The Queen's cadet, and other tales

by James Grant

THE MARQUIS DE FRATTEAUX,

CAPTAIN OF FRENCH HORSE.

Few events made a greater sensation in England generally, and more particularly in London, in March, 1752, than the mysterious disappearance or abduction—it was called for a time the murder—of the unfortunate Marquis de Fratteaux, who was actually dragged by force from the heart of the English metropolis, and immured in the Bastile, to gratify the strange and unnatural hatred of his own father.

This noble, whose name was Louis Mathieu Bertin, Marquis de Fratteaux, Chevalier of the Order of St. Louis, and a distinguished young captain of French cavalry, was the eldest son of M. Jean Bertin de St. Geyran (Honorary Master of Requests and Counsellor to the Parliament of Bordeaux) and of his wife Lucretia de St. Chamant, both of whose families were deemed, by character and descent, most honourable among the Bordelais. In the Blazon ou Art Héraldique,* Bertin is represented as bearing an escutcheon argent, charged with a saltire (simple) dentelé.

* French Encyclopaedie, 1789.

From his birth, the Marquis Louis Mathieu was an object of aversion to his father, who, on the other hand, doted even to absurdity on his youngest son, on whom he lavished all his love and his livres, and on whom he bestowed the estate of Bourdeille. M. Bertin would seem, almost, from the birth of his second boy, to have determined, by every scheme he could devise, to deprive the eldest of his birthright; and this object he followed with singular rancour nearly to the end of his life.

It has never been hinted that M. Bertin suspected the paternity of his heir. Through life the conduct of Madame Bertin was irreproachable and above all suspicion.

In the infancy and boyhood of Louis, his father strove by systematic oppression, and by cutting neglect, to degrade, mortify, and break the spirit of the poor little fellow: on all occasions giving the place of honour, and the whole of his affection, to his second son. As his manhood approached, his father proposed to him the profession of the law, but as he, weary of his unhappy home, displayed an inclination for the army, open war was at once declared by his father against him. To more than one abbé did the young man in his misery appeal for intercession with his tyrannical parent; but such appeals only made matters worse, and the Counsellor became so furious in his wrath, that he made preparations to seclude Louis in some strong vault or cellar of his mansion.

The Marquis having discovered the residence of a young woman who was the mistress of his father, paid her a secret visit, told her the story of his unhappy life and domestic persecution; and, as his own mother seemed powerless in the matter, on his knees sought her interest in his behalf. She would seem to have been touched by the appeal; and rated the Counsellor soundly for his unnatural conduct, threatening him with the loss of her affection "if M. Louis were not left to his own inclination in the choice of a profession."

In the hope, perhaps, that some English or Prussian bullet might rid him of a son whom he hated so cordially, Bertin permitted the Marquis to join the Regiment de Noailles (or 54th Cavalry of the Line, commanded by the Comte d'Ayen, nephew of Marshal Noailles) as a cadet or volunteer; but, according to the system then pursued in the French service, he could receive no pay or emolument, even while campaigning in Flanders and Germany. After fourteen months of this probation, however, he was gazetted to a cornetcy in the Regiment de Maine, and at sixteen years of age became captain of a troop in the 40th Cavalry, or Dragoons of St. Jal, commanded by Brigadier the Comte de St. Jal;* his boyish spirit and bravery (not to mention his rank) having even then attracted the attention of Comte d'Argenson, who was prime minister of France from 1743 to 1757. The Count prevailed upon Louis the Fifteenth to make the Marquis a Chevalier of the Royal Order, and bestow upon him a special pension, in lieu of the wretched pittance allowed him by his father.

* Liste Historique de toutes les troupe au Service de France.

This early success in camp and at court seemed to inflame the resentment of the Counsellor, who now began to affirm that the Marquis was not his son, but a changeling, or impostor, substituted by the nurse for his first child, who, he declared, had died while under her charge; but, as this story could be in no way sustained, M. Bertin changed his tactics, and resolved to get rid of his eldest son by—poison!

A fever with which Fratteaux was seized about this time, favoured the infamous idea; and his father, who visited him with an air of concern, contrived to give him, in his medicine, a dose of some deadly drug which he called an infusion of bark. It nearly proved fatal, and would inevitably have done so, but for the prompt arrival of the apothecary who had furnished it, and who, suspecting foul play when summoned by the Marquis, brought with him a powerful antidote.

The Counsellor, who was immensely rich, now suborned some worthless fellows, among whom was an Italian (name unknown), to swear that Fratteaux meditated a parricidal design against his life; "that the Marquis, having a quarrel with his father, drew his sword, and would have killed him but for the interposition of the father of the Italian, who received the thrust, and died of it."

This deposition enabled Bertin to purchase a lettre de cachet, by virtue of which he had his son arrested, and thrust into a monastery near Bordeaux, where he was treated as a prisoner. Though for the crime of attempted parricide he might have been broken alive on the wheel by the then existing laws of France.

Through the great influence of Bertin as a Counsellor of Parliament, all his son's entreaties for release, or for a public trial, were rendered vain, and he lost his commission in the Regiment of St. Jal. Some of his friends, however, having discovered where he was confined, and fearing that he might be secretly put to death, broke into the monastery one night, and assisted him to escape. Through Gascony and Bearn he fled to Spain, where, without so much as a change of clothes, without money or letters of introduction, he arrived, in a famished and destitute condition, at the house of the Comte de Marcillac (a relation of his mother), who derived his title from the little town of that name, nine miles north of Bordeaux.

The Counsellor soon discovered the place of his son's retreat, and, assisted by a liberal donation of gold, soon procured from the French ambassador at Madrid a warrant for the arrest of the fugitive, based upon the powers afforded by that infamous instrument of tyranny, the lettre de cachet. Once more the unhappy son had to fly; the Comte de Marcillac supplied him with money; and, embarking at the nearest port, he sailed for London, where he arrived in 1749. There, under the name of Monsieur de St. Etienne, he took a humble lodging in Paddington, then a country village with green fields all round it, from Marybone Farm to Kensington. His landlord was a market gardener.

His friends in France and Spain sent him remittances and letters of introduction to several persons of rank in London. To these, the pleasant manners, gentle bearing, and handsome person of the young Marquis speedily recommended him, and ere long he was enabled to remove nearer town, where he boarded with a Mrs. Giles, in Marybone—or, as another account has it, "with one Mrs. Bacon, a widow gentlewoman of much good nature and understanding." But even in this "land of liberty" he was not safe from the rancour of the indefatigable Counsellor, with his lettre de cachet.

The English friends of the Marquis having urged that he should lay the story of his wrongs before Louis the Fifteenth in the form of a memorial, the preparation of it was confided to an amanuensis, a Frenchman named Dages de Souchard. This fellow (though only the son of an obscure lawyer at Libourne, then a very small town of Provence) assumed, in London, the title of Baron. A deep-witted, crafty, and insinuating rascal, he contrived to propitiate many unsuspecting persons, and claimed to be a strict French Protestant, though he had, in early life, been a Franciscan monk, or friar minor, in a monastery at Nerac, in the west of France, and came of a family of rigid Catholics. Nay, while in the monastery, he seduced a young girl named Du Taux, whose mother was the lavandière of the establishment, and they had come together to London, where they gave themselves out as persecuted French Protestants. Having been born within twenty miles of Bordeaux, this Souchard knew the story of the Marquis de Fratteaux, and conceived the idea of turning it to his own profit before it should reach the ears of Louis the Fifteenth. For this purpose, delaying the preparation of the memorial, he wrote secretly to the Counsellor, stating that he knew where his son was, and offering to make terms to secure and deliver him up! The Counsellor entered cordially into the scheme, and, after remitting him some money on account, agreed to settle upon him for life a pension of six hundred livres, and to pay him two thousand English guineas down, with two hundred more, for the reward of any assistants or accomplices he might deem necessary.

Dages de Souchard immediately set about his treachery, and employed a man of most unscrupulous character, one Alexander Blasdale, a Marshal's Court officer who resided in St. Martin's Lane, and whose follower or colleague, by a strange coincidence, was the very Italian who had been accessory to the incarceration of the Marquis in the monastery near Bordeaux.

On the night of the 25th of March, 1752, they repaired to the lodgings of the Marquis: who immediately became deadly pale on seeing the Italian, and exclaimed, in alarm and distress:

"I am a dead man!"

Blasdale summoned him to surrender in the king's name. Knowing that he owed no man anything, Fratteaux was disposed to resist. His landlady sent for M. Robart, French clergyman, to whom Blasdale, with cool effrontery, showed a writ to arrest the Marquis for a pretended debt. The latter was persuaded to yield and to accompany the officer to his house in St. Martin's Lane, whither he was immediately driven in a hackney-coach, and there placed in a secure chamber.

Five gentlemen, "one of them a person of the first fashion," on hearing of the arrest, repaired to the bailiff, and in strong language warned him to beware of using the least violence towards his prisoner, lest he should be called to a severe account; and they added, that sufficient bail would be found for him in the morning. One gentleman, named M. Dubois, remained with the Marquis as his friend, resolved to see the end of the affair, and to protect him; but about midnight the Italian came in, saying that some one wished to speak with this gentleman below. On descending to the street, Dubois found only the bailiff Blasdale, who roughly told him "to be gone," and thrusting him out of the house, shut him out, and secured the door. On this gentleman returning with the French clergyman and others next morning, they were told by a servant-girl "that the Marquis was gone, in company with several gentlemen." They then demanded to see her master, but were curtly told that "he was out of town." In short, neither he nor his victim was ever beheld in England again!

Fears of foul play being immediately excited, the whole party repaired to Justice Fielding, by whom a warrant to apprehend Blasdale was issued, on suspicion of murder. Application was made to the Lord Chief Justice, and also to the secretary of state, Robert Earl of Holderness, for a habeas corpus to prevent the Marquis from being taken out of the kingdom dead or alive; but all was of no avail, and the fate of Fratteaux remained for some time a dark mystery.

It would appear that on finding himself alone, after the rough expulsion of his friend Dubois, the Marquis became furious with rage; on which Blasdale swore that as he made so much noise in the house he would convey him at once to jail. Fratteaux, who feared he might be assassinated where he was, readily consented to go to jail, and a hackney-coach was called. In it, he, the bailiff, and the nameless Italian, drove through various obscure streets and by-lanes. It was now about five in the morning.

The marquis again and again implored aid from the coach window in broken English, but received none; to the watch his keepers said that he was "only a French fellow they had arrested for debt;" to others they said he had been made furious by the bite of a mad dog, and they were going to dip him in salt water at Gravesend. Thus his entreaties were abortive, and at about sunrise he found himself at a lonely place by the side of the river Thames. A cocked pistol was put to his ear, and resistance was vain; he was thrust on board a small vessel, which had been waiting for him in the river, and which, after he was secured below, dropped down with the ebb tide. So well did Souchard, Blasdale, and the Italian take all their measures, that on the night of the 29th the two last-named worthies landed the Marquis at Calais, the gates of which town were opened to admit them long after the usual hour of closing. He was then delivered over as a prisoner of state to the town authorities, who had all been duly communicated with, and probably well fee'd, and by whom he was sent, chained by the neck, in a post-chaise, to his father's house in Paris. The Counsellor, in virtue of his lettre de cachet, now sent his son the Marquis to be immured in the Bastile for life.

"This is the first narrative of the kind which has stained the annals of England," says a print of the time; "and if it be not the last, highly as we boast of giving laws to all Europe, we shall be little better, in fact, than a pitiful colony exposed to the mercy of every insolent neighbour." Great indignation was excited in London, where a subscription was raised for the purpose of punishing all concerned in this flagrant violation of British law; but nothing was achieved in the end,* though in January, 1754—one year and eight months after the outrage at St. Martin's Lane—our ambassador at the court of Versailles, General the Earl of Albemarle, demanded that both the Marquis and his infamous trepanner, Alexander Blasdale, at that time in Paris, should be delivered up and sent back to London. His request was never complied with, and for fourteen years the luckless Marquis was allowed to languish in the Bastile.

* "We are told that a foreign nobleman is already in custody of a messenger for this offence, and no person is permitted to have access to him, neither is he allowed the use of pen, ink, or paper."—Gentleman's Magazine, 1752. Very probably this "foreign nobleman" was the Baron Dages de Souchard.

He and his story were soon forgotten, and nothing more was heard of him, until some of the London papers of July 14, 1764, contained the following paragraph: "The Marquis de Fratteaux, that French gentleman who was some years ago forcibly carried off from England to France and confined in the Bastile, is now at liberty on his estate at Fratteaux; for when his brother, M. Bertin de Bourdeille, was made Intendant of Lyons, he obtained his liberty, on giving his word of honour to remain on his estate at Fratteaux, and never to go above six miles from it without leave from his father, with whom he had been at great variance, which was the occasion of his leaving France. Two months after his arrival at Fratteaux his father went to see him, and he had permission to return the visit at Bourdeille. He has kept his word of honour strictly, and lives at present in cordiality with the whole family."

Broken in health and spirit by all he had undergone, this unfortunate victim of a family feud and an unnatural hatred, died soon afterwards, and thus the wishes of his father were accomplished.