Chapter VIII: Part 8

The credulous soldier and his equally simple sister believed this wonderful tale, and pressed their royal visitor to continue to receive their humble hospitality. Between them a letter was addressed to the Duchess of Angoulême, announcing the existence of a brother, who would be found to be the real man, and no counterfeit. A similar letter was sent to the king, and another to the Duchess de Berri; but all the three missives were careful to state that the Duke of Normandy had no desire to sit upon the throne or to disturb the tranquillity of France, but would be content to accept a reasonable pension and hold his tongue--to surrender all his claims, and retire into obscurity for ever, if he were well paid. His letters remained unanswered, but he returned to the attack, and indulged the Duchess of Angoulême with a multitude of letters, in which he implored her good offices for a brother who needed only to be seen to be recognised. But the duchess remained silent. At length he announced to the French royal family his intention of marrying a young girl only fifteen years of age, the daughter of a Prussian corporal. He could not, of course, expect that such a step would be agreeable to the other members of the House of Bourbon, but he valued his love more than his pride, and if his royal uncle would only grant such an allowance as would enable himself and his wife to live in a position of independence, he would trouble him no more, and the world need never know that the son of Louis XVI. was alive, and had perpetrated a _mésalliance_. But Louis XVIII. was obdurate, and would not listen even to the seductive voice of Hymen. The young couple were allowed to wed, but they had to look for their means of livelihood elsewhere.

For a time Naündorff was equal to the occasion, and supported the corporal's daughter and his rising brood by cleaning the watches and clocks of the Brandenburgers. But trouble came upon him. The house of his next door neighbour took fire, and the watchmaker was suspected of being the incendiary. He was arrested and thrown into prison; his wife and children were turned into the street; and, although his innocence was unequivocally proved, his trade was ruined, and he had to flee from the midst of the distrustful and suspicious folks among whom he had laboured and loved and wedded.

By the exertions of one of the few friends who remained to him Naündorff was appointed foreman in a watchmaking factory at Crossen, and thither he removed, carrying with him his wife and the half-dozen children who had blessed his union. But the distance was long, the roads were bad, and the man was poor. When Naündorff reached Crossen on foot with his weary and half-famished band he found that the post which he had come to obtain had been given to another, and abandoned himself to despair. Then the plebeian energy of the corporal's daughter rose superior to the weakness of her royal husband. She obtained a temporary shelter, procured needlework, and, by her unaided efforts, managed to keep the wolf from the door. After a little delay work was obtained for Naündorff also; and as his spirits revived his hopes and pretensions revived also. Little by little he told his story to his fellow-workmen, who paid no heed to it at first, but nicknamed him in derision "the French prince." But the tale was improving as it got older, and by-and-by he could number among his followers the syndic of the town, one of the preachers, a magistrate, and a teacher of languages. The syndic, in particular, was an enthusiastic partizan, and himself addressed a letter to the Duchess of Angoulême and to the principal courts of Europe. He also took a journey to Berlin to claim from the authorities the seal which Naündorff said had been taken from him by the Brandenburg police--the same seal which Louis XVI., as he was passing to execution, had handed to Clery with his dying injunction to deliver it to his son. The government very sharply ordered their subordinate back to his post, telling him that they knew nothing of Naündorff, but that they were well aware that Clery had handed the jewel which he mentioned to Louis XVIII., who had rewarded him with the riband of St. Louis. The syndic left Berlin in haste, and arrived at home full of chagrin. He concealed himself from public view, and shortly afterwards sickened and died. Naündorff declared he had been poisoned.

The discomfited impostor, finding that he was not likely to be able to move the world from his retirement at Crossen, quietly disappeared from that humble town, and was lost to the public gaze for a considerable period. His movements about this time were very mysterious; but it is proved with tolerable certainty that he repaired to Paris, and his visit to the French capital may have had something to do with the visions of Martin of Gallardon. This man was an ignorant peasant, and, being a sort of _clairvoyant_, pretended that, as the result of a vision, he knew that the son of Louis XVI. was still alive. He said that, in the year 1818, while he was at mass in the village church at Gallardon, an angel interrupted his devotions by whispering in his ear that the dauphin of the Temple was alive, and that he (Martin) was celestially appointed on a mission to Louis XVIII. to inform him of the fact, and to announce to him that if he ever dared to be formally crowned the roof of the cathedral would fall in and make a very speedy ending of him and his court. The king was prevailed upon to grant an interview to this impostor, and made no secret of his message. Therefore, when year after year passed without a formal coronation, the superstitious whispered that Louis knew better than tempt the Divine vengeance, and, although he sat upon the throne, was well aware that he had stolen another man's birthright, and that the dauphin of the Temple was still alive.

But people were beginning to forget the existence of the watchmaker of Crossen, when one evening, in the autumn of 1831, a traveller entered one of the best frequented inns at Berne, in Switzerland. Attached to this inn was a parlour, in which some of the most jovial of the local notables were accustomed to pass their evenings, gossiping over the occurrences of the day, and whiling away an hour or so with a quiet game at dominoes. The stranger was a pleasant-looking man, of from forty to forty-five years of age, and preferred the good company of the familiar parlour to the dulness of his private sitting-room, or the staid society of the public _salon_. He said his name was Naündorff, and by his affability soon made himself such a general favourite that one of the leading _habitués_ of the place invited him to his house and introduced him to his family. In private life he shone even more brilliantly than in the mixed company of the hotel. There was a certain dignity about his appearance which seemed to proclaim him a greater personage than he at first claimed to be, and his host was not greatly astonished when, after the lapse of a fortnight, he confided to him the secret that Naündorff was merely an assumed name, and that he was in reality the Duke of Normandy, the disinherited heir to the French throne. The whole family rose in a flutter of excitement at the presence of this distinguished guest in their midst. They had no doubt of the truth of his story, and one daughter of the house urged him to take prompt and decisive measures to recover his crown. As far as her feeble help could go it was freely at his service. The mouse has e'er now helped the lion; and this enthusiastic girl was not without hope that she might render some assistance in restoring to France her legitimate king. She became amanuensis and secretary to Naündorff, compiled a statement from his words and documents, laid it before the lawyers, and they pronounced favourably, and advised the claimant to proceed without delay to Paris and prosecute his cause vigorously. He went.

On a May morning in 1833, the watchman of the great Parisian cemetery at Père la Chaise discovered a dust-stained traveller sleeping among the tombs, and shaking him up demanded his name, and his reason for choosing such a strange resting-place. His name he said was Naündorff; but as he only spoke German the curiosity of the guardian of the place was not further satisfied. In a short time the same individual met a gentleman who could speak German, who took pity upon his apparent weakness and ignorance of the gay capital, and who, when he heard that he had arrived on foot the night before, and was utterly destitute, advised him to apply to the old Countess de Richemont, as one who was proverbially kind to foreigners, and had formerly been one of the attendants on the dauphin who died in the Temple. The stranger was profuse in his thanks, muttered that the dauphin was not dead yet, and set out for the Rue Richer, where the countess lived.

He obtained easy access to the presence of the lady, and announced himself as the Duke of Normandy. The countess acted in orthodox fashion, and straightway fainted, but not before she had hurriedly exclaimed that he was the very picture of his mother Marie Antoinette. The first joyful recognition over, and all parties being sufficiently calm to be practical, the countess produced the numerous relics which she possessed of the happy time when Louis XVI. reigned in Versailles. The duke recognised them all down to the little garments which he had worn in his babyhood. She mentioned scars which were on the body of the youthful prince, and her visitor assured her that he had similar marks which he could show in private. The countess was wild with delight, ordered him to be placed in the best bed the mansion could afford, sent for a tailor, and had him clothed as befitted his rank, and invited her royalist friends to come and pay their homage to their recovered king. They came in crowds, and to all and sundry, the pretender told the story of his escape from the Tower. They were disposed to be credulous, and the majority yielding readily to the prevalent enthusiasm, proclaimed their belief in his truth, and promised their assistance to restore him to his own again. A few were dubious, and one lukewarm Bourbonist remarked, "You were an extremely clever child, and spoke French like an angel. How is it you have so completely forgotten it?" The duke replied that thirty-seven years of absence was surely a sufficient explanation of his ignorance; but a few held a different opinion and retired, and by their withdrawal somewhat damped the general enthusiasm.

But there was a safe and certain method of arriving at the truth. The duke was taken in haste to be confronted with the seer, Martin, who was then living in the odour of sanctity at St. Arnould, near Dourdin. That fanatic no sooner beheld the stranger than he hailed him as king, and told his delighted auditory that he was the exact counterpart of the lost prince, who had been revealed to him in a vision. The question of identity was considered solved, the whole party proceeded to the church to return thanks for the revelation which had been made, and the village bells were rung to celebrate the auspicious event. The noble ladies who were attached to the pretender influenced the priests, the priests influenced the peasantry, and Martin, the clairvoyant and quack, exerted a powerful influence over all. Money was wanted, and contributions flowed in abundantly, until the so-called Duke of Normandy found his coffers filling at the rate of fifty thousand pounds a-year.

Thus suddenly enriched, he set up a magnificent establishment in Paris. His horses and carriages were among the most splendid in the Champs Elysées, his banquets were equal to those of Lucullus, his name was in every mouth, and people wondered why the government did not interpose. They were afraid, said some, to touch the sacred person of the man they knew to be king; they did not care to meddle with an obvious impostor, whose crest was a _broken_ crown, said others; but his partizans maintained that their silence was more dangerous than their open enmity, and that the crafty Louis Philippe had given orders that his rival should be assassinated. They declared that this was no mere supposition, for late on one November evening, when the duke was returning to his quarters in the Faubourg St. Germain, across the Place du Carrousel, a dastardly assassin sprang upon him and stabbed him with a dagger. Fortunately for the illustrious victim he wore a medallion of his sainted mother, Marie-Antoinette, and the metal disc caught the point of the weapon, and received the full force of the blow; but nevertheless a slight wound was inflicted, and the duke staggered home wounded and bleeding. He was too confused to report the circumstance at any of the guard-houses which he passed, but in his own mansion he showed the dint of the cowardly blade, and the cut on his flesh. It was disgraceful, cried his adherents; it was ridiculous, said his opponents; and they did not hesitate to add, that if blow there had been it was self-inflicted.

But if the calumny was intended to destroy the faith of Naündorff's partizans, it failed in its effect. Their zeal waxed hotter than ever; their contributions flowed even more freely than before into his treasury; and they conceived the idea of solacing his misfortunes by providing him with a wife. Unfortunately, there remained the long-forgotten daughter of the corporal and her progeny who were alive and well, although somewhat impoverished, at Crossen. Their existence had to be declared, and as it was not seemly that they should be longer separated from their illustrious lord and master, they were sent for, and a governess was provided for the youthful princes and princesses. It was now the turn of the lion to help the mouse. The lady who was selected for the post was the enthusiast of Berne--the same damsel who had acted as scribe to the wandering heir--the daughter of the gentleman who had been the first to penetrate the thin disguise of the illustrious stranger in the cosy parlour of the inn.

The new governess was a real acquisition to the household, and devoted herself more to politics than tuition. Once more the duke resumed his habit of letter-writing, and epistles both supplicatory and minatory were showered upon the Duchess of Angoulême and the Duchess de Berri. To the former, however, the pretender generally wrote as to a beloved sister, whose coldness and reluctance to receive him caused him the keenest pain. He offered to satisfy her as to his identity by incontrovertible proofs, and recalled one circumstance which ought to dissipate her last lingering doubts as to his truth. He reminded her that when the royal family were confined together in the Temple, his aunt the Princess Elizabeth, and his mother Marie-Antoinette, had written some lines on a paper; which paper was subsequently cut in two and given one half to "Madame Royale," and the other half to the dauphin. "When we meet," said the pretender, "I will produce the corresponding half to that which you possess. It has never been out of my possession since our fatal separation." Even this appeal failed to move the duchess, and failed simply because she had never heard of the existence of any such divided document.

But the claims even of righteous claimants are apt to become wearisome to the public, and the interest in them dies away unless it is now and again fanned into a flame. The Duke of Normandy found it so, and devised a new means of attracting attention. Although he had gone with his followers to return his grateful thanks to God at the shrine of St. Arnould, he was not a member of the Roman Catholic Church, but he discovered the error of his past ways, and was desirous to embrace the orthodox faith. Accordingly, he was openly received as a disciple and proselyte in the church of St. Roche. His conversion was followed by that of his wife and children; but it cost him a very good friend. It was hoped that the governess would have consented to change her creed with the others. But the Swiss girl was a good and conscientious Protestant, and this wholesale conversion aroused her suspicions as to the cause in which she was engaged; she reviewed the pretensions of the duke a little more judiciously than she had ever done before, and as the result of her investigations, threw up her post and returned to her father, convinced that she had been ignorantly aiding an imposture.

But if he lost a very efficient assistant, he gained many partizans who had only refrained from acknowledging him previously by a fear lest the throne should be snatched from the Catholic party. These late adherents came to pay their homage bringing gifts, and their accession to his ranks and their contributions to his purse stimulated the duke to still more ostentatious displays of regal magnificence. His court grew to an alarming size, and at last a hint was sent from the prefecture of police, that if he did not moderate his pretensions, and behave with greater circumspection, it would be necessary for him to have an interview with the judges of the Assize Court. The threat was quite sufficient. Naündorff withdrew to a quiet abode in the Rue Guillaume, and granted his interviews in a more secret manner. Indeed, from open clamour he turned to underhand plotting, and so mysterious was his conduct that his landlord requested him to betake himself elsewhere. He found a yet more retired asylum, and still more suspicious-looking friends, until the police began to suspect that a conspiracy was on foot, and favoured him with a domiciliary visit. They seized his papers and read them; but they treated him with no great severity. They hired three places in the diligence which, in 1838, travelled between Paris and Calais. The duke occupied one of these seats, and two police agents the others, and when they reached the famous little port, his attendants placed him on board the English packet, and watched her speeding towards Dover with the prisoner of the Temple as a present to the English nation.

The duke established himself at Camberwell Green, and made it his earliest care to write to the Duchess of Angoulême, soliciting her good offices on behalf of her unfortunate brother, who had been so vilely treated by the government of Louis Philippe, and had been cast out from the country over which he should have ruled. In England he devoted himself to the manufacture of fireworks and explosive shells; and while he obtained the commendation of the authorities at Woolwich for his ingeniously-contrived obuses, aroused the ire of the inhabitants of Camberwell, who could not sleep because of the continuous explosion of concussion-shells on his premises. They summoned him before the magistrates as a nuisance, and he transferred his establishment to Chelsea. Here the emissaries, or supposed emissaries, of the French king, pursued him. An attempt was made to shoot him, and he made it a pretext for leaving a country where his life was not safe, and retired to Delft, in Holland, where he died in very humble circumstances, on the 10th of August, 1844.

AUGUSTUS MEVES--_SOI-DISANT_ LOUIS XVII. OF FRANCE.

Bloomsbury has been equally honoured with Camberwell and Chelsea in providing a home for a pretended dauphin of France, and for a dauphin whose pretensions are not allowed to lapse, although he has himself sunk into the grave, but are persistently presented before the public at recurring intervals by his sons. The story which he told, and which they continue to tell, is a curious jumble of the inventions which preceded it--a sort of literary patchwork, without design or pattern, and a flimsy covering either for self-conceit or imposture.

In this case the tale is, that, about September, 1793, Tom Paine, who was then a member of the National Convention, wrote to England to a Mrs. Carpenter to bring to Paris a deaf and dumb boy for a certain purpose. Deaf and dumb boys are not easily procurable, and ladies, when entrusted with mysterious missions, have an inveterate habit of communicating them to their personal friends. Mrs. Carpenter knew a Mrs. Meves, a music teacher, and hastened to inform her of the strange instructions which she had received from France, and the pair set out to find a child to suit the requirements of Paine. They failed, and Mrs. Meves in her chagrin told her husband of their failure. That worthy, who was then resident in Bloomsbury Square, had a son, supposed to be illegitimate, living in his house. The lad had been born in 1785, was about the age required, was in delicate health, and a burden to his father, and there was no apparent reason why he should not occupy the precarious position intended for the deaf and dumb boy, at least until a mute could be found to take his place. Mr. Meves, therefore, actuated by these ideas, proceeded to France, and, as those who now bear his name assert, succeeded in procuring an interview with Marie-Antoinette in her dungeon in the Conciergerie, where he made the illustrious sufferer a vow of secrecy respecting her son, which he kept to the latest hour of his existence. And, lest there should be any doubt about this interview, it is added that many loyalists, both before and after, penetrated into the gloom of her prison-cell, and all but one contrived to evade being detected.

At the interview it was agreed that he should introduce the lad, whom he had brought, into the Temple, and should place him under the care of Simon, the shoemaker, till a good opportunity occurred to extricate Louis XVII. The arrangement was no sooner made than it was carried out. Madame Simon, who was a party to the plot, found the "good opportunity." The dauphin was removed in the convenient basket of a laundress--perhaps the same basket which had held Naündorff, and the unfortunate bastard of Mr. Meves was left in his stead. On reaching the hotel at which Mr. Meves was staying the rescued prince was respectably attired, and, having been placed in a carriage by his new guardian, was escorted by the Marquis of Bonneval as far as the coast of Normandy. It is not said whether, during the long ride, Mr. Meves felt a twinge of remorse for his heartless conduct towards the harmless and delicate child whom he had left in the clutches of Simon; but, at all events, he is represented as reaching England in safety with his new charge. The liberated king took up his abode in Bloomsbury Square, and was adopted as the son of Mr. Meves, who had better reasons for abiding by the laws of adoption than those of parentage. At this time he was only eight years and seven months old.

But Mrs. Meves was not so thoroughly satisfied with the result of her husband's mission as that astute individual was himself disposed to be; and having learnt that the boy who had passed as her son was a prisoner in the Temple Tower, hurried off to her friend Mrs. Carpenter to tell her doleful tale, and to concoct measures for his release. A renewed search was instituted for a deaf and dumb boy, and one was found--"the son of a poor woman"--and in the month of January, 1794, Mrs. Meves procured passports, and proceeded with this boy and a German gentleman to Holland to the Abbé Morlet. From Holland the Abbé, the boy, and Mrs. Meves went to Paris, "and the deaf and dumb boy was placed in certain hands to accomplish her son's liberation at the most convenient time, but at what precise date such was carried into effect remains to be ascertained."

It is, however, more than suggested that the worn-out child seen by Lasne and Gomin, who was so abnormally reticent, was the deaf and dumb boy; and there is a wild attempt to prove either that he never spoke at all, or that, if the captive under their care did speak, it must have been a fourth child who had been substituted for the mute. The whole tale is unintelligible and incoherent; assertions are freely made without an iota of proof from its beginning to its end. If we are to credit the sons of the pretender, the dauphin was educated by Mr. Meves as a musician, and knew nothing of his origin till the year 1818, when Mrs. Meves declared it to him. In the years 1830 and 1831 he addressed letters (which were not answered) to the Duchess of Angoulême, stating the circumstances in which he had been conveyed to England, but making an egregious blunder as to the date, which his sons vainly endeavour to conceal or explain. They say, also, that a very large section of the French nobility had no hesitation in admitting the royal descent of their father. Thus the Count Fontaine de Moreau expressed himself convinced that the man before him was the missing dauphin, after examining with singular interest some blood spots on his breast, resembling "a constellation of the heavens." The Count de Jauffroy not only called and wrote down his address--21 Alsopp's Terrace, New Road--but declared his opinion that the British government was perfectly aware that "at 8 Bath Place, lives the true Louis XVII." "But, sir," the count went on to say, "the danger lies in acknowledging you, as from the energy of your character you might put the whole of Europe into a state of fermentation, as you are not only King of France in right of your birth, but you are also heir to Maria Theresa, empress of Germany." His sons add that "Louis Napoleon is aware, and has been for many years, that the person called 'Augustus Meves' was the veritable Louis XVII." At the time these words were penned the Emperor of the French was alive in this country, and a _Times'_ reviewer not unreasonably said, "If, indeed, the illustrious exile of Chiselhurst be aware of so remarkable a fact, he will surely soon proclaim it, together with his reasons for being aware of it. Aspirants to the throne of France cannot touch him further; and the triumphant proof of Augustus Meves' heirship to Louis XVI. would not only confound the councils of Frohsdorff, but it would turn the grandest legitimist of Europe into little better than a usurper, if, as was said by the Count de Jauffroy, Augustus Meves must of necessity not only be the eldest son of St. Louis, but the eldest son of Rudolf of Hapsburg to boot."

Napoleon passed away, and made no sign; but the sons of Augustus Meves (who himself died in 1859) show no disposition to under-rate his pretensions. The elder, who styles himself Auguste de Bourbon, and upon whom the royal mantle is supposed to have fallen, is not indifferent to the political changes of the time, and has again and again endeavoured to thrust his claims to the French throne before the public. In a letter dated June 17, 1871, he says--"Several articles have recently appeared respecting the chances of the Comte de Chambord succeeding to power, in virtue of his right of birth as the eldest representative of legitimate monarchy. This supposition by many is admitted; nevertheless, it is a palpable hallucination, for the representative of legitimate hereditary monarchy by actual descent is directly vested in the eldest son of Louis XVII. Periodically, the Comte de Chambord issues a manifesto, basing his right for doing such as representing, by the right of hereditary succession, the head of the House of Bourbon. Whenever such appears, duty demands that I should protest against his pretensions. Great the relief would indeed be to me could the Comte de Chambord, or any historian, produce rational argument, or rather documents, to support the supposition that the son of Louis XVI. and Marie-Antoinette died in the Tower of the Temple, in June, 1795. Those who believe this with such proof as is now extant to the general public are under a hallucination. Should, however, the Comte de Chambord or the fused party base the right of succeeding to power on the principle of inheriting it by the law of legitimate succession, I, the son of Louis XVII., should demand a hearing from France, and in France's name now protest against any political combinations that have the object in view of acknowledging the Comte de Chambord as the legitimate heir to the throne of France.... I owe my origin to the French revolution of 1789; for had not Louis XVII. been delivered from his captivity in the Temple, I should have had no existence. Being, then, the offspring of the French revolution, it is compatible with reason that by restoring the heir of Louis XVII. as a constitutional king, such would be acceptable alike to revolutionists and monarchists, and so end that state of alternate violence and repression which, ever since the revolution of 1789, has characterised unhappy France." In a still later document, he says:--"The Comte de Chambord I can recognise as a nobleman, and as representing a principle acknowledged; but the House of Orleans can only be looked upon and recognised as disloyal and renegade royalty, deserving the obliquy of fallen honour, having forfeited its right to all regal honours." From his lofty perch this strange mongrel king still awaits the call of France!

RICHEMONT--_SOI-DISANT_ LOUIS XVII. OF FRANCE.

On the 30th of October, 1834, a mysterious personage was placed at the bar of the Assize Court of the Seine, on a charge of conspiring to overthrow the government of Louis Philippe, and of assuming titles which did not belong to him, for the purpose of perpetrating fraud. This individual, who is described as a little man, of aristocratic appearance, was another of the many pretenders who have from time to time assumed the character of Louis XVII., and his story was so evidently false that it would scarcely be worth mention were it not for the fate which befell him. For several years he had been prowling throughout France in various disguises, and under a multitude of names, swindling the credulous public; and from being an assumed baron, he suddenly developed himself into the dauphin of the Temple, and laid claim to the throne. Like the other impostors, he made his assumption profitable, and found a peculiarly easy victim in the Marquise de Grigny, a lady aged eighty-two years, who not only gave him all her ready-money, but would have assigned her estates to him if the law had not interposed. So successful was he in victimizing the public, that he could afford to keep a private printing-press at work, and disburse large sums to stir up disturbances in various parts of the country; and so hopeful, that he bought a plumed hat, a sword, and a gorgeous uniform, to appear before his subjects in fitting guise on the day of his restoration.

The clothes-basket of the laundress was brought into requisition for his benefit also, and in it he lay ensconced while devoted friends were carrying him away from the Temple, and from the rascally Simon, who was still in authority. Like Meves, he asserted that Madame Simon aided the plot, and in the course of his trial placed a certain M. Remusat in the witness-box, who stated that while he was in the hospital at Parma a woman called Semas complained bitterly of the treatment to which she was subjected, and declared loudly that if her children knew it they would soon come to her relief. Remusat thereupon asked her if she had any children, when she responded, "My children, sir, are the children of France! I was their _gouvernante_!" There was no mistaking the allusion, and her astonished hearer replied, "But the dauphin is dead." "Not so," was the answer; "he lives; and, if I mistake not, was removed from the Temple in a basket of linen." "Then," added the witness, "I asked the woman who she was, and she told me that she was the wife of a man called Simon, the former guardian-keeper. Then I understood her assertion, 'I was their _gouvernante_!'"

This extraordinary piece of evidence was entirely uncorroborated, and in reality the accused had no case. But if he was deficient in proof of his assertions, he had abundance of audacity. At first he declined to answer the interrogatories of the judge, and permitted that functionary to lay bare his past life, without any attempt to dispute his assertions; but when the witnesses were brought against him, he broke his silence, and finally became irrepressibly talkative. The authorities had traced his career with some care, and showed that his real name was d'Hébert, and that he always used that name in legal documents, such as transfers of property to himself, being shrewd enough to know that a conveyance would be invalid if executed in a false name. In his proclamations, however, he invariably appeared as "Charles de Bourbon, Duke of Normandy." In private life his favourite title was Baron Richemont, although sometimes he condescended to be addressed as Colonel Gustave; and when imperative occasion demanded, passed under the vulgar cognomen of Bernard.

The agents of police tracked him under all these disguises with the greatest facility, by means of a clue which he himself provided. Having been a man of method, he was in the habit of keeping a memorandum-book or diary, in which he recorded, in cypher, all his proceedings. This interesting volume fell into the hands of the detectives, who soon discovered the key to it, and thus enabled the judge of the Assize Court to present the sham dauphin with a very vivid portrait of himself drawn by his own hand. Among other occurrences which were recorded in this diary, was a visit which had been paid by the pretender to a certain Madame de Malabre, at Caen; and it was specially noted that he had granted this lady permission to erect a monument to himself in her garden, and to dedicate it to the Duke of Normandy; and, what was a very much graver matter, that he had visited Lyons with the express purpose of stirring up a revolution there. In some of his letters, also, he mentioned this attempted up-rising in the great city which rests on the twin rivers, and asserted that the denouement approached, and that his triumph was certain. "I am at Lyons," he added, "where I have seen the representatives of sixty-five departments. We shall march to Paris, and I have in the capital forces ten times greater than are necessary to oust the rascal!"

To follow all the evidence which was led against the prisoner would be very tedious, and worse than useless; but one witness appeared whose testimony is worthy of record. He was an old man, aged seventy-six, who was very deaf, and whose voice was almost gone. It was Lasné, the faithful keeper of the Temple. He said--

"Two people came to my house and asked me if the dauphin were really dead, and if he had not been carried out of the Temple; and I told them that the poor child died in my arms, and that though a thousand years were to pass his Majesty Louis XVII. would never re-appear."

Then the interrogatory proceeded:--

"Was he long ill?"

"He was ill for nine months after the establishment of the commune. Dr. Dessault prescribed several drops of a mixture which he was to take every morning, and three consecutive times the child vomited the medicine, and asked if it were not injurious. In order to reassure him, Dr. Dessault took the cup and drank some of it before him, when he said, 'Very good. You have said that I ought to take this liquid, and I will take it;' and he swallowed it. Dr. Dessault attended him for eight days, and every morning drank some of the medicine to reassure the Child. When Dessault died suddenly from an apoplectic stroke, M. Pellatan took his place and continued the same treatment. At the end of three months the poor child died resting on my left arm."

"Was it easy to approach the child?"

"No, sir; it was necessary to pass through the courts of the Temple. The applicant then knocked at a wicket. I answered the summons; and if I recognised the person I opened the wicket. Then the visitor was taken to the third floor, where the prince was."

"Did he show much intelligence?"

"Yes, sir, he was very intelligent. Every day I walked with him on the top of the Tower, holding him under the arm. He had a tumour at his knee, which gave him a great deal of pain."

"But it is said that another child was substituted for him, and that the real dauphin was smuggled out of the Tower?"

"That is a false idea. I used to be a captain of the French Gardes in the old days, and in that capacity I often saw the young dauphin. I have attended him in the Jardin des Feuillants, and I am convinced that the child who was under my care was the same. I was condemned to death; but the events of the 9th Thermidor saved my life. I was condemned, at the instigation of Saint-Just, who caused me to be arrested by eight gens d'armes. I solemnly declare that the child who died in my arms was in reality Louis XVII."

"That he was undoubtedly the same child?"

"Undoubtedly the same child, with the same features and the same figure."

More than one impostor has tripped, stumbled, and fallen over that declaration.

But notwithstanding Lasné's evidence, on the second morning of the trial a printed sheet was circulated among the audience, which is a curiosity in its way. This document, which was addressed to the jury, was signed "Charles-Louis, Duke of Normandy," and was a sort of protest in favour of Louis XVII., who pretended to have nothing in common with the sham Baron Richemont. It asserted that "the secret mover of the puppet Richemont could not be unaware the real son of the unfortunate Louis XVI. was furnished with the requisite proofs of his origin, and that he could prove by indisputable evidence his own identity with the dauphin of the Temple. It was perfectly well known that every time the royal orphan sought to make himself known to his family, a sham Louis XVII. was immediately brought forward--an impostor like the person the jury was called upon to judge--and by this manoeuvre public opinion was changed, and the voice of the real son of Louis XVI. was silenced." At the opening of the court an advocate appeared on behalf of this second pretender; but after a short discussion was refused a hearing.

As far as Richemont was concerned, all his audacity could not save him; from the beginning the evidence was dead against him; there was no difficulty in tracing his infamous career, the public prosecutor was merciless in his denunciation, and in his demand that a severe sentence should be passed upon this new disturber of the state, and Richemont's own eloquence availed him nothing. The prisoner was, however, bold enough, and in addressing the jury, said--"The public prosecutor has told you that I cannot be the son of Louis XVI. Has he told you who I am? He has been formally asked, and has kept silence. Gentlemen, you will appreciate that silence, and will also appreciate the reasons which prevent us from producing our titles. This is neither the place nor the moment. The competent tribunals will be called upon to give their decision in this matter. He tells you also that inquiries have been made everywhere; but he has not let you know the result of these inquiries. He cannot do it!... I repeat to you that if I am mistaken, I am thoroughly honest in my mistake. It has lasted for fifty years, and I fear I shall carry it with me to my tomb."

The jury were perfectly indifferent to his appeal, and found him guilty of a plot to upset the government of the king, of exciting the people to civil war, of attempting to change the order of succession to the throne, and of three minor offences in addition. The Advocate-General pressed for the heaviest penalty which the law allowed, and the judge condemned "Henri-Hebert-Ethelbert-Louis-Hector," calling himself Baron de Richemont, to twelve years' imprisonment.

Richemont listened to his sentence unmoved, and as the officers were about to take him away, said in a low voice to those near him, "The man who does not know how to suffer is unworthy of persecution!"

THE REV. ELEAZAR WILLIAMS--_SOI-DISANT_ LOUIS XVII. OF FRANCE.

America also has had her sham dauphin, in the person of an Indian missionary, whose claims have been repeatedly presented to the public both in magazine articles and in book form. His adventures, as recorded by his biographers, are quite as singular as those of his competitors for royal honours. We are told that in the year 1795, a French family, calling themselves De Jardin, or De Jourdan, arrived in Albany, direct from France. At that time French refugees were thronging to America; and in the influx of strangers this party might have escaped notice, but peculiar circumstances directed attention to them. The family consisted of a lady, a gentleman, and two children; and although the two former bore the same name, they did not seem to be man and wife, Madame de Jourdan dressed expensively and elegantly, while Monsieur de Jourdan was very plainly attired, and appeared to be the lady's servant rather than her husband. Great mystery was observed with respect to their children, who were carefully concealed from the public gaze. The eldest was a girl, and was called Louise; while the youngest, a boy of nine or ten years of age, was invariably addressed as Monsieur Louis. He was very rarely seen, even by the few ladies and children who were admitted into a sort of semi-friendship by the new-comers, and when he did appear seemed to be dull, and paid no attention to the persons present or the conversation. Madame de Jardin, who had in her possession many relics of Louis XVI. and Marie-Antoinette, made no secret that she had been a maid of honour to the queen, and was separated from her on the terrace of the Tuileries, prior to her imprisonment in the Temple. She had not yet recovered from the dreadful events of the revolution, and had a theatrical habit of relieving her highly-strung feelings by rushing to the harpsichord, wildly playing the Marseillaise, and then bursting into tears. Those who had free admittance into the family of the De Jourdans had no difficulty in tracing a resemblance between the children and the portraits of the royal family of France; but delicacy forbade questions, and even the most confident could only surmise that this retired maid of honour had escaped from her native land in charge of the children of the Temple. After remaining for a short time in Albany, without any apparent purpose, the De Jardins sold most of their effects, and disappeared as mysteriously as they had come.

Later in the same year (1795) two Frenchmen, one of them having the appearance of a Romish priest, arrived at the Indian settlement of Ticonderoga, in the vicinity of Lake George, bringing with them a sickly boy, in a state of mental imbecility, whom they left with the Indians. The child is said to have been adopted by an Iroquis chief, called Thomas Williams, _alias_ Tehorakwaneken, whose wife was Konwatewenteta, and although no proof is offered that he was the boy called Monsieur Louis by Madame de Jardin, and still less that he was the dauphin of France, it is said by those who support his pretensions, that whoever considers the coincidences of circumstance, time and place, age, mental condition and bodily resemblance, must admit, apart from all other testimony, that it is highly probable that he was both the sham De Jardin and the real dauphin.

Thomas Williams, the Iroquis chief, who had some English blood in his veins, lived in a small log-house on the shores of Lake George. His unpretending dwelling was about twenty feet square, perhaps a little larger, roofed with bark, leaving an opening in the centre to give egress to the smoke from the fire which blazed beneath it on the floor, in the middle of the ample apartment. Around this fire were ranged the beds of the family, composed of hemlock boughs, covered with the skins of animals slaughtered in the chase. The fare of the family was as simple as their dwelling-place. From cross-sticks over the fire hung a huge kettle, in which the squaw made soup of pounded corn flavoured with venison. They purchased their salt and spirits at Fort-Edward; and the stream supplied them with fish, the woods and mountains with game. Such was the early upbringing of the missionary king.

The boy was known as Lazar or Eleazar Williams; his reputed father, the chief, invariably acknowledged him and addressed him as his own son; and the lad himself could tell but little of his earlier years. He had hazy recollections of soldiers and a gorgeous palace, and a beautiful lady on whose lap he used to recline; but when he tried to think closely and recall the past, his mind became confused, and painted chiefs, shady wigwams, and the homely face of the chieftain's squaw, obtruded themselves, and blurred the glorious scenes amid which he faintly remembered to have lived.

But circumstances sometimes occurred which made a deep impression even on his weak mind. Thus, when the youthful Eleazar was one day sporting on the lake near Fort-William, in a little wooden canoe, with several other boys, two strange gentlemen came up to the encampment of Thomas Williams, and took their seats with him upon a log at a little distance from the wigwam. With natural curiosity at a circumstance which broke in upon the usual monotony of Indian life, the boys paddled their canoe ashore, and strolled up to the encampment to ascertain who the strangers were, when Thomas Williams called out, "Lazar, this friend of yours wishes to speak to you." As he approached one of the gentlemen rose and went off to another Indian encampment. The one who remained with the chief had every indication in dress, manners, and language of being a Frenchman. When Eleazar came near, this gentleman advanced several steps to meet him, embraced him most tenderly, and when he sat down again on the log made him stand between his legs. In the meantime he shed abundance of tears, said "Pauvre garçon!" and continued to embrace him. The chief was soon afterwards called to a neighbouring wigwam, and Eleazar and the Frenchman were left alone. The latter continued to kiss him and weep, and spoke a good deal, seeming anxious that he should understand him, which he was unable to do. When Thomas Williams returned to them he asked Eleazar whether he knew what the gentleman had said to him, and he replied, "No." They both left him, and walked off in the direction in which the other gentleman had gone. The two gentlemen came again the next day, and the Frenchman remained several hours. The chief took him out in a canoe on the lake; and the last which Eleazar remembered was them all sitting together on a log, when the Frenchman took hold of his bare feet and dusty legs, and examined his knees and ankles closely. Again the Frenchman shed tears, but young Eleazar was quite indifferent, not knowing what to make of it. Before the gentleman left he gave him a piece of gold.

A few evenings later, when the younger members of the household were in bed, and were supposed to be asleep, Eleazar, who was lying broad awake, overheard a conversation between the Indian chief and his squaw which interested him mightily. The chief was urging compliance with a request which had been made to them to allow two of their children to go away for education; but his wife objected on religious grounds. When he persisted in his demand she said, "If you will do it you may send away this strange boy. Means have been put into your hands for his education; but John I cannot part with." Her willingness to sacrifice him, and the whole tone of the conversation, excited suspicions in the mind of the listener as to his parentage, but they soon passed away. Mrs. Williams at last agreed that John, one of her own children, and Lazar, according to this story, her adopted child, should be sent to Long Meadow, a village in Massachusetts, to be brought up under the care of a deacon called Nathaniel Ely. It is said that when the supposed brothers entered the village, dressed in their Indian costume, the entire dissimilarity in their appearance at once excited attention, and they became the subjects of general conversation among the villagers. At Long Meadow the lads remained for several years, and are represented as having made "remarkably good proficiency in school learning," as exhibiting strong proofs of virtuous and pious dispositions, and as "likely to make useful missionaries among the heathen." This encomium seems, however, to have been much more applicable to Eleazar than his companion; for, after the most persistent attempts, it was found impossible to cultivate the mind of John, whose passion for savage life was irrepressible, and who returned home to live and die among the Indians. With Eleazar it was different, and his biographer proudly records that he was called familiarly "the plausible boy."

He was as versatile as he was plausible, and in the course of his long life played many parts besides that of Louis XVII. When he had forgotten the early lessons of the wigwam, and had acquired the learning and religious enthusiasm of the New Englanders, he became a sort of wandering gospel-preacher among the Indians; but the work was little suited to him, and he found far more congenial employment when the war broke out between England and America, as superintendent-general of the Northern Indian Department on the United States side. In this office "he had under his command the whole secret corps of rangers and scouts of the army, who spread themselves everywhere, and freely entered in and out of the enemy's camp." In other words, he was a sort of chief spy; and if he had been caught in the British lines would have had a very short shrift, notwithstanding his sanctimonious utterances, and the peculiarly sensitive conscience of which he made a perpetual boast. About the same time he was declared a chief of the Iroquis nation, under the name of Onwarenhiiaki, or the tree cutter--a compliment little likely to have been paid to an unknown man, but which would not unreasonably be bestowed upon the son of a famous chief. Having received a severe wound he was nursed back into life by his reputed father, and on his complete recovery expressed his contrition for his backsliding, and his horror of the bloodthirsty trade of war, and returned to the peaceful work of attempting to teach and convert his dusky Indian brethren. He deserted the Congregationalists with whom he had previously been connected, and joined the Protestant Episcopal Church, by which he was ordained, and to which he remained faithful during the later years of his life.

By this time he was convinced that he was no Indian, and believed that he was the son of some noble Frenchman, but he scarcely ventured to think that he was a pure Bourbon; although dim suspicions of his royal descent sometimes haunted him, although friends assured him that his likeness to the French king was so strong that his origin was beyond question, and although he had certain marks on his body which corresponded with those said to exist on the person of the dauphin. But as he got older, the evidence in favour of his illustrious parentage seemed to grow stronger; if he was questioned on the subject he was too truthful to deny what he thought, and the knowledge of his name and the number of those who believed in him rapidly increased. At last, according to his own story, an event occurred which placed the matter beyond all doubt.