Claimants to Royalty

by John Henry Ingram

During the trial of the soi disant Baron de Richemont, the spectators were surprised and amused by a singular declaration addressed to the jury by another pseudo-dauphin. This claimant, who varied the old story by styling himself Charles Louis in lieu of Louis Charles, protested that De Richemont was only an impostor put forward in order to confuse public opinion, and stifle the voice of the veritable Duke of Normandy, the author of this document!

This new pretender, if the royalists are to be believed, was a certain Charles William Naundorff, member of a Jewish family of Polish Prussia, and was born in 1775, or ten years earlier than the dauphin. He turned up at Berlin in 1810, and resided there for about two years, earning his livelihood by selling clocks. In 1812 he removed to Spandau, obtained the rights of citizenship, and married the daughter of a Heidelberg pipemaker. He professed to be a Protestant, spoke French with a villainous accent, and yet, in 1825, from some unaccountable reason, gave out to the world that he was the son of Louis the Sixteenth. He had been in many difficulties before he complicated matters by assuming the Duke of Normandy's titles, having been accused of being an incendiary in 1824, and some months later of coining, for which latter offence he was sentenced to three years' detention in the Penitentiary of Brandenburg. On being released from captivity he set up a claim to be the son of Louis the Sixteenth, and actually had the foolhardiness to institute proceedings against the ex-king, Charles the Tenth, and the Duchess d'Angoulême. All he gained by this audacity was an immediate arrest, and expulsion from the frontiers of France, in which country he had taken up his abode. Nothing daunted by this summary action, the pretender appealed to the Council of State, and obtained the services of Monsieur Cremieux to defend his cause, not, it is true, as the son of Louis the Sixteenth, but as a foreigner illegally arrested and expelled. Unsuccessful in his suit, Naundorff passed into England, and continued to play his rôle of ill-used royalty. By these means, and by practising as a spiritualist, the soi disant prince contrived to make enough dupes to live by. In 1843 he got into some difficulties with the English police, and being made bankrupt, had to leave the country. Taking refuge in Holland, he expired at Delft, on the 10th of August, 1845.

Unfortunately Naundorff's pretensions did not die with him, for he left two children, Louis and Marie Antoinette "de Bourbon," who some few years since renewed their claims to the reversion of the French throne. In 1873, the son, Louis, summoned the Count de Chambord before a Paris court, to show cause why a judgment pronounced many years ago against Naundorff's father, by the Civil Tribunal of the Seine, should not be reversed in his, Louis's, favour. Notwithstanding the fact that the putative "grandson" of Louis the Sixteenth retained the services of Jules Favre as an advocate, he was unable to soften the iron hearts of the Parisian jury, and had to subside into oblivion.

THE FALSE DAUPHINS: AUGUSTUS MEVES.

Of all the tawdry fictions invented by pretenders to the name and title of "Louis the Seventeenth," none are so ridiculous as the tale told by the Meves family, if that really be their name, and yet none have so persistently troubled the public with printed assertions of their claims as they. The quantum of probability in their story may be gauged by telling it in the words of Augustus Meves, alias "Auguste de Bourbon, son of Louis the Seventeenth." However, the tale cannot be given in extenso from the works issued by this illustrious man, as, not only has it required several volumes to put it before the world, but it is so contradictory, and at times obscure, that it requires no slight manipulation to render it comprehensible.

Beginning his career with the Temple epoch, this pseudo-dauphin, contrary to the accounts of his competitors, declares that he has no recollection of Simon the jailer having ever wilfully ill-treated him, and that owing to a person named Hébert having wounded him in a fit of passion, Madame Simon's womanly feelings were aroused on his behalf, and she determined to save him. His rescue was thus brought about: Tom Paine, author of "The Rights of Man," who was at this time a member of the French National Convention, wrote to a lady friend in London, to bring him a deaf and dumb boy to Paris. This lady, unable to execute the commission, communicated the secret to her bosom friend Mrs. Meves, and she naturally informed her husband. It so happened that Mr. Meves had a son who, being in delicate health, his father was naturally desirous of getting rid of. Mr. Meves, therefore, without confiding in his wife, went to Paris with his son, who, by the way, was neither deaf nor dumb, and placed him in the hands of certain people, who substituted him for the dauphin. The exchange was effected at a time when public interest being concentrated on the Queen's trial, the vigilance at the Temple, says "Auguste de Bourbon," was relaxed. According to the recollection of the dauphin, his escape was thus managed: "It seems to my reflective powers that I was lying on the sofa in the parlour of the small Tower of the Temple, and was awakened by Madame Simon saying, 'Votre père est arrivé.' She then aroused me from the sofa, taking the pillow therefrom, and putting it into a kind of hamper-basket, and after placing me in it, she covered me with a light dress, and carried the basket across the ground. A coach was waiting at the gate, into which she placed the basket, when we were driven to where Mr. Meves resided. The coach needed to carry Madame Simon's linen disgorged its contents, and in due time the Duke of Normandy was landed in England, where he took the place of Mr. Meves' son, that iron-hearted gentleman having made a vow to Marie Antoinette, whom he contrived to get an interview with, that the young prince should be brought up in utter ignorance of his true origin. And that secret," says "Auguste de Bourbon," "he kept to the end of his existence."

Whether Louis Charles so readily forgot his real parents and position does not, probably, need investigation. He was placed at a day-school, where after a fashion he learnt English, and, subsequently, at a boarding-school at Wandsworth. Meanwhile, Mrs. Meves having discovered that her son had had to take the place of young Louis in the Temple, very naturally wished to effect his release. She obtained a deaf and dumb boy, and by a roundabout route took him to Paris. Vigilance being, apparently, again relaxed at the Temple, the unfortunate deaf and dumb scapegoat was now substituted for Augustus Meves, and his escape was effected. "At what precise date this was accomplished," says "Auguste de Bourbon," "is not definitely fixed, but it is suggested after July 1794. Mrs. Meves did not stay in Paris till its accomplishment (i.e., her son's release), but returned to England in the month of May."

Augustus Meves now disappears from the scene, although it is suggested that he may have been the pretender Naundorff, but the "Dauphin King" was carefully educated by the unnatural parents, who had their adopted child taught the pianoforte. The boy made such progress that an unnamed Scotch newspaper deemed him "only to be equalled by the great Mozart." This success made the foster-father afraid the lad's origin might come to light, so he placed him in the seclusion of a friend's counting-house. His Royal Highness did not admire this occupation, and by Mrs. Meves' aid was enabled to resume his former vocation. He became a volunteer, and joined the "Loyal British Artificers," and in 1811 was promoted to the rank of captain. In 1813 he relinquished the musical profession to become "a speculator at the rotunda of the Bank of England." In 1814 he visited Calais, but the return of Napoleon in 1815 prevented him, says his son, "going to Paris." In this latter year he "observed a lady scrutinising him," at the Old Argyle Rooms, Regent Street, and was informed that it was the Duchess d'Angoulême, the unfortunate victim of all the pseudo dauphins. In 1816 he visited Paris, and found many of the sights quite familiar to his memory. In 1818 Mr. Meves died, and so faithful was he to his promise to Marie Antoinette of keeping the secret of the dauphin's origin, that in his will he absolutely declared the young man to be "his illegitimate son." This naturally aroused the ire of Mrs. Meves, who, bound by no oath, informed her adopted son of his real parentage, declaring somewhat rashly, "Your identity can be proved as positive as the sun at noon-day."

"This disclosure," says "Auguste de Bourbon," "naturally unsettled and perplexed the dauphin, for his early recollections were but vaguely defined." He obtained an order for his putative father's disinterment, but that does not appear to have solved the mystery any more than did the fact that "in 1821 the dauphin became a speculator, and experienced its vicissitudes." In 1823 Mrs. Meves died, after having advised the "dauphin" not to be "induced to read any private memoirs of the queen of France, as it will only set your mind wool-gathering." Unfortunately, Augustus did not follow this prudent advice, and the consequence was that the unfortunate Duchess d'Angoulême was bothered with more fraternal appeals, and with the information that the writer possessed a mole "on the middle of the stomach." Ultimately a French nobleman visited Augustus, and told him that in his opinion the British Government knew who he was, but feared to acknowledge him, as, from the energy of his character, he might put the whole of Europe in a state of fermentation, because, pointed out this Frenchman, "he was not only King of France in right of birth, but also heir to Maria Theresa, Empress of Germany."