LOST BOY KING.

Auckland Star, Volume LXVIII, Issue 108, 8 May 1937, Page 4 (Supplement)

LOST BOY KING.

UNSOLVED MYSTERY.

DAYS OF GUILLOTINE.

THE fall of the guillotine upon the neck of Louis XVI. made that hap-

less monarch's only son, the Dauphin Charles Louis, King of France. The chila king was shut up in the prison of the Temple at the time of his father's execution. He was not yet eight, and altogether at- the mercy of his gaoler, Simon, a member of the Conseil Generale de la Seine, who had orders from the terrorists to teach the helpless lad indecent and profane language and to make a drunkard of him.

After languishing in prison for three years the little King Louis XVII. became- lost to history. His fate has been one of the sphinx riddles of the ages.

Everyone sharing knowledge of it seems to have come to a tragic end. Simon, the gaoler, had hia head lopped off by the guillotine, leaving the secret to his widow, Mme. Simon, who, 'by order of King Louis XVIII., was seized immediately after the Bourbon restoration and imprisoned in an insane asylum at Bictere until her death, 15 years later. She had persisted in asserting that the boy king had been carried off, and it is claimed that her imprisonment was directly due to her knowledge of the lad's fate.

The Abbe Dubois, rector of St. Marguerite's, was commanded by Louis XVIII, to sign a declaration that ■ the remains of the lost child had been interred in the .cemetery of that church, and on refusing to comply was poisoned to death. The Due de Berri, nephew of Louis XVIII., asserted that the boy king still lived, and after denouncing his royal uncle as . a usurper suffered assassination. Mysterious Stranger. In 1810 there appeared in Berlin *a mysterious stranger who, in the upper part of his face, bore an astonishing resemblance to Louis XVI. and had the famous protruding chin characteristic of Marie Antoinette's family. Claiming to be the lost Dauphin, he correctly described secret hiding places in the interior of the Temple prison, where the boy king had been hidden, and went into elaborate details concerning plots to rescue the royal child. Bearing upon these plots, he had letters, said to have been afterward identified as genuine. ' According to his story, he had been carried away from the Temple and another child had been substituted in his place; but this child having died, a second substitute, a deaf mute, was put in the secret hiding place in the garret of the Temple tower, which he described accurately. Being taken in charge by Barras, a member of the Committee of Public Safety, who had overthrown the Terrorist Robespierre, he said that he hud been held as a hostage that the 'revolutionists might bring Louis XVIII. to their feet.

Then had ccine the reign of Napoleon. who had kept him a prisoner many years, part of the time in a dungeon at Vincennes. Later he had been taken to

the Vendee and then to Ttalv, where Pope Pius VI. and Pins VII. had protected him. Dauphin Still Alive. In support of this mysterious man's story, it has l>een claimed that Empress Josephine, widow of Napoleon, on the day before her death, told Emperor Alexander of Russia that the lost Dauphin was still alive and that Louis XVIII. was therefore an usurper. 'Tis said that when Ixmis XVIIT. attempted to ''publicly commemorate the Dauphin's death'' Pius VII. forbade him. According to the story of this stranger claiming to be the lost* Dauphin, he had lately left Italy and wandered on foot to Berlin, nearing which city a stranger had overtaken him on the road and told him that he would need a passport to enter. The pilgrim having no passport, the intruder pressed upon him one that had been made out in the name of another man,, one Naundorff.

So, as Naundorff, the alleged lost Dauphin entered the Prussian capital where he set himself up in business as a watchmaker and let his story leak out. After a while the King of Prussia learned his secret and, it is said, obtained all of his documents. Holdin" these over the head of Louis XVIII., he exacted from that monarch treaty concessions disadvantageous to France. Six years after entering Berlin Xaundorff wrote to Louis XVl.'s daughter, the Duchesse d'Angouleme, claiming to be her lost brother. As a result he became the victim of persecutions said to have been inspired by the French Kind's I secret agents. ° Victim of Persecutions. He was accused of arson and counterfeiting, but made his way to Paris where he was identified as the rightful Louis XVII. by Doctor de Caro, physician of his alleged sister, the Duchesse d'Angouleme; also by her dentist, by Mme. de Rambaud, once femme-de-ehambre of the little Dauphin, and by others who had access to the palace at the time of Louis XVI. His story was accepted also by Jules Favre, the noted French statesman, who became his attorney and confidante.

Later Naundorff settled in Holland, where a military invention gave him means and where it is eaid the Dutch King accepted his claims. He died at Delft in 1845, his last words being £ mumbled recitation of events concern-

ing the prison of the Temple and the guillotine. During his autopsy the vaccination marks, a lip scar, a pigeonshaped mole and other marks that had distinguished the lost Dauphin were said to have been found upon his body. His tomb at Delft hears this inscription: "Charles Louis de Bourbon, Due de Normandie. Born at the Chateau of Versailles on 27th March, 1785. Son of his late Majesty Louis XVI., King of France, and of Her Imperial and Royal Highness Marie Antoinette, Archduchess of Austria, Queen of France; both of them deceased at Paris. Died on August 10, 1845, at Delft." Suit for Recognition. King Louis Philip, who, during the greater part of his reign, strove to disprove the claims of Kaundorff, protested to William of Holland, asking him to obliterate this inscription. The ruler offered to comply only upon condition that the French Government would furnish evidence that the words upon the Delft tomb were false. Queen Wilhelmina of Holland lately had the tomb repaired and the inscription remains. In recent years the greatgrandsons of the mysterious Naundorff have entered suit for recognition as the heirs of the "vanished Louis and a Senate commission appointed to examine into their claim some time ago decided in their favour, Although the Senate has neither rejected nor accepted the report. So Naundorff still remains a mystery. If he was not the lost Louis XVII.. who was he? Nonj of the hundreds of secret agents that have worked upon the case was ever able to identify him as any other personage.