The Revolution of 1830 awoke the pretensions of Herbert, who now
appeared as the Baron de Richmont, and wrote to the Duchesse
d’Angoulême, his (supposed) sister, putting on her the blame of all
his troubles. But the consequences of this effort were disastrous to
him. He was arrested in August, 1833. After hearing many witnesses the
Court condemned him to imprisonment for twelve years. He was arraigned
under the name of “Ethelbert Louis-Hector-Alfred,” calling himself the
“Baron de Richmont.” He escaped from Clairvaux, whither he had been
transferred from Saint-Pélagie, in 1835. In 1843 and 1846 he published
his memoirs--enlarged but omitting some of his earlier assertions,
which had been disproved. He returned to France after the amnesty of
1840. In 1848 he appealed--unheeded--to the National Assembly. He died
in 1855 at Gleyze.
The sixth “Late Dauphin” was a Polish Jew called Naundorf--an impudent
impostor not even seeming suitably prepared by time for the part
which he had thus voluntarily undertaken, having been born in 1775,
and thus having been as old at the birth of the Dauphin as the latter
was when he died. This individual had appeared in Berlin in 1810,
and was married in Spandau eight years later. He had been punished
for incendiarism in 1824, and later got three years’ imprisonment
at Brandenburg for coining. He may be considered as a fairly good
all-round--if unsuccessful--criminal. In England he was imprisoned for
debt. He died in Delft in 1845.
The last attempt at impersonating Louis XVII, the seventh, afforded
what might in theatrical parlance be called the “comic relief” of the
whole series, both as regards means and results. This time the claimant
to the Kingship of France was none other than a half-bred Iroquois, one
called Eleazar, who appeared to be the ninth son of Thomas Williams,
otherwise Thorakwaneken, and an Indian woman, Mary Ann Konwatewentala.
This lady, who spoke only Iroquois, said at the opportune time she was
_not_ the mother of Lazar (Iroquois for Eleazar). She made her mark as
she could not write. Eleazar had been almost an idiot till the age
of thirteen; but, being struck on the head by a stone, recovered his
memory and intelligence. He said he remembered sitting on the knees of
a beautiful lady who wore a rich dress with a train. He also remembered
seeing in his childhood a terrible person; shewn the picture of Simon
he recognised him with terror. He learned English but imperfectly,
became a Protestant and a missionary and married. His profile was
something like that of the typical Bourbon. In 1841, the Prince de
Joinville, seeing him on his travels in the United States, told him
(according to Eleazar’s account) that he was the son of a king, and got
him to sign and seal a parchment, already prepared, the same being a
solemn abdication of the Crown of France in favour of Louis Philippe,
made by Charles Louis, son of Louis XVI, also styled Louis XVII King of
France and Navarre.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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