Chapter 6

INTRIGUES, POLITICAL AND AMATORY.—DEATH OF MADEMOISELLE LUCI, 1752 Hopes from Prussia—The Murrays of Elibank—Imprisonment of 124 Alexander Murray—Recommended to Charles—The Elibank plot—Prussia and the Earl Marischal—His early history—Ambassador of Frederick at Versailles—His odd household—Voltaire—The Duke of Newcastle’s resentment—Charles’s view of Frederick’s policy—His alleged avarice—Lady Montagu—His money-box—Goring and the Earl Marischal—Secret meetings—The lace shop—Albemarle’s information—Charles at Ghent—Hanbury Williams’s mares’ nests—Charles and ‘La Grandemain’—She and Goring refuse to take his orders—Appearance of Miss Walkinshaw—Her history—Remonstrances of Goring—‘Commissions for the worst of men’—‘The little man’—Lady Primrose—Death of Mademoiselle Luci—November 10, date of postponed Elibank plot—Danger of dismissing an agent