The Yale expositor., 1911-08-10

One of the Legacies Of the French
Revolution.
FATE OF THE YOUNG DAUPHIM
Whether the Son CT Louis XVI. and
Marie Antoinette Was Iaurdered or
Died or Was Spirited Away Is an
Enigma Without &o,usion.

VdTio fNUtoiHettc was '"uTuercu or
Died or Was Spirited Away Is an
Enigma Without &o,usion.
Every healthy minded man or WON
an loves Il mystery and. Fortunately
for the world history has provited
one or two rr.niemS which have been
worn thr"adlHte without revealing
their secrets. Among these Is the fate
of the nine ypar-old son of Louis XVI.
and Marie Antoinette. which Nine.
Louise Lntour recently dealt with in
lecture in London.
A child judicialy murdered or else
spirited away, another substituted for
him 10 die and to he buried under
false name. the people who reported Of
these things silenced or poisoned. the
period of events comparatively recent
the story sounds incredible. but II
rests on basis OF established fact.
The dauphin. delicate child Of nine.
was removed from his mother and
friends and given to the care Of Simon.
the brutal savetier. and his wife.
After this all remains obscure except
that while the boy was In their care
the Simons gave up their post-in IT.
self rather strange. as II was a lucra-
tive one-and on the day of the change
Of residence the substitution is sup
posed to have taken place. In the even
ing O child in bed was shown TO the
emissaries Of the convention, and the
next morning he was removed to
smaller room with the door nailed up.
the only air coming in by the grille
through which his food was passed.
So he remained until he became so Ill
that DR.. Dessault. who had often been
to Versailles in the old days. was sum-
moned to attend him and was amazed
to find scrofulous and dying boy.
"Ce nest pas le petit dauphin"
("That is not the little Dauphin!l he
blurted out imprudently. and day or
two later he died by poison.
Other doctors were brought who
were unacquaIntcd with the royal chill
dren, and the child died AMI wns bur
led In his assumed character. lie Is
generally supposed to have been II iHd
called Gomheau. ard his mother Wa
actually seen by people In America.
where she admitted the wirkrdnrS> nf
having sold her dying son " hen she
was I'm a condition OF eXtre9e poverty.
La femme Simon talked, hut her
words were discreditcd by The al; hori
ties, who declared she waS drunken
and garrulouS. Nevertheless. on her
deathbed she confessed 10 II priest and
nurse that a substitute had been put
In the dauphins place.
Such are the historical facts as re-
lated by Nine Lntour. and to account
for them two theories have been de-
duced. says Il writer in the London
Times. The first. In which Nine La
tour believes. was that the dluphin
was judicially murdered 10y Simon In
the temple and the dying Gombeau
put In his place 10 hide tue crime from
the world OF the second. that the
child escaped nlive from his prison.
many people are strenuous supporters,
Some of them describe the course of
events thus: Gombeau was brought
into the temple on the day Of the de-
management In large cardboard
horse given ostensibIy as souvenir to
the royal prisoner by the femme 81
mon, while the dauphin was carried
out by the woman I'm II big basket of
dirty linen. Others declare that the
prince was actually kept hidden In @
garret I'm the temple until the substi-
tute died. more than year later,
when he was taken out In coffin with
a false bottom. the body Of Gombeau
being buried In the moat
This theory has had two startling
Combinations small coffin filled
with paper and stones was actually
found in the cemetery of La Madeleine,
and General d'Andigne, imprisoned In
| the temple in 1901 and allowed to re-
lieve the tedium Of his confinement by
gardening, was digging in the moat
when he found the uncoffined skeleton
Of a child
But. as Nine. Iatour asked, IL the
dauphin escaped alive into the world
where did he go? No fewer than
thirty pretenders. one negro, at diff
ferent times have declared themselves
the son OF Louis XVI. and Marie An
toinette. The two who attracted most
disciples were the Due de Richemont
and "Naundorc." With regard to the
latter. II was against him that he did
not come forward until he was thirty
years of age and he could not speak
q word of French. Nine. Latour added
that he married middle class wife
and was an excellent matchmaker. con
sequently unlike what the heir Of roy
al line ought to be. Obviously the speak.
er had forgotten Louis Seize and his
| pocsion for making and mendinC locks