ned to Berlin covered with glory, and definitively master of
Silesia. "Learn once for all," he said at a later period, in his
instructions to his successor, "that where a kingdom is concerned, you
take when you can, and that you are never wrong when you are not obliged
to hand over. An insolent and a cynical maxim of brute force, which
conquerors have put in practice at all times, without daring to set it up
as a principle.

Whilst Berlin was in gala trim to celebrate the return of her monarch in
triumph, Europe had her eyes fixed upon the unparalleled enterprise of a
young man, winning, courageous, and frivolous as he was, attempting to
recover by himself alone the throne of his fathers. For nearly three
years past, Charles Edward Stuart, son of Chevalier St. George, had been
awaiting in France the fulfilment of the promises and hopes which had
been flashed before his eyes. Weary of hope deferred, he had conceived
the idea of a bold stroke. "Why not attempt to cross in a vessel to the
north of Scotland?" had been the question put to him by Cardinal Tencin,
who had, some time before, owed his cardinal's hat to the dethroned King
of Great Britain. "Your presence will be enough to get you a party and
an army, and France will be obliged to give you aid."

Charles Edward had followed this audacious counsel. Landing, in June,
1745, in the Highlands of Scotland, he had soon found the clans of the
mountaineers hurrying to join his standard. At the head of this wild
army, he had in a few months gained over the whole of Scotland. On the
20th of September he was proclaimed at Edinburgh Regent of England,
France, Scotland, and Ireland, for his father, King James III. George
II. had left Hanover; the Duke of Cumberland, returning from Germany,
took the command of the troops assembled to oppose the invader. Their
success in the battle of Preston-Pans against General Cope had emboldened
the Scots; at the end of December, 1745, Prince Charles Edward and his
army had advanced as far as Derby.

It was the fate of the Stuarts, whether heroes or dastards, to see their
hopes blasted all at once, and to drag down in their fall their most
zealous and devoted partisans. The aid, so often promised by France and
Spain, had dwindled down to the private expeditions of certain brave
adventurers. The Duke of Richelieu, it was said, was to put himself at
their head. "As to the embarkation at Dunkerque," writes the advocate
Barbier, a