The appointment of an attainted rebel to be Ambassador at Versailles naturally offended England. The Duke of Newcastle wrote to Lord Hardwicke: [128b]
‘One may easily see the views with which the King of Prussia has taken this offensive step: first, for the sake of doing an impertinence to the King; then to deter us from going on with our negotiations in the Empire, for the election of a King of the Romans, and to encourage the Jacobite party, that we may apprehend disturbances from them, if a rupture should ensue in consequence of the measures we are taking abroad.’ He therefore proposes a subsidy to Russia, to overawe Frederick.
At Paris, Yorke remonstrated. Hardwicke writes on September 10, 1751:
‘I am glad Joe ventured to say what he did to M. Puysieux,’ but ‘Joe’ spoke to no purpose.
James was pleased by the Earl Marischal’s promotion and presence in Paris. Charles, at first, was aggrieved. He wrote:
‘L. M. coming to Paris is a piece of French politics, on the one side to bully the people of England; on the other hand to hinder our friends from doing the thing by themselves, bambouseling them with hopes. . . . They mean to sell us as usual. . . . The Doctor [Dr. King] is to be informed that Goring saw Lord Marischal, but nothing to be got from him.’
The Prince mentions his ‘distress for money,’ and sends compliments to Dawkins, ‘Jemmy Dawkins,’ of whom we shall hear plenty. He sends ‘a watch for the lady’ (Lady Montagu?).
I venture a guess at Lady Montagu, because Dr. King tells, as a proof of Charles’s avarice, that he took money from a lady in Paris when he had plenty of his own. [130a]
Now, on September 15, 1751, Charles sent to Dormer a receipt for ‘One Thousand pounds, which he paid me by orders for account of the Right Honourable Vicecountess of Montagu,’ signed ‘C. P. R.’ [130b] Again, on quitting Paris on December 1, 1751, he left, in a coffer, ‘2,250 Louidors, besides what there is in a little bag above, amounting to about 130 guines, and od Zequins or ducats.’ These, with ‘a big box of books,’ were locked up in the house of the Comtesse de Vassé, Rue St. Dominique, Faubourg de St. Germain, in which street Montesquieu lived. The deposit was restored later to Charles by ‘Madame La Grandemain,’ ‘sister’ of Mademoiselle Luci. In truth, Charles, for a Prince with an ambition to conquer England, was extremely poor, and a loyal lady did not throw away her guineas, as Dr. King states, on a merely avaricious adventurer. Charles (August 25, 1751) was in correspondence with ‘Daniel Macnamara, Esq., at the Grecian Coffee-house, Temple, London,’ who later plays a fatal part in the Prince’s career.
This is a private interlude: we return to practical politics.