ANTOINE DE GUISCARD, 'ABBE DE LA

BOURLIE', 'MARdUIS DE GUISCARD'

PETER JONES

S O M E wars more than others offer scope to the hopeful military adventurer armed withplausible projects. The chevalier d'industrie flourished mightily in the War of theSpanish Succession, as the papers of the ist Duke of Marlborough reveal. Theimagination of the military projector was admirably stimulated by the obstacles whichlong drawn-out sieges and skilful avoidance of battle threw in the way of a speedy endto the conflict. As a result, the Duke was the recipient of schemes which ranged inambition from the surprise of a town to the raising of a national revolt in France.Many of these schemes were as fanciful as those of the financial projectors whoproliferated after the Peace of Utrecht, but they were not ignored or rejected out ofhand. The Duke was particularly responsive to anything which might contribute tothe success of what he called *the great Design', the invasion of the French homeland.His hopes had been raised by the entry of Savoy and Portugal into the alliance, whichseemed to expose France's southern flanks. Stalemate on the Meuse or in Flandersreinforced the desire to strike a decisive blow, and bring France to the conference table.

There were potential allies within French borders, as well as without. The outbreakof the religious revolt of the Camisards of the Cevennes in 1702 held out the possibilityof an invasion of Languedoc which could help the rebels in their war with Frenchregular troops. The major stumbling-block was liaison with the rebels, and here themilitary projectors came into their own. From the three great centres of Huguenotexile—The Hague and Rotterdam, Lausanne and Berne, and London—came a discordantchorus of advice and innumerable schemes for invasion. Even after the first and mostsavage phase of the revolt in the Cevennes had been put down in 1704, and Savoy hadproved itself a broken reed as an ally, military successes in Catalonia and the captureof Mediterranean sea bases at Gibraltar and Port Mahon kept the hopes of invasionalive. Discussions of military strategy at The Hague took place against a backgroundof persistent lobbying by French exiles, although internal faction fighting was moreevident than common purpose. In truth, the exiled Protestant ministers who had settledin the Netherlands after the Revocation of the Edict of Nantes had little to offer whenit came to liaison with the Camisards, who fought and worshipped in the 'Desert'(their name for the open-air congregations of the Cevennes) without the leadership ofan educated ministry. The hunted Camisards who had fled to Switzerland or to London

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seemed to offer the best intelligence and the hope that they would persuade their brethrento *lever le masque' once again.

One of the competing projectors amongst the refugees stands out, not only by virtueof his being a Roman Catholic, and an abbS at that, but by virtue of his extraordinarycapacity for dramatising his private compulsions on a European stage. Despite theultimate failure of all his projects, Antoine de Guiscard achieved a final notoriety byhis attempted assassination of Robert Harley at the Cockpit in Whitehall on 8 March1711.^ From his first stage-managed entry into the limelight in 1703 to his appropriatelytragical and macabre end, he demanded attention from the allied leaders by thevehemence and extravagant imagination displayed in a torrent of letters and memorials.He was given to denouncing his rivals, and hinted at plots with 'fer et poison' againsthis life by the agents of Louis XIV. He often reminded his correspondents of the vialof poison he carried on his person for use in the event of capture or betrayal. All thismight have been hard to take seriously, but for his impressive connections, and hisemergence from the Rouergue in 1703 in circumstances which gave him prestige as aleader of both Catholic and Protestant malcontents in Languedoc.

At the time of the outbreak of the War of the Spanish Succession Guiscard waswell into middle age, and apparently destined to play out a comfortable existence inpossession of one of the richest benefices in the south of France. A description of hisappearance in 1706 survives to complement the portrait of 1705 by Jan Hendrik Brandon(fig. i)? The Intendant of the Rouergue, Legendre, described Guiscard to the ministerof war, Chamillart:

C'est un grand homme bien fait qui a six pieds de haut, de visage blanc, un peu bazane, Lenes et la bouche grande, les dents belles. La jambe menue et fort longue. Les epaules largeset fort elevees. II a la main grande, forte et les doigts tres longs, II parle peu et a un air taciturne.II porte une perruque chatain clair et ses cheveux sont chatain brun.^

Born in 1658, he was the third son of Georges de Guiscard, Comte de la Bourlie, of anoble family of Quercy. His father had risen into favour as the under-governor of theKing during the minority of Louis XIV. Subsequently he became a lieutenant-generaland governor of Sedan; Saint-Simon remarked that the family fortunes were made bythe draining of low-lying lands near Blaye in the Gironde, presented to Georges deGuiscard by Saint-Simon's father. As the third son, Antoine de Guiscard was destinedfor the Church, and in 1672 was appointed Abbe of Bonnecombe in the Rouergue.''^This was a rich benefice with rents of more than £2,000 p.a.; to it was added thepriory of Dieu-en-Souvienne. As he was given to pointing out, Guiscard had sacri-ficed 'une fortune considerable, une vie douce et delicieuse' to throw in his lot withthe allies.

According to an informant of Richard Hill, English envoy to Turin and Guiscard'sfirst military sponsor, Guiscard had been educated at the French Protestant Academyof Sedan, where his father was governor. Whether the young abb^ was educated at thisProtestant Academy, which before its dissolution in 1681 was the most famous inFrance, or, as is more likely, simply attended some classes there, his family certainly

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ANTOINE •MAR9DEGVI5CARD • COMTEDELABOVRLIE ETDNEWI-STR LOIRE •UEVTEN^' GENC^-DES"

D E ^ DRAGOJNI

TIRE-A LA HAfE LANNEEj y o f PAR LE 5TEVR BRANDON

REINS' UNDER EXAMINATiONBEFORE THE COUNCIL AT THECOCKPIT nAR^*" 9 J7fo STAB^UWTTH A PENKNIFE M'̂ HARLlTirTHEN CHANCELLOllR OF THEEXCHEQUER NOW EARL OFCOCFORD WHO HAD DISrOVER'DHis' TRXAJONABLE CORRE5K)ND

Fig. I. Portrait of Guiscard by Jan Hendrik Brandon (1705), owned by Christopher Harley, Esq.(By courtesy of Lady Hamilton)

befriended the Professor of Divinity Pierre Jurieu, and his protege Pierre Bayle, whotaught philosophy there from 1675 to 1681. Louis de Guiscard, Antoine's eldest brother,tried as an act of friendship to persuade Bayle to return to Paris and abjure his faithwhen the Academy was dissolved. These contacts were vital to Guiscard later: in 1704,when Jurieu was operating an intelligence network for the allies, he introduced Guiscardto the Grand Pensionary Heinsius. After leaving Sedan, Guiscard's enemy David Flotardalleged that he was compelled to attend a Jesuit seminary in the parish of St. Lazarein Paris. Whatever the truth of this, Guiscard indulged his hankering for the militarylife by attending his brothers in the camps of Flanders during the Nine Years War.There he claimed later to have learnt the metier of a soldier.

By the end of the century, however, Guiscard's reputation was that of one of theleading/)fn>5 maitres, or rakes of quality. Whatever his merits as soldier, which remainedlargely untested, Guiscard's exploits in this field did not pass without comment. LaMusique du Diable^ ou le Mercure Galant devalise (Paris, 1711) imputed to Guiscardgluttony, the killing of a butcher after a bet on dog-fighting, a passion for little boys,and the seduction followed by abduction of a female minor. More realistically, he wasoften charged with keeping a string of mistresses, gambling heavily, living riotously,and ravishing nuns. His enemies tried later to exploit this reputation, which theycertainly helped to inflate, but more importantly at the time, he made an extremelypowerful enemy at the French court in the person of Madame de Maintenon. Accordingto Abel Boyer, Antoine and his elder brother Georges de Guiscard had jointly abducteda hatter's wife, and the ensuing scandal had been hushed up. But they made the mistakesoon after of laying violent hands on a near relation of Madame de Maintenon, andkilling at least one of his retainers. She had already had occasion to resent theirinterference in a plan for the marriage of their niece to one of her connections, andnow took the opportunity of disgracing the Guiscards. The hatter was encouraged inhis suit against the two brothers, and the hatter's wife committed to prison. Antoinede Guiscard procured her escape and, according to Boyer, fled France in 1703 to avoidarrest.^ Certainly Georges de Guiscard was imprisoned and forced to sell his regiment,and Saint-Simon concurs with Boyer that this was on a charge of causing a sergeantin his Normandy regiment to be tortured. We can reasonably surmise on the basis ofhis own later testimony, that Antoine de Guiscard's retreat to the Rouergue wasoccasioned by his disgrace at court. In his Memoirs,^ Antoine de Guiscard calledMadame de Maintenon 'A Woman formerly a strumpet, a Prostitute, and now a meerHypocrite full of Pride and Ambition'; she reciprocated his hatred, referring to Guiscardin one ofher letters as 'monstre de siecle'."^

Guiscard's exile to the Rouergue, whether self-imposed or not, put him very closeto the civil war in the Cevennes, precipitated by the murder of the Abbe du Chaylaat Pont-de-Montvert on 24 July 1702. The Protestant rebels or Camisards were sustainedby their faith, which in the absence of institutional religion, and goaded by persecutionexpressed itself in prophesyings and enthusiastic possession. Their religious and militarygatherings in the 'assemblies du Desert' were protected by the mountainous terrain.

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They were hunted at first by the local militia, and then by regular troops, but provedadept at tactics of evasion and ambush. The atrocities committed by both sides wereof a savagery unmatched in European history since the Thirty Years War. The Marechalde Broglie, ignominiously defeated by Jean Cavalier and his band of Camisards, wasreplaced in February 1703 by the Marechal de Montrevel, a protege of Madame deMaintenon, who built up an army of over 20,000 men but still failed to put down therevolt. David Flotard, an agent of the Marquis de Miremont, the most prominentProtestant leader in exile, was paid by Queen Anne to make his way into the Cevennesand promise help to the Camisards. To their disgust, although two English frigatesstood off the coast for several days in the summer of 1703, no attempt was made toland or to send reinforcements.

Despite their rudimentary organization the Camisards had made attempts in 1703to make contact, not only with the allied powers, but with Protestants in neighbouringprovinces. The Rouergue lay to the north-east of the Cevennes proper, but was ofsimilar terrain, and contained a substantial Protestant population. Three of JeanCavalier's officers made contact in September 1703 with an ex-officer named Boeton, ofSaint Affrique in the Rouergue, who worked to prepare a co-ordinated uprising there.The plot was prematurely revealed and forestalled by the burning of several Catholicchurches; the authorities acted promptly and broke up the conspiracy. Around theseevents, Guiscard wove his own story of intrigue in the Rouergue, and advanced hisclaim to have master-minded operations in the Cevennes too. The Memoirs of theMarquis de Guiscard. Or, an Account of his Secret Transactions in the Southern Provincesof France., particularly in Rouergue and the Cevennes., to Rescue the Nation from Slavery,were first published in French at Delft in 1705, then translated and published inLondon in the same year. The Memoirs were dedicated to Queen Anne, and expressedthe hope that with English help, Guiscard would complete the task he had begun in 1701.

Guiscard claimed to have been working since 1701 to build up contacts amongst themalcontents in the Rouergue and the Cevennes, which would enable him to precipitatea rebellion of Catholics as well as Protestants, of men of substance as well as simpleCamisards. They were to take up arms for the principles of liberty of conscience andan end to exorbitant and unlawful taxation. Like his old acquaintance Pierre Jurieu,Guiscard was aware that these were principles well calculated to appeal to EnglishRevolution Whigs, and would allay fears of involvement in a fanatical war of religion.The Memoirs were a creative fantasy of conspiracy, much resented by genuine Camisardleaders in London. Guiscard told of elaborate plans for the capture of the provincialcapital Rodez, taking hostage its bishop, raising a militia, and summoning the allies tothe aid of the rebellion. As evidence for this, he included what purported to be originaldocuments issued by himself, including The Roman Catholicks Advice to the Protestantsof the Cevennes, printed at Paris, 8 March 1703; 'A Letter under the Name of aProtestant, to the Militia of Languedoc and Rouergue, Commanded to make Waragainst the Protestants of those Provinces', dated Paris, 8 June 1703 (not printed); 'Tothe Soldiers of Louis XIV making War in the Cevennes against the Protestants there',

dated Vareilles, 8 July 1703 (not printed); 'To the Officers of the Troops of France',dated Vareilles, 8 August 1703 (not printed); 'A Discourse to the Principal Inhabitantsof Rhodes' (not delivered); and finally, 'An Ordinance. We, A. M. de G. the Chiefof the Malecontents of this Province, and Protector of their Liberty' (never promulgated).There is no corroborating evidence that any of these documents were ever printed, orcirculated in manuscript.

The only firm evidence for Guiscard's role in the abortive revolt of the Rouerguein 1703 is the indubitable fact that he did fortify his house at Vareilles. One result ofthe publication of the Memoirs in 1705 was that the Intendant of the Rouergue,Legendre, gave instructions for the fortification to be pulled down. It is significant,perhaps, that this had not been done in 1703.^ Elie Marion, one of the Camisard leadersin London, was provoked by the publication of the Memoirs to state:

je declare done et m'engage a le faire declarer d'une maniere authentique et incontestable, quece que cet Abbe dit de lui-meme par rapport a nous est absolument faux et suppose, pureimposture. Nous n'avons jamais conneu tel homme ni eu aucune correspondance avec lui,^

Although the Parlement of Toulouse passed sentence of death on Guiscard in 1705,such men as Marion were not likely to forget that he had never run the risks of acaptured Camisard—routine torture, followed by fever-ridden imprisonment in theTour de Constance at Aigues-Mortes, the galleys at Marseilles, or the wheel and thestake at Nimes or Montpellier. But if Guiscard's role in the events of September 1703in the Rouergue remains mysterious, it is clear that by mid-October 1703 he hadfled to Lausanne, joining the large community of Protestant exiles from Languedocthere.

Settled in Lausanne with no established source of income, Guiscard had to exploithis considerable powers of address to make contact with allied agents there. Two wereparticularly significant. Richard Hill, the English envoy to Turin, passed throughLausanne in early January 1704 on his way to this newly created post, with orders tohelp the Camisards in any way he could. He wrote to Nottingham, Secretary of State,about Guiscard:

I met another man of a very different spirit and resolution: a Frenchman, a Roman Catholic,a white Camisard, who would engage to raise a revolt in Dauphine and Languedoc among theCatholics, if I would promise him such a protection and assurance as was absolutely necessaryto begin the work. I liked the character of the man, and his temper so much, a man of figure,and family, very well known, that I promised him every thing. He promised to come to mehere [Turin], and I hope to make something of it.̂ ^

The other contact was Louis de Pesme, seigneur de Saint-Saphorin, who acted as theimperial representative in Switzerland, and was particularly close to Prince Eugene.He wrote rather more cautiously to the imperial councillor Auersberg on 27 January1704: 'On pourra en tirer de l'usage, mais ce doit etre un de ces vehements personnagesa regard desquels il faut toujours avoir bride en mains.'^^ Nevertheless Guiscard wasgiven a commission from the Emperor as a Marshal de Camp, signed by Prince Eugene.

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By March 1704 he was in Turin, planning with Hill an expedition from Nice to landnear Aigues-Mortes in the Golfe du Lion. In April, Tobie de Rocayrol, an agentrecruited on behalf of Hill, set out to prepare the Camisards for the arrival of thisexpedition. The Camisards were by then hard pressed and the advent of Marechal deVillars in the same month signified Louis XIV's determination to crush the revoh atwhatever cost in men and resources. The crushing blow of the surrender of JeanCavalier and his band to Villars on 17 May nearly determined Hill to abandon hisproject, but he persevered in the hopes of stirring the embers once more. Three tartanesescorted by two English frigates, carrying some 450 men, food, ammunition, and 16,000crowns, set sail from Villefranche near Nice on 15 June 1704. Guiscard had himselfproclaimed publicly as the coming liberator, but a number of his officers refused tosail, and his army was made up of refugees and deserters rather than regular troops.The flotilla was scattered by a storm, and the two frigates returned ignominiously toVillefranche, one bearing Guiscard. One of the tartanes fell into French hands, theofficers were executed and the men condemned to the galleys. One went ashore inCatalonia, and one escaped to Genoa. Guiscard blamed the debacle on the skimpingof provisions, the poor quality of the troops, and the weather. Hill, who had called theCamisards 'the Queen's cheapest allies', ̂ -̂ was inclined to resent Guiscard's subsequentdemand for a pension. The Camisards, cheated once again of their promised relief, hadalmost all given up their arms by the end of 1704, when Villars felt he could returnto Paris with his task completed.

Within a few weeks of his return from the abortive Nice expedition, Guiscard wasback in Switzerland, going under the name of M. de Meneville, and aiming at highergame. From Berne he wrote both to the Duke of Marlborough and to Heinsius. Hedeclared quite frankly to the Duke that he was no longer willing to deal with underlingslike Hill, and claimed, despite his recent setback, the honour of continuing the war inthe Cevennes for the past three years by his work alone. ^̂ To Heinsius he expressedresentment 'de se veoir donne son conge comme a un mauvais valet'.̂ ""̂ These firstletters marked the opening of a sustained barrage of letters and memorials to the aUiedleaders which was to last for another five years. One piece of luck came to his aid inthis long-distance campaign. At the end of August 1704 Jean Cavalier broke his paroleto Villars and with a number of his followers escaped to Lausanne. This gave Guiscardthe chance to associate himself with the most famous and romantic of the Camisardleaders: in the words of a French agent they 'mangeant ensemble et sont inseperables'.The French minister of war, Chamillart, was sufficiently alarmed to send an open letterto Cavalier reproaching him with breaking his parole and associating with Guiscard,who 'apres avoir mene pendant plusieurs annees une vie desordonne, abandonne deDieu et meprise des hommes, a pris le parti de se faire renegat et de travailler contreson roi, son devoir et son honneur'.^^ Guiscard seized the opportunity of this publicityand had a reply published in the Gazette d'Amsterdam, in which he indulged hisrhetorical flair in turning the tables. He compared his gaming losses to those of LouisXIV, his youthful passions to those of the King

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qui a croupi quinze ans dans une double adultere, qui a arrache les femmes d'entre les brasde leurs maris, et qui s'est servi de tous les artifices du monde, de toutes ses richesses et desa puissance, pour seduire et pour debaucher tout ce qu'il y a eu dans sa cour de filles et dcfemmes d'une jeunesse et d'une heaute tant soit peu distinguees. "̂

Guiscard's own amatory career took a new turn in this year; he is supposed to havemarried secretly Prince Eugene's wayward younger sister, Marie Jeanne Baptiste deSavoie. Her last love affair with a Swiss colonel Fleckenstein had been interrupted bythe French invasion of Savoy, and she left at the same time as did Guiscard forSwitzerland, quite probably under his protection. A likely motive for this match wasGuiscard's desire to ingratiate himself further with Prince Eugene. His bride diedmysteriously in 1705,̂ "̂ but he may already have sufficiently recommended himself to beinvited to join Marlborough and Eugene at the allied camp at Landau in November 1704.Another guest was the agent Tobie de Rocayrol, Their advice was appreciated enoughto win them a further invitation to The Hague, where strategy for 1705 would bedetermined. Eugene wrote to Marlborough from Vienna commending the prudence ofGuiscard's latest plan for an invasion of the Dauphine to link up with the Cevennesfrom the east, and reheve pressure on the Duke of Savoy. ̂ ^ But Guiscard's plan wasnot the only one competing for attention at The Hague; two other leading Frenchexiles were in the field and had a head start. The Marquis de Miremont had been therecognized leader of militant Huguenots since the Nine Years War, and was well knownand approved in London as well as The Hague. Pierre de Belcastel was an experiencedcommander in Dutch pay, whose military judgement was respected by Marlborough.Miremont had ambitious plans for raising an expeditionary force of Huguenot volunteers;Belcastel a plan for transferring Prussian troops to Savoy to relieve the Duke's ownforces for an invasion of French soil. Guiscard had one big advantage over themboth—in the words of Antoine Court, 'il avoit aussi la gloire d'etre le premier qui eutvoulu rompre la glace'.^^ He did not neglect to remind them of his supposed networkof contacts in the Cevennes, and his appeal to Catholics as well as Protestants.

In-fighting between exile factions at The Hague continued through the winter of1704 and early 1705, an embarrassment which Marlborough and Heinsius were eagerto end by having them work in co-operation. Guiscard was willing to work with Belcastelbut not with Miremont, and Miremont distrusted Guiscard as a Catholic and a turncoat.The allied leaders continued to hesitate over the options, while agreeing on the desirabilityof striking directly at France. Meanwhile Guiscard continued to lobby intensively; hewrote to the Duke of Ormonde in Dublin, who acknowledged an obligation to Guiscard'seldest brother. ̂ ° He worked towards publication of his Memoirs, and had his portraitpainted. Most important of all perhaps, he obtained a personal letter of recommendationto Heinsius from Pierre Jurieu, his former family friend and now the organizer of anintelligence network in France and the Low Countries. Jurieu reported on his knowledgeof the family at Sedan; he claimed that Guiscard was trustworthy because he had burnthis boats with the French court; that he was responsible for the revolt in the Cevennesand expected 30,000 malcontents to flock to his standard there; that he was admirably

IOI

equipped by boldness and discretion to operate in secret. Admittedly Guiscard's projectshad failed up to now, through bad luck and the fallibility of underlings. Jurieu addeda postscript to Heinsius:

Un chef catholique romaine est plus propre pour l'execution du proiet qui vous sera proposeet bien loin de faire quelque obstacle a nos veues, au contraire de ce que Ton vous fera voir,facilitera tres fort Texecution du premier et grand proiet qui a este con9eu en Angleterre. Vouscomprendres aisement, monsieur, qu'il faut icy un grand secret pour empescher la ialousie desdeux entreprenants.^^

Pierre Jurieu's facile appraisal may not have convinced the allied leaders entirely.In any case the States-General put off final approval of plans for an expedition. InsteadMarlborough and Heinsius made secret arrangements to supply money and arms to aconspiracy which they hoped would prepare the way for an invasion rather than awaitits arrival. On 22 January 1705 the States-General authorized Clignet, postmaster atLeiden, to send money to the Marquis d'Arzeliers at Geneva, who was in turn todisburse it secretly to the ringleaders of the 'Complot des Enfants de Dieu' at Nimesand Montpellier. The plan was for simultaneous risings in Montpellier, Nimes, Uzes,Anduze, Ales, Saint Hippolyte, and Saunieres, triggered by the kidnap of the hatedIntendant Baville and the Marechal de Berwick (who had replaced Villars). Theringleaders were assured that on the critical day of 25 April, 5,000 to 6,000 allied troopswould land from the fleet near Sete in the Golfe du Lion (fig. 2). Elie Marion, one ofthe agents sent from England to co-ordinate the conspiracy, recorded bitterly that theconspirators received manifestos in the name of Miremont and letters of encouragement,but very little of the arms and money promised.^^ Miremont and Guiscard later blamedClignet and d'Arzeliers for insisting on receipts signed by recognized Camisard leadersbefore handing over the money; it would have proved very difficult in any case tosmuggle large quantities of arms to Nimes and Montpellier from Switzerland. As ithappened, the whole elaborate plot crashed to the ground when, after a tip-off, a housein Nimes was raided on the night of 17 April. The next few days witnessed a fearfulhunting down of the conspirators within the closed gates of Nimes and Montpellier,followed by torture, the wheel, and the stake. Many loyal Catholics were horrified bythe cruelty of the executions. The allied fleet never sailed, nor would it have beenready to do so by 25 April.

Evidence extracted by torture and passed on from Baville to Chamillart in Parisimplicated both Guiscard and Miremont in the 'Complot des Enfants de Dieu'. As earlyas March 1705, a former Benedictine from Dole called Emmanuel (or Jean Baptiste)Toupelin had been arrested at Pontarlieu, and confessed to having been Guiscard'ssecretary and agent. Details of Guiscard's earlier plan to invade the Dauphine, marchalong the banks of the Rhone, and enter the Vivarais were discovered in April (thoughMarechal Julien, who commanded in the Vivarais, dismissed the idea as ridiculous).Boeton and Catinat, who had been closely involved with the September 1703 rising inthe Rouergue were arrested and executed in April 1705; papers were found whichindicated that they hoped to 'lever le masque' again in the Rouergue in June 1705, in

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by Guiscard in 1704 and by de Seissan in 1710. Add. MS, 61258, fol. 177

the name of the Marquis de Guiscard. The Intendant of the Rouergue, Legendre,wrote of Guiscard 'sa folie est de croire qu'il le fera soulever quand il luy plaira', buttook the threat seriously enough to dismantle Vareilles and institute a witch-hunt forconspirators.^^ If the plot was taken seriously enough by the French authorities, itscollapse shook Miremont's credit with his allied paymasters, however unfairly. TheStates-General resolved to advance no more; the English cut back their subsidy. Guiscardhad played second fiddle to Miremont in the conspiracy, and his reputation sufferedless. In the summer of 1705 he was dispatched to Turin to discuss with the Duke ofSavoy further prospects for an invasion of France. He met Prince Eugene in Italy inAugust, and from him procured a helpful introduction to the Emperor's brother,'Charles III', Habsburg claimant to the Spanish throne. He travelled via Genoa toBarcelona, and sufficiently impressed that King to move him to write to Marlboroughon Guiscard's behalf on 24 September 1705.^ Better still, the King wrote formally toQueen Anne recommending Guiscard to her protection, and by dint of this assiduouscultivation of the powerful, Guiscard was invited to London. ̂ ^ He arrived in February1706, and was plunged immediately into conference with Marlborough, Godolphin,and Ormonde.

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The early months of 1706 saw Guiscard's reputation and influence achieve theirapogee. He quickly made himself a place in high political circles, becoming an intimateof St. John, then Secretary of War. He was closely linked too, in pleasure as in business,with the Comte de Briangon, the Savoyard envoy to London. The jaundiced eye ofthe resident French agent, the Abbe Gaultier, reflected with irony on the gullibility ofthe English leaders, allowing themselves to be taken in by 'un semi prestre apostat quin'a jamais sceu le mestier de la guerre'. Nevertheless Gaultier was forced to concludethat the English intended a major military expedition against some place on the Frenchcoasts, although only Guiscard seemed to know exactly where. He reported that Guiscardwas made colonel of a new regiment of dragoons ('si ses Dragons sont aussy bravessoldats qu'il est grand fourbe et malhonneste homme, ils seront les premiers hommesdu monde'). ̂ ^ Once again, however, the military preparations were bedevilled by whatSt. John called 'impertinent cabals and partys' amongst the French refugees.̂ *^ Severalhigh-ranking French officers laid down their commissions rather than serve underGuiscard, but more importantly the vital business of recruiting infantry went aheadtoo slowly, because military gentlemen were unwilling to serve except as cavalry, andthe other ranks showed no great enthusiasm for the venture.

Guiscard's plans had been unveiled to a select few in the meantime. As early as23 February 1706, only days after his arrival from Catalonia, Guiscard sent a memoir tothe Queen advocating a landing on the Atlantic seaboard at the mouth of the Gironde,followed by the capture of Blaye. There, he confidently expected, he would be joinedby 'une infinite des mecontents des deux relligions'. Cavalier would be sent with adetachment to the Cevennes, but this was no more than 'une grande diversion'.^^Significantly the paternal estates of the Guiscards were near Blaye, and the Girondewould permit the safe anchorage of a fleet during the winter. Guiscard disclaimed withrather belated modesty any intention of leading the expedition himself, but the Earlof Essex and Earl Rivers were soon to find that Guiscard had no intention of takinga back seat. He alarmed the Dutch by talking too readily of his plans, which he wasaccused of leaking to Isaac van Hoornebeck, pensionary of Amsterdam. Guiscard wasstung by what he took to be the obstructiveness of Dutch politicians to his schemes,and wrote in very sharp tones to Heinsius, 'un peu trop vive', as he wrote in his nextletter, apologetically.^^ Marlborough and Godolphin were more receptive, and soon hewas assuring Marlborough that his agents reported 'qu'on y beuvoit hautement a masante, et qu'on m'y attandoit avec impatiance'.^*^ To complete the scheme, an elaboratedeception was organized by St. John, which required a former employee of the Frenchchancellor Pontchartrain to write to his patron with details of a plan for an attack onNormandy.^^

While St. John busied himself with the complex logistics of the operation, Guiscarddrew up a printed 'Manifeste addresse aux Fran9ais par nous Antoine, Marquis deGuiscard, Comte de Labourlie et de Neuvi sur Loire, etc.. Colonel d'une Regimentde Dragons; Lieutenant-General des Armees de leurs Majestes Imperiales et Britan-

^̂ This document rehearsed the miseries and economic hardships suffered by

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the French under Louis XIV, and appealed to the people to throw off the chains oftyranny and enable the allies to restore France's ancient forms of government andinstitutions. He sought to reassure them that he came not as an agent of militantProtestantism but of reconciliation between the faiths: 'cette Affaire cy n'est nullementune affaire de Religion; et *** on n'y a en veiie que le Bonheur et la Liberte de laNation en General'. In fact Guiscard did not hold a commission from the Queen, asa Catholic, but it was agreed that upon setting foot in France he could hold the rankof major-general de facto. This placed him, as the instigator of the project, in anawkward position once he had joined the troops and fleet at Torbay. On the journeyfrom London, Guiscard had insisted on a guard of horse grenadiers to protect himfrom ambush by French agents; once at Torbay he was not going to allow othersto steal the limelight. They discovered that he knew a lot less about the coast andhinterland of the landing-place than had been supposed. Soon Guiscard was complainingthat Earl Rivers, Lieutenant-General Erie, and Admiral Shovell were disposing of thearrangements without him; Erie wrote in exasperation to St. John that the real difficultywas having to talk to the Admiral in English as he spoke no French, and Guiscard inFrench as he had no English. ̂ ^ A sailing early in August turned back by contrarywinds did not improve tempers. A council of war on 15 August determined on restrictingthe initial objective to the He d'Oleron, and though St. John was sympathetic toGuiscard's plea that this would invalidate the whole scheme, he was not willing tooverturn the judgement of the professionals. However, the winds continued contraryright into September, and it was decided finally to send the whole flotilla to Lisboninstead. For the second time Guiscard was forced to conclude the weather had playedhim false.

Guiscard had missed the boat both literally and metaphorically. He was no longernecessary to the fleet, though he wrote from Torbay to Marlborough saying that theyshould invade France from Catalonia.^ While the fleet made its way to the Bay ofBiscay, Guiscard trailed back to London. The French agent noted gleefully that hehad already set himself up with house, servants, and equipage, in expectation of pros-perity. But for the moment anyway, he had much to be thankful for: the Queen hadmade him a present of 600 guineas when he kissed hands at Windsor, he had his regi-ment, and a pension from the Dutch. His friends Brian^on and St. John were influ-ential figures in London, and there was plenty of time and scope for pleasure. But hisplans for a second attempt in the following year, embodied in a 'Memoire secret' toMarlborough of 6 December 1706, were not so gratefully received.^^ Despite an interviewwith the Queen and Godolphin in March, it seemed that St. John on Marlborough'sinstructions was adamant that Guiscard should join his regiment in Spain. Guiscardprocrastinated, but in April, as he was on the point of leaving, news arrived of thebattle of Almanza, in which Guiscard's understrength regiment of dragoons wasdestroyed. Never lacking in readiness to turn all to account, Guiscard wrote immediatelyto Marlborough suggesting that the best thing that could be done now was to protectCatalonia by attempting a descent on the French coast. But to his dismay, Marlborough

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did not respond to his offer to join him at The Hague to explain his project. Thissetback, together with the loss of his regiment, prompted Guiscard to reproachMarlborough directly with a failure of nerve, and indulge in an emotional outburst:'Je suis accable de desespoir, la vie m'est insupportable, la crainte que j'ai des chosesme rend plus clairvoyant a les prevoir, je voy qu'on deguise avec moi'.^^ An apologyfollowed, but Marlborough's mind was focused on an expedition from Savoy againstToulon, not Guiscard's effusions.

Guiscard's desperation grew out of a defensive awareness that his enemies intendedto make the most of the fiasco of 1706. Guiscard's motives for coming over to theallies, and his ambitions to lead an expedition to France, had been impugned by criticsin the Miremont group from the start. Against the insinuation that his Catholicismmade him an unreliable leader of a Protestant revolt, Guiscard argued with successthat his overriding concern was for religious toleration and political liberty, and thathis Catholicism made him an ideal focus for a national rather than sectarian revolt.Charges that he maintained an extravagant establishment at The Hague and in Londonwere met by the plea that he needed to keep a staff ready to put his plans into operation,and to retain the services of agents. He certainly tried to attract as many Frenchrefugees from diverse backgrounds into his orbit as possible. One, Michel deBereau-Monsegur, formerly a lieutenant in the French navy, wrote to Sunderland witha plan for an attack on Placentia in Newfoundland, and told him how Guiscard hadtaken him under his wing in 1706: 'Cet seigneur me sert du Pere et dupuis six moisje lui suis a charge'.^"^ Personally Guiscard was accused of vaingloriousness, and oftrying to pay off private scores rather than serve the allied cause. Guiscard boasted ofhis yearning for 'la gloire', while freely admitting that he 'n'a aucune sorte de passionque cela de retirer un frere qu'il aime d'un injuste prison':^^ a private grudge againstthe French court subsumed in the grievances of the public against the tyranny of LouisXIV. Guiscard's personal charm and flights of eloquence were deployed against hiscritics, but they did not cut so much ice with some of the Dutch politicians, as withthe English. The failure of the 1706 expedition gave the Dutch an excuse to cut offGuiscard's pension. Marlborough could, or would, do nothing, although Guiscard wroteto say that the success of his enemies had precipitated 'une violante fievre, [qui] continueavec des redoublements et transports au cerveau'.^^

But more dangerous than the attacks on his character was the gradual accumulationof circumstantial evidence. Guiscard's mortification at the loss of his Dutch pensionwould have been still greater if he had known that Marlborough was the recipient ofletters which showed all the French refugee factions in a poor light. A disappointedHuguenot officer named Jacques Barry revealed that he had reason to suspect that oneLacroix of Montpellier, whom Guiscard had employed in 1704-5 as a secretary, hadbeen working for the French authorities. Furthermore, the Marquis de Miremont hadseized on a letter Barry had written to Clignet at Leiden in January 1705 conveyinghis suspicions against Lacroix, and had tried to make use of it to discredit Guiscard.'**'Neither Guiscard nor Miremont emerged from Barry's story with much credit, but

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Guiscard in particular was the target of subsequent denunciations. In October 1707Guiscard attempted to discipline another former secretary and officer in his regiment,Jean Molie, who retaliated by writing to Marlborough of Guiscard that 'je Ie croissuspect a V.A. en particulier et au Gouvernement en general par l'esprit qui a regnedans toute sa conduite depuis qu'il est en Angleterre'."^^ He accused Guiscard specificallyof attempting to subvert French officers in English pay on the fleet in 1706; they were(according to Molie) to declare personal allegiance to Guiscard alone once they set footon French soil. In support of his allegation, he referred Marlborough to Antoine deLaussac, chaplain to Earl Rivers. De Laussac, in his turn, brought forward a valetdismissed from Guiscard's service to bear witness to contacts with William Greg andthe Comte de Brian9on's secretary, both implicated in a treasonable correspondencewith France. Guiscard responded by countercharges against de Laussac, whom hedescribed as an ex-monk who had debauched a woman in France, fled, changed hisreligion, then married her. He was addicted to gambling and singing bawdy songs; hiswife loved drinking and gambling as much as he.''̂ ^ What Marlborough made of allthis is not known, but Guiscard's charges against de Laussac are uncomfortablyreminiscent of the sort of things said of himself.

These scandals broke in February 1708, and though Guiscard continued to beconsulted in London over possible invasion plans, he sensed a certain cooling in theatmosphere. In May 1708 he complained to Marlborough that 'plus j'augmente en zeleet plus je pers en confiance', and worse still 'on me cache la chose comme si je pouvoisestre un partisan de la cour de France'."^^ The charge of acting as a double agent, andrevealing allied secrets to France was absurd, as Guiscard impressed on Marlborough.Yet Marlborough might have had further reason to doubt the wisdom of taking Guiscardinto his confidence if he had learnt that Tobie de Rocayrol, Guiscard's former associateand the agent who forwarned the Camisards of the Nice expedition of 1704, had turneddouble agent in 1707. Rocayrol had been party to discussions at the highest level atLandau, The Hague, and in London (as had Guiscard) about aiding the Camisards,and he approached the French with an offer to reveal the circumstances of his missionof 1704, and his dealings with Miremont and Guiscard. The French authorities didnot value this information as he had hoped (did they know enough already?): for hispains he was sentenced to the galleys at Marseilles. The allies never knew of thisbetrayal; he was still trying to gain adequate recognition for his services to them in1751."^ There is no reason to suppose that Guiscard was willing to try the same gambitas Rocayrol as early as 1707-8, but it was as well for him that Rocayrol's betrayalremained undiscovered.

In his efforts to re-establish English confidence in him, and the continuing effectivenessof his contacts in Languedoc, Guiscard overreached himself in the summer of 1708.According to a deposition made in March 1709, and sent to Godolphin, one Etiennede la Font was asked by Guiscard to pose as a deputy of the people of the Cevennes,newly arrived to plead for an allied expeditionary force with Guiscard at its head.*^^De la Font stated that he was presented by Guiscard to Prince George of Denmark

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at Kensington, and delivered to the Prince a 'Placet' drawn up by Guiscard, butpurporting to come from the Cevennes. Guiscard certainly referred to a 'sieur de lafons, depute des hautes Cevennes' in pressing his plans on Marlborough in a letter of9 August 1708."^ But de la Font's deposition was enclosed in a letter of David Flotard,Miremont's agent, who fulminated against Guiscard as the villain who had sent othersto their deaths or to the galleys, in his efforts to rescue a whore who had poisonedher husband from French justice. This wild accusation, and a suspicion of collusionbetween de la Font and Flotard, may well have lessened the impact of the deposition.De la Font's defection to the camp of Guiscard's enemies was probably the outcomeof a fruitless journey to Brussels they made together in September 1708. Guiscardgambled on a personal appeal to Marlborough to restore his credit, but his projectshad by now taken on an air of unreality. He proposed the surprise of Sedan, wherethe gates would be opened to the allies by Guiscard's old friends there, once Guiscardhad smuggled himself in in disguise. Another associate, Louis de Riffier, was to raisea revolt in the Dauphine. Guiscard refused to work with the Marquis des Porcellets,who was soliciting Marlborough for an invasion through the Comte de Foix; insteadhe advocated a return to the Golfe du Lion. Dramatically he warned that if he wasnot in the meanwhile awarded a secure pension, 'je perdrai la vie du pure famine'."*̂ ^He was forced to return to London empty handed in early 1709, but de la Font stayedbehind and looked for a better patron.

The summer of 1709 saw a fresh Protestant rebellion in the Vivarais, but Guiscardseems to have been sufficiently discomfited by this time not to have offered a plan forallied support of the rising. His last letter to Marlborough, of October 1709, is a simpleletter of congratulation to Marlborough on the battle of Malplaquet."^ Ironically theallied leaders followed his advice in rejecting invasion through Roussillon and the Comtede Foix in 1709, and choosing instead a landing at Sete on the coastline favoured byGuiscard in 1704. They even allowed themselves to be persuaded by de Riffier'sexaggerated claims for a network of agents ready to raise a revolt throughout Languedoc.De Riffier's plot proved a will-o'-the-wisp, but a force under Major-General N. N.de Seissan did make a landing at Sete. The 'infinite des mecontents' failed to transpire,however, and after a few days de Seissan was forced to withdraw. There was somefeeling that the lack of response, and the French army's swift appearance on the scene,was the result of secret intelligence of allied designs—feelings that were recalled whenGuiscard's incriminating correspondence with France was discovered the followingyear. What Guiscard was up to in 1710 is unknown; probably, as Abel Boyer suggests,his comparative penury combined with his penchant for high living forced him tosponge off friends and acquaintances. According to Boyer, he had to dismiss his servantsand pawn his plate. The death of the Comte de Brian9on in November 1709 had deprivedhim of a valuable supporter. Having lost his regiment and the Dutch pension, his onlysource of income was an ex gratia pension from the Queen, of which one payment of;£2oo is recorded on 24 December 1709, and another on 3 August 1710. The changeof ministry in 1710 gave Guiscard high hopes: St. John appears to have been instrumental

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in securing him a permanent pension of £500 (£100 less than he petitioned for) mDecember 1710.^^ But the new Lords Commissioners of the Treasury, eager to introducefinancial stringency as well as an early peace, were not willing to award Guiscard morethan £400 p.a., and worse still, did not secure it on a proper establishment. It wasvery likely this final disappointment which precipitated Guiscard's downfall; the targetof his wrath, Harley, the Chancellor of the Exchequer, may have been determined too.

There are several differing accounts of that final tragedy: the most circumstantialand accurate is that in MS. Lansdowne 885, fols. 29-40. It was compiled by AuditorEdward Harley, who certainly relied on information supplied by his brother Robert.Robert Harley has also left some marginal comments in a copy of Abel Boyer's PoliticalState of April 1711.^° Mrs. Delariviere Manley's version in her True Narrative of whatpass'd in the Examination of the Marquis de Guiscard at the Cockpit; his Stabbing MrHarley, and other precedent and subsequent Facts relating to the Life of the said Guiscard(London, 1711) was founded partly on information passed to her by Swift, and flatteredSt. John, but satisfied none of those in a position to know. To get beyond the 'Harley'and 'St. John' versions, it is necessary to bring in the letters of the Duke of Shrewsburyto Marlborough, which give an insider's view of what happened before and after theevents at the Cockpit of 8 March 1711. Shrewsbury had less reason to distort the factsof the case than others who were parti pris, was kept fully informed of the chargesagainst Guiscard which caused him to be arrested, and was present at Guiscard'ssubsequent statements in Newgate.

The facts of the case, so far as they are known, are as follows. Guiscard had beentrying for some weeks to procure from the Lords Commissioners of the Treasury anincrease and a settlement of his pension (he had received £200 from the royal bountyon 26 January 1711). He had attempted to have the Duke of Ormonde present him tothe Queen to deliver a new petition, but unsuccessfully. On the night of 5 March,Robert Harley enclosed a packet ofletters in Guiscard's hand to Shrewsbury, addressedto a certain Moreau 'autrefois marchand de drap, alors controleur de sceau' at Paris.These letters gave intelligence of plans in hand for de Seissan to make another expeditionagainst France. The Marquis de Torcy, French Foreign Minister, recorded in hisjournal that he had received two letters from Guiscard via Moreau, offering to strikea great blow on behalf of Louis XIV. Guiscard wanted to 'expier ses crimes vers EUeet envers sa patrie'. Though this offer was made by a man 'reconnu pour etre egalementun fou et un scelerat', Torcy decided to send an agent to England to learn more. Butthe mission was forestalled by Guiscard's arrest. ̂ ^ On receipt of the other lettersforwarded by Harley, Shrewsbury advised that Marlborough should be warnedimmediately, and that Guiscard be seized 'without more delay', although he concededthat there would be some advantage in trying to secure more of Guiscard's correspondenceand in allowing Marlborough to warn de Seissan before the story broke. ̂ ^ Harley wroteto Marlborough with his find on 6 March, begging him to read the letters alone. ̂ ^Guiscard was not arrested until about three o'clock in the afternoon of 8 March, whenwalking in St. James's Park.

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The same afternoon at five he was brought before the committee of the Privy Councilin the Cockpit, but while he was in a waiting-room procured a penknife from a messenger(Edward Shorter according to Robert Harley), which he put in his pocket. Chargeddirectly with a treasonable correspondence with France, Guiscard denied it outright,but was then confronted with the letters, which by Edward Harley's account had beensecreted under a hat. Guiscard requested a private word with St. John; when this wasdenied him, he drew the penknife and attacked Harley. His first blow struck Harleyon the breastbone, which was padded by a fancy embroidered waistcoat; the bladebroke, but Guiscard struck again with the broken blade, causing severe bruising. Hewas not given time for a further blow, as the Privy Councillors fell on him, and hewas pierced by three sword thrusts at least. Nevertheless the coroner's inquest foundthat it was the struggle with messengers summoned from outside the room whichcaused the fatal injuries. The jury's verdict was very convenient to the government,as was Guiscard's death in Newgate before trial and the subsequent disappearance ofthe letters under the hat. St. John enclosed them in a letter to Marlborough of 20 March,but they are not extant in Marlborough's papers.^

After he was carried off to Newgate and physicians had been ordered to attend him,Guiscard seemed in no immediate danger. The first examination indicated that hiswounds were not likely to be fatal, and his state of mind seems to have veered betweenconfidence that he would be pardoned for revealing what he knew and a self-dramatizingwish to die, fulfil his tragic destiny, and frustrate the design of his enemies to havehim tried. Shrewsbury is the best witness for his examination by the Lords of thePrivy Council, which took place over several days. On 16 March Shrewsbury wrote toMarlborough:

Having been yesterday with other Lords by Monsieur de Guiscards desire at Newgate, theonely thing he sayM which seem'd of the least importance was, that Sesan was a man of Proiectsmais un grand Babillard, and had told him he had now proposed one in the Medeteranean wasinfallible; ##* that if his present proposals were hearkned to, and some Batalions given him toland where he proposed, one of the greatest blows would be given to France they had everfelt, this as near as I remember. Guiscard owned he had writt to Versailes; And being now onthese subiects, I shall observe that it is plaine by the Intercepted Letters he was aquainted withthe Proiect for forming Regiments of deserters, and among other advices given to prevent it,one is to encourage some men to desert they can rely on, and blow up the park of Artilirie andthen he says we shall be weary of encouraging deserters."

Given de Seissan's previous failure in 1710, it is unlikely that his project would have beenfurther jeopardized by Guiscard's revelations. St. John's letter to Marlborough on20 March suggests that Guiscard was receiving intelligence about the army in Flandersfrom one Chabanetti. Despite the efforts of the Lords Justices of Ireland, who wroteto the Duke of Ormonde on the same day with hearsay evidence of a conspiracy againstthe Queen's hfe, and made efforts to find a mistress of Guiscard with intimate knowledgeof his plans, there seems to have been no evidence of a conspiracy, or even anythingto substantiate Guiscard's supposed design to assassinate the Queen. ̂ ^̂

n o

Guiscard died in Newgate on 17 March 1711, having deliberately concealed theextent of his wounds and refused to follow the regimen prescribed by his physicians.He may have been mortified to find that his interrogators did not take his story asseriously as he had hoped, or make a firm offer of a pardon in return for furtherrevelations. There was a macabre sequel to his death, for the jailer of Newgate put hiscorpse on display pickled in a barrel, and charged the public a penny for admission.By order of the Queen this was eventually stopped, and his remains were interred atNewgate on 27 March. On 25 July 1711, the jailer was awarded £5 'to repair thedamages done to the floor and ceilings of 2 rooms by the salt water that ran out ofhis cofin'.̂ *^

One suspects that none rejoiced more at Guiscard's downfall than the Camisards inexile whose cause he had espoused. But despite allied interest in exploiting the militarypotential of further insurrection in the Cevennes, sustained even as late as 1711, thepleas of the Marquis de Rochegude and the Marquis de Miremont on their behalf fellon deaf ears, once the negotiations for the Peace of Utrecht were begun. The fact thatGuiscard had cynically manipulated their plight, and played on their hopes of helpfrom outside, was not enough to sustain interest in them, once their military usefulnesswas ended. In England the cause of the Camisards had also been damaged by thereception given to the French prophets in London. These 'inspires' had made convertsamongst English millenarians who identified Louis XIV with the 'Great Beast', buthad antagonized the existing Huguenot community in London, and suffered the scepticalattentions of a host of pamphleteers.^^ Moreover, they added a tithe to the influx ofrefugees which, with the advent of the 'poor Palatines' in 1709, had engendered popularresentment rather than sympathy. But it is doubtful in any case whether sympathy forthe plight of Protestant refugees would have been allowed to influence the negotiationsfor peace, and the Treaty of Utrecht made no provision for the protection of theProtestant underground in France or the exiles abroad. The gap between Marlborough's'great Design' and the aspirations of the Camisards was too great to be bridged in waror in peace. That Guiscard's spurious pretensions to lead 'une infinite des mecontents'against Louis XIV on a programme of political liberties and religious toleration wereever taken seriously is a measure of that gap. Between Marlborough and the Camisardsthere was room enough for Guiscard to intrigue and deceive, and to act out his personalfantasy of tyrannicide and revenge.

1 Events in England, and letters from England, are Bosc, 'La guerre des Cevennes (1705-1710)',dated Old Style; Continental events and letters dissertation (Paris, 9 June 1973), vol. i, p. 586.from the Continent are dated New Style (r i days 4 Antoine de Guiscard is confused with his brotherin advance of England). In either case the year Louis in Henry L. Snyder (ed.). The Marl-begins on i January, borough-Godolphin Correspondence (Oxford,

2 The right side of the portrait was repainted at a ^975); and in B. van 't HofF (ed.). The Cor-later date to include the penknife and caption. respondence of Marlborough and Heinsius (The

3 Paris, Archives historiques du Ministere de la Hague, 1951). Antoine de Guiscard was knownGuerre, vol. 1986, fol. 134, quoted by Henri as the Marquis de Guiscard, or Abbe de la

I I I

Bourlie, but neither of these titles was properlyhis.

5 A. Boyer (ed.). The Political State of GreatBritain (London, March 1711), pp. 276-8,

6 Memoirs of the Marquis de Guiscard (London,1705), p. 12.

7 Lettres inedites de Mme de Maintenon et de Mmela princesse des Ursins., 4 vols. (Paris, 1826),vol. i, p. 22 (i August 1706).

8 P. A. Verlaguet (ed.), Cartulaire de PAbbaye deBonnecombe, Archives Historiques du Rouergue(Rodez, 1918-25), vol, i, pp. 714-15-

9 Charles Bost (ed.), Memoires inidites d"*AbrahamMazel et d'Elie Marion sur la Guerre des Cevennes,I-J0I-IJ08, Publications of the Huguenot Societyof London, vol. xxxiv (Paris, 1931), p. 75.

10 W. Blackley (ed.). The Diplomatic Correspondenceof the Right Hon. Richard Hill (London, 1845),vol. i, p. 305.

11 Archives de Mestral, c. 11, quoted by S. Stelhng-Michaud, Saint Saphorin et la politique de laSuisse pendant la Guerre de Succession d'Espagne{1700-1J10) (Villette-les-Cully, 1935), p. 170,

12 W. Blackley, ed. cit., vol. i, p. 338. Hill's accomptin Add. MS. 61330, fol. 119, records an outlay of£20,726. 165. on the Guiscard expedition, one-third of which was repaid by the Dutch envoy,Albert van der Meer,

13 Guiscard to Marlborough, 10 August 1704, Add.MS. 61257, fol. I.

14 Guiscard to Heinsius, i September 1704, ArchiefHeinsius (Rijksarchief, The Hague), no. 917.

15 Printed in Jean Cavalier's Memoires sur la Guerredes Cevennes (ed. Frank Puaux, Paris, 1918),p. 281. Note 2 cites the report of the Frenchagent.

16 'Lettre du Marquis de Guiscard a Monsieur deChamillard', F. Danjou (ed.). Archives Curieusesde rHistoire de France (Paris, 1839), 2nd ser.,vol. X, pp. 293-4.

17 This episode is investigated by S. Stelling-Michaud, op. cit., pp. 170-2.

18 Add. MS, 61221, fol. 27. Printed in FeldzUge desPrinzen Eugen von Savoyen (Vienna, 1881), istsen, vol. 7S, pp. 26-7.

19 Antoine Court, Histoire des troubles des Cevennesou de la guerre des Camisards, 2nd edn. (Alais,1819), bk. xiv, p. 78.

20 Guiscard to Ormonde, 26 December 1704,H.M.C. Ormonde, vol. viii, pp. 127-8.

21 Jurieu to Heinsius, 2 December 1704, A. J.Veenendaal (ed.), De Briefwisseling van Anthonie

Heinsius 1702-1720 (The Hague, 1980), vol. iii,

PP- 451-2-22 C. Bost, ed, cit., pp. 114-15, A specimen of

Miremont's manifesto can be found in E.Roschach, Histoire ginirale de Languedoc(Toulouse, 1876), vol. 14, cols. 2013-15.

23 H, Bosc, op. cit., vol. i, p, 404, and chapter xii,passim.

24 Add, MS. 61212, fol. 15,25 A. Boyer, ed, cit., pp. 287-9.26 'Le Vasseur' (Gaultier) to Marquis de Torcy,

28 May 1706, P,R,O. 31/3/193, fol. 37 (Baschettranscripts). Guiscard's name occurs betweenthat of the Comte de Brian9on and the Dutchenvoy in London under 1706 in The Signaturesin the First Journal-Book and the Charter-Book ofthe Royal Society, 4th edn. (London, 1980).

27 St, John to Marlborough, 21 May 1706, Add.MS. 61131, fol. 160.

28 'Extrait d'un memoire presante a S.M.B. par leMarquis de Guiscard', Add. MS. 61257, fol- 24.

29 Guiscard to Heinsius, 9, 11 March 1706, TheHague, Archief Heinsius, no. 1094.

30 Guiscard to Marlborough, 24 May 1706, Add.MS. 61257, fol. 44.

31 St. John to Marlborough, 28 June 1706, Add.MS. 61131, fol. 173.

32 Add. MS. 61257, fol. 71.33 Erie to St. John, 5 August 1706, printed by

H. T. Dickinson, 'The Correspondence of HenrySt. John and Thomas Erie, i'jo$-S\ Journal ofthe Society for Army Historical Research, xlviii(1970), p. 218.

34 Guiscard to Marlborough, 27 August 1706, Add.MS. 61257, fol. 53.

35 Idem, 6 December 1706, Add, MS. 61257, fol.

63-36 Idem, 16 May 1707, Add. MS. 61257, fol. 92,37 Add. MS. 61648, fol. I.38 Guiscard to Heinsius, 19 December 1704, The

Hague, Archief Heinsius, no. 917.39 Guiscard to Marlborough, 25 July 1707, Add.

MS. 61257, fol. 108.40 Barry to Marlborough, 8 April 1707, Add. MS.

61257, fol. 78.41 Molie to Marlborough, 16 January 1708, Add,

MS. 61257, fol. 124.42 Guiscard to Marlborough, 27 February 1708;

de Laussac to Marlborough, 28 February 1708;Add. MS. 61257, fols. 134-9.

43 Guiscard to Marlborough, 11 May, i June 1708,Add. MS. 61257, fols. 144, 156.

1 1 2

44 H. Bosc, op. cit., chapter xv; Add. MS. 32815,fol. 229.

45 Flotard to Godolphin, 2 April 1709, Add. MS.61258, fol. 106.

46 Add. MS. 61257, fol- 164.47 Guiscard to Marlborough, 18 December 1708,

Add, MS. 61257, fol, 174.48 Add. MS. 61257, fol. 208.49 Calendar of Treasury Books . . . preserved in the

Public Record Office, vol. xxiii, pt. 2 (1709,London, 1949), p. 468; vol. xxiv, pt. 2 (1710,London, 1950), p. 392; vol. xxv, pt. 2 (1711,London, 1961), p. 150. Calendar of TreasuryPapers, 1708-14 preserved in . . . Puhlic RecordOffice (London, 1879), p. 231,

50 B.L., Portland MSS. Loan 29/166/2.51 F. Masson (ed.), Journal inMit de Jean-Baptiste

Colbert Marquis de Torcy (Paris, 1884), pp. 399,400, 413.

52 Shrewsbury to Harley, 6 March 1711, B.L., Port-land MSS. Loan 2glii)j, fol. 164.

53 Add. MS. 61125, fol. 84.54 Henry St. John, Works (ed. Gilbert Parke,

London, 1798), vol. 6, p. 70,55 Add. MS. 61131, fol. 78-56 Add. MS, 34079, fol. 54.57 Calendar of Treasury Papers, 1708-14, p. 293.58 See Hillel Schwartz, The French Prophets: The

History of a Millenarian Group in Eighteenth-Century England (Berkeley, 1980).