ther Fraser of Lovat had ever any intention of performing
effectual service to the Chevalier. "No sooner had he set foot in
England," adds the same historian, "than he formed the nefarious project
of counter-plotting his associate, and betraying the trust which he had
procured through the facility and precipitate confidence of the
Queen."[180]

The Duke of Queensbury immediately communicated the plot, disclosed by
Lovat, to Queen Anne. In the main points the conduct of that able and
influential Minister appears to have been tolerably free from blame
during the inquiry into the Scottish plot which was afterwards
instituted; but it is a proof of the horror and suspicion in which Lord
Lovat was held, that the Duke of Queensbury's negotiations with so
abandoned a tool for some time diminished the political sway which he
had heretofore possessed in Scotland.[181]

Lord Lovat returned to Paris, where he had the effrontery to hand in a
boasting memorial of his services, written with that particularity which
gives an air of extreme accuracy to any statement. In this art he was
generally accomplished, yet he seems on this occasion to have failed.
For some time he flourished; alternately, one day at Versailles--one day
at St. Germains; and, whilst an under-current of dislike and suspicion
marked his course, all, apparently, went on successfully with this great
dissembler. The Earl of Middleton, indeed, was undeceived.

"I doubt not," he writes to the Marquis De Torcy, "you will be as much
surprised at Lord Lovat's memorial as we have been; for although I never
had a good opinion of him, yet, I did not believe him fool enough to
accuse himself. He has not, in some places, been as careful as authors
of romance to preserve probability."

"If the King thinks proper to apprehend him," concludes Lord Middleton,
"it should be done without noise. His name should not be mentioned any
more, and at the same time his papers should be seized."[182] Such were
the preparations for the secret incarceration which it was then the
practice of the French Court to sanction.

Lord Lovat was not long in ignorance of the intrigues, as he calls them,
which were carried on to blast his reputation at the Court of St.
Germains. In other words, he perceived that the double game which he had
been playing was discovered, and discovered in time to prevent any new
or important trust being committed to his command. He fell ill, or
perhaps feigned illness, pr