The one person who has tried to clear up the obscurity of these happenings inside the Temple is the wife of the bootmaker, Antoine Simon, the Dauphin’s first warder. Considerations of space prevent us from entering here upon any detailed examination of her evidence, but we must not pass it by without a word. Mme. Simon, after her husband’s death during the Reign of Terror—he was guillotined in Thermidor—withdrew to the asylum for incurables in the Rue de Sèvres, where she was to spend the remainder of her existence. Here she was heard on many occasions to assert that she was convinced the Dauphin was alive, having seen him carried off when she and her husband were leaving the Temple, on the evening of January 19, 1794. If this were true, it would result that that child looked after by Laurent was not the Dauphin at all! This does not fit in with the version that we have put together from Laurent’s own letters and the various other documents which we have been able to examine. But even if it were true, the poignant question would still call for an answer—what became of the young Dauphin after his escape? Into whose hands did he fall?
FOOTNOTES:
[75] His deposition at the Richemont trial.—Provins.
CHAPTER VI
THE FRIENDS OF LADY ATKYNS
What was the Chevalier de Frotté doing all this time? What steps was he taking towards the realization of what he had called so often the goal of his life, and towards the execution of the promises he had made with so much ardour and enthusiasm?
Transported with joy on hearing that the British Government at last contemplated listening to his projects and sending him to Normandy, Frotté, when leaving London, betook himself with four comrades-in-arms to Jersey—the great rendezvous at that time for the insurgents engaged in dangerous enterprises on the Continent, and seeking to find landing-places on the French coast.
It was the middle of winter—snow was falling heavily, and there were strong winds. Several weeks passed, during which the patience of our émigrés was severely taxed. Nothing was more difficult than to effect a landing in Normandy under such conditions. Apart from the difficulty of finding a vessel to make the crossing, it was necessary to choose some spot where they might succeed in escaping the vigilance of the troops stationed all along the cliffs, whose forts presented a formidable barrier. In short, Frotté and his friends found themselves confronted with serious obstacles.
On January 11, 1795, they were observed to leave Guernsey in a small sailing-vessel manned by English sailors, taking with them three émigrés who were to act as guides. What happened to them? No one knows exactly. Certain it is merely that the boat returned rudderless and disabled, with Frotté and his four companions. According to their own account, they took a wrong direction in the dark, and sailed along the coast in the midst of rocks. Their guides landed first, and disappeared from sight under a hail of bullets, and it was with great difficulty that they themselves had been able to get back to Guernsey.
At the beginning of February they made another effort, and succeeded in landing near Saint-Brieuc. Frotté at once made his way inland to join the insurgents, but ill fortune followed him. He had not been a fortnight in the country when he learned, to his surprise, that the Chouans under Cormatin had just concluded a truce to prepare the way for peace. His feelings may be imagined. To have waited so long for this! So much for his hopes and castles in the air! But there was no help for it. On February 17, 1795, the treaty of Tannaye was concluded, and a month later Frotté, who had kept moving about over La Vendée and Normandy unceasingly to survey the ground, established himself at Rennes, where he assisted at the conference of La Mabilais, which was to confirm the truce already agreed to.
