The Sun.
London, England, 1841-04-19 00:00:00

MEMOIR OF THE DUKE OF NOE-

MANDIE.
INVENTOR OF THE NEW PROJECTILE.
The Projectile, of which we gave a short netce last
week, is to be subjected to a further examination, under
the inspection of officers appointed for the purpose by
the Board of Ordnance, on a much larger scale than
the experiments by which it has been already tested.
When these further trials of this invention take place,
we shall not fail to present to our readers a full and
authentic account of them ; in the mean time we pro-
ceed to redeem the promise we lately gave, to present
them with a memoir of the Inventor. The person
who has brought forward this new implement of war is
known as the Duke of Normandie, and claims to be the
Dauphin of France, supposed to be murdered in the
Temple, where it is well known the Dauphin was con-
fined. He gives the following description of his escape
from this prison :
" S wne friends had formed the project of rescuing
me fro .n my persecutors ; the impossibility of its execu-
tion nls soon perceived. A strict surveillance had
boon enjoined, because the design of carrying me off
had b en discovered ; but my friends had sworn to risk
their leies to rescue me from the hands of the murder-
ers, ss ho had determined on my death. Consequently,
as it was impossible to get me out of the tower, they
resolved to conceal me in it, to make my persecutors
belies e that I had escaped. The Herr was a bold one ;
nevertheless, it was the only means of facilitating the
escape which they had planned. Nothing was more
practicable to make me disappear for the moment. No
one escorted those who carried down to the first floor
the things of which I had made use. My friends were,
therefore, convinced that they would be able to take
me up higher, without any risk of being discovered.
In fact, though my sister was confined in the
third story, she had at that time neither senti-
nel nor municipal officer for her guard. This
expedient afforded almost certain prospects of suc-
cess. Accordingly, one day my protectors gave me a dose
of opium, which I took for medicine, and I was soon
half asleep. In this state I saw a child, which they
substituted for me, in my bed, and I was laid in the
basket in which this child had been concealed under my
bed. I perceived, as if in a dream, that the child was
only a wooden figure, the face of which was made to re-
semble mine. This substitution was effected at the mo-
ment when the guard was changed ; the one who suc-
ceeded was contented with just looking at the child to
certify my presence, and it was enough for him to have
seen a sleeping figure whose face was like mine : my
habitual silence contributed farther to strengthen the
error of my new Argus. In the meantime I had lost all
consciousness and when my senses returned, I found
myself shut up in a large room, which was quite strange
to me ; it was the fourth story of the tower. Before
concealing me there, one of my friends, whom I shall
name in the course of this history, had informed me
in what manner I should be saved, on condition that
I should bear all imaginable sufferings without com-
plaining ; adding, that a single imprudent step would
bring destruction on me and my benefactors ; and he
insisted, above all, that when I was concealed, I should
ask for nothing. and should continue to act the part
of a really deaf and dumb child. I ate, I slept, and
waited for my friends with patience. I saw my first de-
liverer from time to time at night, when he brought me
what was necessary for me. The figure was discovered
the same night ; but the Government thought fit to con-
ceal my escape, which they believed to have been com-
pleted. My friends, the better to deceive the sangui-
nary tyrants, had sent off a child under my name, in
the direction, I believe, of Strasburg, and even gave
information to Government that it was I who had been
sent there. The Government, in order entirely to con-
ceal the truth, put in the place of the figure a
child of my age, who was really deaf and dumb, and
redoubled the ordinary guard, to create a belief
that I was still there. This increase of precau-
tion prevented my friends from completing the exe-
cution of their plan in the manner they had intended.
1 remained, therefore, in this vile hole, as if buried
alive. At this time I was nine years and a half old.
Frequently I bad to wait several days the arrival of the
beneficent beings who provided me with food. The Go-
vernment, notwithstanding the artifice used by them of
substituting the deaf and dumb child in the place
of the wooden figure, gave orders not to admit any of
those who knew the Dauphin, to prevent all possibility
of the secret being betrayed. I know not how it hap-
pened, that in spite of these precautions it was whis-
pered about that the real Dauphin was no longer in
the tower. Tne agitators were alarmed, and it, was
decided that the deaf and dumb child should die. De-
leterious ingredients were mixed with his food, which
made him ill ; and in order to avert the suspicion of
poison, M. Dessault was called in, not to cure him,
but to counterfeit humanity. M. Dessault ordered an
antidote to be prepared by his friend the apothecary
Choppart, telling him, at the same time, that this
child wes not the son of Louis XVI. M. Dcssault's
disclosure was repeated ; the murderers of my family,
seeing that the life of the dumb boy was prolonged
in spite of their attempts to poison him, substituted
for him a ricketty child from one of the hospitals at
Paris ; and, in order to secure themselves against any
further betrayal of the secret, they poisoned Dessault
and Choppart. He died, I am told, on
June 8, 1793, and after the post mortent examination,
the body was deposited in a coffin, preparatory to
interment. This coffin was placed in the room for-
merly inhabited by my father. While this was doing
a strong dose of opium had been given to me. I
was placed in the coffin, when the dead child was with-
drawn, and all was completed just at the moment when
the coffin was sent for to be conveyed to the grave. No
sooner was the dead child concealed in the fourth story,
the place where I had been, than my friends, informed
of what was passing, placed the coffin, with me in it, in
a carriage. On the way to the burial-ground, I was
put into a box, at the bottom of the carriage, and
the coffin was filled with rubbish, to give it sufficient
weight, and as soon as it was deposited in the grave,
my friends re-entered Paris with me. There I was
entrusted to the hands of other friends. When I
awoke, I found myself in a bed, in a very neat apart-
ment, alone with my nurse. Most fortunately this
business was executed with despatch, for scarcely was I
in a place of safety, when the whole secret was dis-
covered. Already it began to be publicly rumoured
that it was not I who had been buried. These reports
alarmed the Government, which gave orders to its
agents to disinter the coffin, to nail it down close, and
to bury it elsewhere, that in case of search it might not
be found. My friends in the meantime disguised and
sent me in a carriage to Paris, and with a view of put-
ting my enemies on a wrong scent, they sent off a child,
a native of Versailles, with his parents, intending him to
pass for me."
He was afterwards discovered and taken back to
prison, from whence he a second time escaped through
the means of Madame Beauharnois, by whom he was
consigned to the care of a person named Montmorin,
who conducted him to Venice ; and afterwards was se-
cretly under the protection of the Pope, Pius VI. From
Italy, when the revolutionary army penetrated into
that country, he attempted an escape to England,
but was detected and taken back to France and put
in prison. He remained in prison until the year 1803,
when Montmorin, who had followed his steps, con-
trived and effected his escape. He attributes the suc-
cess of this attempt to the assistance of Josephine, who
favoured the attempt and secured the connivance of
Fouche, Minister of Police. He arrived next, undis-
covered, at Strasburgla where he was identified and
placed in confinement in the fortress of that town. He
was nineteen years of age when this event took place.
Here he despaired of ever regaining his liberty, when
he was most unexpectedly and courageously delivered
from his dungeon by some unknown and adventurous
adherents.
The Prince thus describes his condition after this
escape :
" The instant I breathed the fresh air, I fainted
away. We arrived the same night at a new place of
refuge, where I was concealed in an isolated apartment,
and received from my friends the tenderest attention.
Here again I felt alarmingly ill, and scarcely was I con-
velesceet when my asylum was discovered by my perse-
cutors, I immediately fled, accompanied only by the
faehful Montmorin. Harrassed and worn out by so
mar y sufferings, we arrived at Frankfort on the Maine,
i❑ Germany, where we rested for some days, and ex-
changed our clothes at a Jew's. We were then in the
pring of 1809. While in this town I learned from
my friend Montmorin that I had been confined about
four years in the dungeon which I have described.
I was four•and-twenty years old. In reckoning the
whole period of my confinement, from my imprisonment
with my family in the tower of the Temple, I had to this
time endured seventeen years of more or less rigorous
captivity ; for even when in the care of my friends I
was little more than a captive. Montmorin informed
me that I owed my enlargement to Madame Josephine,
adding at the same time, that her conduct was the
result of mere selfish policy,' who finding at length that
it was the intention of Bonaparte to separate from her
after my death, and to marry again, revealed to my
friends the place of my confinement.
" As soon as we received tidings from my friends in
France, accompanied by a letter of credit, we hastily
quitted Frankfort and travelled post on the road to Bo-
hemia. From thence we progressed through Germany,
Dresden, and at length, by making a great circuit,renehed
a village in Prussia. We had just fallen into a deep sleep
at an inn where we lodged on the evening of our arrival,
when we were awakened, and arrested as spies, as we
were told, and conducted before the commandant of a
small body of troops recently quartered in the neighbour-
hood ; my friend Montmorin delivered to him a letter of
the Duke of Brunswick, which I had obtained on our
route ; he appeared satisfied, and kept us with him ; but
finding at length that his little army was beints cut to
pieces by repeated attacks on the part of the Westpha-
lians, and not having the means of protecting us, he sent
us away under an escort of cavalry. We fell into the
hands of the enemy, and were obliged to defend our-
seise s, for our opponents cried' No quarter r My faith-
ful Montmorin fell by my side. I was wounded :nysell ;
when I was fired on,my horse fell dead, my left foot, still
in the stirrup, was under him, in spite of all my efforts,