In the February number of the Critic of New York, Mr. J. Sanford Saltus asks:
"The next King of France—who will he be? A question often put by the adherents of the Due d'Orleans, Don Carlos, Victor Napoleon and Jean de Bourbon.
"Jean de Bourbon is the youngest of the 'Pretenders' and his claim is based upon the assumption that his grandfather, Charles William Naundorff was the Dauphin, the son of Louis XVI, who according to popular rumor, died in prison June 8, 1795, and was buried at night in an unmarked grave by the church yard of Sainte-Marguerite, in an obscure Paris quarter. That the Dauphin did not die in prison, but that, with the assistance of friends, he escaped therefrom,—a sick child being left in his stead,—is now the almost universally accepted belief of historians. It is thought that his escape was known to Fouché and Josephine Beaubarnais and that, beside the sick child, several other children, whose names were respectively, Tardif Leminger, de Jarjages, and Gornhaut, were used as blinds, while the real Louis XVII was being helped out of the country by the Royalists."
Mr. Saltus continues further on:
"At Delft, Holland, August 10, 1845, ended the adventurous life of the exile Charles William Naundorff. His grave, by official permission, bore his true name. On June 8, 1904, the remains were exhumed and re-interred in the new cemetery at Delft and once more, by official permission, the same inscription appears.
"King William II, King William III and Queen Wilhelmina have allowed this inscription to remain unmolested. Why? On the coming of age of the Naundorffs, the Dutch government gives them permission to assume their real name."
Annabel Hord Seeger.