the properties of some band of strolling players. Now
there was a new Stuart in the field, a new sham prince, a "Young
Pretender." After the disasters of the Fifteen, James Stuart had
become the hero of as romantic a love-story as ever wandering prince
experienced. He had fallen in love, in the hot, unreasoning Stuart
way, with the beautiful Clementine Sobieski, and the beautiful
Clementine had returned the passion of the picturesquely unfortunate
prince, and they had carried on their love affairs under conditions of
greater difficulty than Romeo and Juliet, and had overcome the
difficulties and got married, and in 1720 Clementine had borne to the
House of Stuart a son and heir. Every precaution was taken to insure
the most public recognition of the existence of the newly born prince.
It was determined that none of the perplexity, the uncertainty, the
suspicion, which attended upon the birth of James, should be permitted
to arise now. There must be no _haro_ about warming-pans, no
accusations of {200} juggling, no possible doubts as to the right of
the new-born babe to be regarded as the son of James Stuart and of
Clementine Sobieski. The birth took place in Rome, and cardinals
accredited from all the great Powers of Europe were present on the
occasion to bear witness to it. The city was alive with such
excitement as it had seldom witnessed since the days when pagan Rome
became papal Rome. The streets in the vicinity of the house where
Clementine Sobieski lay in her pain were choked with the gilt carriages
of the proudest Italian nobility; princes of the Church and princes of
royal blood thronged the antechambers. Gallant gentlemen who bore some
of the stateliest names of England and of Scotland waited on the
stair-ways for the tidings that a new prince was given unto their
loyalty. Adventurous soldiers of fortune kicked their heels in the
court-yard, and thought with moistened eyes of the toasts they would
drink to their future king. From the Castle of St. Angelo, where long
ago the besieged had hurled upon the besiegers the statues that had
proved the taste of a Roman emperor, where Rienzi lay yesterday, and
where Cagliostro shall lie to-morrow, thunders of artillery saluted the
advent of the new rose of the House of Stuart.

In the years that followed, while the young Prince Charles was growing
up to his tragic inheritance, it can hardly be maintained, even by the
most devoted adherent of the Stuart line,