Unfortunately De Condé, instead of at once proclaiming the rescue of his youthful king, kept the whole affair mysteriously private, and secretly sent the boy to General Kléber, of all persons in the world! The revolutionary general accepted the strange trust reposed in him by his opponent, and passing off the scion of royalty as his nephew, Monsieur Louis, took him to Egypt with him. Bonaparte was strangely disquieted at the sight of this youth, in whom he foresaw a rival; but the prince was once more carried away, and confided to the care of another republican general, Desaix! This officer made the royal shuttlecock his aide-de-camp, and took him with him to Italy. After the battle of Marengo the dauphin revisited France, and instead of seeking any of his family's adherents, confided his secret to Lucien Bonaparte, and to Fouché, Napoleon's Minister of the Police. Certainly an eccentric youth, and one whom it was a great waste of time to have rescued from the Temple precincts! Fouché introduced the young prince to Josephine, and the Empress at once recognized him from the scar below the right eye, which Simon had caused with a serviette. Unfortunately for his peace in France, the young man took part in Moreau's conspiracy, and Pichegru's paper having revealed to Napoleon the fact that Desaix's aide-de-camp was none other than the Duke of Normandy, the youthful conspirator had to fly, and, like most of his rivals for the title of dauphin, took refuge in the United States.
The adventures of this claimant in the New World are too marvellous for our pages; and as he prudently suppressed the account of them in the second issue of his Mémoires, it is not necessary to allude to them any further. In 1815, according to his story, he returned to France, determined to reclaim his rights. His former protector, the Prince de Condé, at once recognized him in private, and introduced him, by means of a curious stratagem, to his sister, the Duchess d'Angoulême. The princess, however, regarding the dauphin as the enemy of her family, because of the terrible avowals which Simon had wrung from him in the Temple, refused to have anything to do with him. Flying from this cruel reception, the repulsed brother, so he averred, had travelled through many foreign lands, including England, when, happening to visit Italy, he was arrested and thrown into prison in the way already narrated.
Thanks to Silvio Pellico's charming prison records, this pretender's story can be continued, and in a more truthful fashion. In the same prison of Ste. Marguerite, where the Italian author was confined, was also held in durance vile the soi disant Duke of Normandy. The two captives became acquainted, and the Frenchman, by this time probably grown a half believer in his own imposture, declaimed so strongly against his "uncle," Louis the Eighteenth, the usurper of his rights, that Pellico appears to have been partly converted, whilst the jailers were quite convinced of the authenticity of the prisoner's claims. These guardians of the cells had seen so many changes of fortune during the last few years, that it appeared to them by no means improbable that one day their "royal" captive might leave his prison for a throne; having this belief in view, they granted the pretender everything available save freedom.
In 1825, the Austrians, deeming, doubtless, his "Royal Highness" had had sufficient time to disabuse himself of his belief, released him after a captivity of more than six years and a half. The pretender took himself off to Switzerland, where he made some dupes; and in 1826 re-entered France. Grown prudent, however, he concealed his royalty under the name of Hébert, and under that cognomen obtained employment in the Préfecture of Rouen. As Colonel Gustave he appeared in Paris, in 1827, and in the following year reasserted his rights, as the following communication addressed to the Chamber of Peers shows:—
"LUXEMBOURG, 2 February, 1828.
"NOBLE PEERS,—Organs of justice, it is to your exalted wisdom that the unfortunate Louis Charles de Bourbon, Duke of Normandy, confides his interests. Saved, as by a miracle, from the hands of his ferocious assassins, and after having languished for several years in various countries of the globe, he addresses himself to your noble lordships.
"He does not reclaim the throne of his father; it belongs to the nation, which alone possesses the right to dispose of it. He only demands from your justice an asylum for his head—which he cannot repose anywhere without peril—and in a country which more than thirty years of exile have not caused him to forget.
"THE DUKE OF NORMANDY."
The only apparent result of this appeal was the proposition made by Baron Mounier to the Chamber, that for the future no petition should be received of which the petitioner's signature had not been legally recognized, and which was not presented by a peer.
Meanwhile his "Royal Highness" was carefully sought for in Belgium and Holland, although he was all the time concealed in Paris. He managed during this epoch to pick up a number of anecdotes and incidents appertaining to the captivity of the royal family in the Temple, and by displaying the ever useful cicatrice over his right eye, and the traces on his knees and wrists of the malady contracted during his slavery under Simon, was enabled to gather together a faithful band of believers, who assisted him to the full length of their purses. Among other items of testimony, he declared that he had visited Madame Simon on her death-bed at the Hospital of Incurables, where she did really die on the 10th June, 1819, and that she instantly recognized him and wept tears of pity. What, however, he pointed to as the strongest proof of his royalty was the fact, he alleged, that every one who could have testified to his identity had been suddenly put out of the way. He carefully, in fact, utilized the names of such persons as he had been acquainted with during his life, and whose decease had been in any way sudden, or not fully explained. As, for instance, beginning with the famous surgeon Desault, to whose care the dauphin had been entrusted, and who had expired suddenly on the 4th of June, 1795, he intimated that he had been poisoned, because he imprudently declined to accept the substituted dumb child as the veritable Duke of Normandy. In a similar way he accounted for the deaths of several well-known personages whose lives he asserted had been sacrificed on his behalf. He even went to the extent of asserting that Louis the Eighteenth knew well that he was the veritable dauphin, and that when warmly expostulated with by his nephew, the Duke de Berry, for concealing the fact from the world, had not only excused himself by saying, "Do you not comprehend that this recognition has become impossible, as it would render all existing treaties invalid and imperil the general peace?" but had even added significantly, "Take care of yourself, Berry!" And within a fortnight De Berry fell beneath the attack of Louvel.