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hundredth time.
    It was something he had read last year, along with everyone else, when many gentlemen had received it in the London post. It was a declaration from the Pretender, James Francis Stuart, which had arrived in England months after his sister Queen Anne’s death. Dated the 29 th of August, 1714, and written from Plombières, where James had gone to take the waters after being rebuffed by his Majesty of France, it was the desperate plea of a prince who believed he had been betrayed by his friends.
    The first time Gideon had read it—in England, in English, and in possession of his life—he had not given it the degree of attention he did now. This copy had been printed in French, but the message was the same.
    James declared that he had been led by his supporters in England to expect that his sister would name him her successor or, failing this, that his loyal British friends would change the Act of Succession in his favour. Believing all they told him, and expecting to be restored to his throne, he had waited, leaving the management of his concerns to “his trusty and well-beloved Cousins and Counsellors, then encompassing the Throne” who, he said, from time to time sent him intelligence and encouragement. He went on to say that these counselors, “whose names, till known,” would be concealed, either falsely or foolishly, did lose the opportunity of bringing him home. And what had proved a further mortification and disappointment, when he had given notice of his intention to cross the water, he was prevented by some of his best friends.
    The news-sheets in England had reported that, on hearing of his sister’s death, James had set out from Bar-le-Duc in Lorraine, his current place of exile, for Versailles, where he had expected to receive the French king’s help. Being notified of his departure by England’s spies, Louis XIV had dispatched the Marquis de Torcy to intercept him and send him back. In the peace with England, France had agreed not to harbour the Pretender, which the marquis had reminded him. James had only been allowed to travel to Chaillot to see his mother before seeking comfort from his woes in taking the waters at Plombières.
    Although his bitterness and disappointment had always been clear, Gideon could now feel James’s emotions as strongly as his own. As recently as last autumn, all that had concerned him in the declaration was James’s refusal to forsake his Catholic religion. Unlike Charles II, he was unabashedly a papist and unwilling to pretend a conversion to the Protestant faith, though he promised that he would allow his subjects to worship as they pleased. Gideon had not known whether to admire James or blame him for his honesty, because it had certainly cost him the throne. With the former ministry in chaos—many of them professed Jacobites, according to James’s declaration—Gideon had privately concluded that the cause was lost.
    But that was before his own misfortunes had made him an exile, too. When he had arrived at St. Mars, he had opened the declaration and read it again.
    Under the Great Seal of England, which had been smuggled with his father to France, James had made several promises that he termed his Royal Will and Testament. Gideon’s eyes had immediately been drawn to the phrases that some anonymous messenger had marked for him by hand.
    “And for quieting the Minds of all our Loving Subjects from Fears,” James had written, “for offences committed against us, and our Pretences in times past, we do farther promise and declare under our Great Seal, that (as soon as Counsel can draw the same after the said Exchange) we will cause a general Indemnity (as good as any Act of Oblivion) to pass under the said Great Seal, for pardoning all Traitors, Murderers, Felons and Fugitives, and Felons of themselves, Fore-faulters, Fore-stallers, Fidlers, Fortune-Tellers, Prize-Fighters, Flesh-Eaters in Lent without License, and all other Offenders whatsoever, who have