Lady Atkyns suggested that the Queen should escape dressed in her costume, but the Royal prisoner would not forsake her children. There is a tradition that in refusing the offer of her enthusiastic friend, Marie-Antoinette besought her good offices for the young Dauphin, while putting her on her guard against the intrigues of the Comte de Provence and the Comte d’Artois. However, most of these facts were still in doubt, resting only on somewhat vague statements, elliptical allusions, and intangible bits of gossip, picked up here and there, when, one day, my friend Lenôtre, who is great at ferreting out old papers, came to me, all excitement, with a document which he had come upon the evening before in a portfolio among the Archives of the Police. It was a letter, dated May, 1821, and addressed to the Minister by the director of the penitential establishment of Gaillon. This official was disturbed over the proceedings of a certain “Madame Hakins or Aquins.” Since the false Dauphin, Mathurin Bruneau, sentenced by the Court of Rouen to five years’ imprisonment, had become an inmate of that institution, this foreigner had installed herself at Gaillon, and had been seeking to get into communication with the prisoner. She seemed even to be bent upon supplying him with the means of making his escape. I drew from this the obvious conclusion that if in 1821, Lady Atkyns could bring herself to believe in the possibility of Mathurin Bruneau being the son of Louis XVI., it must be because she had good reasons for being convinced that the Dauphin had escaped from the Temple. And this conviction of hers became of considerable importance because of the _rôle_ she herself had played (however little one knew of it) in the story of the Royal captivity. It was quite clear that after her promise to the Queen, the faithful Englishwoman, who, as we have seen, was not afraid to compromise herself, and who was generous with her money, must have kept in touch at least with all the facts relating to the Dauphin’s imprisonment, learning all that was to be learnt about the Temple, questioning everybody who could have had any contact with the young captive--warders, messengers, doctors, and servants. If after such investigations, and in spite of the official records and of the announcement of his death on June 9, 1798, she could still believe twenty-six years later that the prince might be alive, it can only be because she was satisfied that the dead youth was not the Dauphin.