As a legitimate sovereign expelled by | rebels, as a confessor of the true faith persecuted by heretics, as a near kinsman of the House of Bourbon, who had seated himself on the hearth of that House, he was entitled to hospitality, to tenderness, to respect. It was fit that he should have a stately palace and a spacious forest, that the household troops should salute him with the highest military honours, that he should have at his command all the hounds of the Grand Huntsman and all the hawks of the Grand Falconer. But, when a prince, who, at the head of a great fleet and army, had lost an empire without striking a blow, undertook to furnish plans for naval and military expeditions; when a prince, who had been undone by his profound ignorance of the temper of his own countrymen, of his own soldiers, of his own domestics, of his own children, undertook to answer for the zeal and fidelity of the Irish people, whose tongue he could not speak, and on whose land he had never set his foot; it was necessary to receive his suggestions with caution. Such were the sentiments of Lewis; and in these sentiments he was confirmed by his Minister of War, Louvois, who, on private as well as on public grounds, was unwilling that James should be accompanied by a large military force. Louvois hated Lauzun. Lauzun was a favourite at Saint Germains. He wore the garter, a badge of honour which has very seldom been conferred on aliens, who were not sovereign princes. It was believed indeed at the French Court that, in order to distinguish him from the other knights of the most illustrious of European orders, he had been decorated with that very George which Charles the First had, on the scaffold, put into the hands of Juxon.* Lauzun had been encouraged to hope that, if French forces were sent to Ireland, he should command them; and this ambitious hope Louvois was bent on disappointing.t *Mémoires de Madame de la Fayette; Madame de Sévigné to Madame de Grignan, Feb. Burnet, ii. 17.; Life of James, ii. 320, 28. 1689. 321, 322. VOL. II. to James. An army was therefore for the present refused: but every thing Assistance else was granted. The Brest furnished fleet was ordered to be in by Lewis readiness to sail. Arms for ten thousand men and great quantities of ammunition were put on board, About four hundred captains, lieutenants, cadets, and gunners were selected for the important service of organising and disciplining the Irish levies. The chief command was held by a veteran warrior, the Count of Rosen. Under him were Maumont, who held the rank of lieutenant general, and a brigadier named Pusignan. Five hundred thousand crowns in gold, equivalent to about a hundred and twelve thousand pounds sterling, were sent to Brest.* For James's personal comforts provision was made with anxiety resembling that of a tender mother equipping her son for a first campaign. The cabin furniture, the camp furniture, the tents, the bedding, the plate, were luxurious and superb. Nothing which could be agreeable or useful to the exile was too costly for the munificence, or too trifling for the attention, of his gracious and splendid host. On the fifteenth of February, James paid a farewell visit to Versailles. He was conducted round the buildings and plantations with every mark of respect and kindness. The fountains played in his honour. It was the season of the Carnival; and never had the vast palace and the sumptuous gardens presented a gayer aspect. In the evening the two kings, after a long and earnest conference in private, made their appearance before a splendid circle of lords and ladies. "I hope," said Lewis, in his noblest and most winning manner, "that we are about to part, never to meet again in this world. That is the best wish I can form for you. But, if any evil chance should force you to return, be assured that you will find me to the last such as you have found me hitherto." On the seventeenth, Lewis paid in return a farewell visit to Saint Germains. At the moment of the parting embrace, he said, with his most amiable smile * Maumont's Instructions. Y "We have forgotten one thing, a cui- career, though it had brought great rass for yourself. You shall have calamities both on the House of Stuart mine." The cuirass was brought, and suggested to the wits of the Court ingenious allusions to the Vulcanian panoply which Achilles lent to his feebler friend. James set out for Brest; and his wife, overcome with sickness and sorrow, shut herself up with her child to weep and pray.* James was accompanied or speedily followed by several of his own subjects, among whom the most distinguished were his son Berwick, Cartwright Bishop of Chester, Powis, Dover, and Melfort. Of all the retinue, none was so odious to the people of Great Britain as Melfort. He was an apostate: he was believed by many to be an insincere apostate; and the insolent, arbitrary, and menacing language of his state papers disgusted even the Jacobites. He was therefore a favourite with his master: for to James unpopularity, obstinacy, and implacability were the greatest recommendations that a minister could have. What Frenchman should attend the Choice of King of England in the character of ambassador had been a French ambassa company and on the House of Bourbon, had been by no means unprofitable to himself. He was old, he said: he was fat: he did not envy younger men the honour of living on potatoes and whiskey among the Irish bogs: he would try to console himself with partridges, with champagne, and with the society of the wittiest men and prettiest women of Paris. It was rumoured, however, that he was tortured by painful emotions which he was studious to conceal: his health and spirits failed; and he tried to find consolation in religious duties. Some people were much edified by the piety of the old voluptuary: but others attributed his death, which took place not long after his retreat from public life, to shame and vexation.* The Count of Avaux, whose sagacity had detected all the plans of The Count William, and who had in vain of Avaux. recommended a policy which would probably have frustrated them, was the man on whom the choice of Lewis fell. In abilities Avaux had no superior among the numerous able diplomatists whom his country then dor to ac- the subject of grave delibera- possessed. His demeanour was singuJames. tion at Versailles. Barillon larly pleasing, his person handsome, could not be passed over without a his temper bland. His manners and marked slight. But his self-indulgent conversation were those of a gentleman habits, his want of energy, and, above who had been bred in the most polite all, the credulity with which he had and magnificent of all Courts, who had listened to the professions of Sunder-represented that Court both in Roland, had made an unfavourable impression on the mind of Lewis. What was to be done in Ireland was not work for a trifler or a dupe. The agent of France in that kingdom must be equal to much more than the ordinary functions of an envoy. It would be his right and his duty to offer advice touching every part of the political and military administration of the country in which he would represent the most powerful and the most beneficent of allies. Barillon was therefore suffered to retire into privacy. He affected to bear his disgrace with composure. His political man Catholic and in Protestant countries, and who had acquired in his wanderings the art of catching the tone of any society into which chance might throw him. He was eminently vigilant and adroit, fertile in resources, and skilful in discovering the weak parts of a character. His own charac ter, however, was not without its weak parts. The consciousness that he was of plebeian origin was the torment of his life. He pined for nobility with a pining at once pitiable and ludicrous. * Memoirs of La Fare and Saint Simon; Note of Renaudot on English affairs, 1697, in the French Archives; Madame de Sévigné, March 1689; Letter of Madame Sévigné, Feb. 8 Mar. 2.; Mémoires de Ma- de Coulanges to M. de Coulanges, July 23. *Dangeau, Feb. 15 17 18 dame de la Fayette. 25. 1689; Madame de Feb. 20. Feb. 20. 1691. Such was the man whom Lewis selected to be the companion and monitor of James. Avaux was charged to open, if possible, a communication with the malecontents in the English Parliament; and he was authorised to expend, if necessary, a hundred thousand crowns among them. James arrived at Brest on the fifth of March, embarked there on board of a man of war called the Saint Michael, and sailed within forty eight hours. He had ample time, however, before his departure, to exhibit some of the faults by which he had lost England and Scotland, and by which he was about to lose Ireland. Avaux wrote from the harbour of Brest that it would not be easy to conduct any important business in concert with the King of England. His Majesty could not keep any secret from anybody. The very foremast men of the Saint Michael had already heard him say things which ought to have been reserved for the ears of his confidential advisers.* Able, experienced, and accomplished as | professed to be, or were only shamhe was, he sometimes, under the nflu- ming. ence of this mental disease, descended to the level of Moliere's Jourdain, and entertained malicious observers with scenes almost as laughable as that in which the honest draper was made a Mamamouchi.* It would have been Iwell if this had been the worst. But it is not too much to say that of the difference between right and wrong Avaux had no more notion than a brute. One sentiment was to him in the place of religion and morality, a superstitious and intolerant devotion to the Crown which he served. This sentiment pervades all his despatches, and gives a colour to all his thoughts and words. Nothing that tended to promote the interest of the French monarchy seemed to him a crime. Indeed he appears to have taken it for granted that not only Frenchmen, but all human beings, owed a natural allegiance to the House of Bourbon, and that whoever hesitated to sacrifice the happiness and freedom of his own native country to the glory of that House was a traitor. While he resided at the Hague, he always designated those Dutchmen who had sold themselves to France as the well intentioned party. In the letters which he wrote from Ireland, the same feeling appears still more strongly. He would have been a more sagacious politician if he had sympathised more with those feelings of moral approbation and disapprobation which prevail among the vulgar. For his own indifference to all considerations of justice and mercy was such that, in his schemes, he made no allowance for the consciences and sensibilities of his neighbours. More than once he deliberately recommended wickedness so horrible that wicked men recoiled from it with indignation. But they could not succeed even in making their scruples intelligible to him. To every remonstrance he listened with a cynical sneer, wondering within himself whether those who lectured him were such fools as they *See Saint Simon's account of the trick by which Avaux tried to pass himself off at Stockholm as a Knight of the Order of the Holy Ghost. Kinsale. The voyage was safely and quietly performed; and, on the after- James noon of the twelfth of March, lands at James landed in the harbour of Kinsale. By the Roman Catholic population he was received with shouts of unfeigned transport. The few Protestants who remained in that part of the country joined in greeting him, and perhaps not insincerely. For, though an enemy of their religion, he was not an enemy of their nation; and they might reasonably hope that the worst king would show somewhat more respect for law and property than had been shown by the Merry Boys and Rapparees. The Vicar of Kinsale was among those who went to pay their duty: he was presented by the Bishop of Chester, and was not ungraciously received.† *This letter, written to Lewis from the French Foreign Office, but is wanting in the harbour of Brest, is in the Archives of the very rare volume printed in Downing Street. † A full and true Account of the Landing and Reception of the late King James at Kinsale, in a letter from Bristol, licensed April 4. 1689; Leslie's Answer to King; Ireland's Lamentation; Avaux, March 13 23 James enters Cork James learned that his cause was their notions of misery from the most prospering. In the three southern pro- miserable parts of Saint Giles's and vinces of Ireland the Protestants were Whitechapel. One of these alleys, disarmed, and were so effectually bowed called, and, by comparison, justly down by terror that he had nothing to called, Broad Lane, is about ten feet apprehend from them. In the North wide. From such places, now seats of there was some show of resistance: but hunger and pestilence, abandoned to Hamilton was marching against the the most wretched of mankind, the malecontents; and there was little citizens poured forth to welcome James. doubt that they would easily be crushed. He was received with military honours A day was spent at Kinsale in putting by Macarthy, who held the chief comthe arms and ammunition out of reach mand in Munster. of danger. Horses sufficient to carry It was impossible for the King to a few travellers were with some diffi- proceed immediately to Dublin; for culty procured; and, on the fourteenth the southern counties had been so comof March, James proceeded to Cork.*pletely laid waste by the banditti whom We should greatly err if we imagined the priests had called to arms that the that the road by which he en- means of locomotion were not easily to tered that city bore any resem- be procured. Horses had become rariblance to the stately approach ties in a large district there were which strikes the traveller of the nine- only two carts; and those Avaux proteenth century with admiration. At nounced good for nothing. Some days present Cork, though deformed by many elapsed before the money which had miserable relics of a former age, holds been brought from France, though no no mean place among the ports of the very formidable mass, could be dragged empire. The shipping is more than over the few miles which separated half what the shipping of London was Cork from Kinsale.* at the time of the Revolution. The While the King and his Council customs exceed the whole revenue were employed in trying to procure which the whole kingdom of Ireland, carriages and beasts, Tyrconnel arrived in the most peaceful and prosperous from Dublin. He held encouraging lantimes, yielded to the Stuarts. The guage. The opposition of Enniskillen town is adorned by broad and well he seems to have thought deserving built streets, by fair gardens, by a Co- of little consideration. Londonderry, rinthian portico which would do honour he said, was the only important post to Palladio, and by a Gothic college held by the Protestants; and even worthy to stand in the High Street of Londonderry would not, in his judgOxford. In 1689, the city extended ment, hold out many days. over about one tenth part of the space which it now covers, and was intersected by muddy streams, which have long been concealed by arches and buildings. A desolate marsh, in which the sportsman who pursued the waterfowl sank deep in water and mire at every step, covered the area now occupied by stately buildings, the palaces of great commercial societies. There was only a single street in which two wheeled carriages could pass each other. From this street diverged to right and left alleys squalid and noisome beyond the belief of those who have formed *Avaux, March 13. 1689; Life of James, ii. 327. Orig. Mem. from Cork At length James was able to leave Cork for the capital. On the Journey road, the shrewd and observant of James Avaux made many remarks. to Dublin. The first part of the journey was through wild highlands, where it was not strange that there should be few traces of art and industry. But, from Kilkenny to the gates of Dublin, the path of the travellers lay over gently undulating ground rich with natural verdure. That fertile district should have been covered with flocks and herds, orchards and cornfields: but it was an untilled and unpeopled desert. Even in the towns the artisans were very few. * Avaux, March 1. 1689. Manufactured articles were hardly to be found, and if found could be procured only at immense prices. The envoy at first attributed the desolation which he saw on every side to the tyranny of the English colonists. In a very short time he was forced to change his opinion.* sides of the Liffey scarcely one had been even projected. The College, a very different edifice from that which now stands on the same site, lay quite out of the city.* The ground which is at present occupied by Leinster House and Charlemont House, by Sackville Street and Merrion Square, was open meadow. Most of the dwellings were built of timber, and have long given place to more substantial edifices. The Castle had in 1686 been almost uninhabitable. Clarendon had complained that he knew of no gentleman in Pall Mall who was not more conveniently and handsomely lodged than the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland. No public ceremony could be performed in a becoming manner under the Viceregal roof. Nay, in spite of constant glazing and tiling, the rain perpetually drenched the apartments.† Tyrconnel, since he became Lord Deputy, had erected a new building somewhat more commodious. To this building the King was conducted in state through the southern part of the city. Every exertion had been made James received on his progress numerous marks of the goodwill of the peasantry; but marks such as, to men bred in the courts of France and England, had an uncouth and ominous appearance. Though very few labourers were seen at work in the fields, the road was lined by Rapparees armed with skeans, stakes, and half pikes, who crowded to look upon the deliverer of their race. The highway along which he travelled presented the aspect of a street in which a fair is held. Pipers came forth to play before him in a style which was not exactly that of the French opera; and the villagers danced wildly to the music. Long frieze mantles, resembling those which Spenser had, a century before, described as meet beds for rebels and apt cloaks for thieves, were spread to give an air of festivity and splendour along the path which the cavalcade was to the district which he was to traverse. to tread; and garlands, in which cab- The streets, which were generally deep bage stalks supplied the place of laurels, in mud, were strewn with gravel. were offered to the royal hand. The Boughs and flowers were scattered over women insisted on kissing his Majesty; the path. Tapestry and arras hung from but it should seem that they bore little the windows of those who could afford resemblance to their posterity; for this to exhibit such finery. The poor supcompliment was so distasteful to him plied the place of rich stuffs with blanthat he ordered his retinue to keep them kets and coverlids. In one place was at a distance.t stationed a troop of friars with a cross; in another a company of forty girls dressed in white and carrying nosegays. Pipers and harpers played "The King shall enjoy his own again." The Lord Deputy carried the sword of state before his master. The Judges, the Heralds, the Lord Mayor and Aldermen, appeared in all the pomp of office. Soldiers were drawn up on the right and left to keep the passages clear. A procession of twenty coaches belonging to public functionaries was mustered. On the twenty fourth of March he entered Dublin. That city was then, in extent and population, the second in the British isles. It contained between six and seven thousand houses, and probably above thirty thousand inhabitants. In wealth and beauty, however, Dublin was inferior to many English towns. Of the graceful and stately public buildings which now adorn both * Avaux, March 25. April 4. 1689. A full and true Account of the Landing and Reception of the late King James; Ireland's Lamentation; Light to the Blind. See the calculations of Petty, King, and Davenant. If the average number of inhabitants to a house was the same in Dublin as in London, the population of Dublin would have been about thirty four thousand. Dublin. I have seen letters of that age di* John Dunton speaks of College Green near rected to the College, by Dublin. There are some interesting old maps of Dublin in the British Museum. + Clarendon to Rochester, Feb. 8. 1685, April 20. Aug. 12. Nov. 30. 1686. |