tirely at home. However, in 1713 we took a different view, and, as Lorraine lay particularly handy and convenient, from the French point of view, being near, and, though nominally an independent duchy, entirely under the French thumb, to Lorraine James was sent. There was some talk of his going to Nancy. He himself did not at first fancy Bar-le-Duc. He feared that he might find it slow. The French king believed that in a big town like Nancy he would be safer. However, in the end Bar was decided upon; and, allowing for the interruptions caused by very frequent, and often prolonged, visits to Lunéville, to Commercy, and to Nancy-as well as to Plombières, and one or two sly expeditions to Paris and St Germains in the interesting and picturesque little capital of the Barrois did the Chevalier remain, hatching schemes, writing despatches to the Pope, qua king, moreover making love to his nameless fair one, and beguiling the time with the games of the period, until the Fata Morgana of rather hopedfor than anticipated success lured him on that unhappy expedition into Scotland. James tries to make a serious hardship of his "exile" at Bar. But he might, without much trouble, have fixed upon a very much worse place. If roads were bad, and if the surrounding woods swarmed with brigands, whom special chasse-coquins were retained to keep in awe, that was a disqualification common to all Lorraine the after-effect of French ravages and French occupation. Leave that out of account, and Bar must have been attractive enough. Its situation is remarkably picturesque. The castle - hill rises up steeply, all but isolated from the surrounding heights, above the smiling valley of the Ornain, with delightfully green and tempting side-valleys curling around it, as natural fosses, on either side. In James's day the hill was still crowned with the old historic castle, built in the tenth century the castle in which Mary Queen of Scots, bright with youthful beauty, and radiant with happiness, delighted with her cheering presence the gay Court of her cousin and playmate, Charles III., fresh to his coronet, as she was to the crown which decked her head; for she was then newly married to Francis II., newly crowned Queen of France at Rheims. The daughter of Marie de Lorraine, brought up in Lorraine Condé, she reckoned herself a Lorraine princess, and as a Lorraine princess the Lorraines have ever regarded, and idolised, her. To the memory of this unhappy queen, round which time had gathered a bright halo of romance, not least was due that hearty welcome which the Lorraines readily extended to her exiled kinsman. Most picturesque must the castle have been in olden days, when those seventeen medieval towers (removed by order of Louis XIV. in 1670) still stood round about it like sturdy sentries, each laden with historic memories. Even now the view of the hill is pleasing enough—with its winding roads, its steep steps, its antique clock-tower, its terraced gardens and rambling lanes, the quaint church of St Peter 1 topping the southern summit with its tower 1 The church encloses, in addition to one of the "true" pebbles with which was stoned, says M. Bellot-Herment, the chronicler of Bar, "St Etienne, curé de Gamaliel, bourg du diocèse de Jerusalem," that boldly original sculpture from the flattened to resist the wind, with those delightfully green and shady Pâquis just beyond, densely wooded with trees-the Pâquis which, with their paslemaile, formed the favourite resort of James while at Bar, and in the shady seclusion of which he spun his web of deceiving flattery round the guileless heart of the girl whom he betrayed. Only to please him, we read in the archives, it was that the town council put up benches in that shade, which cost the town nine livres. At James's time Bar-le-Duc, though declining, was still a rather considerable provincial capital, the chef-lieu of the largest bailliage in Lorraine. And in that little "West End" of the Haute Ville, where a cluster of Louis-Quatorze houses still stand in decayed grandeur, to recall past fashionableness, the nobility of the little Barrois, locally always a powerful and influential body,—the Bassompierres, the Haraucourts, the Lenoncourts, the Stainvilles, the Romécourts, - had their town houses; and there also dwelt the pick of the bureaucracy, all ready to pay their court to the Stuart "king," to whom even the French envoy reckoned it an honour to be introduced. Lorraine was at the time slowly but steadily recovering from the havoc wrought upon it by French and Swedes, Croats and Germans, Cravates (local brigands) and Champenois peasants, and all that "omnium bipedum sceleratissima colluvies," which had again and again overrun the duchy, robbing, burning, pillaging. Leopold, restored by the Treaty of Ryswick to his duchy-in which, as duke, his father had never set foot-had been on the throne getting on for sixteen years. And what with the excellent counsels of that best of Chancellors, Irish Earl Carlingford, and his own intuitive wisdom and enlightened and paternal despotism, Lorraine was becoming populous and prosperous, happy and contented, once more. Leopold earned himself a name for a shrewd and prudent ruler. His brother-in-law, Philip of Orleans (the Regent), said of him, that of all rulers of Europe he did not know one who was his superior "en expérience, en sagesse, et en politique." And Voltaire has immortalised his virtues by saying: "Il est à souhaiter que la dernière postérité apprenne qu'un des plus petits souverains de l'Europe a été celui qui fit le plus de bien à son peuple.” In fact, he was the very ruler whom Lorraine at that juncture wanted. "Je quitterais demain ma souveraineté si je ne pouvais faire du bien," he said. Under his father, that brilliant general, Charles V., he had given proof of his pluck and prowess at Temeswar, of his military ability before Ebersburg. But in Lorraine, he knew, the one thing needful was peace. And with a dogged determination which was bound to overcome all difficulties, though the stars in their courses seemed to be fighting against him, that peace he managed to preserve, in the midst of a raging sea of war all round, which had drawn all neighbouring countries into its whirl. He did it-it is worth recording, because it materially affected James's position at his chisel of the great Lorraine artist, Ligier Richier, whom we so undeservedly ignore, the famous "Squelette," the mere name of which frightened Dibdin away, as he himself relates. Durival terms this sculpture une affreuse beauté "—but "beauté " it undoubtedly is. Court by as adroit balancing it, he found himself getting into between the two great belligerent mischief. Powers of the Continent as ever diplomatist managed to achieve. Born and bred in Austria, allied to the Imperial family by the closest ties of blood-his mother was an archduchess-trained in Austrian etiquette, an officer in the Austrian army, beholden to Austria for many past favours, and keenly alive to the fact that for any favours which might yet be to come he must look exclusively to the Court of Vienna, in his leanings and prepossessions he was entirely Austrian. But under his father and great-uncle history had taught his country the severe lesson that without observing the best, though they be the most obsequious, relations towards France, at whose mercy the country lay, no independent Lorraine was at all possible. Accordingly, almost Leopold's very first act as Duke was to send M. de Couvange to Paris, to solicit on his behalf the hand of "Mademoiselle," the Princess of Orleans. Her hand was gladly accorded. There was a tradition-with a very obvious object-at Paris in favour of Lorraine marriages. This was the thirty-third, and there remained a thirty-fourth to conclude, the ill-starred marriage of Marie Antoinette. King James II. and his Queen attended the wedding at Fontainebleau, and Elizabeth Charlotte became one of the best of wives, and best and most popular of Lorraine duchesses, bearing her husband no less than fourteen children. Balancing between Austria and France, maintaining his private relations with the one, giving way in everything to the other, was Leopold's prudent maxim throughout his reign. So long as he adhered to that, he felt safe. Whenever he departed from Leopold has been much abused by our writers and politicians, as if he had been a deliberate antiEnglish plotter and Jacobite accomplice. It is but fair to him to explain why he afforded the Stuart prince such liberal hospitality. The real fact is, that he could not help himself. He was bound to. France demanded it, and he could not refuse-nor yet refuse to make his hospitality generous and lavish. There was the additional attraction, indeed, of a show of importance, of a little implication in diplomatic negotiations and playing a part in European high politics, which to Leopold must have been strongly seductive. A good deal is also said about denominational motives, which must have helped Leopold both with the Curia and with the Imperial Court, with both of whom he was anxious to In But he was the best shepherd whom they had ever had. So zealous a believer was of course a man after the very heart of the widow and son of that "fort bon homme," as Archbishop Le Tellier scoffingly termed James II., who had "sacrificed three kingdoms for a mass." To himself, on the other hand, it seemed something of a sacred act to open his house to the "Woman persecuted by the dragon." all this was but as dust in the balance by the side of the compelling necessity of French dictation, doubly compelling at that particular period. For Leopold had been playing his own game of late. Things had gone against France in the field, and he had put his money on the other horse. He was always after a fashion a gambling and speculative ruler, willing to stake almost his very existence on the roulette of high politics. At that moment he was flattering himself with hopes that the Congress of Utrecht would do something for him. Both Austria and England had privately promised at least some of their statesmen had-that he was to have a seat at the Congress table. That would add immensely to his dignity and prestige. Then he was to have a slice of the Low Countries. To ensure this result, he was "casting his bread upon the waters" with a vengeancespending money wholesale, bribing English, and Dutch, and Austrian statesmen with the most profuse generosity more particularly Marlborough, in whom he appears to have retained a belief throughout, who most faithlessly "sold" him, and who cost him a fortune. At the time in question our great general had been favoured with a fresh mark of favour from Leopold-a magnificent carosse, horsed with six splendid dapple-greys (Leopold was a great horse-fancier) hung with most costly trappings. All this-which proved in the event to have been entirely thrown away-very naturally gave umbrage to France. And Louis XIV. had not missed his opportunity of letting Leopold know that a score was being marked up against him. Therefore when Louis said, Receive James, Leopold had no choice but to receive him. His letters and despatches make this perfectly clear. There is a good deal of talk about the Chevalier's "estimable qualities," how the Duke and Duchess admire him, how happy they are that he has not gone to Aix-la-Chapelle. And no doubt Leopold proved a very valuable friend to the exile. But every now and then, through all this polite buncombe, out comes the frank admission that all is done "to please the king." And we know how promptly and unhesitatingly Leopold's hospitality was withdrawn, once French pressure ceased, in 1716. To ourselves, by receiving an exiled Pretender into his neutral realm, as we have received many such, Leopold never dreamt that he was giving cause for legitimate umbrage. And, to be fair, he never appears to have afforded to James the slightest encouragement for a forcible assertion of his claims. His counsel was all the other way. It was the French, it was the Chevalier's own followers at home, it was Roman Cardinal Gualterio, who countenanced, and occasionally urged, warlike measures. Cardinal Gualterio, more in particular, prodded the Catholic prince considerably, in the interest of his Church, arguing that "il falloit hazarder quelque chose et même affronter le sort, ce qui ne se fait pas sans risque." Leopold, on the other hand, was all dissuasion. He wanted James to keep near England, in order to be handy in the event of his being recalledwhich he seems to have thought a likely contingency. When James began to talk of armaments and inyasions, Leopold dwelt upon the difficulties, the all-but-hopelessness of such a move. When, in June 1714, shortly before Queen Anne's death, James wrote from Plombières that he must go into England, since he learnt that his rival, the Electoral Prince of Hanover, had gone there, Leopold, who was admirably informed from Hanover, through his brother, the ElectorArchbishop of Trèves, sent a message back post-haste with the trustworthy tidings that George was neither gone nor going. The reasons which led George's father to forbid his visit read a little strange at the present day. In the first place, there was that Hanoverian economy—which, it is true, was ostensibly disclaimed. In the second, the Prince was not to be received in England as heir-presumptive-so that he would not really better his chances by going. Moreover, the Elector, connorssant l'humeur brusque et fort emportée de son fils, apprehendoit beaucoup qu'il ne se rendit odieux aux anglais." Lastly, and mainly, he was afraid of dropping between two stools, if he were to stake his son's chances too decidedly on the English succession. It was quite on the cards, he thought, that "par un effet des resolutions que l'inconstance de la nation y a rendues si ordinaire," the British nation would chasser its next sovereign as it had chassé its last-but-one. And then, where would his son be? For if his son went to England, it was much to be feared that his brother, who had been not quite rightfully excluded from the succession, might make good his claim to Hanover. And there would George be, out in the cold! So his father was resolved to play a waiting game. The first difficulty which James found himself confronted with, and which Leopold had to overcome for him, was the procuring of a passport. Such credential was at the time absolutely indispensable, for Europe was swarming with bad characters, and even in carefully locked and watched Bar-le-Duc, Leopold advises King Louis that, with "a fourth company of his regiment of guards" added to the local force, besides twenty-five chevaux-legers and twenty-five gardesdu-corps to act as escort, he can answer for the Pretender's safety only against attacking parties of not more than fifty or a hundred at the outside, which, he says, ought to be borne in mind, "si armées ce mettoient en campagne.' Queen Mary only expresses what every one felt when she says that it is to be apprehended "que quelque méchant en se servissent de l'occasion pour faire un méchant coup." She accordingly begs the commnoté of Chaillot to pray for "the king's" safety. In 1714 the Emperor, who was the principal sovereign to be petitioned, would not make out a passport for James. In 1713 he raised no difficulty. Indeed, at Leopold's instance he was obliging enough to supplement his passport with a special letter of commendation very kindly worded. And he carefully avoided treading on corns either way by not naming James in the document for all of which Leopold takes great credit. But it appears that plenty more potentates besides the Emperor had to be solicited. And the two Electors, of Hanover and of Brandenburg, were obdurate in their re |