The British ministry had for some time been urging the French court to fulfil that part of the treaty which related to the expulsion of the prince from the French territories; and the hostages[1334] complained that his being permitted to appear at all public places of amusement was as an insult to their sovereign, and an infringement of the treaty. Louis, therefore, sent the Duke de Gesvres a third time to expostulate with Charles on the 6th of November; but Charles again evaded a direct answer to the duke’s demand to quit France. Charles afterwards sent him an explicit answer in writing, in which he stated that it was with much regret he found himself compelled in defence of his own interests to oppose the intentions of the king on this occasion, and that he had already apprised his majesty of his design by a letter which he had written to M. de Puyzieux as far back as the 20th of August. He requested the duke to assure his majesty in the strongest terms that he would retain towards him during his life all the sentiments of respect and attachment which he had formerly expressed.[1335]
Louis was much annoyed at Charles’s obstinacy, as he felt great repugnance to push matters to extremities with a prince who could plead in his own justification a violation of a solemn contract which the king of France had entered into with him three years before. As he had, however, contracted with Charles merely in his character of prince regent, it appears to have occurred to Louis that he would save his honour if he obtained an order from the Chevalier de St George, requiring Charles to leave his dominions before having recourse to physical force. He therefore despatched a courier to Rome with a letter to the Chevalier, giving an account of the prince’s conduct, and requesting James to interpose his parental authority to induce Charles to leave his dominions. That James might be fully assured of the prince’s determination to remain in France contrary to his wishes, Louis also sent him Charles’s letter to the Duke de Gesvres.
The messenger returned to Paris early in December with a letter from James to the king of France, inclosing another to Charles, which, after perusing, he was requested to despatch to the prince. After complaining of Charles’s conduct towards himself, James told him that he saw him on the brink of a precipice, and that he would act the part of an unnatural parent if he did not do everything that depended upon him to save him from falling, and that he therefore found himself obliged to order him as his father and king to conform himself without delay to the wishes of the French king, by leaving his dominions with a good grace.
This letter Louis sent by the Duke de Gesvres to Charles, the duke at the same time carrying a letter from Louis, which is said to have contained a blank order to be filled up by the prince himself for a yearly allowance. Charles told the duke that he wanted no pecuniary favours from his majesty, and that it was not consistent with honour to comply with his demand to leave the French territories. The duke urging Charles to reconsider his resolution, the latter grew impatient, and told him that he would in future decline receiving any communications from any person but the king himself. The duke told him the thing was impossible, unless indeed he expected, what he could scarcely suppose he did, that his majesty was to come to the Quai de Theatin in person. “In short, then, sir,” said Charles, “I have nothing farther to say than what I have said already,—pardon me, I have some business.” With these words Charles left the room, leaving the duke in amazement.
Long before the French public were aware of the intentions of their government in relation to the prince, the fame of his exploits, in connection with the fact of his being a descendant of Henri Quatre, had endeared him to the French nation; but when they found that he was to be sacrificed by their sovereign to state necessity, their admiration for his person was heightened into enthusiasm, and they looked upon the approaching struggle between Louis and his kinsman with feelings of the deepest interest. Every person was desirous to see a prince who had the courage to brave the grand monarch in his own capital, and whenever Charles appeared upon the public walks, he was followed by the assembled multitudes. When he entered the theatre, all eyes were directed towards him, and the performance was allowed to pass off unheeded by the audience. Charles alone seemed to make light of his misfortunes, and evinced the gaiety of his spirits by talking in an easy, cheerful, and affable manner to the young noblemen, by whom, on these occasions, he was always surrounded.[1336]
After trying every possible means to induce Charles to quit the French territory without effect, the ministry pressed the king to arrest him, and send him by force out of the kingdom. Louis was naturally averse to such a strong proceeding; but as he saw he could not fulfil the stipulation of the treaty regarding the exiled family in any other way, he reluctantly signed an order for his arrest. When putting his name to the warrant, he felt the extreme delicacy of the act, and pathetically exclaimed, “Poor prince! how difficult it is for a king to be a true friend!” This order, which was signed at three o’clock in the afternoon, was blazed all over Paris before evening. One of the prince’s retinue, who heard the intelligence, brought it to him; but Charles would not believe it. “Pish! pish!” he exclaimed, “an idle romance; they know I will obey my father.” Though no official notice was sent to Charles of the order, yet it is understood that means were taken to apprise him of his situation; and on the morning of the 10th of December, while walking in the Tuilleries, he was informed by a person of distinction that he would certainly be seized that very day if he did not prevent it by an immediate departure; but, instead of taking the hint thus kindly given him, he seemed to treat the intelligence as chimerical, and turning to one of his followers, gave directions that a box should be hired for him that night at the opera-house.
To carry the warrant into effect, no less than 1200 of the guards were in the course of the day drawn out, and posted in the court of the Palais Royal; a great number of sergeants and grenadiers, in cuirasses and helmets, filled the passages of the opera-house; and the police were placed in all the streets leading to it, to stop any carriages that might attempt to pass. Six intrepid sergeants of the grenadiers were ordered to seize the prince. Two companies of grenadiers took post in the court-yard of the kitchens, where the Duc de Biron, colonel of the French guards, disguised, waited in a coach to see the issue of the enterprise. The Mousquetaires, a body of French horse-guards, had orders to be ready to mount on horseback; troops were posted upon the road from the Palais Royal to Vincennes; hatchets and scaling ladders were prepared, and locksmiths directed to attend, in order to take the prince by escalade, in case he should throw himself into some house, and there attempt to stand out a siege. A physician named Vernage, and three surgeons, were also ordered to be in readiness to dress such of the troops as might be wounded. These extensive preparations can only be accounted for on the supposition that the government was apprehensive that an attempt would be made by the Parisians to rescue the prince.
Charles received several notes during the day, giving him notice of the measures taken for securing him; but he resolved to brave the danger. He accordingly left his hotel in his carriage, accompanied by three gentlemen of his household, at a quarter after five o’clock, for the opera-house, and, in passing through the street St Honoré, was warned by a friendly voice not to proceed, as the opera-house was beset. He proceeded onwards, however, and on entering the cul-de-sac, leading to the opera-house, the barriers were drawn, and the doors of the opera-house shut. On alighting from his coach, he was instantly surrounded by the six sergeants, disguised as tradesmen, who seized his person, and, lifting him off the ground, carried him through the porte cochère, at the end of the passage which led into the court-yard of the Palais Royal. M. de Vaudreuil, major of the blue guards, who, with some officers, had remained behind the gate, then approached his Royal Highness, and said, “Monseigneur, I arrest you in the name of the king, my master.” Charles, without betraying any emotion, answered that the manner was a little too violent. The sergeants, thereupon, carried him into a room on the ground floor of the palace, possessed by a surgeon of the Duke of Orlean’s household. The major demanding his arms, Charles presented his sword, but suspecting that he had other weapons about him, the sergeants, by De Vaudreuil’s order, searched his person, and found a pair of pocket pistols and a penknife, of which they took possession. Charles remarked that he had carried a pair of pistols about with him ever since he returned from Scotland. The major had provided himself with thirty-six ells of black silk ribbon[1337] with which to tie the prince, and on hearing him give directions to that effect, Charles offered his parole that he would hurt neither himself nor any other person, and added that he thought so many persons were quite sufficient to guard one unarmed man without resorting to such a step. The major consulted the Duke de Biron, who ordered that the prince should be bound. Charles was accordingly tied in five different places. In this situation he was put into a hired coach, attended by the major and two captains of the blue guards, and was driven, under a strong guard, to the castle of Vincennes, into which he was received by his friend M. de Chatelet, the governor, who placed him in a small upper apartment in the Tower, and treated him as well as his duty permitted him. The only person who remained with him in his confinement was Neil Mac Eachan, who had attended him in his perilous journey from Uist to Skye. Charles had borne the indignity offered him with great composure, the disgrace attending which, he told M. de Vaudreuil, could only affect his master; but after he found himself shut up in the castle, his feelings were overcome, and he is said to have clasped his hands together and to have burst into tears. “Ah! my faithful mountaineers,” he pathetically exclaimed, “from you I never would have received such treatment. Would to God I were still among you!” Meanwhile the three gentlemen who had attended Charles to the opera were also seized, and five others, who were by chance at his house, and all his servants were sent to the Bastile; his hotel was taken possession of by the lieutenant of police.[1338] Next day all the prince’s French servants were released.
The arrest of the prince created an extraordinary sensation in Paris; and next morning all the public places of the city were covered with pasquinades, which had been put up during the night, reflecting, in very severe terms, upon the conduct of the king and his ministers for their treatment of the prince. One of these was in the form of an order from King George, directed to Louis of Bourbon, as his viceroy, commanding and requiring him to seize, and, if necessary, to tie the person of Charles Edward Stuart, and to conduct him out of the kingdom of France; and that, if Louis should continue to please his master as he had hitherto done, he should be continued, by the king of England, in the viceroyalty of his kingdom of France. These placards were exceedingly annoying to the French court, and were torn down by the police with as great expedition as possible.