To the delight of all the _bon ton_, the scent of scandal rose hot into the air. The charming lady who had passed as the wife of Daniel Perreau proved to be his mistress. Although she had lived with him for five years, bearing him no less than three children, her real name was Margaret Caroline Rudd, whose lawful husband was still alive. Being the daughter of an apothecary in the North of Ireland, by his marriage with the love-child of a major of dragoons, who was a member of the Scottish house of Galloway, her boast that the blood of Bruce ran in her veins was strictly true, in spite of the scoffs and jeers with which it was hailed by her enemies. Early in the year 1762, when only seventeen, she had married a dissolute lieutenant of foot, named Valentine Rudd, the son of a grocer at St Albans. Soon his society proved distasteful, and the fair Margaret Caroline eloped with a more congenial partner. During the next few years she lived the life of a Kitty Fisher or a Fanny Murray--a gilt-edged Cyprian--selling her favours, like Danae, for no less than a shower of gold. Of all her patrons, the most faithful and generous by far was a rich Jew moneylender named Salvadore, whose name remains still as a landmark in the purlieus of the metropolis. Good Lord Granby is said to have visited her out of mere affection. Among others, it was whispered that Henry Frederick, a gentleman of easy virtue, like all Dukes of Cumberland, became one of her intimate friends. Possibly she may have listened to couplets from the _Essay on Women_, for patriot Wilkes, the member of Parliament for the county of Middlesex, is believed to have cultivated her society, going to the extent of finding her a home at Lambeth. Peers flocked to Hollen Street or Meard’s Court to pay her homage. A favourite device of hers was to impersonate a boarding-school miss or a lady of quality. Few women of pleasure have possessed the fertile imagination of Mrs Margaret Caroline Rudd. In May 1770 she met the foolish Daniel Perreau--not stupid from the woman’s point of view, since he was a dashing dog with a taste for all the pleasant things in life--and in an unlucky moment she accepted him as her protector. However, in other respects, although he had travelled far over the world, his intellect was no mate for hers. In business he had been a failure both at home and abroad. Three times, it is recorded, he was obliged to make composition with his creditors. Only a fortnight before his alliance with the bewitching Irishwoman his certificate of bankruptcy had been signed. Still, he was a man suited to the fair Margaret’s taste, handsome, gay, and genteel, with a complacency that paid no regard to her methods of raising money--a partner, in short, who gave her back the status in society that she had forfeited.