Volume II Part 15 (1/2)
”As they went along the Captain (by this na his friends) discoursed the officer with the sa hi on his e all full of points, with this device--_monstrorum terror_,--'the terror ofto thehis had a hundred thousand of such, they would be fitter to fright their enemies than to hurt any one of them' He took occasion, also, to let his attendants knohat a great and noble family he was, and how much blood had been spent in the cause of the Monarchs by his ancestors”[185]
According to Lord Lovat's es, whither he had been sent on sorand fat prevot, accompanied by his lieutenant and twenty-four archers, stole into the drawing-room, and seized Lord Lovat as if he had been an assassin, de's name
The villain of a prevot,” adds his Lordshi+p, ”was so obliging as to attend Lord Lovat, with his archers, all the way to Angouleme He had the luck to procure a cursed little chaise, where Lord Lovat was in a manner buried alive under the unwieldy bulk of this enoriven by Mr Arbuthnot, weakens the veracity of both accounts, and leads one to infer that the long narrative by the reverend gentleman of Lord Lovat's adventures in the Bastille ritten upon hearsay[186]
In the Castle of Angoule treated with great severity: ”thirty-five days in perfect darkness, where every mo fortitude He listened with eagerness and anxiety to every noise, and, when his door screached upon its hinges, he believed that it was the executioner come to put an end to his unfortunate days”
In this predicaht proper to address hiri to eat, in the same silent and cautious ”[187] By the ”clink of a louis d'or,” the prisoner ed to subdue the fidelity of this fair jailoress; she supplied hian a correspondence with his absent friends at the French Court
After a tiated
The Castle of Angoule an extensive park within its walls, alks open to the inhabitants; and here, through the influence of Monsieur De Torcy, Lord Lovat was per oulereeable to him, that he was often heard to say, that ”if there was a beautiful and enchanting prison in the world, it was the Castle of Angouleme”
Meantime, the scheme of invasion was by no h it had received a considerable check froents
It is stated by soland, than Sir John Maclean, his cousin-german, and Campbell, of Glendarnel, disclosed the plot to Lord Athole and Lord Tarbat These noblemen instantly went to Queen Anne, and accused the Duke of Queensbury of high treason, in carrying on a villanous plot with the Court of St Germains Queensbury defended himself before the House of Lords, and the accusation, which rested chiefly on the assertions of Ferguson, the famous hatcher of plots, was declared false and scandalous, and Ferguson was coate The reluctance of the Duke of Queensbury to give up the correspondence, excited, however, suspicions of his integrity; which, as Harley, Lord Oxford, expressed it, could only be cleared up by Fraser, Lord Lovat;[188] but Lord Lovat was not then to be found
In all this singular and co at the folly and audacity which Lord Lovat had shown in returning to France, conscious of having placed himself at the mercy of ruthless politicians, and aware that in that country he could expect no redress nor protection froinal crime for which he had been sent forth, an outlaw from his country, was the source of all his subsequent mistakes and misfortunes France was open to hiland was a scene of peril to one who trod on fragile ice, beneath which a deep gulf yawned
Lord Lovat had been two years in prison before any of his former friends, for even he was not wholly devoid of partisans, interfered with success in his behalf; and it was the good, old-fashi+oned feeling of kindred that finally moved the Marquis De Frezeliere, or Frezel, or Frezeau de la Frezeliere, to interest hiotten, relative
”The house of Frezeliere, which ascends,” says Lord Lovat, ”in an uninterrupted line, and without any unequal alliance, to the year 1030, with its sixty-four quarterings in its ars, and all noble, its titles of seven hundred years standing in the Abbey of Notre Dame de Noyers in Touraine, and its nity,” was, as we have seen, derived from the same blood with the family of Frezel, or Fraser In former, and nition of this relationshi+p had been drawn up at Paris by the Marquis and his many illustrious kins de Montmorenci; and executed, on the other hand, by Simon Fraser, Lord Lovat, and by his brother, and several of their nearest kin
The Marquis De Frezeliere appears to have been a fine specimen of that proud and valiant aristocracy, not even then wholly broken down in France by the effele in the concerns of war,” and of a spirit not to be subdued By his powerful intercession, checked only by the disgust which Mary of Modena felt towards Lovat, he procured fro of France permission for his relative to repair to the waters of Bourbon for the restoration of his health This order was signed by Louis the Fourteenth, and countersigned by the Marquis De Torcy, as ”Colbert”
Four days afterwards, a second order was received by the authorities at Angouleme, by which his Majesty commanded that Lord Lovat, after the restoration of his health, should repair to his town of Saumur, until further orders ”At the same time,” says Lord Lovat, ”he was permitted to take with him the Chevalier De Frezel, his brother” These orders were dated August the second and August the fourteenth, 1707
The brother, whonates as the Chevalier de Fraser, had been placed with a Doctor of the Civil Law at Bourges, in order to learn French, and the profession of a civilian He had been arrested at the same time with Lord Lovat; and was now, after a temporary separation, permitted to share the pleasures of a re to Lord Lovat, a pension froas he resided in France; and Lord Lovat received also the ample income of four thousand francs, (one hundred and sixty-six pounds, thirteen shi+llings and fourpence,) from the same quarter: nor was it in the power of his enemies at St Germains to induce Louis the Fourteenth to withdraw this allowance[189]
The Marquis de Frezeliere continued firard towards Lord Lovat On his road to Saumur, Lord Lovat was received and entertained at the chateau of the Marquis with hospitality and kindness, and no opportunity was omitted by which the Marquis could testify the sincerity of his interest in the fate of his relative Meantime daily reports were circulated that the projected insurrection, far fro abandoned, had been revived, and that the Chevalier was going to undertake the conduct of the invasion in person But that young Prince was still inexorable to any petition in favour of Lovat, and isely resolved not to let him participate in the operations ”Were he not already in prison,” he is stated by Lovat himself to have said, ”I wouldof France to throw hi to the determined dislike of the Queen to abdicate, as it was her resolution, if there were no other person to be employed, never to make Lord Lovat an instrument of her affairs
Lovat, therefore, now clearly perceived that, during the life of the Queen and of Lord Middleton, hefavourable froh, by his account, decidedly friendly to his release, refused to support those whom the Chevalier had renounced He resolved, therefore, to make every exertion to return to his own country, and to place himself once more at the head of his clan, who, in spite of his cri absence and ie any other chief The attempt was indeed desperate, but Lovat resolved to risk it, and to escape, at all events, froeance of the Athole family, Lord Lovat always imputed much of the severity shown him by the Court at St Germains: and it is probable that the representations of that powerful house may have contributed to the odium in which the character of Lord Lovat was universally held His own deeds were, however, sufficient to ensure hireat source of surprise is, that this unscrupulous intriguer, this unprincipledthe course of his eventful life, to have met with friends, firm in their faith to hie of virtue
The young heiress of Lovat, Amelia Fraser, was now married to Alexander Mackenzie, son of Lord Prestonhall; Mr Mackenzie had adopted the title of Fraserdale; and a son had been born of this h Fraserdale and his lady had taken possession both of the title and estates of Lord Lovat, during his absence; but, since the dignity and estates had always been enjoyed by an heir-in of the house of Fraser, these claimants to the estate of the outlawed Lovat spread a report that the honours and lands had, in old tihter and only child had married a Fraser, from whom the estates had descended to the heir of that line A suit was instituted against Lord Lovat and, on the ninth of March, 1703, Lord Prestonhall, the father of Fraserdale, hied the Lordshi+p and Barony of Lovat to Amelia Fraser An entail of the estates and honours upon the heirs of the e between Amelia Fraser and Mackenzie of Fraserdale, was then executed, and the former assunated the Master of Lovat[190]
Lord Prestonhall seems to have acted with the same unscrupulous spirit which characterizes most of the business transactions of those who intermeddled with the forfeited or disputed estates It was his aim, as the Memorial for the Lovat case, subsequently tried, sets forth, to extirpate the clan of the Frasers, and to raise that of the Mackenzies upon its ruins ”Accordingly,” says Mr Anderson, in his curious and elaborate account of the house of Fraser, ”he fra the Frasers into the Mackenzies, by encouraging the for, as a condition of the estate, that should they return to, and reassuht”[191]
The arms of Mackenzie, Macleod of Lewis, and Bisset, were to be quartered with those of Fraser, in this deed, which bore the signature of Robert Mackenzie, and was dated the twenty-third of February, 1706
This decision, and the deed which followed it, appeared to coraced and banished Lord Lovat But, in fact, the act of injustice and rapacity, so repugnant to the spirit of the Highlanders,--this atten nanity of the clan, was the most auspicious event that could happen to the wretched outlaw What was his exact condition, or ere his circu the seven years of his ih not harsh control, in the Castle of Angouleme, and four, apparently on his parole, in the Fortress of Saumur, it is not easy to describe The cause of the obscurity of his fate at this time, is not that too little, but that too much, has been stated relative to his movements
It is always an inconvenience when one cannot take ato Lord Lovat's own account, these weary years were spent in visits to differentCountess de la Roche succeeded the Marquis de la Frezeliere as his friend and patroness, after the death of the Marquis in 1711, an event which, according to Lord Lovat's staterief The Countess was a wo, and of ad, and areat Conde, and her long attendance upon the Princess de Conti, the hero's daughter, had qualified her for those arduous and delicate intrigues, without which no woht think herself sufficiently distinguished
The appointment of the Duke of Hamilton as ambassador at the Court of Louis, rendered such a friend as Madame de la Roche, as also distantly related to him, very essential for the prosecution of Lord Lovat's present schemes, which were, to obtain his release, and to procure eainst England