From this communication, and other documents found in the prisoner's
possession, it was discovered that he claimed to be Louis Charles de
Bourbon, Duke of Normandy, and the legitimate heir to the crown of
France. This illustrious captive was sent to Milan, and, without
undergoing the formality of a trial, was promptly incarcerated. His
story, as fully detailed in the "_Mémoires du Duc de Normandie, fils de
Louis XVI., écrits et publié par lui-même_," at Paris in 1831, and
subsequently republished with modifications and additions in 1850, is
of a most interesting character, and is evidently as veracious as most
of those issued by his contemporary rival claimants. According to the
Milan prisoner, whose memory, unlike that of most of the pretenders to
the dauphin's name, was clear as to the miseries he had endured during
captivity in the Temple, after the death of Marie Antoinette, the wife
of his jailer Simon consented to aid his escape, having been bought by
the gold of the Duke de Condé, who had sent two faithful emissaries,
the Count de Frotte, and Ojardias, a pretended physician, to Paris, in
hopes of rescuing the royal child. The name of Ojardias, it is as well
to remark, notwithstanding the important part he was called upon to
play in this drama, has entirely escaped the researches of all
historians contemporary or recent, and appears only in the pages of
this remarkable narrative. This pretended physician, having purchased
the co-operation of Madame Simon, and secured for himself, by
unrecounted means, the post of medical adviser to the dauphin,
counselled the invalid prince should be permitted a little exercise,
and recommended a wooden horse for that purpose.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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