Kinnaird absolutely declined to give up the name of his informant, but, acting on the strength of the postscript, which had been read but not shown to him, started for Paris with "the great unknown." Some days after their arrival, and while Kinnaird was a guest of the Duke, the man was arrested, and discovered to be one Nicholle or Marinet, who had been appointed _receveur_ under the restored government of Louis XVIII., but during the _Cent jours_ had fled to Belgium, retaining the funds he had amassed during his term of office. Kinnaird regarded this action of the French Government as a breach of faith, and in a "Memorial" to the French Chamber of Peers, and his _Letter_, maintained that the Duke's postscript implied a promise of a safe conduct for Marinet to and from Paris to Brussels. The Duke, on the other hand, was equally positive (see his letter to Lord Liverpool, May 30, 1818) "that he never intended to have any negotiations with anybody." Kinnaird was a "dog with a bad name." He had been accused (see his _Letter to the Earl of Liverpool_, 1816, p. 16) of "the promulgation of dangerous opinions," and of intimacy "with persons suspected." The Duke speaks of him as "the friend of Revolutionists"! It is evident that he held the dangerous doctrine that a promise to a rogue _is_ a promise, and that the authorities took a different view of the ethics of the situation. It is clear, too, that the Duke's postscript was ambiguous, but that it did not warrant the assumption that if Marinet went to Paris he should be protected. The air was full of plots. The great Duke despised and was inclined to ignore the pistol or the dagger of the assassin; but he believed that "mischief was afoot," and that "great personages" might or might not be responsible. He was beset by difficulties at every turn, and would have been more than mortal if he had put too favourable a construction on the scruples, or condoned the imprudence of a "friend of Revolutionists."] {374}[480] [The reference may be to the Duke of Wellington's intimacy with Lady Frances Wedderburn Webster. Byron had "passed that way" himself (see _Letters_, 1898, ii. 251, note i, 323, etc.), and could hardly attack the Duke on _that_ score.] [481] ["Thou art the best o' the cut-throats." _Macbeth_, act iii. sc. 4, line 17.] [482] ["I have supped full of horrors." _Macbeth_, act v. sc. 5, line 13.] [483] _Vide_ speeches in Parliament, after the battle of Waterloo.