memorandum that he has deposited his strong box, with money, at the
rooms of La Comtesse de Vasse, in the Rue Saint Dominique, Faubourg
St. Germain. That box, again, as he notes, was restored by 'La
Grandemain.' This fact, with Grimm's anecdote, identifies 'La
Grandemain,' not with Madame d'Aiguillon, but with Madame de Vasse,
'the Comtesse,' as Goring calls her, though Grimm makes her a
Marquise. If Montesquieu's private papers and letters in MS. had
been published in full, we should probably know more of this matter.
His relations with Bulkeley were old and most intimate. Before he
died he confessed to Father Routh, an Irish Jesuit, whom Voltaire
denounces in 'Candide.' This Routh must have been connected with
Colonel Routh, an Irish Jacobite in French service, husband of
Charles's friend, 'la Comtesse de Routh.' Montesquieu himself,
though he knew, as we shall show, the Prince's secret, was no
conspirator. Unluckily, as we learn from M. Vian's life of the
philosopher, his successors have been very chary of publishing
details of his private existence. It is, of course, conceivable that
Helvetius, who told Hume that his house had sheltered Charles, is the
philosophe mentioned by Mademoiselle Luci and Madame de Vasse. But
Charles's proved relations with Montesquieu, and Montesquieu's known
habit of frequenting the society of his lady neighbours in the
convent of St. Joseph, also his intimacy with Charles's friend
Bulkeley, who attended his death-bed, all seem rather to point to the
author of 'L'Esprit des Lois.' The philosophes, for a moment, seem
to have expected to find in Prince Charlie the 'philosopher-king' of
Plato's dream!

The Prince's distinguished friends unluckily did not succeed in
inspiring him with common sense.