CHAPTER XIII.
THE CAVALIERS OF DUNDEE.
In the cause of right engaged,
Wrongs injurious to redress;
Honour's war we strongly waged,
But the heavens denied success.
Ruin's wheel has driven o'er us,
Not a hope that dare attend;
The world wide is all before us,
But a world—without a friend.
STRATHALLAN'S LAMENT.
The magnanimity of those unfortunate officers of the Scottish army who remained loyal to James VII., and had shared his misfortunes and exile, was equally worthy of ancient Caledonia and of the most glorious ages of Athens and of Sparta. They were about one hundred and fifty in number, all men of noble spirit, unblemished honour, and high birth; for they were the representatives of some of the first families in Scotland. Enthusiastically attached to the King, they gloried in the sufferings their principles had brought upon them.
On their first arrival in France, small pensions were assigned them by Louis XIV.; but these were shortly afterwards withdrawn, on the paltry pretext of public expedience; and the whole of those unfortunate gentlemen, who by their incorruptible loyalty and indomitable patriotism had forfeited their commissions, when they might have purchased new honours in the ranks of the invader, and many of whom had lost titles and estates by their expatriation, were thus thrown destitute in a foreign land.
It is related that, with a noble spirit of generosity, they shared their little funds for the benefit of those who were in greater destitution; and those who had raised money by the sale of their gilt corslets, jewels, laced uniforms, rings, &c., readily shared it with others who were penniless. But these occasional funds soon became exhausted; the King soon found it impossible, from the pittance allowed him, to maintain the numerous exiles and ruined dependants who made his court of St. Germain their rallying point. The poor Scottish officers finding the horrors of starvation before them, petitioned James for leave to form themselves into a company of private soldiers for the service of the French king, asking no other favour than permission to choose their own leaders: their former general, Dunbarton, to be their captain; their Serjeants to be lieutenant-colonels; and so forth. The King reluctantly consented.
Those high-spirited cavaliers were immediately furnished with the clothing and arms of French soldiers; and previously to their incorporation with the army of Mareschal Noailles, repaired to St. Germain, to be reviewed by the King, and to take a long—to many a last—adieu of him.
It was the day after Walter's arrival; and the summer morning rose beautifully on the Gothic towers of St. Germain, the crystal windings of the Seine, and on the dense dark woodlands that, interspersed with blooming vineyards and waving fields, imparted such charms to the landscape.
James VII. had become passionately fond of the chase since the loss of his kingdom; for his brave and restless spirit always sought excitement when not absorbed in the austere duties of religion, in the course of which he often subjected himself to the most severe penances. Kind, affable, and easy to all around him, religion improved the virtues of his heart, subdued the fire of his spirit, and by imparting a monk-like gentleness to his demeanour, endeared him to his enthusiastic followers. The butcheries of Kirke and Claverhouse, and the tyrannies of Jefferies and Rosehaugh, were forgotten. Though his uncompromising bigotry remained, all his arbitrary spirit had vanished; and when he laid aside his visions of worldly grandeur and kingly power, nothing could be more blameless and amiable than the life he led.
He frequently visited the poor monks of La Trappe, whom he surprised by the piety and humility of his deportment; but there were times when the sparkling eye, the flushed cheek, the forward stride, and the clanked sword, shewed how regal a spirit and bold a heart misfortune had crushed and fanaticism clouded. He was an enthusiast in the pleasures of the chase, which he enjoyed after the good old English fashion; and on the morning in question, the baying of dogs, the neighing of horses, and the merry ringing of the clear bugle-horn, awoke the echoes of the woods, the gloomy arcades, and quadrangle of St. Germain.