be impossible yet to apprehend him, and as it is very probable that
the King of Prussia has sent him into Poland to make a party and
breed confusion, it appears to be King Augustus's interest to secure
him.

'HYNDFORD.'


Many months later, on Feb. 2, 1749-1750, Lord Hyndford, writing from
Hanover, retracted. The rumour of Charles's presence at Berlin, he
found, was started by Count de Choteck, the Austrian ambassador. In
fact, Choteck used to meet a fair lady secretly in a garden near
Berlin, and near the house of Field-Marshal Keith and his brother,
Lord Marischal. Hard by was an inn, where a stranger lodged, a rich
and handsome youth, whom Choteck, meeting, took for Prince Charles.
He was really a young Polish gentleman, into whose reasons for
retirement we need not examine.

Frederick, in his mischievous way, wrote about all this from Potsdam,
on June 24, 1749:

'We have played a trick on Choteck; he spends much on spies, and, to
prove that he is well served, he has taken it into his head that
young Edouard, really at Venice, is at Berlin. He has been very busy
over this, and no doubt has informed his Court.'

On July 7, 1749, Frederick, in a letter to his minister at Moscow,
said that only dense ignorance could credit the Berlin legend. {61}

These documents certainly demonstrate that the Prince fluttered the