The seal used was the seal of France, the one used
by the old Monarchy. The “poor Indian with untutored mind” made with
charming diffidence the saving clause regarding the seal,--“if I am not
mistaken.” Of course there was in the abdication a clause regarding
the payment of a sum of money “which would enable me to live in great
luxury in this country or in France as I might choose.” The Reverend
Eleazar, despite his natural disadvantages and difficulties, was
more fortunate than his fellow claimants inasmuch as the time of his
imposture was more propitious. Louis Philippe, who was always anxious
to lessen the danger to his tottering throne, made a settlement on him
from his Civil List, and the “subsequent proceedings interested him no
more.”
Altogether the Louis XVII impostures extended over a period of some
sixty years, beginning with Hervagault’s pretence soon after the death
of the Dauphin, and closing at Gleyze with the death of Henri Herbert,
the alleged Baron de Richmont who appeared as the alleged Duc de
Normandie.
E. PRINCESS OLIVE
The story of Mrs. Olive Serres, as nature made it, was one thing; it
was quite another as she made it for herself. The result, before the
story was completely told, was a third; and, compared with the other,
one of transcendent importance. Altogether her efforts, whatsoever
they were and crowned never so effectively, showed a triumph in its
way of the thaumaturgic art of lying; but like all structures built
on sand it collapsed eventually. In the plain version--nature’s--the
facts were simply as follows. She, and a brother of no importance, were
the children of a house painter living in Warwick, one Robert Wilmot,
and of Anna Maria his wife. Having been born in 1772 she was under
age when in 1791 she was married, the ceremony therefore requiring
licence supported by bond and affidavit. Her husband was John Thomas
Serres who ten years later was appointed marine painter to King George
III. Mr. and Mrs. Serres were separated in 1804 after the birth of two
daughters, the elder of whom, born in 1797, became in 1822 the wife
of Antony Thomas Ryves a portrait painter--whom she divorced in 1847.
Mrs. A. T. Ryves twelve years later filed a petition praying that the
marriage of her mother, made in 1791, might be declared valid and she
herself the legitimate issue of that marriage. The case was heard in
1861, Mrs. Ryves conducting it in person. Having produced sufficient
evidence of the marriage and the birth, and there being no opposition,
the Court almost as a matter of course pronounced the decree asked for.
In this case no complications in the way of birth or marriage of Mrs.
Serres were touched on.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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