CHICAGO HATTER LAYS CLAIM TO THRONE

Stratford Evening Post, Issue 39, 12 September 1930, Page 6

CHICAGO HATTER LAYS CLAIM TO THRONE

A Chicago hatter who says he believes that he is “His Most Christian Majesty Louis XIX. by the Grace of God, King of -France and navarre,” sailed from France for the United States recently. He went to France to prove that he was a grandson of Louis XVII, the lost Dauphin of France, who was the son and heir of Louis XVI and Marie Antoinette. He is returning to his home still unrecognised, but as convinced as ever that he will prove his claim before he dies. This unpretentious man is named Louis Philippe Brosseau. He explains that .he was told the story of his descent by his dying father, who was 90 years old and had kept the secret under oath ever since it was passed on to him by Mr. Brosseau’s grandfather, who died in 1875 at the age of 90. His grandfather declared that it was he who as a boy of eight was smuggled out of the Temple prison and away to Canada. Mr. Brosseau’s claim rests on slender evidence. Besides his grandfather’s story he has a much-worn silver cross of crude workmanship, which, it is said, was given to the youthful Dauphin before he left the Temple prison. Mr. Brosseau also has what are said to be the little prince’s clothes, and a few scattered records have been collected for him by a Chicago lawyer. During his visit to France Mr. Brosseap laid his story before several wellknown historians, including M. G. Lenotre, who is an. authority on the Bourbons and familiar with most of the stories that are told about the fate of the Dauphin. Mr. Brosseau says he intends to sell his business in Chicago and devote the rest of to collecting evidence among the records of Jesuit churches in Canada and from old documents in England and Spain.