The third Douglas commissioner was a poorer choice. They found him already established at Paris, trying to forget that he was a Scotchman. His right name was Malloch, but he called himself David Mallet, and managed not to talk like a Scot. He was the only Scot whom clannish Scotchmen never commended. Wedderburn was conscious of an unaccountable propensity to believe the contrary of anything Mallet said. Mallet’s wife did him no credit either, being a social climber who kept trying to get into high French circles by being an atheist, before she gave it up and retired to a hermitage near Fontainbleau “with a Macgregor.”
Luckily it was unnecessary to entrust any confidential duty to Mallet, as the commissioner’s work was little more than a formality. He had only to listen to the witnesses, and sign their oaths. The Hamilton party proposed to call 157 witnesses, the defenders 137. Each witness was solemnly sworn and purged of partial counsel, which means that they accepted him as an impartial witness. Counsel for both parties questioned him, first on behalf of the party that called him, and then in cross-examination for the other party. The clerk took it down in writing, the commissioner checked it, and then both signed it, as also the witness—if he could write.
It was an expensive process. When Burnet saw the first bill, he howled in agony. He took it home and brandished it under the noses of the court. But there was no help for it. All the men of the law had to be paid. The witnesses had to be paid, too. Without the French King’s writ, there was no other power that could induce them to appear. The money was paid down when the oath was completed, in the presence of both parties. Some high-placed or friendly witnesses refused their share, but most were content to take it.
The proof began on October 3, 1764. They herded the witnesses in bunches to the Hôtel d’Artois. La Tour, valet de place, in his grey and yellow, kept them in order. He was full of self-importance, and had too much to say.
“Mr. Douglas is a very considerable partie, enjoying a very great fortune, and it is very disagreeable that it should belong to a supposititious child.”
The witnesses had heard such talk before. Their testimony was by this time all cut and dried. Only rarely did a witness reverse testimony, or suddenly decide not to talk. Then one must bring other witnesses to prove the disputed point at second hand.
“It is of little moment to the pursuers,” remarked Andrew Stuart with his infuriatingly superior air, “how much the defenders make their witnesses contradict one another; but as proof it is irregular and incompetent.”
Andrew Stuart was tired of examining Mesdames Le Brun and their friends’ friends. The examinations would go on, under pressure, from nine in the morning until past midnight; day after day they wrought double tides, and still McKonochie would come forward with Le Bruns. In mid-November there was a respite. Burnet and Rae went back to Scotland for the winter session of the court, and the proof lagged. Andrew Stuart was able to take his pleasure with his friends at Paris.
It could be a very pleasant life. Stuart’s warm friend Hume was at Paris in the Ambassador’s suite. The jolly fat philosopher was the lion of French society in his Frenchified coat of bright yellow spotted with black. He dined at the best tables. As a whole-hearted Hamilton adherent, he was pleased when he heard anti-Douglas gossip about how John Hay knew all the under-cover Douglas villainies, and had fled their machinations.
At pro-Hamilton tables Andrew Stuart also would sometimes make one. At other times Stuart would see the Italian comedy, or ride his horse in the Bois, with his setter at his heels. The fencing lessons continued. By now Andrew Stuart was living in a mansion of his own, the Hôtel de Beaupreau. He had his meals sent in from the eating-house, with butter and cream for breakfast, and desserts from the confectioner. He had plenty of wood to burn in the little grates, and rum, claret, and burgundy in profusion. He now felt that in the splendour of his establishment he could vie with the Duchess of Douglas and do the Duke of Hamilton no discredit. Agreeing, the other tutors endorsed the bills and the Duke of Hamilton paid them. They still lie among Andrew Stuart’s papers.
Moving in pro-Douglas circles, the Duchess of Douglas was giving the absent Hamilton tutor the rough edge of her tongue, abusing him heartily and calling him all the names in the Black List. Her ire fell on other Hamilton tutors, especially Baron Mure of Caldwell. Strolling in the Tuileries among the urns and statuary, her escort one day unwarily mentioned that name, and Duchess Peggy stopped stock-still in the midst of the promenade and shook her fist in the air.
“Och, that Baron Mure!” she cried angrily. “If I can cotch him, I’ll mak him as barren a muir as ony in Scotland!”
In January 1765, the court extended the life of the commission, and examinations went on in widening circles. Special commissioners went about Scotland. Adam Smith the economist examined Abbé Colbert at Toulouse. Scotch soldiers were interviewed as far away as Portugal and Austria. In the meantime Andrew Stuart continued to travel about in search of evidence. Sometimes Nairne went with him; sometimes Aeneas Macdonald, the Man of Moidart, travelled with him or for him.
For these journeys the Hamilton manager equipped himself well. He bought a second-hand berline, a luxurious kind of covered travelling-carriage. He outfitted himself with vicuña stockings, a muff, a hunting-knife, and a pair of pistols. One of his understrappers had been robbed and wounded in the Bois de Vincennes, and worse, he had had to prosecute the miscreants at law; Andrew Stuart had no intention of risking a like fate.
Between trips the testimony-taking went on. M. Menager gave Andrew Stuart quite a go-around. He was indisposed, he could not come, he would come Tuesday, he failed to come Tuesday. It was exasperating. Andrew Stuart suspected Mr. McKonochie of burking him. When in April Mr. Burnet came back to France, M. Menager finally appeared. He harangued the commissioners in the style of a mountebank doctor spell-binding the mob from the lip of his cart. For two days he talked richly, about the indiscreet lady from the provinces who was brought to bed in a mask, about Madame Le Brun and her daughter and her friends, who were all dead or moved away, and most of all about the noble lady from beyond sea, and her twins, and her accoucheur, his friend Louis Pierre Delamarre.
Andrew Stuart brushed aside Louis Pierre Delamarre. He had spent much time and study on the portrait of that other La Marr, Colonel John’s Walloon friend, as painted in the four letters he—or somebody—wrote.
In English translation the letters appeared quite sensible. When the Hamilton agents got a good look at the documents themselves, some odd things met the eye. For one thing, the old Walloon was a wild speller; he was even uncertain whether to spell his own name “Pier” or “Peir.” In fact, he neither dated nor signed nor spelled like a Frenchman. What did he write like?
Andrew Stuart collected some other samples—letters in the handwriting of Sir John Steuart. From bankers’ offices came some very unbusinesslike business letters written in French. From his methodical father came a succession of wild missives in English, dashed off by his old friend John Steuart over a period of thirty years. Andrew Stuart must have laughed over the characteristic contents. John Steuart had never changed.
I entreat [he wrote in 1720 from Liége—home of “Pier La Marr”], you may send me fifty pounds more … I know youl think any small Stock, will be soon eat up, at this rate of caling—but belive me I know what Im doing and hav good reasons for my present demands direct for me a la Posterie de Cologne a Liege. I am dr. Archie yours whilst
Jo: Steuart
Being ignored never daunted him.
Dr. Archie [he wrote again], after writing so very often, I am not a little surprised at your longue silence, I am the more uneasy having changed my last guine … I suppose your at a loss how to gett mony remitted safely, in this boulversment of Credite: as indeed it is almost impossible to distinguish twixt bancrout and banquier butt still you may write, to lett us know how it is with all frends, who hav suferd, and who hav made fortunes in South Sea.… I beg to hear from you soon, and often
redy mony forget not th
at adieu
Jo: Steuart
The writing and spelling were even more interesting than the contents. Over the years Colonel John had confirmed a cavalier attitude toward spelling. His final e’s fell by the wayside. He adhered to certain favorite misspellings, Huitte, perswade, ocasion. “Pier La Marr” exhibited the same misspellings, often in the same words.
Colonel John’s French letters were peppered with English words and spellings. So were the “La Marr” letters: honour, compliments, letter, Italy, favourable, effect.
Andrew Stuart called in expert witnesses, his French teacher, the King’s Gazetteer, and Denis Diderot the famous Encyclopedist. They took a look at the letters and said positively that no Frenchman living could have written them. It was the iron-clad custom in France to sign with the last name only. Andrew Stuart knew that perfectly well. He had acquired a copy of Louis Pierre’s wedding contract. The bridegroom had signed it “Delamarre,” and that in spite of the fact that it was also signed as witness by another “Delamarre,” his brother.
The three learned Frenchmen also pointed out some ludicrous and impossible samples of literal translation from English to French. “Pour quelque temps passe [for some time past],” wrote this spurious Frenchman, instead of “depuis quelque temps.” Even sillier, the illogical English would say, and the dubious letter-writer did say: “The child has suffered in cutting his teeth”; whereas any sensible Frenchman knew that the child did not cut the teeth, the teeth cut the child.
Andrew Stuart had still another trump card in his hand, a letter written in 1752 by Lady Jane to her step-son Jock, full of affectionate and motherly sentiments about her babies and his. Andrew Stuart cared not a fig what she had written about; he was interested in what she had written on. It was French glazed paper, identical with that used by “La Marr”; even the cut size was identical. If the language had come from Colonel John’s head, the paper had come from Lady Jane’s cabinet.
The evidence of the letters was a staggerer to the Douglas party, but they did what they could with them. For one thing, they could, and they did, dissociate the handwriting from both the Colonel and the lady. The letters were copies, not originals. James Burnet pointed out evidence of copying, the inadvertent repetition of “Monde si foible” from line to line, the way the copyist had had to cramp “J’ay L’honour” to get it in. On no other grounds could one explain “I’ay recut la ooke,” either, or the address “a L’ondre.” That was the work of a copyist, and of a copyist who understood not one word of French.
Unfortunately, it was all too clear what it had been copied from. One had only to look at Colonel John’s own handwriting to see that his cramped votre did look very much like ooke, and the backward flourish on his L in Londres did much resemble an apostrophe.
Finally the Douglas lawyers constructed an explanation that seemed to cover everything. There were such letters received, they pointed out. Walker, Hewit, Mrs. Rutledge, Miss Primrose, all saw them at Rheims. Mrs. Hewit recalled how Colonel John read them out in French to Lady Jane, and Lady Jane passed on the news to the waiting-women.
The lawyers brought forward an old notebook of Lady Jane’s, kept at Rheims in 1749, in which she had jotted: “Mr. Steuart wrote to Mr. Waters the nth September, and to Mons. Le Marr the same day.” Both had replied. The banker’s letter-book recorded his reply. The man-midwife’s answer was on hand, dated September 18, and beginning: “I have received the honour of yours of the 10th current …” The lawyers were not disturbed by the discrepancy in date. The dates on the Steuart letters and in their records all showed a free-and-easy disregard of exactness.
Isabel Walker gave a circumstantial account of the arrival of the last letter, the one carried by Du Bois. True, she had not seen Du Bois, nor had any one else. The defenders sought him earnestly, at Slaughter’s coffee-house and wherever Frenchmen most resorted, and found no trace of him. But Isabel did see the letter handed in. Match-tempered Colonel John flared up at it: “What! Is he proving to me that he brought Lady Jane to bed?” He threw the letter angrily into the fire; but Lady Jane snatched it out, wiped it off, and kept it.
Colonel John was a careless man, and a man in gaol, and his things were all tossed about he knew not where. When Lady Jane was flitting to Scotland, the letters had gone a-missing. Colonel John before he died told the court how she wrote from Scotland begging him to send them, and how he had got copies made from the originals. He named the copyist, a young clerk called Clinton.
The Douglas faction had done their best with Clinton. Colonel John himself had written him most persuasively, seeking to get him to say that he had done the copying. But young Clinton, after more than ten years, was hazy. He got a notion in his head that the old Jacobite’s letters had been signed by the Earl of Mar, and probably contained treason, and his memory departed. The Douglas faction had to give him up.
They were also forced to drop the pretence that anybody at all had copied from “Pier La Marr’s” handwriting; it had been but too patently Colonel John’s. They explained that too, and their theory was certainly characteristic of the Colonel. He lost the letters, said they; and rather than disappoint Lady Jane, he forthwith reconstructed them from memory, in his desperate French, and sent her copies from the reconstructions. Lady Jane put them in her pocket and forgot them.
The Douglas lawyers fervently wished that Andrew Stuart would do the same.
In May the proofs were finished in Paris, and the two parties went further afield. On May 25, with Nairne and a French lawyer, Andrew Stuart set out in a postchaise. The Duchess of Douglas and Mr. McKonochie lumbered after in a travelling-coach.
They went as far as Brussels, and along the way they examined fifty-nine witnesses. From Brussels they turned back. The French court was about to produce the disputed inn-books.
Stuart and Nairne got back to Paris on July 10, and checked in for a week at the Hôtel de Modene. In the morning they checked out again. The lodging was swarming with bugs. This abrupt move did not cause anybody to suspect them of any deep-laid plots, nor did Andrew Stuart connect it in his mind with a sudden move from another buggy house to the Hôtel d’Anjou in the ’48.
While Andrew Stuart was moving, the slow-coach Douglas party arrived at Paris. They were agog to see the inn-books. They had been hearing about them for years. As early as March 1763, they had bribed a French law-clerk, and received information on Tournelle evidence, including the books. The clerk had an impression that in the Michelle book the “Fluratl” entry was interpolated. The Douglas party had raised a fuss over that.
Now for the first time they could study all the books, and ask the inn-keepers about them.
They paid particular attention to the Michelles’ book of the inspector with its “Fluratl” entry of July 8. They perceived several things at once. First, the item was not interpolated; only the year was crowded in above the line. Second, and much more important, whenever the item was written, it was not on the 8th of July. It had been regularly entered after an article dated the 10th. Third, it was not written by Colonel John himself at any time.
On the next day, Tuesday, July 23, the Douglas and Hamilton lawyers put the books before the Michelles, and asked about them. Michelle identified the handwriting:
“The same day that these strangers arrived,” said Michelle, “Marie the maid asked the gentleman’s name, and inserted it the same day, when she came down from their apartment.”
Marie was addicted to the bottle, for which she was finally turned off. Clearly the date was a vinous error. The strange name could be a misreading of a jotting in the Colonel’s minuscule hand.
They asked the Michelles for their other books. The book of the commissary was on hand, but no Stuart was in it. The household-book was missing:
“I have not now my register of expense for the year 1748,” said Madame, “but I remember that I was not in the way of marking in it any article relating to these strangers, because they paid in ready money any thing that I may have furnished the
m.”
Next the Douglas lawyers tackled the Godefrois. Godefroi was still insisting that the Steuarts were the anonymous trio who appeared in his household-book drinking Burgundy above the ordinary, breaking a pane of glass, and settling on the 8th after supper, only to return the 9th and stay till the 14th. They began with him at eleven in the morning, and for thirteen hours they quizzed him sharply.
The Godefrois had to admit that their records were not perfectly exact. They were dilatory about writing up the books, and the inspector was easy-going about inspecting them. Their house was always full, but the books were far from full. Of many blank accounts, they could put names to very few. The Douglas party became satisfied that from records so incomplete and irregular Andrew Stuart could prove nothing.
Andrew Stuart himself saw that he would have to revise his time-table. He could no longer maintain that the Steuarts arrived at the Hôtel d’Anjou on July 8. He began to think that drunken Marie had meant to write “18.”
There was corroboration for this view. In Lady Jane’s note-book for the year ’48 there was a jotting: “Commance avec le traiteur, Samedi 20tieme Juliet”—“Began with the eating-house keeper, Saturday the 20th of July.” Colonel John in the ’56 had furnished a jotting that they left Le Brun’s, “that buggy house,” on July 20. It now seemed to Andrew Stuart very likely that the Colonel had hired the new lodging at the Hôtel d’Anjou on the 18th, and possessed it on the 20th.
This gave a new time-table. The Steuarts remain at Godefroi’s until July 14. From the 14th to the 18th, they disappear from sight. On Thursday July 18, Colonel John takes the Michelle lodging. On the following day they produce the mysterious child.
The Heir of Douglas Page 15
