But although M. de la Pomelière, from his previous knowledge, had a hazy idea of the truth, the uninformed public continued devoted to the cause of the pretender; and the convict secretaries, if they failed to stir up the educated classes, at least succeeded in entrapping the ignorant. The prison cell of Bruneau was converted into a scene of uninterrupted revelling. Persons of all classes sent their gifts—the ladies supplying unlimited creature comforts for their king, while their husbands strove to compensate for their incapacity to manufacture dainties by filling the purse of the pretender. Nothing was forgotten: fine clothes and fine furniture were supplied in abundance; and the adoring public were so anxious to consider the comfort of the illustrious prisoner, that they even subscribed to purchase a breakfast service of Sevrès, so that the heir to the throne might drink his chocolate out of a porcelain cup.
Meantime Madame Jacquières had not been idle, and was ready to fulfil her promise to send a messenger to the Duchess d'Angoulême. Her chosen emissary was a Norman gentleman named Jacques Charles de Foulques, an ardent Bourbonist and a lieutenant-colonel in the army. This officer was both brave and suave, and seemed in every respect a fitting person to act as an ambassador to the Tuileries. He was deeply religious, very conscientious, and extremely simple. His mental capacity had been accurately gauged by Bruneau and his associates, and care was taken to excite his religious enthusiasm. The Abbé Matouillet plainly told him that Heaven smiled upon the cause, and introduced him to the prince, who administered the oath of allegiance, which the credulous Norman is said to have signed with the seal of his lips on a volume that looked like a book of gaillard songs, but which the simple soldier mistook for the Gospels. After several audiences, his mission was pointed out, and Colonel de Foulques, without hesitation, agreed to proceed to Paris, and there to place in the hands of the daughter of Louis XVI. a copy of the "Memoirs of Charles of Navarre," and a letter from her reputed brother.
The latter document was produced in the court at Rouen when Bruneau was afterwards placed at the bar, and is a very curious production. In it the maker of clogs thus addresses "Madame Royale:"—
"I am aware, my dear sister, a secret presentiment has long possessed you that the finger of God was about to point out to you your brother, that innocent partaker of your sorrows, the one alone worthy to repair them, as he was fated to share them.
"I know, also, that you were surrounded by snares, and that they who extend them for you are men of wicked ways. They believe they have destroyed the germs of some virtues, as they succeeded in arresting the progress of my education; but there remain to me uprightness of principle, courage, a tendency to good, and the desire of preserving the glory of my nation. Louis XIV. could boast of no more.
"I know that I have been pictured to you as one who has forgotten his dignity, and who is the slave of a love for wine. Alas! that beverage that was forced upon me in my tenderest youth, by the ferocious Simon, has served to fortify my constitution in the course of a most painful life, even as it did that of the great Henry IV.; and, if I have been addicted to the use of it in this place, it was for my health's sake, to preserve which a more refined method would not have so well suited me.
"The use of tobacco was recommended to me in 1797, at Baltimore, also on account of my health. I have profited by it. It has occasionally served to dissipate my sense of weariness, and the thin vapour has often caused me to forget that life might be breathed away from my lips almost as readily.
"I have wished, my dear sister, to speak to you as a brother. Whatever may be the force of a custom preserved during nineteen years, I shall know how, in sharing the fatigues of my troops, to deprive myself of what is a pastime to them. Other occupations will but too easily absorb me entirely. Cease to see by any other vision than your own. Trust to the evidence of your own senses, and no other. I have learned, through a long series of misfortunes, how to be a man, and to be upon my guard against my fellowmen. Truth is not apt to penetrate under golden fringes. It is, however, my divinity; and henceforward, my sister, it will dwell with us. I grant the right of having it told to me. It will never offend a monarch who, having contracted the habit of bearing it, will have the courage to heed it for the benefit of his people.
"I dispersed the last calumny which perversity has aimed at me, when it declared that your brother was still in the United States. No; I had long left it when my evil destiny conducted me from Brazil (as you will see in my "Memoirs") to France, which is anything for me but the promised land. Heaven, to whom my eyes and hopes were ever raised, will not fail to have in its keeping certain witnesses to my existence. There is one to whom I presented, in 1801, at Philadelphia, three gold doubloons, a note of twenty dollars, three shirts, a coat, a levite, and two pairs of old boots. This witness, whom chance has again brought me acquainted with here, is a certain Chaufford, son of a baker of Rouen, well known to the keeper of the prison, and who was on board the French fleet which sailed from Brest. This witness (of whom I have spoken in my "Memoirs") deserted from the fleet. My servant François meeting him in Marc Street, brought him to me. I was then suffering in consequence of a fall from my horse, and was obliged to go about on crutches; and it was from me that he received every species of assistance, and it is by me that he has been reminded of it within the walls of this odious prison, where he least of all expected again to meet with his illustrious benefactor.
"I conclude, my dear sister, certifying to you, by my ambassador, the nature of my ulterior projects. He will hear of your final resolution, and will at once return to me, after assuring you that the superior rank to which destiny calls me is only coveted by me for the sake of my people, and in order to share with you the grateful attachment, which will always be for me the sweetest reward. It is the heart of your king and brother that has never ceased to hold you dear. He presses you to that heart which the most cruel misery has not been able to render cold towards you."