In France Charles was a popular hero, and adored by ladies. His appearance at court was magnificent, and for him the Princesse de Tallemant made every sacrifice. But the Government was deaf to his appeals, a journey to Spain was fruitless; worst of all, his brother Henry, to whom he had been tenderly devoted, accepted a cardinal's hat, on July 3, 1747. This was fatal. The English would never forgive a son of their so-called king who became a Romish priest; and the shadow of the hat fell on Charles. From letters of James to the prince, it is plain that, for some reason, the Duke of York could not look forward to marriage and to continuing the Stuart family. The young man, therefore, having also a vocation withal, accepted ecclesiastical rank, and a cluster of rich benefices. A breach between Charles and James followed, which was never healed, despite the touching letters of the king to his "dearest Carluccio." Charles betook himself to adventurous and secret projects. In the Highlands he had learned to seek the consolation of the poor, and to forget hunger, cold, misery, and sorrow in drink. He drank "our best bowlsman," says an islander, under the table. The habit soon dominated him, and--with his disgraceful arrest and imprisonment, when he refused to acknowledge the peace of Aix la Chapelle and to withdraw from France--soured his character and ruined his life. Released from Vincennes, he hurried to the then Papal city of Avignon, where he introduced boxing-matches. England threatened to bombard Civita Vecchia, and Charles had to depart. Whither he went no man knows. There is a Jacobite tract of 1750, purporting to be written by his equerry, Henry Goring. According to this, Charles, Goring, and a mysterious Comte de la Luze (Marshal Keith?), went to Lyons, Dijon, Strasbourg. Here Charles rescued a beautiful girl from a fire, and honorably declined to take advantage of her manifest passion for her preserver. The party was attacked by assassins, Charles shot two of them, La Luze and Goring accounted for others. They took ship from some northern coast, were tempest-driven to an unfriendly port, visited, apparently, Frederick the Great, spent some time in Lithuania, and there are hints of a love affair, though Charles had already proclaimed that he would never marry to beget royal beggars. He certainly visited Sweden; there was talk of him as a candidate for the Polish crown. For many years (1749-1755) neither James nor the English Government knew where Charles really was. Grimm says that for three years he lay hidden in the house of a lady in Paris, a friend of the Princesse de Tallemant. A sportsman and a lover of the open air is not likely to have loitered so long with Armida in a secret chamber. There is tattle about him in D'Argenson's "Memoirs;" a disguised shabby prince appears now and then, none knows whence, and vanishes. In the papers of Charles Stuart, Comte d'Albanie, one finds a trace of a visit paid by the prince to Ireland.