The story of this impostor has been a favourite theme with American
magazines, some of which, indeed, have sought to throw an air of
probability about his pretensions. And, indeed, ridiculous as this
pretender's tale may seem, it would be dangerous to aver that it is
more absurd than those told by some of his rival claimants to the rank
and name of "Louis the Seventeenth." During the years 1853 and 1854, a
series of papers on the claims of the Rev. Eleazar Williams to be
considered as the deceased dauphin were published in _Putnam's
Magazine_, and in the latter year the Rev. J. H. Hanson published a
work entitled "The Lost Prince," purporting to contain "Facts tending
to prove the identity of Louis the Seventeenth of France and the Rev.
Eleazar Williams, Missionary to the Indians."
In order to account for the strangeness of the story told, the
biographer carries his records back to 1795, when a family styling
themselves De Jardin are said to have arrived in Albany from France.
The family consisted of a Madame de Jardin, who appeared to be a
personage of some distinction, and a man who passed as this lady's
husband, but really appeared to be her servant, from the deferential
manner in which he treated her; and two children, a boy and a girl.
There appeared to be a considerable amount of mystery connected with
these children, or at all events with the boy, who was about ten years
of age, was always alluded to as "Monsieur Louis," and in whom visitors
had no difficulty in discovering a resemblance to portraits of the
French royal family. Madame de Jardin acknowledged that she had been
maid of honour to Marie Antoinette, and still retained in her
possession several relics of her unfortunate mistress. The De Jardins
did not inform their neighbours what had brought them to Albany, and,
what was still more tantalizing, they suddenly departed without saying
why they went away.
The next episode, although showing no very clear connection with the De
Jardin mystery, is suggestively allocated with it as its sequel. It
tells how, later in the year 1795, two French strangers, having with
them a sickly boy of about ten years of age, visited the Iroquois
settlement at Ticonderoga, near Lake George. This boy was left in
charge of Thomas Williams, a chief of the Iroquois settlement, who
adopted him and brought him up in the same way as his own eight
children, giving him the name of Lazar, the Iroquois equivalent for
Eleazar. All went smoothly for three or four years, during which
period Eleazar, who was little better than an imbecile, forgot his
French, and remembered little or nothing of the past. Some few
incidents of a noteworthy character, however, occurred. One day two
strangers visited the settlement, and whilst one stood aside the other
met Eleazar, and embraced him, and shed a plenteous supply of tears
over him. He talked a good deal to Eleazar, but as he spoke French,
and the boy only understood Iroquois, they could not derive much
information from one another. The next day the Frenchman repeated his
visit, examined Eleazar's knees and ankles, wept more tears, and, what
seemed to him more reasonable, presented him with a piece of gold
before he went away.
Probably the most important event, however, that happened to him during
his stay at the Indian settlement occurred when he was supposed to be
about fourteen. Up to that period he had been not far removed from an
idiot, when having been accidentally struck on the head by a stone, his
intelligence and memory were suddenly restored. Eleazar now recalled
to mind visions of the past, especially recollecting a beautiful lady,
attired in a splendid dress with train, and who had been accustomed to
take him on her knees and play with him. Other reminiscences of a less
pleasing nature were called to mind, including the figure of a
threatening, ignoble, and terrible man, undoubtedly that of Simon; for
when a portrait of the infamous cobbler was shown to Eleazar, he
recognised it with horror.
One night Eleazar overheard a conversation between his reputed parents
which revealed to him the fact that he was not their own, but only
their adopted, child; but the circumstances did not, apparently, make
any strong impression upon his mind, as he soon forgot it until after
events recalled it. Eventually, he was sent to school at a village in
Massachusetts, in the company of John, one of his reputed brothers.
John could not be done much with, and returned to his Indian life, but
Eleazar made good progress in his studies, became very devout, and
acquired the cognomen of "the plausible boy."
Years passed by, and "the plausible boy" became a plausible man, in his
time playing many parts, some of which were scarcely worthy of the
descendant of a hundred kings, or even of a Christian missionary, which
was the _role_ he now chiefly assumed. Sometimes he was an Indian
chieftain, sometimes a military spy; at one time one thing, at another
time another; but through all, as he firmly believed, and as his
countenance betrayed, and as the marks on his body testified, he was
"the Lost Prince," the dauphin who was supposed to have perished in the
Temple. If he had had any doubts left on this matter, they were all
removed, according to his own account (and numbers of his faithful
adherents believed in him implicitly), in October 1841, in an interview
he had with the Prince de Joinville, who chanced to be travelling in
the United States that year. According to the account furnished by the
Rev. Eleazar Williams, who by this time appears to have taken to the
missionary avocation permanently, he happened to be on board the same
steamer as the French prince, who after having made inquiries about him
of the captain, requested the honour of an interview. This Eleazar
affably granted, and De Joinville was brought to him. "I was sitting
at the time on a barrel," says plausible Eleazar; "the prince not only
started with evident and involuntary surprise when he saw me, but there
was great agitation in his face and manner--a slight paleness and a
quivering of the lips--which I could not help remarking at the time,
but which struck me more forcibly afterwards ... by contrast with his
usual self-possessed manner." After paying Eleazar an amount of
respect that quite surprised that plausible priest, and astonished
everybody about them, the prince, upon landing at Green Bay, desired
the honour of a private conversation with him at the hotel. To this
request Eleazar consented, and according to his account, the interview,
which was carried on in English, the prince speaking that language
fluently, but a little broken, indeed, as did Eleazar himself, yet
quite intelligibly, resulted in De Joinville acknowledging that the
missionary was indeed the veritable dauphin, the Duke of Normandy, the
legitimate heir to the crown of France and Navarre; but requesting him
to solemnly resign all his rights and titles in favour of Louis
Philippe, upon condition that a princely establishment should be
secured to him either in America or France, at his option, and "that
Louis Philippe would pledge himself on his part to secure the
restoration, or an equivalent for it, of all the private property of
the royal family rightfully belonging to me" [_i.e._ Eleazar Williams],
"which had been confiscated in France during the revolution, or in any
way got into other hands." But Eleazar's ancestral pride was aroused,
and after informing De Joinville that he would not be the instrument of
bartering away with his own hand the rights pertaining to him by birth,
and sacrificing the interests of his family, he concluded by remarking
that he could only give the prince the answer which De Provence gave
Napoleon's envoy at Warsaw:--"Though I am in poverty and exile, I will
not sacrifice my honour!"
Upon receiving this reply the prince loudly accused his guest of
ingratitude for thus rejecting the overtures of the king, his father,
who, he declared, was only actuated by kindness and pity, as his claim
to the French throne rested on an entirely different basis to
Eleazar's; that is to say, not that of hereditary descent, but of
popular election. "When he spoke in this strain," avers Eleazar, "I
spoke loud also, and said that as he, by his disclosure, had put me in
the position of a superior, I must assume that position, and frankly
say that my indignation was stirred by the memory that one of the
family of Orleans had imbued his hands in my father's blood, and that
another now wished to obtain from me an abdication of the throne."
"When I spoke of superiority," says Eleazar, "the prince immediately
assumed a respectful attitude, and remained silent for several
minutes." On the following day, says "the plausible," he saw the
prince again, who, finding his renewed efforts to shake the
determination of the dauphin not to resign his hereditary titles were
vain, bade him good-bye with the words, "Though we part, I hope we part
friends."
Probably the strangest, if not the most ludicrous portion of this story
is, that Prince de Joinville deemed it requisite to publicly deny
"plausible" Eleazar's little romance, and to declare it to be a tissue
of lies, from beginning to end, and nothing but "a speculation upon the
public credulity."