Strange Pages from Family PapersThiselton-Dyer, T. F. (Thomas Firminger)
History
Strange Pages from Family Papers
Thiselton-Dyer, T. F. (Thomas Firminger)
Legends; Superstition
Having learnt so much, Lady Newborough being in Paris in the year
1823, had recourse to a stratagem by which she expected to gain
additional information. Accordingly she inserted in the newspapers,
"that she had been desired by the Countess Pompeo Borghi to discover
in France a Count Louis Joinville, who in the year 1773 was with his
Countess at Modigliana, where the latter gave birth to a son on the
16th April, and that if either of these persons were still alive, or
the child born at Modigliana, she was empowered to communicate to them
something of the highest importance.
Subsequently to this advertisement, she was waited upon by a Colonel
Joinville, but he derived his title only from Louis XVIII. But before
the Colonel was out of the door, she had a call from the Abbe de
Saint-Fare, whom she gave to understand that she was anxious to
discover the identity of a birth connected with the sojourn with the
late Comte de Joinville. In the course of conversation, this Abbe is
stated to have made most injudicious admissions, from which Lady
Newborough gathered that he was the confidential agent of the Duke of
Orleans, being currently said to be his illegitimate brother.
Lady Newborough was now convinced in her own mind that she was the
eldest child of the late Duke of Orleans, and hence was the first
princess of the blood of France, and the rightful heiress of immense
wealth. But this discovery brought her no happiness, and subjected to
her to much discomfort and misery. Her story--whether true or
false--will in all probability remain a mystery to the end of time,
being one of those political puzzles which must remain an open
question.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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