"At Ghent."
"Bellenger visited me last September. He was without a dauphin."
"We could supply the deficiency," Abbé Edgeworth pleasantly replied.
"With the boy he left in Europe?"
"Oh, dear no. With royal dukes. You observed his majesty could not pension a helpless idiot without encouraging dauphins. These dauphins are thicker than blackberries. The dauphin myth has become so common that whenever we see a beggar approaching, we say, 'There comes another dauphin.' One of them is a fellow who calls himself the Duke of Richemont. He has followers who believe absolutely in him. Somebody, seeing him asleep, declared it was the face of the dead king!"
I felt stung, remembering the Marquis du Plessy's words.
"Oh, yes, yes," said Abbé Edgeworth. "He has visions too. Half memories, when the face of his mother comes back to him!"
"What about his scars?" I asked hardily.
"Scars! yes, I am told he has the proper stigmata of the dauphin. He was taken out of the Temple prison; a dying boy being substituted for him there. We all know the dauphin's physician died suddenly; some say he was poisoned; and a new physician attended the boy who died in the Temple. Of course the priest who received the child's confession should have known a dauphin when he saw one. But that's neither here nor there. We lived then in surprising times."
"Madame d'Angoulême would recognize him as her brother if she saw him?" I suggested.