1793-1859.
Had not these pages already proved to what an extent human credulity
could go, it would be almost useless to offer the following most
extraordinary details as matters of fact. That a dead person might be
personated by a living being is quite within the range of probability,
but that thirty or more totally different individuals should in this
nineteenth century not only deem it, but prove it, possible to dupe
numbers of people into believing that they were a prince whose decease
had been publicly certified and most zealously investigated into,
scarcely seems to come within the range of the possible. In order to
better comprehend the various marvellous stories detailed by the
impostors about to be referred to, the true story of the little
dauphin, styled by the French royalists Louis the Seventeenth, should
be told.
On the 27th March, 1785, Louis Charles, the second son of Louis the
Sixteenth of France, was born at the Chateau de Versailles. The birth
of this second son caused great rejoicings in the royal circle, where
his earliest years were environed with all the care and adulation
bestowed upon princes. His father created the child Duke of Normandy,
whilst the death of his elder brother in 1789 brought him next in
succession to the throne, raised him to the rank of dauphin, and, if
possible, made him a greater idol than before in the eyes of the Court.
At four years of age he is described as of slight but well-shaped
figure, with a broad, open forehead, finely-arched eyebrows, and large
blue eyes; his complexion was fair, and his hair, of a dark chestnut
colour, curled naturally, and fell in ringlets over his shoulders.
Amid the gaieties of the French Court at Versailles doubtless the
little lad's mental faculties were rapidly developed, although it would
be idle to place any credence in the authenticity of the sage replies
and clever repartees ascribed to him by some Court writers. But his
happy childish life was of short duration: the starving and infuriated
populace of Paris, driven from one misery to another, deemed if they
could only bring the king to the metropolis means would be discovered
for overcoming their distress. Under the influence of this
infatuation, an enormous crowd, chiefly composed of women, marched from
Paris, invaded the regal precincts of Versailles, and deputed a few of
their number to see the king. Louis the Sixteenth received the
deputation with great kindness, but the power of royal words was over,
and the following day he was compelled to return to the capital,
accompanied by the Queen and the dauphin. The people, in their
destitute condition, could only think of bread, and believing the king
could command possession of it, familiarly styled him "The Baker," so
that now, seeing the royal family's return, they shouted joyously, "No
more poverty; we are bringing back the baker and his wife, and the
little shopboy." The poor child so designated could not find anything
better to say of the Tuileries, as they entered that place, than,
"Everything is very ugly here." His mother endeavoured to console the
prince for that by reminding him Louis the Fourteenth had lived there.
It is needless to recapitulate the well-known story of the precarious
state to which the royal family were speedily reduced in Paris, and how
they made secret preparations for leaving the capital in disguise. On
the 20th of June, 1791, the attempted flight was commenced, the
dauphin, who had been dressed as a girl, deeming he was being attired
to play in a comedy. The flight was, indeed, carried out, but the
royal party got no further than Varennes, where they were discovered,
and after being allowed to spend the night there were carried back to
Paris (although it was wonderful that they reached it alive), and five
days after their departure were again installed in the Tuileries. From
that time until the 13th of August, 1792, when the royal family were
imprisoned in the Temple, the whole of its members had been under close
surveillance, and had no fresh opportunity of escaping from the
capital. From the date of their incarceration in the Temple their doom
was sealed, and nothing but death released any one save the Princess
Marie Theresa from captivity. After a while the king was separated
from his family, and placed in a portion of the prison called the Great
Tower, and there also the dauphin was placed, with his father, until
the trial and execution of the latter, when he was returned to his
mother's care. On the 3rd of July, 1793, a most terrible trial awaited
the hapless boy: on that day, in accordance with a decree of the
"Committee of Public Safety," he was removed from the custody of his
mother, and consigned to the charge of Simon, formerly a cobbler, but
now appointed guardian to the dauphin at a salary of twenty pounds a
month, conditionally upon his never leaving his youthful prisoner, and
never, upon any pretence, leaving the tower where the child was
confined.
The fearful and miserable life which the poor boy endured whilst in
charge of the brutal Simon, and his scarcely less brutal wife, is so
well known that the saddening details need not be repeated; suffice to
recall the fact that by hard work, strong drinks, close confinement,
improper food, and even blows, the unfortunate child was brought to the
brink of the grave. M. de Beauchesne, to whom the world is chiefly
indebted for the harrowing story of Louis the Seventeenth's wretched
fate, has, it is to be hoped, overdrawn the terrible picture; but,
after making every allowance for royalist exaggeration, enough of
horror remains to excite the pity of the hardest hearted. Brutal and
debasing as was Simon's regimen, it was not rapid enough in its process
to satisfy "the Committee of Public Safety;" they, therefore, dismissed
him from his post, and made different arrangements. For the future the
poor innocent little victim was confined in one room, into which his
coarse food was passed through a wicket, and from which he was never
permitted to emerge either for exercise or fresh air. "He had a room
to walk in, and a bed to lie upon; he had bread and water, and linen,
and clothes, but he had neither fire nor candle." For months this
system of solitary confinement was endured by the child, who, reduced
to a state of helpless stupidity, no longer attempted to change his
linen, or cleanse himself, and was allowed to drift into a condition of
utter imbecility. Ultimately an improvement was effected in the little
captive's condition, and under the better treatment accorded him he
rallied for some time; but the cruelty he had endured had been too
certain in its operation to allow of any permanent restoration to
health. In the month of May, 1795, his jailers reported to the
Government that "little Capet was dangerously ill." A physician was
sent to attend on the child, but his prescriptions were no longer of
any use. On the 8th of June he told one of his keepers, "I have
something to tell you!" but the man waited in vain for the revelation,
for whilst he listened the poor child's life had passed away.
When the dauphin died he was ten years and two months old. The members
of the Committee of Public Safety having concluded their day's sitting
when the news was brought, it was deemed advisable to conceal the event
until the morrow. Supper was prepared for the child as usual, and
Gomin, his attendant, took it up to the room. Many years afterwards
this man stated that when he entered the apartment he went to the bed
and gazed upon the corpse of the little dauphin. "His eyes, which
while suffering had half-closed," he relates, "were now open, and shone
as pure as the blue heaven, and his beautiful fair hair, which had not
been cut for two months, fell like a frame round his face." The next
morning four medical men came to examine the body, and make their
report, which they did in somewhat ambiguous terms, stating that at the
Temple on a bed in a room of the second floor of the Tower they had
seen "the dead body of a child, apparently about ten years old, which
the commissaries declared to be that of the late Louis Capet's son, and
which two of our number recognized as that of the child they had been
attending for several days." About twenty soldiers, however, who are
stated to have known the "little Capet" by sight when at the Tuileries,
were also admitted, at their own request, to view the body of the
child, and signed an attestation to the effect that they recognized it.
The body was finally put into a coffin, and on the 10th of June, 1795,
was taken to the cemetery of Sainte Marguerite, by the Rue St. Bernard,
and buried in an unknown spot, which to this day no one has been
enabled to find out.