Bruneau could neither read nor write, and perhaps it was as well for himself that his education had been thus neglected, for if he had been left to his own devices his imposture would have been very short-lived. But he contrived to attach two clever rascals to himself, who helped to prolong the fraud and to victimise the public. They were both convicts, but convicts of a high intellectual type. One was Larcher, a revolutionary priest, and a man of detestable life; while the other was a forger named Tourly. These worthies acted as his secretaries. On the 3d of March 1816, the priest wrote a letter to "Madame de France" in these terms:-- "MY SISTER,--You are doubtless not ignorant of my being held in the saddest captivity, and reduced to a condition of appalling misery. So may I beg of you, if you should think me worthy of your especial consideration, to visit me here in my imprisonment. Even should you for an instant suspect me of being an impostor, still may I claim consideration for the sake of your brother. The scandal and judgment of which our family is daily the object throughout the entire kingdom may well make you shudder. I am myself sunk in despair at the thought of being so near the capital without being permitted to publicly appear in it. If you determine upon coming down here you would do well to preserve an incognito. In the meantime receive the embraces of your unfortunate brother, THE KING OF FRANCE AND NAVARRE." This precious epistle Madame Jacquieres undertook not only to forward to the Duchess d'Angouleme, but also promised to procure the honour of a private interview for the bearer of the missive. Larcher and Tourly must have been kept very busy, for the pretended dauphin was never tired of sending appeals for assistance to the foreign powers, of addressing proclamations to the people, and even went so far as formally to petition the parliament that he might be taken to Paris, in order there to establish his identity as the son of Louis XVI. The whole of the papers issued from the prison, and they were enormous in quantity, were signed by his secretaries with his name.