The Sun.
London, England, 1817-10-02 00:00:00

" PRETENDED DAUPHIN.

" The following is a new instance of credu

lity ,-

In the month of October 1815, a man made
;his appearance in the Department of Maine et
Loire, and announced himself under the name of
Charles de N'avart.e, son of Louis XVI. He pre-
'tended that Louis XVII: did not die in the Temple,
but that he escaped from his Tyrants, that
instead of hint, the body of an unknown child was
presented to the knife of the anatomists, and that
the legitimate heir, restored at length to his pen.
ple and his country, was now returned to take
possession of the impreseriptible rights transmit-
ted to hint by his ancestors. It might be ima.
..gined perhaps, that the physical and moral qua-
lities of the Pretender were in unison with his
pretensions. So far from this, the soi-disant Louis
xvii. was utterly destitute of instruction, and
education, and the vacancy of his mind harrno-
r)ltzed with the vulgarity of his manners, 'net e
,Was nothing of that style which announces in a
voung. Prince the happiest sallies. One sought
in vain in his countenance for that noble appear-
ance the characteristic impress of the traits of a
lipurbon. He presented nothing in common
with the. unfortunate son of Louis the Six.
teenth but the name of which he had robbed
isitn. Extraordinary, however, is the stupid
credulity of the vulgar ; this impost o slimed
himself and made dupes. The great name,
of which he had insolently taken possession, ope-
rated like a talisman on the minds of the iglu,-

his sister recognised hint, notwithstanding 17
years of absence, and the assurance with which
he protested that he was not her brother but
Charles de Navarre.

The Instruction Criminelle, prosecuted at
Rouen, leaves no doubt respecting the fraud prac•
ticed by this Mat'ourin Bruneati,, the son and
brother-in-law of wooden shoe-makers, and him-
self a workmen at the same trade. His iniiios-
ture, and the manoeuvres of his accomplices, will
be rendered perfvcdy clear when the trial
015. Ina I cart, tia,a aaa.v 6.3.1• • .\"11“•
are said to have made some noise in the neigh-
bouring departments, but at Rouen they are
thought very little of.'
" To these details, which we (Journal des De-
bats) have extracted from the Journal de Rouen,
we are enabled to add some authentic details:—
The affair of, this imposer is not yet out of
the hands of the Juge d'lnstruction, and it is still

doubtful whether the honour of a criminal pro-
, ceeding will be conferred upon this wretch, or whe-
ther he will be sent as a vile swindler to the Cor-
rectional Police. The instruction is not yet finished,
and it will be only when that is completed, that
the quebtion of competence will be decided on by
judicial authority.
At the commencement of the proceedings,
there was some reason for believing that the hero,
of this romance was the son of a
.baker, named
Philippeaux, of the Commune of Varennes, Ar-
rondissernent of Satimur, at whose house it is
certain that he for some time worked, but most
positive information leaves no doubt that his real
name and origin are as above stated.
He was for about a year detained as a lunatic
at the Bicatre, at Room at which period there
was suddenly circulated, under the name of this
individual, calling himself Louis XVII., a Letter
and a Proclamation, both addressed to the Duchess
d'Angouleme. These papers were, it appears,

the production of a malefactor, condemned to
compulsory labour, and confined in the Bicetre
until his sentence could be carried into exe-
cution. The latter, it seems, had only in view
a division of the profits of the imposture.—
Two or three women were compromised by hav-

ing circulated the proclamation. All this, adds
our Correspondent, agreeing with the Rouen
Journalist, is nothing but a gossiping intrigue,
unworthy of public attention. At Rouen the af-
fair does. not occupy the minds of reasonable
people, and only strangers speak of it with any
gravity.'

" lu►elligence was on the 7th inst. received at
Vienna, of the death of her Imperial highness
Archduchess Hermoine, consort of the Arch-

duke Palatine of Hungary. This Princess died in
child-bed, after being prematurely delivered of a
Prince and a Princess. The young Pfince is also

!` The trial of the persons implicated in the

rant. Soule imbeciles pustc.cf their (0117 so far
to despoil themselves' of their means to support
this adventurer ; and 'as all means are good in the
eyes Of tboso Min only seek. to propagate discord,
and malevolence, seized upon the falsehood of the
Impostor, cud attempted to give it to the minds
of tools the appearance of truth. Arrested and

sent to prison, the adventurer persisted in his
pretensions, his partisa►►., if we may give that
nahle to a few isolated i►idividuali, whose crednli-

ty intriguers were desirous of t ry ing-11 is partisans,
complained of Lis misfortunes, and a ridiculotts

pity Was engendered, which soon, however, dis-
appeared, and of aahich there note remains no-
thing but the shame of having ftlt it.
Who is then this man, who from the bottom of
his prison is at once the hope of the discontented,
and the idol of fools. His name is Mathurin Bru-
_nem], he was born the 10th May, 1784, at Vezins,
Canton of Chollet, Arrondissement of Beauptiau,
Department of Maine et Loire. His father was
a wooden shoemaker in that village. lie lOst his
parents at the age of between seven .and eight
years, he was received and taken care of by
Jetonie Bronean, his sister, then married to a ❑man
namedDeCarinay,also a wooden shoemaker.-His bad
disposition, and particularly his aversion to work,
induced his brother-in-law to send him away when
he was about eleven years of age. Mathurin
neat' began then to practice impositions with re-
gard to his birth, and passed himself as the
son of the Baron de Vezins. He was received
by this title at the Chateau of Angrie, near
Cond6, by the Viscountess de Turpin de Crisse,
who paid him all the attention which she thought
due to a victim of the war in La Vend Ge.
Madame de Turpin being undeceived respect-
ing him, caused him to be conductee to Veziers,
and afterwards to Vilsiers, where his sister and
brother-in-lax then resided. At lergti► his taste
for adventures having induced Bruneau to expa-
triate himself, when between 16 ard 17 years of
age,
,he did not re-appear in his native country
till the month of Octoher 1815, at which epoc