had _chassé_ its last-but-one. And then, where would his son be? For if his son went to England, it was much to be feared that his brother, who had been not quite rightfully excluded from the succession, might make good his claim to Hanover. And there would George be, out in the cold! So his father was resolved to play a waiting game. The first difficulty which James found himself confronted with, and which Leopold had to overcome for him--for French good offices were obviously out of the question--was the procuring of a passport. Such credential was at the time indispensable, for Europe was swarming with bad characters. Besides, there was nominally war still; and public roads and even walled towns were altogether insecure. In the Foreign Office papers we come across correspondence relating to the robbing of the public coach running between Strassburg and Paris, at Benameny, in Lorrain territory, by Palatine soldiers, who had come over from Caub. And even in carefully locked and watched Bar-le-Duc, Leopold advises King Louis that, with "a fourth company of his regiment of guards" added to the local force, besides twenty-five _chevaux-legers_ and twenty-five _gardes-du-corps_ to act as escort, he can answer for the Pretender's safety only against attacking parties of not more than fifty or a hundred at the outside, which, he says, ought to be borne in mind, "_si armées se mettoient en campagne_." Queen Mary only expresses what everyone felt when she says that it is to be apprehended "_que quelque méchant en se servissent de l'occasion pour faire un méchant coup_." She accordingly begs the "_commnoté_" of Chaillot to pray for "the king's" safety.