ip, "was so obliging as to
attend Lord Lovat, with his archers, all the way to Angouleme. He had
the luck to procure a cursed little chaise, where Lord Lovat was in a
manner buried alive under the unwieldy bulk of this enormous porpoise."
This relation, so different from that given by Mr. Arbuthnot, weakens
the veracity of both accounts, and leads one to infer that the long
narrative by the reverend gentleman of Lord Lovat's adventures in the
Bastille were written upon hearsay.[186]

In the Castle of Angouleme Lord Lovat continued for three years; at
first, being treated with great severity: "thirty-five days in perfect
darkness, where every moment he expected death, and prepared to meet it
with becoming fortitude. He listened with eagerness and anxiety to every
noise, and, when his door screached upon its hinges, he believed that it
was the executioner come to put an end to his unfortunate days."

In this predicament, finding that the last punishment was delayed, he
"thought proper to address himself to a grim jailoress, who came every
day to throw him something to eat, in the same silent and cautious
manner in which you would feed a mad dog."[187] By the "clink of a louis
d'or," the prisoner managed to subdue the fidelity of this fair
jailoress; she supplied him with pens and paper, and he immediately
began a correspondence with his absent friends at the French Court.

After a time, the severity of Lord Lovat's imprisonment was mitigated.
The Castle of Angouleme was, in a manner, an open prison, having an
extensive park within its walls, with walks open to the inhabitants; and
here, through the influence of Monsieur De Torcy, Lord Lovat was
permitted to take exercise. His insinuating manners won upon the
inhabitants, and the prison of Angouleme became so agreeable to him,
that he was often heard to say, that "if there was a beautiful and
enchanting prison in the world, it was the Castle of Angouleme."

Meantime, the scheme of invasion was by no means relinquished on the
part of the Jacobites, although it had received a considerable check
from the treachery of its agents.

It is stated by some historians that scarcely had Lord Lovat quitted
England, than Sir John Maclean, his cousin-german, and Campbell, of
Glendarnel, disclosed the plot to Lord Athole and Lord Tarbat. These
noblemen instantly went to Queen Anne, and accused the Duke of
Queensbury of high treason, in carrying on a villanous plot with the
Court of