r of the holy Catholic Church, and acknowledged the Pope as its
head. This avowal cost him little, for he was by no means prejudiced in
favour of any specific faith; and it gained him for the time, some
little popularity in the gay metropolis in which he had taken refuge.

King James, indeed, to his honour, was still resolute in declining his
personal homage; but Louis the Fourteenth was less scrupulous, and the
Marquis de Torcy, the favourite and Minister of the French King,
presented the abjured of England and Scotland at the Palais of
Versailles. It is difficult to picture to oneself the savage and
merciless Fraser, the pillager, the destroyer, the outlaw, conversing,
as he is said to have done, with the saintly and sagacious Madame
Maintenon. It is scarcely possible to conceive elegant and refined women
of any nation receiving this depraved, impenitent man, with the rumour
of his recent crimes still fresh in their memory, into their polished
circles. Yet they made no scruple in that dissolute city, to associate
with the abandoned wretch who dared not return to Scotland, and who only
looked for a pardon for his crimes through the potent workings of a
faction.

Lord Lovat well knew the value of female influence. He dressed in the
height of fashion--he adapted his language and sentiments to the tone of
those around the Court. He was a man of considerable conversational
talents; "his deportment," says his biographer, "was graceful and
manly." When he was first presented to Louis the Fourteenth, who was
desirous of asking some questions concerning the invasion of Scotland,
he is said to have prepared an elaborate address, which he forgot in the
confusion produced by the splendour around him, but to have delivered an
able extempore speech, with infinite ease and good taste, upon the spur
of the moment, to the great amusement of Louis, who learned from De
Torcy the circumstance.[163]

His advancement at the Court of Versailles was interrupted by the
necessity of his return to England, in order to obtain at last a final
pardon from the King for his offences. It is singular that the
instrument by whom he sought to procure this remission was William
Carstairs, that extraordinary man, who had suffered in the reign of
James the Second the thumb-screw, and had been threatened with the iron
boot, for refusing to disclose the correspondence between the friends of
the Revolution. Mr. Carstairs was now secretary to King William, a