and actively. He well knew that if the
Cardinal only fancied that the alliance of his niece with the Chevalier
was a scheme devised by himself--one of which none but a man of his deep
subtlety and sagacity could ever have thought--the plot would have an
irresistible attraction for him. The wily Jesuit meditated long over
this plan, and, at last, hit upon an expedient that seemed hopeful.
Among the many agents whom he employed over Europe, was one calling
himself the Count Delia Rocca, a fellow of infinite craft and
effrontery, and who, though of the very humblest origin and most
questionable morals, had actually gained a footing among the very
highest and most exclusive of the French royalists. He had been
frequently intrusted with confidential messages between the Courts of
France and Spain, and acquired a sort of courtier-like air and breeding,
which lost nothing by any diffidence or modesty on his part.

Massoni's plan was to pretend to the Cardinal that Delia Rocca had been
sent out to Rome by the Count D'Artois, with the decoration of St.
Louis for the Chevalier, and a secret mission to sound the young Stuart
Prince, as to his willingness to ally himself with the House of Bourbon,
by marriage. For such a pretended mission the Count was well suited;
sufficiently acquainted with the habits of great people to represent
their conversation correctly, and well versed in that half ambiguous
tone, affected by diplomatists of inferior grade, he was admirably
calculated to play the part assigned him.

To give a greater credence to the mission, it was necessary that the
Cardinal York should be also included in the deception; but nothing
was ever easier than to make a dupe of his Royal Highness. A number of
well-turned compliments from his dear cousins of 'France' some little
allusions to the 'long ago' at St. Germains, when the exiled Stuarts
lived there, and a note, cleverly imitated, in the Count D'Artois' hand,
were quite enough to win the old man's confidence. The next step was
to communicate Delia Rocca's arrival to the Cardinal Caraffa, and this
Massoni did with all due secrecy, intimating that the event was one upon
which he desired to take the pleasure of his Eminence.

Partly from offended pride, on not being himself sought for by the
envoy, and partly to disguise from Massoni the jealousy he always felt
on the score of Cardinal York's superior rank, Caraffa protested that
the tidings had no interest for him whatev