expectations. He now prided himself on being a plain hardy
mountaineer. He took a line of his own; he concealed his measures
from the spy-ridden Court of his father in Rome; he quarrelled with
his brother, the Duke of York, when the Duke accepted a cardinal's
hat. He broke violently with the French king, who would not aid him.
He sulked at Avignon. He sought Spanish help, which was refused. He
again became the centre of fashion and of disaffection in Paris.
Ladies travelled from England merely to see him in his box at the
theatre. Princesses and duchesses 'pulled caps for him.' Naturally
cold (as his enemies averred) where women were concerned, he was now
beleaguered, besieged, taken by storm by the fair. He kept up the
habit of drinking which had been noted in him even before his
expedition to Scotland. He allowed his old boyish scepticism
(caused by a mixed Protestant and Catholic education) to take the
form of studied religious indifference. After defying and being
expelled by Louis XV., he adopted (what has never, perhaps, been
observed) the wild advice of d'Argenson ('La Bete,' and Louis's ex-
minister of foreign affairs), he betook himself to a life of darkling
adventures, to a hidden and homeless exile. In many of his journeys
he found Pickle in his path, and Pickle finally made his labours
vain. The real source of all this imbroglio, in addition to an
exasperated daring and a strangely secretive temperament, was a deep,
well-grounded mistrust of the people employed by his father, the old
'King over the water.' Whatever James knew was known in London by
next mail. Charles was aware of this, and was not aware that his own
actions were almost as successfully spied upon and reported. He
therefore concealed his plans and movements from James, and even--
till Pickle came on the scene--from Europe and from England. The
result of his reticence was an irremediable rupture between 'the King
and the Prince of Wales--over the water,' an incurable split in the