Leaving the hospitable home of Don Juan, he returned to Paris in 1815.
Here Condé introduced him to the Duchesse d’Angoulême (his sister!)
and according to his own naïve statement “the Princess was greatly
surprised,” as indeed she might well have been--quite as much as the
witch of Endor was by the appearance of Samuel. Having been repulsed
by his (alleged) sister, the alleged king made a little excursion,
embracing in its erratic course Rhodes, England, Africa, Egypt, Asia
Minor, Greece, and Italy. When in Austria he met Silvio Pellico in
prison. Having spent some years himself in prison in the same country,
he went to Switzerland. Leaving Geneva in 1826, he entered France,
under the name of Herbert. He was in Paris the following year under
the name of “Colonel Gustave,” and forthwith revived his fraud of being
“the late Dauphin.” In 1828, he appealed to the Chamber of Peers. To
this appeal he appears to have received no direct reply; but apropos
of it, Baron Mounier made a proposition to the Chamber that in future
no such application should be received unless properly signed and
attested and presented by a member of the Chamber. He gathered round
him some dupes who believed in him. To these he told a number of
strange lies based on some form of perverted truth, but always taking
care that those of whom he spoke were already dead. Amongst them was
the wife of Simon, who had died in 1819. Desault, the surgeon, who
had medical care of Louis XVII, and who died in 1795, the ex-Empress
Josephine, who died in 1814, General Pichegru, who died in 1804, and
the Duc de Bourbon (Prince de Condé) who died in 1818. In the course
of his citation of the above names, he plays havoc with generally
accepted history--Desault according to him did not die naturally but
was poisoned. Josephine died simply because she knew the secret of
the young King’s escape. Pichegru died from a similar cause and not
by suicide. Fualdes was assassinated, but it was because he knew the
fatal secret. With regard to one of his dead witnesses whose name was
Thomas-Ignace-Martin de Gallardon, there is a rigmarole which would not
be accepted in the nursery of an idiot asylum. There is a mixture of
Pagan mythology and Christian hagiology which would have been condemned
by Ananias himself. In one passage he talks of seeing suddenly before
him--he could not tell (naturally enough) whence he came--a sort of
angel who had wings, a long coat and a _high hat_. This supernatural
person ordered the narrator to tell the King that he was in danger,
and the only way to avoid it was to have a good police and to keep the
Sabbath. Having given his message the visitant rose in the air and
disappeared. Later on the suggested angel told him to communicate with
the Duc Decazes. The Duke naturally, and wisely enough, handed the
credulous peasant over to the care of a doctor. Martin himself died,
presumably by assassination, in 1834.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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