Jacobite who was sent to demand a refuge for the Prince in Prussia.
{46d} Without Frederick and without Sweden, Charles in 1749 could do
nothing serious in Poland.

The distracted politics of Poland, however, naturally drew the
attention of Europe to that country when Charles, on February 28,
vanished out of Avignon 'into fairyland,' like Frederick after
Molwitz. Every Court in Europe was vainly searched for 'the boy that
cannot be found.' The newsletters naturally sent him to Poland, so
did Jacobite myth.

The purpose of this chapter is to record the guesses made by
diplomatists at Charles's movements, and the expedients by which they
vainly endeavoured to discover him. We shall next lift, as far as
possible, the veil which has concealed for a century and a half
adventures in themselves unimportant enough. In spite of
disappointments and dark hours of desertion, Charles, who was much of
a boy, probably enjoyed the mystery which he now successfully
created. If he could not startle Europe by a brilliant appearance on
any stage, he could keep it talking and guessing by a disappearance.
He obviously relished secrecy, pass-words, disguises, the
'properties' of the conspirator, in the spirit of Tom Sawyer and
Huckleberry Finn. He came of an evasive race. His grandfather, as
Duke of York, had fled from England disguised as a girl. His father
had worn many disguises in many adventures. HE had been 'Betty
Burke.'

Though it is certain that, in March 1749 (the only month when he
almost evades us), Charles could not have visited Berlin, Livadia,
Stockholm, the reader may care to be reminded of a contemporary