Clancarty visited dArgenson, then foreign minister of Louis XV. in the Kings camp in Flanders. They asked for aid, and the scene, as described by the spy Macallester, on Clancartys information, was curious. DArgenson taunted the Lord Marischal with not being at Charless side in Scotland. To the slovenly Clancarty he said, Sir, your wig is ill-combed. Would you like to see my perruquier? He manages wigs very well. Clancarty, who wore an ordinary black tie-wig, jumped up, saying in English, Damn the fellow! He is making his diversion of us. 32 The Lord Marischal was already on bad personal terms with Charles. Clancarty was a ruffian, dArgenson was the adviser who suggested Charless hidden and fugitive life after 1748. The singular behaviour of the Earl Marischal in 17511754 will afterwards be illustrated by the letters of Pickle, who drew much of his information from the unsuspicious old ambassador of Frederick the Great to the Court of Versailles. It is plain that the Duke of Ormonde was right when he said that too many people are meddling in your Majestys affairs with the French Court at this juncture (November 15, 1745). The Duke of York, Charless brother, was on the seaboard of France in autumn 1745. At Arras he met the gallant Chevalier Wogan, who had rescued his mother from prison at Innspruck. 33 Clancarty, Lord Marischal, and Lally Tollendal were pressing for a French expedition to start in aid of Charles. Sempil, Balhaldie, Lismore, were intriguing and interfering. Voltaire wrote a proclamation for Charles to issue. An expedition was arranged, troops and ships were gathered at Boulogne. Swedes were to join from Gothenburg. On Christmas Eve, 1745, nothing was ready, and the secret leaked out. A million was sent to Scotland; the money arrived too late; we shall hear more of it. 34 The Duke of York, though he fought well at Antwerp, was kneeling in every shrine, and was in church when the news of Culloden was brought to him. This information he gave, in the present century, to one of the Stair family. 35 The rivalries and enmities went on increasing and multiplying into cross-divisions after Charles made his escape to France in August 1746. He was filled with distrust of his fathers advisers; his own were disliked by James. The correspondence of Horace Mann, and of Walton, an English agent in Florence, shows that England received all intelligence sent to James from Paris, and knew all that passed in Jamess cabinet in Rome. 36 The Abbé Grant was suspected of being the spy.
Among so many worse than doubtful friends, Charles, after 1746, took his own course; even his father knew little or nothing of his movements. Between his departure from Avignon (February 1749) and the accession of Pickle to the Hanoverian side (Autumn 1749 or 1750), Charles baffled every Foreign Office in Europe. Indeed, Pickle was of little service till 1751 or 1752. Curious light on Charless character, and on the entangled quarrels of the Jacobites, is cast by dArgensons Mémoires. In Spring, 1747, the Duke of York disappeared from Paris, almost as cleverly as Charles himself could have done. DArgenson thus describes his manœuvre. He fled from Paris with circumstances of distinguished treachery (insigne fourberie) towards his brother, the Prince. He invited Charles to supper; his house was brilliantly lighted up; all his servants were in readiness; but he had made his escape by five oclock in the afternoon, aided by Cardinal Tencin. His Governor, the Chevalier Graeme, was not in the secret. The Prince waited for him till midnight, and was in a mortal anxiety. He believed that the English attempts to kidnap or assassinate himself had been directed against his brother. At last, after three days, he received a letter from the Duke of York, explaining his fatal design to accept a cardinals hat. Prince Charles is determined never to return to Rome, but rather to take refuge in some hole in a rock.
Charles, in fact, saw that, if he was to succeed in England, he could not have too little connection with Rome. DArgenson describes his brother Henry as Italian, superstitious, a rogue, avaricious, fond of ease, and jealous of the Prince. Cardinal Tencin, he says, and Lord and Lady Lismore, have been bribed by England to wheedle Henry into the cardinalate, which England desires more than anything in the world. Charles expressed the same opinion in an epigram. Lady Lismore, for a short time believed to be the mistress of Louis XV., was deeply suspected. Whatever may be the truth of these charges, M. de Puysieux, an enemy of Charles, succeeded at the Foreign Office to dArgenson, who had a queer sentimental liking for the Prince. Cardinal Tencin was insulted, and was hostile; the Lismores were absolutely estranged, if not treacherous; there was a quarrel between James and Henry in Rome, and Charles, in Paris. 37 Such was the state of affairs at the end of 1747, while Pickle was still a prisoner in the Tower of London, engaged, he tells us, in acts of charity towards his fellow-captives!
Meanwhile Charless private conduct demands a moments attention. Madame de Pompadour was all powerful at Court. 38 This was, therefore, a favourable moment for Charles, in a chivalrous affection for the injured French Queen (his dead mothers kinswoman), to insult the reigning favourite. Madame de Pompadour sent him billets on that thick smooth vellum paper of hers, sealed with the arms of France. The Prince tossed them into the fire and made no answer; it is Pickle who gives us this information. Maria Theresa later stooped to call Madame de Pompadour her cousin. Charles was prouder or less politic; afterwards he stooped like Maria Theresa.
Meanwhile Charless private conduct demands a moments attention. Madame de Pompadour was all powerful at Court. 38 This was, therefore, a favourable moment for Charles, in a chivalrous affection for the injured French Queen (his dead mothers kinswoman), to insult the reigning favourite. Madame de Pompadour sent him billets on that thick smooth vellum paper of hers, sealed with the arms of France. The Prince tossed them into the fire and made no answer; it is Pickle who gives us this information. Maria Theresa later stooped to call Madame de Pompadour her cousin. Charles was prouder or less politic; afterwards he stooped like Maria Theresa.
For his part, says dArgenson, the Prince now amused himself with love affairs. Madame de Guémené almost ravished him by force; they have quarrelled, after a ridiculous scene; he is living now with the Princesse de Talmond. He is full of fury, and wishes in everything to imitate Charles XII. of Sweden and stand a siege in his house like Charles XII. at Bender. This was in anticipation of arrest, after the Treaty of Aix-la-Chapelle, in which his expulsion from France was one of the conditions. This Princesse de Talmond, as we shall see, was the unworthy Flora Macdonald of Charles in his later wanderings, his protectress, and, unlike Flora, his mistress. She was not young; Madame dAiguillon calls her vieille femme in a curious play, La Prison du Prince Charles Edouard Stuart, written by dArgenson in imitation of Shakespeare. 39 The Princesse, née Marie Jablonowski, a cousin of the Queen of France and of Charles, married Anne Charles Prince de Talmond, of the great house of La Trimouille, in 1730. She must have been nearly forty in 1749, and some ten years older than her lover.
We shall later, when Charles is concealed by the Princesse de Talmond, present the reader with her portrait by the mordant pen of Madame du Deffand. Here Voltaires rhymed portrait may be cited:
Les dieux, en la donnant naissance
Aux lieux par la Saxe envahis,
Lui donnèrent pour récompense
Le goût quon ne trouve quen France,
Et lesprit de tous les pays.
The Princesse, who frequented the Philosophes, appears to have encouraged Charles in free thinking and ostentatious indifference in religion.
He is a handsome Prince, and I should love him as much as my wife does, says poor M. de Talmond, in dArgensons play, but why is he not saintly, and ruled by the Congrégation de Saint Ignace, like his father? It is Madame de Talmond who preaches to him independence and incredulity. She is bringing the curse of God upon me. How old will she be before the conversion for which I pray daily to Saint François Xavier?
Such was Madame de Talmond, an old mistress of a young man, flighty, philosophical, and sharp of tongue.
On July 18, 1748, Charles communicated to Louis XV. his protest against the article of the Peace of Aix-la-Chapelle which drove him out of every secular state in Europe. Louis broke a solemn treaty by assenting to this article. Charles published his protest and sent it to Montesquieu. He complained that Montesquieu had not given him the new edition of his book on the Romans. La confiance devroit être mieux établi entre les auteurs: jespère que ma façon de penser pour vous mattirera la continuation de votre bonne volonté pour moi. 40 Montesquieu praised Charless simplicity, nobility, and eloquence: comme vous le dites très bien, vous estes un auteur. Were you not so great a Prince, the Duchesse de Guillon (dAiguillon) and I would secure you a place in the Academy.
The Duchesse dAiguillon, who later watched by Montesquieus death-bed, was a friend of Charles. She and Madame de Talmond literally pull caps for him in dArgensons play. But she was in favour of his going to Fribourg with a pension after the Peace: Madame de Talmond encouraged resistance. Louiss minister, M. de Cousteille, applied to Fribourg for an asylum for Charles on June 24, 1748. On September 8, Burnaby wrote, for England, a long remonstrance to the Laudable States of Fribourg, calling Charles this young Italian! The States, in five lines, rebuked Burnabys impertinence, as unconfined in its expressions and so unsuitable to a Sovereign State that we did not judge it proper to answer it. 41
To Fribourg Charles would not go. He braved the French Court in every way. He even insisted on a goldsmiths preferring his order for a great service of plate to the Kings, and, having obtained the plate, he feasted the Princesse de Talmond, his friend and cousin, the Duc de Bouillon, and a crowd of other distinguished people. 42 In his demeanour Charles resolutely affronted the French Ministers. There were terrible scenes with Madame de Talmond, especially when Charles was forbidden the house by her husband. Charles was led away from her closed door by Bulkeley, the brother-in-law of Marshal Berwick, and a friend of Montesquieus. 43 Thus the violence which afterwards interrupted and ended Charless liaison with Madame de Talmond had already declared itself. One day, according to dArgenson, the lady said, You want to give me the second volume in your romance of compromising Madame de Montbazon [his cousin] with your two pistol-shots. No more is known of this adventure. But Charles was popular both in Court and town: his resistance to expulsion was applauded. De Gèvres was sent by the King to entreat Charles to leave France; he received de Gèvres gallantly, his hand on his sword-hilt. DArgenson saw him at the opera on December 3, 1748, fort gai et fort beau, admiré de tout le public.
On December 10, 1748, Charles was arrested at the door of the opera house, bound hand and foot, searched, and dragged to Vincennes. The deplorable scene is too familiar for repetition. One point has escaped notice. Charles (according to dArgenson) had told de Gèvres that he would die by his own hand, if arrested. Two pistols were found on him; he had always carried them since his Scottish expedition. But a pair of compasses was also found. Now it was with a pair of compasses that his friend, Lally Tollendal, long afterwards attempted to commit suicide in prison. The pistols were carried in fear of assassination, but what does a man want with a pair of compasses at the opera? 44
After some days of detention at Vincennes, Charles was released, was conducted out of French territory, and made his way to Avignon, where he resided during January and February 1749. He had gained the sympathy of the mob, both in Paris and in London. Some of the French Court, including the Dauphin, were eager in his cause. Songs and poems were written against Louis XV, DArgenson, as we know, being out of office, composed a play on Charless martyrdom. So much contempt for Louis was excited, that a nail was knocked into the coffin of French royalty. The King, at the dictation of England, had arrested, bound, imprisoned, and expelled his kinsman, his guest, and (by the Treaty of Fontainebleau) his ally.
Applause and pity from the fickle and forgetful the Prince had won, but his condition was now desperate. Refusing to accept a pension from France, he was poor; his jewels he had pawned for the Scottish expedition. He had disobeyed his fathers commands and mortally offended Louis by refusing to leave France. His adherents in Paris (as their letters to Rome prove) were in despair. His party, as has been shown, was broken up into hostile camps. Lochiel was dead. Lord George Murray had been insulted and estranged. The Earl Marischal had declined Charless invitation to manage his affairs (1747). Elcho was a persistent and infuriated dun. Clancarty was reviling Charles, James, Louis, England, and the world at large. Madame de Pompadour, Cardinal Tencin, and de Puysieux were all hostile. The English Jacobites, though loyal, were timid. Europe was hermetically sealed against the Prince. Refuge in Fribourg, where the English threatened the town, Charles had refused. Not a single shelter was open to him, for Englands policy was to drive him into the dominions of the Pope, where he would be distant and despised. Of advisers he had only such attached friends as Henry Goring, Bulkeley, Harrington, or such distrusted boon companions as Kelly against whom the English Jacobites set all wheels in motion. Charless refuge at Avignon even was menaced by English threats directed at the Pope. The Prince tried to amuse himself; he went to dances, he introduced boxing matches, 45 just as years before he had brought golf into Italy. But his position was untenable, and he disappeared.