DIGITISED MANUSCRIPTS

( 39 ) was ever under his bed to furnish him with the means to start at the first signal. But to the very last he gave proofs that some sparks of the old fire still slumbered beneath the ashes of his life. He beguiled the lone- liness of his existence with music, being a proficient in the use of several instruments, even the bagpipe, on which he played Jacobite airs. To his visitors he ever expressed himself in pathetic and eloquent words of the adventurous days of 745. On one occasion when one of these reminded him of the exploits of his youth he fell into convulsions. ‘Ah!’ cried his daughter, rushing into the room, ‘what is this? You must have spoken to the Prince about Scotland and the Highlands—no one dares to mention either in his presence!’ On another occasion, when M. de Vaudreuil, the son of the officer who had arrested him in Paris, and who bore a striking resemblance to his father, with more curiosity than tact.called upon him in Rome, he almost fainted. In the spring of 1786 he fell dangerously ill. The end came somewhat suddenly two years later. Charles breathed his last in the arms of his daughter, exactly one hundred years after the Revolution which had deprived his grandfather, James IL., of the throne. The Duchess of Albany survived her father but a few months. She died from injuries sustained from a fall from her horse.