332 GENERAL STANHOPE AND MADAME DE MUCI. 



exist between the material facts, as narrated by both parties.) And, as 

 our able author has so strongly professed that impartiality, which we 

 . doubt not he has as strongly felt, * we feel assured he will weigh our 

 evidence with the attention it merits, however heavily the facts, if 

 proved, bear upon the conduct of his gallant ancestor in the Brihuega 

 affair. A very brief preface will be needed, before entering on our 

 translation of the part of these memoirs in question. Madame de Muci 

 is represented as a married lady of Dijon, who, being neglected by a 

 careless and dissipated husband, and naturally inclined to intrigue, fled 

 from him to Paris. There she was seen by Stanhope, who made 

 furious love to her with every prospect of success, had he not been 

 suddenly called away by business. Some time after his departure, 

 Madame de Muci, expecting that her lover of the day, the Count de 

 1'Albert, would be sent by his sovereign, the Elector of Bavaria, Am- 

 bassador to Madrid, resolved to leave Paris incog, and await him 

 there. She travelled, with her maid, in the disguise of two chevaliers, 

 and at Linas, where they joined the Bourdeaux coach, they found the 

 only passenger besides themselves a lady, who said she was the wife of 

 an Irish officer, in the army of the King of Spain, travelling to meet 

 her husband. By a most singular coincidence, this supposed lady is 

 Stanhope, and the reasons he is said to have given for travelling in this 

 disguise through France, as well as his relation of what had happened 

 to him after he parted with Madame de Muci in Paris, are so strange 

 and apocryphal, we can only conjecture he improvised them for that 

 lady's diversion. Be this as it may, they journeyed together in great 

 harmony as far as Pampeluna, where he took the road to Saragossa, 

 and she went on to Madrid. 



We shall now translate, pretty nearly at length, the very interesting 

 account our authoress gives of the events from the battle of Saragossa to 

 the capture at Brihuega, and beg our readers to compare it with Lord 

 Mahon's eloquent and authentic history. 



" About this time was fought the battle of Saragossa, the King of Spain com- 

 manding his own army, mainly composed of raw and ill-trained levies. After a 

 very obstinate combat, in which he shewed all the valour of a true Bourbon, he 

 was forced to yield, and retreated, much against his will. Starenberg, like an 

 able general, pursued the wreck of the royal army, without giving them time to 

 rally. The city of Saragossa, the provinces of Arragon and Valencia, fell into 

 the hands of the Arch-Duke, and the King of Spain, having now no stronghold 

 in New Castile, was obliged to retreat to Valladolid, in Old Castile, 



" There being only sixty leagues between Madrid and Saragossa, and nothing 

 to stop the march of the victorious army, you can hardly imagine what con- 

 sternation this defeat produced in the capital. Amidst this universal panic, the 

 Queen fled from Madrid, with the Prince of Asturias in the cradle. She went 

 first to Burgos, and thence to Vittoria, where she was joined by her husband. 

 Then was it that this heroic Princess made the noble reply to the pressing en- 

 treaties of the French Court, that she would retreat to Bourdeaux for safety ; 

 she said ' she would rather go, with her infant son, prisoners to the Tower of 

 London, than beg her bread at St. Germains, like the King of England/ f 



* " I can sincerely say that the most minute researches and most impartial 

 intentions have not enabled me to discover any error or neglect in General 

 Stanhope, unless it be his failing at first to place outposts on the neighbouring hills, 

 and this, for the reason I have stated, I believe to have been a necessary and 

 unavoidable omission." p. 339. 



t The Pretender is always named by the Catholic party by his assumed title. 



