a royal title and a desperate venture? The Prince had wildly offered
his hand to the Czarina; he was to offer that hand, vainly stretched
after a flying crown, to a Princess of Prussia, and probably to a
lady of Poland.

At this moment the Polish crown was worn by Augustus of Saxony, who
was reckoned 'a bad life.' The Polish throne, the Polish alliance,
had been, after various unlucky adventures since the days of Henri
III. and the Duc d'Alencon, practically abandoned by France. But
Louis XV. was beginning to contemplate that extraordinary intrigue in
which Conti aimed at the crown of Poland, and the Comte de Broglie
was employed (1752) to undermine and counteract the schemes of
Louis's official representatives. {46a} As a Sobieski by his
mother's side, the son of the exiled James (who himself had years
before been asked to stand as a candidate for the kingdom of Poland),
Charles was expected by politicians to make for Warsaw when he fled
from Avignon. It is said, on the authority of a Polish manuscript,
'communicated by Baron de Rondeau,' that there was a conspiracy in
Poland to unseat Augustus III. and give the crown to Prince Charles.
{46b} In 1719, Charles's maternal grandfather had declined a Russian
proposal to make a dash for the crown, so the chivalrous Wogan
narrates. In 1747 (June 6), Chambrier had reported to Frederick the
Great that Cardinal Tencin was opposed to the ambition of the Saxon
family, which desired to make the elective crown of Poland hereditary
in its house. The Cardinal said that, in his opinion, there was a
Prince who would figure well in Poland, le jeune Edouard (Prince
Charles), who had just made himself known, and in whom there was the
stuff of a man. {46c} But Frederick the Great declined to interfere
in Polish matters, and Tencin was only trying to get rid of Charles
without a rupture. In May 1748, Frederick refused to see Graeme, a