Chambers's Journal of Popular Literature, Science, and Art, fifth series, no. 126, vol. III, May 29, 1886

No. 126.—Vol. III.
Price 1½ d.
SATURDAY, MAY 29, 1886.
Since the famous Tichborne trial brought ‘The Claimant’ so prominently before the reading public, the general use of a term which accurately described his position without seeming to prejudge his case has given it universal currency as a convenient designation in similar cases of disputed or doubtful identity. For instance, the newspapers have recently announced a ‘Napoleonic Claimant,’ who makes his appearance in the most unromantic manner, by presenting himself before a magistrate at a police station in Paris, and asking for money to pay his passage to England. He claimed to be the Prince Imperial, the legitimate son of the Emperor Napoleon III. and the Empress Eugenie. The announcement of his death in Zululand was a mistake: he was not killed, but captured by the Zulus. After some time, he effected his escape, and having traversed Africa from south to north, he crossed the Mediterranean and landed at Marseilles. His poverty and his dignity prevented him from presenting himself before his mother, and so he stayed and worked in Marseilles incognito for several years. But he met the Empress once: it was at Vienna, at the tomb of Maximilian. So violent was his emotion, that he swooned away. The Empress herself raised him and tended him; but when he became conscious, she had gone. He wished now to go to her, but he was penniless. Would the magistrate grant him the sum necessary; and his mother, the Empress, would repay the loan? When asked to show his papers, he produced a book in which was entered the name of Pollak, a journeyman clockmaker of Vienna. It had been lent to him to enable him to maintain his incognito.
When he found that his story was not to be credited, he accused the magistrate of yielding to pressure put upon him by the Princes Victor and Louis, whose interest it was to supplant the rightful heir. He spoke in the language of a well-educated man; and when examined with a view to determine his mental condition, he betrayed no symptom of derangement.