The Chevalier had now but one of these two things left him to do:  one was to return to Bar; the other was to go to Scotland, where there were people in arms for him.  He took this last resolution.  He left Brittany, where he had as many Ministers as there were people about him, and where he was eternally teased with noisy disputes about what was to be done in circumstances in which no reasonable thing could be done.  He sent to have a vessel got ready for him at Dunkirk, and he crossed the country as privately as he could.

Whilst all these things passed I remained at Paris to try if by any means some assistance might be at last procured, without which it was evident, even to those who flattered themselves the most, that the game was up.

No sooner was the Duke of Ormond gone from Paris on the design which I have mentioned, and Mrs. Trant, who had accompanied him part of the way, returned, but I was sent for to a little house at Madrid, in the Bois de Boulogne, where she lived with Mademoiselle de Chaussery, the ancient gentlewoman with whom the Duke of Orleans had placed her.  These two persons opened to me what had passed whilst the Duke of Ormond was here, and the hopes they had of drawing the Regent into all the measures necessary to support the attempts which were making in favour of the Chevalier.

By what they told me at first I saw that they had been trusted, and by what passed in the course of my treating with them it appeared that they had the access which they pretended to.  All which I had been able to do by proper persons and in proper methods, since the King of France’s death, amounting to little or nothing, I resolved, at last, to try what was to be done by this indirect way.  I put myself under the conduct of these female managers, and without having the same dependence on them as his Grace of Ormond had, I pushed their credit and their power as far as they reached during the time I continued to see them.  I met with smoother language and greater hopes than had been given me hitherto.  A note signed by the Regent, supposed to be written to a woman, but which was to be explained to be intended for the Earl of Mar, was put into my hands to be sent to Scotland.  I took a copy of it, which you may see at the end of these papers.  When Sir John Areskine came to press for succour, the Regent was prevailed upon by these women to see him; but he carried nothing real back with him except a quantity of gold, part of the money which we had drawn from Spain, and which was lost, with the vessel, in a very odd manner, on the Scotch coast.  The Duke of Ormond had been promised seven or eight thousand arms, which were drawn out of the magazines, and said to be lodged, I think, at Compiegne.  I used my utmost efforts that these arms might be carried forward to the coast, and I undertook for their transportation, but all was in vain, so that the likelihood of bringing anything to effect in time appeared to me no greater than I had found it before I entered into this intrigue.