nd your own glory; I have but one request
to make for your honor's sake, and I demand your word for it, that is,
never to employ that scoundrel of an Abbe Dubois, the greatest rascal in
the world, and one who would sacrifice the state and you to the slightest
interest." The Regent promised; yet a few months later and Dubois was
Church-councillor of State, and his growing influence with the prince
placed him, at first secretly, and before long openly, at the head of
foreign affairs.

[Illustration: Cardinal Dubois----78]

James Stuart, King James II.'s son, whom his friends called James III.
and his enemies Chevalier St. George, had just unsuccessfully attempted a
descent upon Scotland. The Jacobites had risen; they were crying aloud
for their prince, who remained concealed in Lorraine, when at last he
resolved to set out and traverse France secretly. Agents, posted by the
English ambassador, Lord Stair, were within an ace of arresting him,
perhaps of murdering him. Saved by the intelligence and devotion of the
post-mistress of Nonancourt, he embarked on the 26th of December at
Dunkerque, too late to bring even moral support to the men who were
fighting and dying for him. Six weeks after landing at Peterhead, in
Scotland, he started back again without having struck a blow, without
having set eyes upon the enemy, leaving to King George I. the easy task
of avenging himself by sending to death upon the scaffold the noblest
victims. The Duke of Orleans had given him a little money, had known of
and had encouraged his passage through France, but had accorded him no
effectual aid; the wrath of both parties, nevertheless, fell on him.

Inspired by Dubois, weary of the weakness and dastardly incapacity of the
Pretender, the Regent consented to make overtures to the King of England.
The Spanish nation was favorable to France, but the king was hostile to
the Regent; the English loved neither France nor the Regent, but their
king had an interest in severing France from the Pretender forever.
Dubois availed himself ably of his former relations with Lord Stanhope,
heretofore commander of the English troops in Spain, for commencing a
secret negotiation which soon extended to Holland, still closely knit to
England. "The character of our Regent," wrote Dubois on the 10th of
March, 1716, "leaves no ground for fearing lest he should pique himself
upon perpetuating the prejudices and the procedure of our late court,
and, as you yo