The chevalier was struck by the woman's earnestness and simplicity, and resigned himself to her guidance. Having conducted him and his attendants to the house of the village pastor, L'Hopital summoned the magistrate, who, after hearing her story, arrested the three men and shut them up in prison. Two of them proved to be Englishmen and the third a well known French spy.
The next morning the worthy post-mistress sent the chevalier forward in another disguise, with fresh horses that soon carried him to Nantes, where a vessel awaited him, in which he descended the Loire to St. Malo. Finding an English squadron on the watch for him, the royal adventurer, attended by six gentlemen, all dressed as French naval officers, rode on horseback to Dunkirk, where they embarked on a small vessel and arrived at Perth, in Scotland, on the seventh of December.
Meanwhile Mary Beatrice had a severe attack of illness, occasioned by anxiety on her son's account, for she never heard of his arrival on British soil until he had been gone nearly two months.
Without entering into all the painful details of this expedition, it is only necessary for us to say that, although the Scotch rejoiced at the idea of having "the auld Stuarts back again," it resulted, as usual, in defeat.
A.D. 1716. The Chevalier de St. George returned to France in disguise as before, and spent several days with his mother, although his presence on French soil was interdicted, as we know. To have her son under the same roof with her once more was a satisfaction for which Mary Beatrice had scarcely dared to hope; but her pleasure was short-lived, for the very morning after she had embraced him Lord Bolingbroke, his private secretary, waited on the chevalier to advise his immediate return to Bar. Etiquette required him to ask permission of the Duke of Lorraine, and as it would require several days to receive an answer from that kinsman, the chevalier repaired to Châlons rather than risk a longer stay on forbidden ground. His unsuccessful enterprise in Scotland had rendered his position much worse than it had been before with regard to the European powers, for they dared not offer him an asylum. Even his former friend, the Duke of Lorraine, refused to receive him, and he was advised to go to Sweden, but the spot he fixed upon was the beautiful town of Avignon.
Although the Regent Orleans would neither grant assistance to the Chevalier de St. George nor permit him to remain in France, he treated the widowed queen with every mark of veneration. The British ambassador had remonstrated against her being allowed to remain at St. Germain, but she was too much loved and pitied by all classes of people for the regent to consent to her removal, even had he desired it. Therefore, to her dying day Mary Beatrice maintained the state and title of queen dowager of England, and lived undisturbed at the royal château that King Louis XIV. had placed at her disposal when, as a fugitive, she had sought his protection many years ago.
A.D. 1718. But the weary pilgrimage of poor Mary Beatrice was drawing to a close. Her last illness attacked her in April, and by the beginning of the following month she knew that her end was near. She desired to receive the last sacraments of the church, and afterwards took leave of all her faithful friends and attendants, thanking them for their services, and desiring all present "to pray for her and for the king, her son, that he might serve God faithfully all his life." This she repeated in a louder tone, fearing that every one in the room, which was full of people, might not have heard.
The dying queen asked to see Marshal Villeroi, the governor of the young King of France, and when he appeared at her bedside sent an earnest appeal to the Regent Orleans and Louis XV., in behalf of her son, whom she was to see no more. She also recommended her dependants to their care, and begged that the regent would not let them perish for want in a foreign land when she was gone.
The next day the good queen expired, in the sixtieth year of her age and the thirtieth of her exile. She had borne her sorrows and misfortunes with true heroism to the last, and her death was worthy of her life.
When the mother of the Regent Orleans announced to her German relatives that Mary Beatrice was dead, she added: "She never in her life did wrong to any one; if you were about to tell her a story about a person, she always said: 'If it be any ill, I beg you not to relate it to me; I do not like histories which attack the reputation.'" It would be well for us who live in a more civilized age to lay this lesson to heart, and emulate the pious example of Mary Beatrice.