Margaret Bryant

“ Both Barras and Harmand de la Meuse are said to have given leave for the brother and sister to see each other, but the meeting was never permitted. The argument from the sudden disappearance of persons in a position to know something of the truth is of a less convincing character. It may be noted that the more famous of the persons alleged by partisans of subsequent pretenders to have been hustled out of the world for their connexion with the secret are the empress Joséphine, the duc d’Enghien and the duc de Berri. ”

“ Richemont’s tale that the woman Simon, who was genuinely attached to him, smuggled him out in a basket, is simple and more credible, and does not necessarily invalidate the story of the subsequent operations with the deaf mute and the scrofulous patient, Laurent in that case being deceived from the beginning, but it renders them extremely unlikely. A third pretender, Eleazar Williams, did not affect to know anything of his escape. ”

“ On Laurent’s retirement Étienne Lasne was appointed on the 31st of March 1795 to be the child’s guardian. In May 1795 the prisoner was seriously ill, and a doctor, P. J. Desault, well acquainted with the dauphin, having visited him seven months earlier, was summoned. Desault died suddenly, not without suspicion of poison, on the 1st of June, and it was some days before doctors Pelletan and Dumangin were called. Then it was announced that on the 8th Louis Charles died. ”

“ LOUIS XVII. (1785–1795?) , titular king of France, second son of Louis XVI. and Marie Antoinette, was born at Versailles on the 27th of March 1785, was christened the same day Louis Charles, and given the title of duke of Normandy. Louis Charles became dauphin on the death of his elder brother on the 4th of June 1789. ”

“ Plaidoirie de Jules Favre devant la cour d’appel de Paris pour les héritiers de feu Charles-Guillaume Naundorff (1874) ; H. Provins, Le Dernier roi légitime de France (2 vols., the first of which consists of destructive criticism of Beauchesne and his followers, 1889) ; A. Lanne, “Louis XVII. et le secret de la Révolution,” Bulletin mensuel (1893 et seq.) of the Société des études sur la question Louis XVII., also La Légitimité (Bordeaux, Toulouse, 1883–1898) . See further the article “Naundorff” in M. Tourneux, Bibl. de la ville de Paris pendant la Révolution, vol. ”