His escape was discovered on the same night on which it took place; but the government thought fit to conceal it, and caused the wooden figure to be replaced by a deaf and dumb boy. At the same time the guard was doubled, to give the public the idea that the dauphin was still in safe-keeping. This extra precaution prevented his friends from smuggling him out of the Tower, as they had intended; but, in order to deceive the authorities, they despatched a boy under his name, in the direction, he believed, of Strasburg. At this time he was about nine years and a half old, and his long imprisonment had rendered him accustomed to suffering. Throughout the long winter he endured the cold without a murmur; and no one guessed his hiding-place, for the room was disused and was never opened, and if any one had by chance entered it, he could not have been seen, as even the friend who visited him could only reach him by crawling on all-fours, and when he did not come the captive remained patiently in his concealment. Frequently he waited for several days for his food; but no murmur escaped his lips, and he was only too glad to endure present suffering in the hope of future safety. While he was thus stowed away in the upper storey of the Temple Tower, a rumour spread abroad that the dauphin had escaped, and the government took the alarm. It was decided that the deaf and dumb boy, who had been substituted for the doll which had taken his place, should die, and to kill him poison was mixed with his food in small quantities. The captive became excessively ill, and Desault, the surgeon, was called in, not to save his life, but to counterfeit humanity. Desault at once saw that poison had been administered, and ordered an antidote to be prepared by a friend of his own, an apothecary called Choppart, telling him at the same time that the official prisoner was not the son of Louis XVI. Choppart was indiscreet, and betrayed the confidence which had been reposed in him; and the floating rumour reached the authorities. In alarm lest the fraud should be detected, they removed the deaf and dumb child, and substituted for him a rickety boy from one of the Parisian hospitals. To make assurance doubly sure, according to Nauendorff's version, they poisoned both Desault and Choppart, and the substituted rickety boy was attended by physicians, who, never having seen either the real dauphin, or the deaf and dumb prisoner, naturally believed it was the dauphin they were attending.