The dispirited and deserted Highland army moved North, and the Earl was sent to ask Huntly whether he would join them—in which case they would fight at Inverness—or not. ‘He easily perceived by Huntly’s answer that nothing was to be expected from him.’ They, therefore, marched to Ruthven, whence they scattered, Keith and the Earl fared westwards with Clanranald’s men, and made for the Islands. Hence they sailed in a French ship on May 1, and reached St. Pol de Léon on May 12. There were a hundred officers of them together, and all this destroys d’Alembert’s romance, modelled on the adventures of Prince Charles, about the Earl’s dangers and the noble behaviour of the crofters among whom he was wandering. An English force was, indeed, at one time within thirty miles of the fugitives, but there was nobody to whom Clanranald’s men could have been betrayed, not that any one was likely to betray them, and the Earl Marischal and James Keith with them. In truth, d’Alembert confused this occasion with another, after Glenshiel fight, in 1719. Many of the fugitives went to James at Avignon, but Keith stayed in Paris, where Mary of Modena received him well. ‘Had I conquered a kingdom for her she could not have said more.’ She gave him 1,000 livres, while James granted what he could, 200 crowns yearly. Keith does not say that the Earl was in Paris, where his portrait was probably painted at this date. There, however (as is known from an unpublished MS.), he certainly was, and he might even, by Stair’s mediation, have obtained his pardon. But he supposed that the cause would presently triumph, and declined to make any advances to George I. He was now in correspondence with General Dillon, James’s military representative in Paris. In August, 1717, Dillon writes to him about one ‘Prescot,’ who is suspected of intending to murder James in Italy; he refers to Lord Peterborough, who was arrested on this impossible charge at Bologna in September 1717.[6] In 1719 the Earl and his brother went to Spain. There was then war between Spain and England, Ormonde was with Alberoni, and was to be employed. Keith would have gone thither earlier, but ‘I was then too much in love to think of quitting Paris.’ Here, in Paris, 1717-18, if ever, would have to be fixed the Earl’s legendary romance with Mademoiselle de Froullay (Madame de Créquy). The story, a very pretty one, is given in this lady’s Mémoires, an ingenious but fraudulent compilation.