A brief space is due to those rather curious negotiations which were carried on while James was at Bar, to find the Pretender a suitable wife. According to Mrs Strickland this was rather a romantic affair. James was dying to marry his cousin, the Princess d'Este, while, on the other hand, the Princess Sobieska and Mademoiselle de Valois were both dying to marry him. In truth, there was no dying on either side, and the wooing originated, not in James's feeble affections--which were probably occupied to the full extent of their capacity with that young lady on the hill--but in the fertile brain of his scheming and restless host. Mrs Strickland, I ought to say, rather overrates the position of the Princess Sobieska, who eventually _did_ marry the Chevalier; and if there was any romance in her affection, she lived to be cured of it. Being the daughter only of an elective king, a _parvenu_ among royal personages, she was looked upon as a princess rather by courtesy than of right. Even to James, down in the world as he was, Leopold--in a manner her kinsman--did not dare to propose her except as a _pis aller_, when all hopes elsewhere were extinguished. His first proposal was an Austrian archduchess. He evidently thought the suggestion one which would do him credit. It would be a downright good "Catholic" match. It was bound to help the Pretender, and it might be agreeable to the Emperor, and so secure him, Leopold, very much on the look-out for favours as he was, gratitude in two influential quarters. The mere moral effect, he says, of an alliance entered into by the premier dynasty of Europe with the outcast Stuart prince must prove immensely to James's advantage. But there was money, too--which James particularly wanted--much money, heaped up in the Hofburg. James assented--though with nothing seemingly of eagerness; for it took him some months to grasp the full meaning of the idea. The proposal was made in March, 1714--long before the Princess Sobieska was thought of; and, as Leopold reports with unmistakable satisfaction, it was _assez gouté_ at Vienna. Only, the Princess asked for--the younger daughter of the late Emperor--was very young, in fact, a child in the nursery, and the marriage could not possibly take place for some considerable time. So, the Emperor thought, the matter had best be kept quiet. Nothing daunted, rather encouraged, Leopold, with James's approval, returned to the charge in June. If the younger archduchess was too young--very well, let it be the elder, Elizabeth, who was at that time heir-presumptive to the crown. (For Maria Theresa, the reigning Emperor's daughter, was not yet born.) Vienna took time to consider. James's appetite grew keen, and in July we find him plying the Emperor with two memorials, drawn up with the help of Nairne. So elated did he grow over his supposed brilliant prospects, that he returned very cold answers indeed to Cardinal Gualterio's well-meant