came of a family of rigid Catholics. Nay, while
in the monastery, he seduced a young girl
named Du Taux, whose mother was the
lavandière of the establishment, and they had come
together to London, where they gave themselves
out as persecuted French Protestants. Having
been born within twenty miles of Bourdeaux,
this Souchard knew the story of the Marquis de
Fratteaux, and conceived the idea of turning it
to his own profit before it should reach the ears
of Louis the Fifteenth. For this purpose,
delaying the preparation of the memorial, he wrote
secretly to the Counsellor, stating that he knew
where his son was, and offering to make terms
to secure and deliver him up! The Counsellor
entered cordially into the scheme, and, after
remitting him some money on account, agreed to
settle upon him for life a pension of six hundred
livres, and to pay him two thousand English
guineas down, with two hundred more, for the
reward of any assistants or accomplices he might
deem necessary.

Dages de Souchard immediately set about his
treachery, and employed a man of most
unscrupulous character, one Alexander Blasdale,
a Marshal's Court officer who resided in St.
Martin's-lane, and whose follower, or colleague,
by a strange coincidence, was the very Italian
who had been accessory to the incarceration
of the Marquis in the monastery near
Bourdeaux.

On the night of the 27th of March, 1752,
they repaired to the lodgings of the Marquis:
who immediately became deadly pale on seeing
the Italian, and exclaimed, in alarm and
distress:

"I am a dead man!"

Blasdale summoned him to surrender in the
king's name. Knowing that he owed no
man anything, Fratteaux was disposed to resist.
His landlady sent for M. Robart, French
clergyman, to whom Blasdale, with cool
effrontery, showed a writ to arrest the
Marquis for a pretended debt. The latter was
persuaded to yield and to accompany the officer to
his house in St. Martin's-lane, whither he was
immediately driven in a hackney-coach, and
there placed in a secure chamber.

Five gentlemen, "one of them a person of
the first fashion," on hearing of the arrest,
repaired to the bailiff, and in strong language
warned him to beware of using the least
violence towards his prisoner, lest he should be
called to a severe account; and they added,
that sufficient bail would be found for him in
the morning. One gentleman, named M. Dubois,
remained with the Marquis as his friend,
resolved to see the end of the affair, and to
protect him; but about midnight the Italian came
in, saying that some one wished to speak with
this gentleman below. On descending to the
street, Dubois found only the bailiff Blasdale,
who roughly told him "to be gone," and
thrusting him out of the house, shut him out,
and secured the door. On this gentleman
returning, with the French clergyman and others,
next morning, they were told by a servant-girl
"that the Marquis was gone, in company with
several gentlemen." They then demanded to
see her master, but were curtly told that "he
was out of town." In short, neither he nor his
victim was ever beheld in England again!

Fears of foul play being immediately excited,
the whole party repaired to Justice Fielding,
by whom a warrant to apprehend Blasdale
was issued, on suspicion of murder. Application
was made to the Lord Chief Justice, and
also to the secretary of state, Robert Earl of
Holderness, for a habeas corpus to prevent the
Marquis from being taken out of the kingdom
dead or alive; but all was of no avail, and
the fate of Fratteaux remained for some time
a dark mystery.

It would appear that, on finding himself
alone, after the rough expulsion of his friend
Dubois, the Marquis became furious with rage;
on which Blasdale swore that as he made so
much noise in the house he would convey him at
once to jail. Fratteaux, who feared he might
be assassinated where he was, readily
consented to go to jail, and a hackney-coach was
called. In it, he, the bailiff, and the nameless
Italian, drove through various obscure streets
and by-lanes. It was now about five in the
morning.

The marquis again and again implored aid
from the coach window in broken English, but
received none; to the watch his keepers said
that he was "only a French fellow they had
arrested for debt;" to others, they said he had been
made furious by the bite of a mad dog, and they
were going to dip him in salt water at Gravesend.
Thus his entreaties were abortive, and
at about sunrise he found himself at a lonely
place by the side of the river Thames. A
cocked pistol was put to his ear, and
resistance was vain; he was thrust on board
a small vessel, which had been waiting for
him in the river, and which, after he was
secured below, dropped down with the ebb tide.
So well did Souchard, Blasdale, and the Italian
take all their measures, that on the night of the
29th the two last-named worthies landed the
Marquis at Calais, the gates of which town
were opened to admit them long after the
usual hour of closing. He was then delivered
over as a prisoner of state to the town
authorities, who had all been duly communicated
with, and probably well fee'd, and by
whom he was sent, chained by the neck,
in a post-chaise, to his father's house in
Paris. The Counsellor, in virtue of his lettre
de cachet, now sent his son the Marquis to be
immured in the Bastille for life.

"This is the first narrative of the kind which
has stained the annals of England," says a
print of the time; "and if it be not the last,
highly as we boast of giving laws to all Europe,
we shall be little better, in fact, than a pitiful
colony exposed to the mercy of every insolent
neighbour." Great indignation was excited in
London, where a subscription was raised for the
purpose of punishing all concerned in this flagrant
violation of British law; but nothing was