Naundorff, or Naündorff, who had arrived from nowhere in Berlin in 1810,
with papers giving the name Karl Wilhelm Naundorff, in order to escape
the persecutions of which he declared himself the object, settled at
Spandau in 1812 as a clockmaker, and married in 1818 Johanna Einert. In
1822 he removed to Brandenburg, and in 1828 to Crossen, near Frankfort.
He was imprisoned from 1825 to 1828 for coining, though apparently on
insufficient evidence, and in 1833 came to push his claims in Paris,
where he was recognized as the dauphin by many persons formerly
connected with the court of Louis XVI. Expelled from France in 1836, the
day after bringing a suit against the duchess of Angoulême for the
restitution of the dauphin's private property, he lived in exile till
his death at Delft on the 10th of August 1845, and his tomb was
inscribed "Louis XVII., roi de France et de Navarre (Charles Louis, duc
de Normandie)." The Dutch authorities who had inscribed on his death
certificate the name of Charles Louis de Bourbon, duc de Normandie
(Louis XVII.) permitted his son to bear the name de Bourbon, and when
the family appealed in 1850-1851, and again in 1874, for the restitution
of their civil rights as heirs of Louis XVI. no less an advocate than
Jules Favre pleaded their cause. Of all the pretenders Naundorff has the
best case. He was certainly not the Jew of Prussian Poland which his
enemies declared him to be, and he has to this day a circle of devoted
adherents. Since he was sincerely convinced of his own rights, it is
surprising that he put forward no claim in 1814.
If the dauphin did escape, it seems probable that he perished shortly
afterwards or lived in a safe obscurity. The account of the substitution
in the Temple is well substantiated, even to the names of the
substitutes. The curious imbroglio deceived royalists and republicans
alike. Lady Atkyns was trying by every possible means to get the dauphin
out of his prison when he was apparently already in safe hands, if not
outside the Temple walls. A child was in fact delivered to her agents,
but he was a deaf mute. That there was fraud, and complicated fraud, in
the guardians of the dauphin may be taken as proved by a succession of
writers from 1850 onwards, and more recently by Frédéric Barbey, who
wisely attempts no ultimate solution. When the partisans of Richemont or
Naundorff come to the post-Temple careers of their heroes, they become
in most cases so uncritical as to be unconvincing.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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