Litchfield enquirer., 1869-12-09
WHICH WAS THE DAUpH1N.
BY N. sI DODGE.

'''-'''-i BY N. s DODGE. oIGfroEa cai E'as .vs naf9al nina ..ss....-.5a .s....-# l Marie Antpinette vas married at the aoe
 of fifteen years. HeEhusband, Louis XV] was two years older. Four children were
 born to them, two only Of whom-Marie
 Theresa, afterwards Duchess d d'Angouleme, and the Due de Normandie, subsequently
 Dauphin-survived their parents. On the
 9th of June, 1795s the latter, then ten years old. died in ths Temple prison, and
 the next day the coffn containing his re
 mains was borne to the cemetery of the
 church of St. Margaret, in the faubourg o
 St. Antoine. On that evening it was said
 in Paris, and day by day all of over France
 that the son of Louis the Sixteenth had
 died in prison. Groups of persons stood
 to see this humble funeral pass on its way
 The pitiable condition of the young prince
 had been long known to the public; an em
 inent and kind hearted physician had pre-
 scribed for him, nurses and attendants
 witnessed his last hours and an undertak
 CT received the lifeless body from the pris
 on keepers and performed over 1t what o | funeral rites it received. Asthe meagre pro
 cession of unconcerned officials, guarded l by squad of soldiers, marched along the streets, individuals passed upon it their Va rious comments-some were, indifferent others serious: '.Voikai Cest petit Capetr
 shrieked the market women. ''H est ( Dauphinr' said better class, thinking
 more of the sufferings the mother had en. dured than of the faults committed by the l father. The body was buried in the com
 mon trench of the churchyard, but the ex. act spot, unmarked, was subsequently for,
 gotten, and could never afterward be rec. ognized. Louis the Eighteenth gathered few bones from tho lime-stuffea trench oi the cemetery and carried them in mourn full pomp to St. Denis. They may have
 been the remains of the Seventeenth Louis; they were more likely those of a beggar. .a y4av .asastf
 So much is recorded in French history and believed in France.
 r The Dauphia was for a long time i'll in tho Temple prison; died there in the pres ence of witnesses both competent and dis interested, and was buried in St. Marga- ret's cemetery. Six aspiring persons have denied both the death and the Dauphin. Each of these claimed to be the true prince, and stroye to pass himself off as Louis the Seventeenth. Not one was suc- cessful All are dead. Each obtained more or less followers, A group of these six, with brief notice of the claims put forth by each, and the grounds upon which they rested them, may make chapter in histo- ry not wholly without profit, certainly not without interest. IL 7J -J ".~
 The Rev. EIeazer Williams was half- breed Canadian Indian. He appears to have been 8 stupid, sincere man; indiffer- ently honest, able to read and write, keep ing diary of where he preached and how he felt. and perfectly contented in his humble sphere as backwoods parson, until bon. He thought ne might be one. His early memories were clo1ded. Dark walls of what might have been prison-a long illness-strange faces-a lady richly dress ed fondling and earessing-a voyage at sea-shiftings from place to place-and money furnished, he knew not by whom, for his education, made the idea plausible. He studied the narratives of the Dauphin. Events mentioned in them began to grow familiar. Silly old women and credulous school girls helped him on. The story grew. Strangers sought and questioned him. Newspapers repeated the tale Old people recalled what they had been told in their childhood. Indians were produced to confirm the wonder; until at last the poor man. guileless enough, but, like Aboun Hassen, sure, while cobbling shoes, that he had once been Sultan, he fell into the snare, and boldly proclaimed himself to be the missing Dauphin. Due de Join vile, then on a visit to the Northwest, who did not acknowledge his claims. He stated that members of the Orleans family had bri- bed him tosign away his rights, but failed to prove the allegation. He endeavored to enlist Gen. Cass in favor of his claims, but was only laughed at for his pains. A mag azine article, titled Have we Bourbon Among Us?" stated ingeniously enough in the facts of the case; and a volume of consideration. It would not do; no money was to be made; the faithful fell away; old Indian practitioners only muttered "Ugh," as they smoked their calumets; and anus ed trappers, looking our Pretender in the face, said, substantially, "You Charles Louis, Dauphin of France! You're Tus- carOra halfbreed; your father was a Yan- kee pedler and your mother an Indian squaw." -Ea [5L4te IT eIL4
 After brief notoriety which added the simple creature's brains and nearly de- stroyed his usefulness, the thing dropped, and shortly after the eelf-deluded half breed missionary died off, ot rrsT....t '-'
 Long before Williams day, about 8 year after 'little Capet" was buried at St. Mar garet's. Louis Hervagault ran away from his fathers tailor shop in St. Lo. He was twelve years old, bright, good looking and Q great mimic, but known through the neighborhood as a hopeless ''ne'er-do- we'll. For several years he lived by his wits-sometimes personating Q sempstress, sometimes g Swiss peasant girl; vagabon- dizing as an ensigre's son to day and as the bastard heir of Count to tomorrow; now in prison for thievery, and again whipped by the cure out of his parish as an incurable imposter, until, about the year 1906, he turned up in La Vendee. In ono of his imprisonmentsh he was amusing the con- victs by traversity of court life. ''H est bon-laP' ''Hov we'll he does it!' they ex- claimed, "Why not?" was the reply; ''don't mention it to any one, but I ana the Daupkin ,r'id The serious tone and sad face assumed for the nonce sanctioned the statement. The story went to the ward CTS, and then to- the world outside. Royalists visited him and became convinc- ed. Everybody who hated the govern ment did him homage, and when his term expired he found friends everywhere. His fame travelled abroad, and so plausible was his story that many of the better class were taken in: "A good nurse in the Temple seeing him so ill. had wrapped him in a bundle of linen, carried him out and sub stituted another boy" A weeping mar chioness asked whose child the substitute was, '1 am told, was the reply, s'that he be was son of Q very honest man, a tailor