Maturin Bruneau, the next pretender to the honours of the deceased son
of Louis XVI., was quite as great a rascal as Hervagault, but he
lacked his cleverness. Bruneau was the son of a maker of wooden shoes,
who resided at the little village of Vezin, in the department of the
Maine and Loire. He was born in 1784, and having been early left an
orphan, was adopted by a married sister, who kept him until she
discovered that he was incorrigibly vicious, and was compelled to turn
him into the streets to earn his livelihood in the best way he could.
Although Maturin was only eleven years old at the time, he found no
difficulty in providing for himself. He strayed a little distance from
home, into regions where he was personally unknown, and there accosted
a farmer whom he met, asking him for alms, and stating at the same
time that he was a little "De Vezin." The farmer's curiosity was
excited, for the Baron de Vezin was a well-known nobleman, who had
suffered sorely in the civil war of 1795, whose chateau had been
burnt, and whose estates had been devastated by the republican
soldiery; and that his son should be compelled to beg was more than
the honest agriculturist could bear. So he took the little waif home
with him, and kept him until the Viscountess de Turpin de Crissé heard
of his whereabouts, and carried him off to her own chateau at Angrie.
In her mansion Maturin Bruneau was treated as an adopted son, and
lived in great splendour until, in 1796, a letter arrived from Charles
de Vezin, the brother of the baron, who had just returned to France,
and who informed the viscountess that she had been imposed upon, for
the only nephew he ever possessed was at that time an emigrant refugee
in England. The result was that Bruneau was thrust out of doors, and,
sent back to his native village and the manufacture of wooden shoes.
The jibes of his fellow-villagers, however, rendered his life so
miserable that the viscountess consented to receive him as a servant,
and he remained with her for a year; but his conduct was so unbearable
that she was at last compelled to dismiss him.
After a brief sojourn with his relatives he announced his intention of
making the tour of France, and left his home for that purpose at the
age of fifteen. He seems, in the course of his wanderings, to have
fought in the Chouan insurrection in 1799 and 1800, and having been
press-ganged, deserted from his ship in an American port, and roamed
up and down in the United States for some years. When the news of
Napoleon's downfall reached that country in 1815, he returned to
France, arriving with a passport which bore the name of Charles de
Navarre. He reached the village of Vallebasseir in great destitution,
and there, having been mistaken for a young soldier named Phillipeaux,
who was supposed to have perished in the war in Spain, he picked up
all available intelligence respecting the family, and forthwith
presented himself at the house of the Widow Phillipeaux as her son. He
was received with every demonstration of affection, and made the worst
possible use of his advantages. After spending all the ready money
which the poor woman had, he proceeded to Vezin, where he was
recognised by his family, although he pretended to be a stranger.
Thence he repaired to Pont de Cé, where lived a certain Sieur Leclerc,
an innkeeper, who had formerly been a cook in the household of Louis
XVI. To this man he paid a visit, and demanded if he recognised him.
The innkeeper said he did not, whereupon he remarked on the
strangeness of being forgotten, seeing, said he, "that I am Louis
XVII., and that you have often pulled my ears in the kitchen of
Versailles."
Leclerc, whose recollections of the dauphin were of quite a different
character, ordered him out of his house as an impostor. But it does
not fall to everybody to be familiar with the ways of a court, or even
of a royal kitchen, and a few persons were found at St. Malo who
credited his assertion that he was the Prince of France. The
government, already warned by the temporary success of Hervagault's
imposture, immediately pounced upon him, and submitted him to
examination. His story was found to be a confused tissue of
falsehoods; and after being repeatedly interrogated, and attempting to
escape, and to forward letters surreptitiously to his "uncle," Louis
XVIII., he was removed to the prison of Rouen as the son of the Widow
Phillipeaux, calling himself Charles de Navarre. When he entered the
jail he was the possessor of a solitary five franc piece, which he
spent in wine and tobacco, and he then took to the manufacture of
wooden shoes for the other prisoners in order to obtain more. As he
worked he told his story, and his fellow jail-birds were never tired
of listening to his romance. Visitors also heard his tale, and yielded
credence to it, and it was not long before everybody in Rouen knew
that there was a captive in the town who claimed to be the son of the
murdered king.
Among other persons of education and respectability who listened and
believed was a Madame Dumont, the wife of a wealthy merchant. This
lady became an ardent partizan of the pretender, and not only visited
him, but spent her husband's gold lavishly to solace him in his
captivity. She supplied him with the richest food and the rarest
wines that money could buy. A Madame Jacquières, who resided at Gros
Caillon, near Paris, who was greatly devoted to the Bourbon family,
also came under the influence of Bruneau's agents, and finally fell a
victim to his rascality. This good lady was an ardent Catholic, and
having some lingering doubt as to the honesty of the prisoner of
Rouen, in order to its perfect solution she visited many shrines, said
many prayers, and personally repaired to the old city in which he was
confined, where she caused a nine days' course of prayer to be said to
discover if the captive were really the person he pretended to be.
This last expedient answered admirably. The Abbé Matouillet, who
celebrated the required number of masses before the shrine of the
Virgin, was himself a firm believer in Bruneau, and he had no
hesitation in assuring the petitioner that loyalty and liberality
towards the prince would be no bad investment either in this world or
the next. The Abbé then led his credulous victim into the august
presence of the clogmaker, and the poor dupe prostrated herself before
him in semi-adoration. Nor would she leave the presence until his
Majesty condescended to accept a humble gift of a valuable gold watch
and two costly rings. His Majesty was graciously pleased to accede to
the request of his loyal subject.
Bruneau could neither read nor write, and perhaps it was as well for
himself that his education had been thus neglected, for if he had been
left to his own devices his imposture would have been very
short-lived. But he contrived to attach two clever rascals to himself,
who helped to prolong the fraud and to victimise the public. They were
both convicts, but convicts of a high intellectual type. One was
Larcher, a revolutionary priest, and a man of detestable life; while
the other was a forger named Tourly. These worthies acted as his
secretaries. On the 3d of March 1816, the priest wrote a letter to
"Madame de France" in these terms:--
"MY SISTER,--You are doubtless not ignorant of my being held in the
saddest captivity, and reduced to a condition of appalling misery. So
may I beg of you, if you should think me worthy of your especial
consideration, to visit me here in my imprisonment. Even should you
for an instant suspect me of being an impostor, still may I claim
consideration for the sake of your brother. The scandal and judgment
of which our family is daily the object throughout the entire kingdom
may well make you shudder. I am myself sunk in despair at the thought
of being so near the capital without being permitted to publicly
appear in it. If you determine upon coming down here you would do well
to preserve an incognito. In the meantime receive the embraces of your
unfortunate brother, THE KING OF FRANCE AND NAVARRE."
This precious epistle Madame Jacquières undertook not only to forward
to the Duchess d'Angoulême, but also promised to procure the honour of
a private interview for the bearer of the missive.
Larcher and Tourly must have been kept very busy, for the pretended
dauphin was never tired of sending appeals for assistance to the
foreign powers, of addressing proclamations to the people, and even
went so far as formally to petition the parliament that he might be
taken to Paris, in order there to establish his identity as the son of
Louis XVI. The whole of the papers issued from the prison, and they
were enormous in quantity, were signed by his secretaries with his
name.
About the same time considerable interest was excited by a trashy
novel, called the "Cemetery of the Madeleine," which pretended to give
a circumstantial account of the life of the dauphin in the Temple. Out
of this book the secretaries and their employer proceeded to construct
"The Historical Memoirs of Charles of Navarre;" but after they had
finished their work, they found that it was so ridiculously absurd
that there was no probability that it would deceive the public for a
moment. They accordingly handed the manuscript over to a more skilful
rogue with whom they were acquainted, and this man, who was called
Branzon, transformed their clumsy narrative into a well-written and
plausible history. He did more, and "coached" the pretender in all
the petty circumstances which he could find out respecting the Bourbon
family. Manuscript copies of the "Memoirs" were assiduously
distributed in influential quarters in Rouen, and particularly among
the officers of the third regiment of the royal guard, then quartered
in the town. A copy fell into the hands of a Vendéan officer named De
la Pomelière, who recollected the story of the pretended son of Baron
de Vezins, and half-suspected a similar imposture in this instance.
With some difficulty he procured admission to the royal presence, and
induced the sham dauphin to speak of La Vendée. During the
conversation he remarked, that when the chateau of Angrie, the
residence of the Viscountess de Turpin, was mentioned, the pretender
slightly changed colour and became embarrassed. The acknowledgment
that he was acquainted with the mansion, and the accurate description
which he gave of it, gave the first clue whereby proof was obtained of
his identity with Maturin Bruneau.
But although M. de la Pomelière, from his previous knowledge, had a
hazy idea of the truth, the uninformed public continued devoted to the
cause of the pretender; and the convict secretaries, if they failed to
stir up the educated classes, at least succeeded in entrapping the
ignorant. The prison cell of Bruneau was converted into a scene of
uninterrupted revelling. Persons of all classes sent their gifts--the
ladies supplying unlimited creature comforts for their king, while
their husbands strove to compensate for their incapacity to
manufacture dainties by filling the purse of the pretender. Nothing
was forgotten: fine clothes and fine furniture were supplied in
abundance; and the adoring public were so anxious to consider the
comfort of the illustrious prisoner, that they even subscribed to
purchase a breakfast service of Sevrès, so that the heir to the throne
might drink his chocolate out of a porcelain cup.
Meantime Madame Jacquières had not been idle, and was ready to fulfil
her promise to send a messenger to the Duchess d'Angoulême. Her chosen
emissary was a Norman gentleman named Jacques Charles de Foulques, an
ardent Bourbonist and a lieutenant-colonel in the army. This officer
was both brave and suave, and seemed in every respect a fitting person
to act as an ambassador to the Tuileries. He was deeply religious,
very conscientious, and extremely simple. His mental capacity had been
accurately gauged by Bruneau and his associates, and care was taken to
excite his religious enthusiasm. The Abbé Matouillet plainly told him
that Heaven smiled upon the cause, and introduced him to the prince,
who administered the oath of allegiance, which the credulous Norman is
said to have signed with the seal of his lips on a volume that looked
like a book of _gaillard_ songs, but which the simple soldier mistook
for the Gospels. After several audiences, his mission was pointed out,
and Colonel de Foulques, without hesitation, agreed to proceed to
Paris, and there to place in the hands of the daughter of Louis XVI. a
copy of the "Memoirs of Charles of Navarre," and a letter from her
reputed brother.
The latter document was produced in the court at Rouen when Bruneau
was afterwards placed at the bar, and is a very curious production. In
it the maker of clogs thus addresses "Madame Royale:"--
"I am aware, my dear sister, a secret presentiment has long possessed
you that the finger of God was about to point out to you your brother,
that innocent partaker of your sorrows, the one alone worthy to repair
them, as he was fated to share them.
"I know, also, that you were surrounded by snares, and that they who
extend them for you are men of wicked ways. They believe they have
destroyed the germs of some virtues, as they succeeded in arresting
the progress of my education; but there remain to me uprightness of
principle, courage, a tendency to good, and the desire of preserving
the glory of my nation. Louis XIV. could boast of no more.
"I know that I have been pictured to you as one who has forgotten his
dignity, and who is the slave of a love for wine. Alas! that beverage
that was forced upon me in my tenderest youth, by the ferocious
Simon, has served to fortify my constitution in the course of a most
painful life, even as it did that of the great Henry IV.; and, if I
have been addicted to the use of it in this place, it was for my
health's sake, to preserve which a more refined method would not have
so well suited me.
"The use of tobacco was recommended to me in 1797, at Baltimore, also
on account of my health. I have profited by it. It has occasionally
served to dissipate my sense of weariness, and the thin vapour has
often caused me to forget that life might be breathed away from my
lips almost as readily.
"I have wished, my dear sister, to speak to you as a brother. Whatever
may be the force of a custom preserved during nineteen years, I shall
know how, in sharing the fatigues of my troops, to deprive myself of
what is a pastime to them. Other occupations will but too easily
absorb me entirely. Cease to see by any other vision than your own.
Trust to the evidence of your own senses, and no other. I have
learned, through a long series of misfortunes, how to be a man, and to
be upon my guard against my fellowmen. Truth is not apt to penetrate
under golden fringes. It is, however, my divinity; and henceforward,
my sister, it will dwell with us. I grant the right of having it told
to me. It will never offend a monarch who, having contracted the habit
of bearing it, will have the courage to heed it for the benefit of his
people.
"I dispersed the last calumny which perversity has aimed at me, when
it declared that your brother was still in the United States. No; I
had long left it when my evil destiny conducted me from Brazil (as you
will see in my "Memoirs") to France, which is anything for me but the
promised land. Heaven, to whom my eyes and hopes were ever raised,
will not fail to have in its keeping certain witnesses to my
existence. There is one to whom I presented, in 1801, at Philadelphia,
three gold doubloons, a note of twenty dollars, three shirts, a coat,
a _levite_, and two pairs of old boots. This witness, whom chance has
again brought me acquainted with here, is a certain Chaufford, son of
a baker of Rouen, well known to the keeper of the prison, and who was
on board the French fleet which sailed from Brest. This witness (of
whom I have spoken in my "Memoirs") deserted from the fleet. My
servant François meeting him in Marc Street, brought him to me. I was
then suffering in consequence of a fall from my horse, and was obliged
to go about on crutches; and it was from me that he received every
species of assistance, and it is by me that he has been reminded of it
within the walls of this odious prison, where he least of all expected
again to meet with his illustrious benefactor.
"I conclude, my dear sister, certifying to you, by my ambassador, the
nature of my ulterior projects. He will hear of your final resolution,
and will at once return to me, after assuring you that the superior
rank to which destiny calls me is only coveted by me for the sake of
my people, and in order to share with you the grateful attachment,
which will always be for me the sweetest reward. It is the heart of
your king and brother that has never ceased to hold you dear. _He_
presses you to that heart which the most cruel misery has not been
able to render cold towards you."
Armed with this extraordinary document, Lieutenant-Colonel de Foulques
set out for Paris, honoured by his mission, and convinced that he had
only to present himself at the Tuileries to obtain easy access to the
duchess, and only to gain her ear to insure her co-operation in the
sacred task of placing her long-lost and ill-treated brother on the
throne of France. Of course, there were certain forms which must be
complied with, but the result was, to his mind, certain. He first
opened negotiations with M. de Mortmaur, and delivered the despatches
to his care. To his surprise they were treated with the utmost
indifference, not to say rudeness; and the Norman was still more
disgusted when told that no audience would be granted. From M. de
Mortmaur he repaired to the Duchess of Serent, and, in a letter,
craved her influence to procure for him the desired interview with
"Madame Royale." The reply was prompt and unmistakable: If he did not
leave the capital within eight days, he would be thrown into jail.
The colonel did not wait for a week; but in an angry mood returned at
once to those who sent him, cursing the government in his heart,
stigmatizing "Madame Royale" as an unnatural sister, and considering
the king no better than other royal uncles who had occupied thrones
which belonged to their imprisoned nephews. The news of his
discomfiture did not disconcert or dishearten the plotters, and,
although their first attempt to approach the daughter of Louis XVI.
had resulted in failure, they resolved to make another attempt. Madame
de Jacquières, in particular, was very hopeful, and, with a wisdom and
modesty which did her credit, discovered that there would have been
great indelicacy in the Duchess of Angoulême granting a private
interview to a man. A female messenger ought to have been sent; and
she soon found one to repair the first blunder.
Madame Morin, who superseded De Foulkes, was a lady of great
accomplishments and considerable intelligence. The documents which the
unsuccessful ambassador had carried with him were entrusted to the new
emissary; and, in addition, she carried with her a portrait of Charles
of Navarre, who was represented in the brilliant uniform of a general
officer of dragoons. But Madame Morin was as ill-fated as her
predecessor had been, and all her efforts to force her way into the
presence of the duchess were fruitless. The police also frightened her
as they had terrified De Foulkes, and paid a visit to her residence.
They did not make a thorough search, but gave her to understand that
if any further attempts were made to annoy the duchess they would
institute a strict perquisition--a threat which had so great an effect
upon the ambassadress that she immediately burnt her copy of the
"Memoirs," her credentials, and even the portrait of her illustrious
master and prince, and returned to the power from which she was
accredited, shamefacedly to confess that she had been equally
unfortunate with the gallant Norman colonel.
It was evident that the hard heart of the duchess could not easily be
moved, and it was necessary to have recourse to other tactics. At this
time misery and famine were prevalent in the land, and many persons
were discontented with the rule of Louis XVIII., who was in extremely
ill health. The Abbé Matouillet saw his opportunity, and taking
advantage of the prevalent disaffection, issued a proclamation
intimating that if the people of France would place their captive king
upon the throne now occupied by a dying usurper, the liberated and
grateful sovereign would, in return, immediately fix the price of
bread at three sous per pound. Meantime, the generous offerer was
regaling himself on the fat of the land, and holding his petty court
within the walls of Rouen jail. But this last move led to energetic
action on the part of the authorities. The attempted rising was
crushed, the careless jailers were dismissed, the prisoner was placed
in solitary and comfortless confinement, and the keeper of the seals
commenced serious proceedings in order to bring him to trial.
The chief object to be accomplished was to prove his birth, for there
were many who jumped to the conclusion that he must be the son of
Louis XVI., since he was not the son of the Widow Phillipeaux. Seeing
that his time had come, and that the government was determined to
punish him with severity, Bruneau became alarmed, and offered his new
jailers ten thousand francs to set him at liberty. The offer was
refused and reported, the prisoner was more narrowly guarded, and his
preliminary examinations were hastened. The stories which he told were
so absurd and so wildly contradictory, as to leave no doubt of the
hollowness of his pretensions; but still the difficulty remained of
proving who he really was.
When affairs were in this stage the Viscountess Turpin, Bruneau's
first benefactress, arrived in Rouen. M. de Pomelière, the officer of
the king's guard who had suspected him from the first, had
communicated his suspicions to the viscountess, and she had come to
see him, and, if she could, to expose him. When Bruneau was confronted
with his former patroness, he at once admitted that he had enjoyed
the lady's hospitality, but declared that that fact did not render him
the less the Dauphin of France. The viscountess reproached him, and
endeavoured to ashame him; but the impudent and ungrateful scamp
turned to her with an air of mock majesty and exclaimed, "Madame, I
accept counsel from no one. I give it as I do commands. I am a
sovereign!" The members of his family were next brought from Vezin to
identify him, and had no hesitation in doing so. He denied ever having
seen them before, but frequently betrayed himself by addressing them
by their pet household names, and by contradicting them with regard to
trivial occurrences. The imposture was plain; and Bruneau, his
forger-secretary Tourly, Branzon the author of the "Memoirs," the Abbé
Matouillet, and Madame Dumont, were committed for trial as swindlers,
as the government did not deem them of sufficient importance to charge
them with high treason.
The Abbé contrived to effect his escape from the jail, but the others
were placed in the dock, Bruneau was received with some faint cries of
"Vive Louis XVII.!" but the scamp knew that his game was played out,
and did not care to conceal his knowledge of the fact. He had made no
effort to make himself presentable; but appeared in court ill-dressed,
unshaven, and wearing a cotton night-cap on his head. It was with
difficulty that he could be compelled to respect the forms of the
court, or to preserve ordinary decency. He interrupted the opening
speech of the government prosecutor by noisy ejaculations, oaths,
filthy expletives, and immodest and insulting gestures, and when
rebuked by the judges showered down upon them all the abusive and
abominable epithets of his extensive vocabulary.
The trial lasted for ten days, and the career of Bruneau was clearly
traced from his very childhood. As revelation after revelation was
made, and the history of crime after crime was disclosed, his
interruptions became more and more frequent and violent, until his
very accomplices shrank from him in horror, protesting that it he had
presented himself to them in the same guise when he first proclaimed
his pretensions, they would not have been seduced by him. Their
advocates pleaded on their behalf that they were dupes and not
confederates, and the plea served to exculpate the Abbé, Madame
Dumont, and Tourly. The impostor himself was condemned to five years'
imprisonment, three thousand francs fine, and a further imprisonment
of two years for his offences against the dignity of justice and the
public morality committed in open court. He was further condemned to
remain at the after-disposal of the government, and to pay
three-fourths of the expenses of the trial. Branzon, his literary
friend, was sentenced to two years' imprisonment, and to pay a fourth
of the expenses. When that part of the sentence was pronounced, which
referred to the cost of the proceedings, Bruneau burst into an
insulting laugh, and informed the judges that he would take care to
defray the heavy responsibility laid upon him as soon as he was able.
But, as the saying is, he laughed without his host. The subscriptions
of his dupes were lying at the Bank of France, were confiscated by the
state, and, amply served to pay the pecuniary penalty. After his
imprisonment had expired Bruneau disappeared from public view.