Pickle the Spy; Or, the Incognito of Prince Charles

Charles mystifies Europe – Montesquieu knows his secret – Sources of information – The Stuart manuscripts – Charles’s letters from Avignon – A proposal of marriage – Kennedy and the hidden treasure – Where to look for Charles —Cherchez la femme! – Hidden in Lorraine – Plans for entering Paris – Letter to Mrs. Drummond – To the Earl Marischal – Starts for Venice – At Strasbourg – Unhappy Harrington – Letter to James – Leaves Venice ‘A bird without a nest’ – Goes to Paris – The Prince’s secret revealed – The convent of St. Joseph – Curious letter as Cartouche – Madame de Routh – Cartouche again – Goring sent to England – A cypher – Portrait of Madame de Talmond – Portrait of Madame d’Aiguillon – Intellectual society – Mademoiselle Luci – ‘Dener Bash’ – The secret hoard – Results of Goring’s English mission – Timidity of English Jacobites – Supply of money – Charles a bibliophile– ‘My big muff’ – A patron of art – Quarrels with Madame de Talmond – Arms for a rising – Newton on Cluny – Kindness to Monsieur Le Coq – Madame de Talmond weary of Charles – Letters to her – Charles reads Fielding’s novels – Determines to go to England – Large order of arms – Reproached by James – Intagli of James —En route for London – September 1750.

The reader has had an opportunity of observing the success of Charles in mystifying Europe. Diplomatists, ambassadors, and wits would have been surprised, indeed, had they known that one of the most famous men of the age possessed the secret for which they were seeking. The author of ‘L’Esprit des Lois’ could have enlightened them, for Charles’s mystery was no mystery to Montesquieu, who was friendly with Scottish and English Jacobites. The French Ministers, truly or falsely, always professed entire ignorance. They promised to arrest the Prince wherever he might be found on French soil, and transport him to sea by Civita Vecchia. [71 - Correspondence of the Duke of Bedford, ii. 69. Bedford to Albemarle. Also op. cit. ii. 15. March 13, 1749. Bedford to Colonel Yorke.] It will be shown later that, at least in the autumn of 1749, this ignorance was probably feigned.

What is really known of the movements of the Prince in 1749? Curiously enough, Mr. Ewald does not seem to have consulted the ‘Stuart Papers’ at Windsor, while the extracts in Browne’s ‘History of the Highland Clans’ are meagre. To these papers then we turn for information. The most useful portions are not Charles’s letters to James. These are brief and scanty. Thus he writes from Avignon (January 15, 1749), ‘We are enjoying here the finest weather ever was seen.’ He always remarks that his health ‘is perfect.’ He orders patterns for his servants’ liveries and a button, blue and yellow, still remains in a letter from Edgar! The button outlasts the dynasty. Our intelligence must be extracted from ill-spelled, closely scrawled, and much erased sheets of brown paper, on which Charles has scribbled drafts for letters to his household, to Waters, his banker in Paris, to adherents in Paris or London, and to ladies. The notes are almost, and in places are quite, illegible. The Prince practised a disguised hand, and used pseudonyms instead of names. Many letters have been written in sympathetic ink, and then exposed to fire or the action of acids. However, something can be made out, but not why he concealed his movements even from his banker, even from his household, Oxburgh, Kelly, Harrington, and Graeme. It is certain that he started, with a marriage in his eye, from Avignon on February 28, 1749, accompanied by Henry Goring, of the Austrian service. There had already been a correspondence, vaguely hinted at by James’s secretary, Edgar, between Charles and the Duke and a Princess of Hesse-Darmstadt. On February 24, 1749, Charles drafted, at Avignon, a proposal for the hand of the Duke’s daughter. He also drafted (undated) a request to the King of Poland for leave to bring his wife, the Princess of Hesse-Darmstadt, into Polish territory. [72 - Browne, iv. 57, 63.] We may imagine His Polish Majesty’s answer. Of course, the marriage did not take place.

Charles had other secrets. On February 3, 1749, he wrote to Waters about the care to be taken with certain letters. These were a correspondence with ‘Thomas Newton,’ (Major Kennedy), at Mr. Alexander Macarty’s, in Gray’s Inn, London. Newton was in relations with Cluny Macpherson, through a friend in Northumberland. Cluny, skulking on his Highland estates, was transmitting or was desired to transmit a part of the treasure of 40,000 louis d’or, buried soon after Culloden at the head of Loch Arkaig. [73 - In the Gask Papers it is said that 5,000l. was sent by Cluny to Major Kennedy. Kennedy himself buried the money.] Of this fatal treasure we shall hear much. A percentage of the coin was found to be false money, a very characteristic circumstance. Moreover, Cluny seems to have held out hopes, always deferred, of a rising in the Highlands. Charles had to be ready in secrecy, to put himself at the head of this movement. There was also to be an English movement, which was frowned on by official Jacobitism. On February 3, 1749, Charles writes from Avignon to ‘Thomas Newton’ (Kennedy) about the money sent south by Cluny. He repeated his remarks on March 6, giving no place of residence. But probably he was approaching Paris, dangerous as such a visit was, for in a note of March 6 to Waters, he says that he will ‘soon call for letters.’ [74 - All these facts are taken from the Stuart Papers, in manuscript at Windsor Castle.] His noms de guerre at this time were ‘Williams’ and ‘Benn’; later he chose ‘John Douglas.’ He was also Smith, Mildmay, Burton, and so forth.

There should have been no difficulty in discovering Charles. Modern police, in search of a person who is ‘wanted,’ spy on his mistress. Now the Princesse de Talmond, when out of favour at Versailles, went to certain lands in Lorraine, near her exiled king, Stanislas. In Lorraine, therefore, at Lunéville, the Court of the ex-king of Poland, or at Commercy, Bar-le-Duc, or wherever the Princesse de Talmond might be, Charles was sure to be heard of by an intelligent spy, if permitted to enter the country. Consequently, we are not surprised to find Charles drafting on April 3, at Lunéville (where he resided at the house of one Mittie, physician of the ex-king of Poland), a ‘Project for My arrival in Paris. Mr. Benn [himself] must go straight to Dijon, and his companion, Mr. Smith [Goring], to Paris. Mr. Smith will need a chaise, which he must buy at Lunéville. Next he will take up the servant of C. P. [Prince Charles] at Ligny, but on leaving that place Mr. Smith must ride on horseback, and the chaise can go there as if for his return to Paris; the person in it seeming to profit by this opportunity. Mr. Benn [the Prince] must remain for some days, as if he wanted to buy a trunk, and will give his own as if in friendship to Mr. Smith; all this seeming mere chance work. Next, Mr. Smith will go his way and his friend will go his, after waiting a few days, and on arriving at Dijon must write to nobody, except the letter to W – [Waters]. The Chevalier Graeme, whom he must see (and to whom he may mention having been at Dijon on the Prince’s business, without naming his companion, but as if alone), knows nothing, and Graeme must be left in the dark as if he (Mr. Smith) [Goring] were in the same case, and were waiting new orders in total ignorance, not having seen me for a long time.’ [75 - Le 3. A. 1749. Projet pour mon arrive a Paris, et Le Conduit de Mr. Benn. Mr. Benn doit s’en aller droit à Dijon et son Compagnion Mr. Smith a Paris; Il faudra pour Mr. Smith une Chese [chaise] qu’il acheterra a Lunéville, ensuite il prendra Le Domestique du C. P. à Ligny, mais en partent d’icy il faudra que le Sieur Smith mont a Chevall et La Chese pourra y aller come pour son Retour a Paris. La personne dedans parraitrait profiter de cette occasion. Le Sieur Bonn doit rester quelqe jours come desiran acheter une Cofre et remettra La Sienne come par amitié au Sr. Smith, tout cecy paroissant d’hazard. Ensuite Le Sr. Smith continuera au Plustot son Chemin, et son Ami ira Le Sien en attendant, un peu de jours et à son arrivé a Dij. il doit Ecrive a Personne qu’il soite excepte La Lettre au – W. Le Ch. Gre. qu’il doit voire (et a qui il peut dire davoire ete a Di – Charge par Le P., sans meme Nomer son Camerade mais come tout seule) ne sachant rien davantage, et le laissant dans l’obscuriné, comme s’il Etoit dans le meme Cas, attendant des Nouvelles Ordres, sans rien outre savoire ou pouvoire penetre Etant deja Longtems sans me voire.’ Holograph of P. Charles.]

There follow a few private addresses in Paris; and the name, to be remarked, of ‘Mademoiselle Ferrand.’

All this is very puzzling; we only make out that, by some confusion of the personalities of ‘Benn’ (the Prince) and ‘Mr. Smith’ (Goring), Charles hoped to enter Paris undetected. Yet he was seen ‘entering a gate of Paris in disguise.’ Doubtless he had lady allies, but a certain Mademoiselle Ferrand, to whom he wrote, he seems not to have known personally. We shall find that she was later of use to him, and indeed his most valuable friend and ally.

Next, we find this letter of April 10 to Madame Henrietta Drummond, doubtless of the family of Macgregor, called Drummond, of Balhaldie. Charles appears to have had enough of Paris, and is going to Venice. He is anxious to meet the Earl Marischal.

    ‘April 10, 1749.

‘I have been very impatient to be able to give you nuse of me as I am fully persuaded of yr Friendship, and concern for everything that regards me; I send you here enclosed a Letter for Ld Marishal, be pleased to enclose it, and forward it without loss of time; the Bearer (he is neither known by you or me), is charged to receive at any time what Letters you want to send me, and you may be shure of their arriving safe. Iff Lord Marishal agrees with my Desier when you give his Packet to yr Bearer, you must put over it en Dilligence, iff otherwise, direct by my Name as I sign it here. I flatter myself of the Continuation of your Friendship, as I hope you will never doubt of mine which shall be constant. I remain yr moste obedient humble Servant

    ‘John Douglas.

‘P.S. – Tell ye Bearer when to comback for the answer of ye enclosed or any other Letters you want to send me.

‘P.S. to Lord Marischal. – Whatever party you take, be pleased to keep my writing secret, and address to me at Venise to the Sig. Ignazio Testori to Mr. de Villelongue under cover to a Banquier of that town, and it will come safe to me.

‘To Md. Henrietta Drummond.’

Charles, on April 20, wrote another letter to the Lord Marischal, imploring for an interview, at some place to be fixed. But the old Lord was not likely to go from Berlin to Venice, whither Charles was hastening.

It is perfectly plain that, leaving Avignon on February 28, Charles was making for Paris on March 6 by a circuitous route through Lorraine (where he doubtless met Madame de Talmond), and a double back on Burgundy. What he did or desired in Paris we do not know. He is said to have visited Lally Tollendal, and he must have seen Waters, his banker. By April 10 he is starting for Venice, where he had, as a boy, been royally received. But, in 1744, the Republic of Venice had resumed relations with England, interrupted by Charles’s too kind reception in 1737. The whole romance, therefore, of Henry Goring’s letter, and all the voyages to Stockholm, Berlin, Lithuania, and so forth, are visions. Charles probably saw some friends in Paris, was tolerated in Lorraine (where his father was protected before 1715), and he vainly looked for a home in any secular State of Europe. This was all, or nearly all, that occurred between March and May 1749. Europe was fluttered, secret service money was poured out like water, diplomatists caballed and scribbled despatches, all for very little. The best place to have hunted for Charles was really at Lunéville, near the gay Court of his kinsman, the Duke Stanislas Leczinski, the father of the Queen of France. There Charles’s sometime admirer, Voltaire, was a welcome guest; thither too (as we saw) went his elderly cousin, people said his mistress, the Princesse de Talmond. But the English diplomatists appear to have neglected Lunéville. D’Argenson was better informed.

On April 26 Charles was at Strasbourg. Here, D’Argenson says, he was seen, and warned to go, by an écuyer of the late Cardinal Rohan. Hence he wrote again to the Earl Marischal at Berlin. From this note it is plain that he had sent Goring (‘Mr. Smith’) to the Earl; Goring, indeed, had carried his letters of April 10–20. He again proposes a meeting with the Earl Marischal at Venice. He will ‘answer for the expenses,’ and apologises for ‘such a long and fatiguing journey.’ He wrote to Waters, ‘You may let Mr. Newton know that whenever he has thoroly finished his Business, Mr. Williams [the Prince] will make him very wellcum in all his Cuntrihouses.’

The ‘business’ of ‘Mr. Newton’ was to collect remittances from Cluny.

On April 30, the Prince, as ‘Mr. Williams,’ expresses ‘his surprise and impatience for the delay of the horses [money] and other goods promised by Mr. Newton.’

On May 3, Charles wrote, without address, to Goring, ‘I go strete to Venice, and would willingly avoid your Garrison Towns, as much as possible: id est, of France. I believe to compass that by goin by Ruffach to Pfirt: there to wate for me. The Chese [chaise] you may either leve it in consine to your post-master of Belfort, or, what is still better, to give it to the bearer.’

Goring and Harrington were to meet the bearer at Belfort, but Harrington seems to have been mystified, and to have failed in effecting a junction. The poor gentleman, we learn, from letters of Stafford and Sheridan, Charles’s retainers at Avignon, could scarcely raise money to leave that town. Sir James Harrington was next to meet Charles at Venice. He was to carry a letter for Charles to a Venetian banker. ‘Nota bene, that same banquier, though he will deliver to me your letter, knows nothing about me, nor who I am… Change your name, and, in fine, keep as private as possible, till I tell you what is to be done.’ Harrington failed, and lay for months in pawn at Venice, pouring out his griefs in letters to Goring. He was a lachrymose conspirator.

These weary affairs are complicated by mysterious letters to ladies: for example to Mademoiselle Lalasse, ‘Je vous prie, Mademoiselle, de rendre justice à mon inviolable attachement.’ (May 3). He gives her examples of his natural and of his disguised handwriting; probably she helped him in forwarding his correspondence. Charles’s chief anxiety was to secure the Lord Marischal. Bulkeley and the official English Jacobites kept insisting that he should have a man with him who was trusted by the party. Kelly was distrusted, though Bulkeley defends him, and was cashiered in autumn. Charles’s friends also kept urging that he must ‘appear in public,’ but where? Bulkeley suggested Bologna. The Earl Marischal, later (July 5), was for Fribourg. No place was really both convenient and possible. On May 17 Charles wrote from Venice to the Earl Marischal, ‘I am just arrived, but will not be able for some days, to know what reception to meet with.’ He fears he ‘may be chased from hence,’ and his fears were justified. On the same day (May 17) he wrote to Edgar in Rome, ‘Venice, next to France, is the best for my interest, and the only one in Italy.’

Venice ejected the Prince. On May 26 he wrote to his father:

‘Sir, – I received last night from ye Nuntio a definitive answer about my project, which is quite contrary to my expectation; as I have nothing further to do here, and would not run the least risk of being found out, I depart this very evening, having left a direction to the said Nuntio how to forward my letters for me.’ On the same day he wrote to Chioseul de Stainville, the minister at Versailles of the Empress, ‘Could an anonymous exiled Prince be received by the Kaiser and the Queen of Hungary? He would remain incognito.’

On June 3 Charles wrote to James, without address or news, and to Bulkeley. ‘Now my friend must skulk to the perfect dishonour and glory of his worthy relations, until he finds a reception fitting at home or abroad.’ On the back of the draft he writes:

‘What can a bird do that has not found a right nest? He must flit from bough to bough —ainsi use les Irondel.’

Probably Charles, after a visit, perhaps, to Ferrara, returned to Paris and his Princess. We find a draft thus conceived and spelled:

‘Arrengement

‘Goring to come here immediately, he to know nothing but that I am just arrived. I am not to go to Paris, but at the end of the month, as sooner no answer can be had, moreover perhaps obliged to wait another, which would oblige me to remain to long in P.’ He also (June 3) wrote to Montesquieu, from whom (I think) there is an unsigned friendly letter. He sent compliments to the Duchesse d’Aiguillon, a lady much attached to Montesquieu. An unsigned English letter (June 5) advised him to appear publicly. People are coming to inquire into reports about his character, ‘after which it is possible some proposals may be made to you.’ The writer will say more when ‘in a safer place.’

Newton (Kennedy), meanwhile, had been imprisoned and examined in London, but had been released, and was at Paris. He bought for the Prince ‘a fine case of double barrill pistols, made by Barber,’ and much admired ‘on this side.’ Charles expresses gratitude for the gift. Newton had been examined by the Duke of Newcastle about the 40,000 louis d’or buried at Loch Arkaig in 1740, but had given no information. On June 26 Charles again asks Bulkeley, ‘What can a bird do that has found no right nest?’

On June 30 the Prince was probably in Paris, whither we have seen that he meant to go. He had ‘found a right nest,’ and a very curious nest he had found. The secret of the Prince’s retreat became known, many years later, to Grimm, the Paris correspondent of Catherine the Great. Charles’s biographers have overlooked or distrusted Grimm’s gossip, but it is confirmed by Charles’s accidentally writing two real names, in place of pseudonyms, in his correspondence. The history of his ‘nest’ was this. After her reign as favourite of Louis XIV., Madame de Montespan founded a convent of St. Joseph, in the Rue St. Dominique, in the Faubourg St. Germain. Attached to the convent were rooms in which ladies of rank might make a retreat, or practically occupy chambers. [76 - Under the late Empire (1863) the convent was the hotel of the Minister of War. Hither, about 1748, came Madame du Deffand, later the superannuated adorer of the hard-hearted Horace Walpole, and here was her famous salon moire jaune, aux næuds couleur de feu. Here she entertained the President Hénault, Bulkeley, Montesquieu (whose own house was in the same street), Lord Bath, and all the philosophes, giving regular suppers on Mondays. In the same conventual chambers resided, in 1749, Madame de Talmond, Madame de Vassé, and her friend Mademoiselle Ferrand, whose address Charles wrote, as we saw, in his note-book (March 1749).]

About this convent and its inmates, Grimm writes as follows:

‘The unfortunate Prince Charles, after leaving the Bastille [really Vincennes] lay hidden for three years in Paris, in the rooms of Madame de Vassé, who then resided with her friend, the celebrated Mademoiselle Ferrand, at the convent of St. Joseph. To Mademoiselle de Ferrand the Abbé Condillac owed the ingenious idea of the statue, which he has developed so well in his treatise on “The Sensations.” The Princesse de Talmond, with whom Prince Charles was always much in love, inhabited the same house. All day he was shut up in a little garderobe of Madame de Vassé’s, whence, by a secret staircase, he made his way at night to the chambers of the Princesse. In the evening he lurked behind an alcove in the rooms of Mademoiselle Ferrand. Thus, unseen and unknown, he enjoyed every day the conversation of the most distinguished society, and heard much good and much evil spoken of himself.

‘The existence of the Prince in this retreat, and the profound mystery which so long hid him from the knowledge of the world, by a secret which three women shared, and in a house where the flower of the city and the Court used to meet, seems almost miraculous. M. de Choiseul, who heard the story several years after the departure of the Prince, could not believe it. When Minister of Foreign Affairs he wrote to Madame de Vassé and asked her for the particulars of the adventure. She told him all, and did not conceal the fact that she had been obliged to get rid of the Prince, because of the too lively scenes between him and Madame de Talmond. They began in tender effusions, and often ended in a quarrel, or even in blows. This fact we learn from an intimate friend of Madame de Vassé.’ [77 - Grimm, ii. p. 183.]

There is exaggeration here. The Prince was not living a life ‘fugitive and cloistered’ for three whole unbroken years. But the convent of St. Joseph was one of his hiding-places from 1749 to 1752. Of Madame de Vassé I have been unable to learn much: a lady of that name was presented at Court in 1745, and the Duc de Luynes describes her as ‘conveniently handsome.’ She is always alluded to as ‘La Grandemain’ in Charles’s correspondence, but once he lets her real name slip out in a memorandum. Mademoiselle Ferrand’s father is apparently described by d’Hozier as ‘Ferrand, Ecuyer, Sieur des Marres et de Ronville en Normandie.’ Many of Charles’s letters are addressed to ‘Mademoiselle Luci,’ sister of ‘La Grandemain.’ Now Madame de Vassé seems, from a passage in the Duc de Luynes’s ‘Mémoires,’ to have been the only daughter of her father, M. de Pezé. But once, Charles, writing to ‘Mademoiselle Luci,’ addresses the letter to ‘Mademoiselle La Marre,’ for ‘Marres.’ Now, as Marres was an estate of the Ferrands, this address seems to identify ‘Mademoiselle Luci’ with Mademoiselle Ferrand, the intimate friend, not really the sister, of Madame de Vassé. Mademoiselle Ferrand, as Grimm shows, had a taste for philosophy. We shall remark the same taste in the Prince’s friend, ‘Mademoiselle Luci.’

Thus the secret which puzzled Europe is revealed. The Prince, sought vainly in Poland, Prussia, Italy, Silesia, and Staffordshire, was really lurking in a fashionable Parisian convent. Better had he been ‘where the wind blows over seven glens, and seven Bens, and seven mountain moors,’ like the Prince in the Gaelic fairy stories.

We return to details. On June 30, 1749, the Prince, still homeless, writes a curious letter to Mademoiselle Ferrand:

‘The confidence, Mademoiselle, which I propose to place in you may seem singular, as I have not the good fortune to know you. The Comtesse de Routh, however, will be less surprised.’ This lady was the wife of an Irishman commanding a regiment in the French service, one of those stationed on the frontier of Flanders. ‘You [Mademoiselle Ferrand], who have made a Relation de Cartouche [the famous robber], may consent to be the depositary of my letter. I pray you to give this letter to the Comtesse de Routh, and to receive from her all the packets addressed to Monsieur Douglas.’ He then requests Madame de Routh not to let the Waterses know that she is the intermediary.

The reason for all this secrecy is obvious. D’Argenson (not the Bête, but his brother) had threatened Waters with the loss of his head if he would not tell where the Prince was concealed [78 - S. P. France. June 4, 1749. Ewald, ii. 200.]. The banker did not want to know the dangerous fact, and was able to deny his knowledge with a clear conscience.

On July 23 Charles again wrote to Mademoiselle Ferrand: ‘It is very bold of Cartouche to write once more, without knowing whether you wish to be concerned with him, but people of our profession are usually impudent, indeed we must be, if we are to earn our bread… I pray you to have some confidence in this handwriting, and to believe that Cartouche, though he be Cartouche, is a true friend. As for his smuggling business, even if it does not succeed as he hopes, he will be none the less grateful to all who carry his flag, as he will be certain that, if he fails, it is because success is impossible.’ [79 - Translated from the French original at Windsor Castle.]

This letter was likely to please a romantic girl, as we may suppose Mademoiselle Ferrand to have been, despite her philosophy.

Stafford and Sheridan now kept writing pitiful appeals for money from Avignon. Charles answers (July 31, 1749):

‘I wish I were in a situation at present to relive them I estime, in an exotick cuntry that desiers nothing else but to exercise their arbitrary power in distressing all honest men, even them that [are] most allies to their own Soverain.’

Charles, in fact, was himself very poor: when money came in, either from English adherents or from the Loch Arkaig hoard, he sent large remittances to Avignon.

Money did come in, partly, no doubt, from English adherents. We find the following orders from the Prince to Colonel Goring.

From the Prince to Goring

    ‘Ye 31st July, 1749.

‘I gave you Lately a proof of my Confidence, by our parting together from Avignion, so that you will not be surprized of a New Instance. You are to repair on Receipt of this to London, there to Let know to such friends as you can see, my situation, and Resolutions; all tending to nothing else but the good and relieve of our Poor Country which ever was, and shall be my only thoughts. Take Care of yr.Self, do not think to be on a detachement, but only a simple Minister that is to comback with a distinct account from them parts, and remain assured of my Constant friendship and esteem.

    ‘C. P. R. For Goring.

‘P.S. – Cypher.