New-York tribune., 1874-03-09
FRENCH PRETENDERS.
THE ROMANTIC STORY OF NAIINDoRFr

IRON THR REGULAR CORRESPONDENT OP TIE rRBUEEl
PARIS, Feb l8.-lt may interest some Of the coun-
J trymon of the late Eloazer Williams TO know that
the case of pretendcr to royal title is again up
Tor discussion before French judges. NJ Jules Favre,
IN long-drawn plea which the judges the fourth
day begged him TO close. has been ngeniously main
tanning the claim Of the PrctendeT. The Govern
ment attorney lthe defendant proper does not put
in an appearance) will reply next week. and the
Court will soon afterward render its decision. The
widow and six children Of Charles Louis Duke of
Normandy sometimes called Naundorf, son of
Lonis XVII, born at Versailles March %, 1885,
and deceased at Dclft, in Holland. Aug.
! 10, 1915, demand that the false certificate
OF the pretended death of their husband and
father IN the Temple prison, drawn NJ the 10th Of
june l7!5 be annulled, with consequent recognition
OF their legitimate relations to the royal family, and
of their right to prosecute their claims heirs be-
fore the proper tribunals. This suit ia but the
tnuation, on appeal Of one rejected by the lower
tribunal before which it was brought against the
Count de ChambOrd and the Duchess dAngOuleme.
by the same persons, in 1851. That, in turn was
but new form of one instituted 10y Naun-
dorff himself, in 1886, but never tried be
| cause he was Immediately thereupOn arbtra-
ry expelled from France by the high police
That NaundoIf peTe and his formidable rival,
pretenders impOstors, their predecessors,
Hervgault and Bruneau, undoubtedly were. is pos
sble. That the French Government authOritatiyely
put obstacles in the way of their legal attempts TO
prove the contrary is certain. That the poor child
deserving all our pity, whoever he was, who died IN
the Temple may have been the son OF Lous XVI,
is probable. But it is equally certain that no Gov
ernment from that day to this has permitted, much
less aided a thorough investigation of the numerous
suspicious circumstances attendant upon the last
months of his prison life, and upon his death. But
no Investigation into the mysteries Of the Temple
can be thorough that does not extend to archives of
which the Government holds the key.
Long before 1915, reluctantly at first but presently
convinced bv study of such documents as their
friends could furnish, Jules Favre became the advo
cate of the Nauudorfr family but. persuaded of the
futity of any efforts i'll their favor made under the
Monarchy Of July il was not till May, 1851, that he
brought their ease again into open court On the
then unfavorable decision quickly followed another
Monarchy one of the first acts of whose chief was TO
require the surrender Of Louis Napole0ns dosSier
(the record papers of his Strasburg, Bouogne, and
other doings, preserved at the Prefecteur of Police
Whatever other criminal dOssi0S the naughty
Communarls destroyed there three years ago,
His Majesty had anticipated them IN
the burning of that. Political considera
tons, to which add say some restrictive pecuniary
embarrassments of the Naundorff house. sufficiently
explain the long delay in pressing their appealed
suit Subsidiary but essential TO Their primary de-
mand already mentioned, their advocate demands
of the Court in the name Of justice, that it order
investigation that shall have for its objects the
looking up of probably still existing but retained
documents the supplying so far as possible by indi-
cations. Of those that have been lost destroyed
If the Government again blocks the way and ressts
such investigation. it will be confession.
You NAV read in the Gazette des TiibHnedA Of the
last fortnight considerably abridged but otherwise
sufficentlyathful report Of Jules Favres statement
of his clients case, and historico-legal discourse
in its support. The statement is more detailed
and more carefully drawn, and, well as the plea
which followed, is much longer than that which he
presented to the lower tribunal in 1851. Comparing
them, however, with the old report published IN the
May and June numbers for 1851 Of the same journal
| do not find that he has added much if any essen
tal novelty to his former argument The present is
better constructed and more complete than the
earlier one 1t is not stronger for Naundor than his
brother LAWYER j. Suvgny's Preures de PEGStence dH
Fis de Louis XVI vol svo PIP. 27O, Paris, lSjl is
for Rchemont who is, perhaps, the least Incredible
certainly, excepting the Rev. Williams, the least
diSreputabe of the whole five, not to say SIX, pre-
tended Dauphns. Like the professionally legal and
Law advocates of the other claimants, NJ. Favre does
not so well succeed in inspiring us with his own
convictions respecting his client as in entertaining
our doubts respecting the solidty OF the claims OF
any of the others But here we may keep mind that
while he, like Suvigny and Mr.. Hanson, asks the
Minister of Justice and challenges the Government
to aid him in filing up the gaps of evidence for his
client pretender, the hstorico-sentimental mourn
ers for the child deceased in the Temple, whom they
h. tbo are
reIgnng unces and all his royal family and all sue
ceeding governments not to consent to serious in
qury and the casting of light into the obScurity
that encompasses the poor boys later days and
death.
vet died ont the great rival claimant, Richcmont,
the activity of whose surrounding believers had
been but just checked by the new monarchy, when
NJ Alcide Hyacinthe du BOs de Beauchesne pub
hshed his Louis XpIL, Sd Die Son AgOnie Sd Mort
which rapidly ran through several editions and was
honored with prize by the French Academy. Ii is
well-written, emnently readable book, despite
oyeriows of sentimentality really touching,
and on condition that you have read no other Oh
the same subject, it is likely to make you accept
as true his assertion that Louis XVIl died. Illegally
a. per informal certificate of four days later, in the
Temple June s. 1895. The chain of argument most
of the links of which unquestonaby solid, is
always polished but just where it is weakest the
story glistens brightest with tears. Coldiy tested
the book is a warm partisan pamphlet NJ
Beauchesne undoubtedly sincere IN Intention but
befogged by his emotional convictions, demOnsraby
and curiously careless in his sitting and arrangement
of evidence Take an instance. 1t is essential
10 his thesis as he treats it, to show that the
child who died in The Temple Sth June, 1885,
not "A latterly substituted dumb child-One of two
substituted children, Naundorff used to say-but