(Vol. iv., p. 149.)
The communication of your correspondent ÆGROTUS respecting the claims of
an individual to be the Dauphin of France and Duke of Normandy, brought
to my recollection pretensions of a similar nature made by a person who,
about twenty years ago, was resident in London; and was a teacher of
music, as I was informed. This person introduced himself to me, in a
French house of business, as the genuine Dauphin of France, the second
son of Louis XVI. In justice to the _soi-disant_ Dauphin, I should state
that he did not bring forward his claims abruptly, but in the course of
a conversation held in his presence, relating to the claims of another
pretender to the same honours. The communicator of this important
intelligence of a new rival to the contested diadem, urged his claims
with so much plausibility, and pressed me so earnestly to pay him a
visit--seeing that I listened to his impassioned statement with decorous
patience and real interest--in order that he might explain the matter
more fully and at leisure--that I went to his house in the New Road,
where I saw him more than once. He told me that the woman, who had all
her life passed as his mother, informed him on her death-bed that he was
the Duke of Normandy, and had been confided to her charge and care; and
that she was told to make her escape with him by his true mother, Marie
Antoinette, when that unfortunate queen eluded the murderous pursuit of
her assailants in the furious attack made on the Tuileries on the 10th
of August, 1792. So impressed was I by the earnestness of the narrator,
and the air of truth thrown around his story--knowing also that some
doubts had been started as to the death of the Dauphin in the
Temple--that I offered, being then about to visit Edinburgh, which was
at that time the residence of the exiled monarch Charles X. and his
ill-starred family, to be the bearer to them of any memorial or other
document, which the claimant to the rights of Dauphin might wish to
submit to that illustrious body. A statement was accordingly drawn up,
and sent by me when in Edinburgh, not to Charles X., but to her royal
highness the Duchess of Angoulême; who immediately replied, requesting
an interview on my part with one of the noblemen or gentlemen of her
household, whom I met; and was informed by him from her royal highness,
that such communications exceedingly distressed her, in recalling a past
dreadful period of her life; for that there was no truth in them, and
that her brother, the Duke of Normandy, died in the Temple. With deep
and sincere protestations of regret at having been the cause of pain to
her royal highness, and made the unconscious dupe of either a knave or a
fool, instead of bringing forward an illustrious unknown to his due
place in history, I took my leave; and think this account ought to
scatter for ever to the winds all tales, _in esse_ or _posse_, of
pretended Dauphins of France and Dukes of Normandy.
I should mention, that in my interview with the _soi-disant_ Dauphin, he
showed me various portraits of Louis XVI., and then bade me look at his
own features, in every attitude and form, and say if the likeness was
not most striking and remarkable. I could not deny it; and in truth was
so impressed with his whole account, that I began to look upon the
humble individual before me with something of the reverence due to
majesty, shorn of its glories.