LIBRARY OF CONGRESS. 
 
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 - c w^t tyj. - 
 
 Shelf „JSl.4t 
 
 VX1TK1) STATES OF AMERICA. 
 
i 
 
WHO WAS HE? 
 
 SIX SHORT STORIES ABOUT SOME OF THE 
 
 MYSTERIOUS CHARACTERS 
 
 AND 
 
 WELL-KEPT SECRETS OF MODERN TIMES. 
 
 BY 
 
 HENRY FREDERIC REDDALL, 
 
 AUTHOR OF 
 
 u From the Golden Gate to the Golden Horn," etc. 
 
 NEW YORK: 
 PHILLIPS & HUNT. 
 
 CINCINNA TI : 
 CRANSTON & ST OWE. 
 
 1887. 
 
$ 
 
 *A 
 
 THE LIBRARY 
 OF CONGRESS 
 WASHINGTON 
 
 Copyright, 1887, by 
 
 PHILLIPS & HUNT, 
 
 New York. 
 
PREFACE 
 
 author's endeavor, in the follow- 
 ing pages, has been to present 
 in a popular and interesting 
 manner the facts and fancies 
 grouped around the more prom- 
 inent and puzzling personal enigmas and 
 well-kept secrets of history. Some of the 
 themes treated are veritable "twice-told 
 tales ; " yet others have been more or 
 less thoroughly discussed by divers able pens; and, 
 while much of the material is and must remain 
 inaccessible to the general reader, it may be that 
 the only novelty consists in thus grouping between 
 a single cover the half-dozen intensely thrilling 
 narratives herein presented. Of course, the choice 
 of topics has been confined to those historical epi- 
 sodes whose solution is surrounded by more or less 
 of doubt and mystery. Such stories as those of 
 the Pseudo-Byron, Psalmanazar, the False Demetrii, 
 
4 Preface. 
 
 and the Chevalier D'Eon, though for a time suffi- 
 ciently bewildering, cannot be properly described as 
 historical enigmas; all these persons and their con- 
 geners were nothing more than clever impostors, 
 and their eventful narratives must be relegated to a 
 separate volume. The present book has been penned 
 with the view of acquainting our little men and 
 women and our young men and maidens with some 
 of the strangest personalities and most mysterious 
 transactions that ever enlivened the page of history. 
 Brooklyn, 1887. 
 
CONTENTS 
 
 ■*•• PAGE 
 
 The Lost Heib op the Bourbons '. 7 
 
 II. 
 
 The Unknown op the Bastile 81 
 
 III. 
 
 The Youth Who Fell from Crown to Kitchen, and 
 Some Similar Strange Stories 119 
 
 IV. 
 The Foundling op Nuremberg . 135 
 
 V. 
 The Wandering Jew 20 
 
 7 
 
 YI. 
 Junius and the Junius Quest 249 
 
I. 
 
 THE LOST HEIR OF THE BOURBONS. 
 
THE 
 
 LOST HEIR OF THE BOURBONS. 
 
 HE noble army of deathless ones — 
 saints, warriors, and heroes — 
 has received recruits in divers 
 lands and among widely diver- 
 gent peoples. An extreme re- 
 luctance to believe in the mortality of its 
 departed worthies has impelled mankind, 
 in every age, to claim for some a perpetual 
 existence — sleeping or waking — in various 
 Edenic abodes of bliss; and this feeling is likewise 
 responsible for much of the mythology of ancient 
 races, as well as for the frequent more modern exam- 
 ples of an extensive belief in the survival of certain 
 favorites dear to the popular heart. 
 
 The reader will recall, even as he scans these lines, 
 the names of many heroes who have been relegated 
 to the ranks of the " undying ones " by their admir- 
 
10 Who Was He? 
 
 ers or their dupes, and who are or were confidently 
 expected to revisit the earth at some future day, near 
 or remote, in tenfold power and majesty, when they 
 will confound their enemies and recompense their 
 friends. Nearly every nation, it has been remarked, 
 " has had its patron saint or hero who is not dead, 
 but sleepeth, and who, in the hour of calamity, will 
 surely arise to uphold the ancient liberties of his 
 native land and spread consternation among its foes. 
 The mythical Arthur of Britain proved himself in- 
 vulnerable to every stroke until the treachery of his 
 wife and his dearest friend overwhelmed him in 
 ruin. But even then he did not die, and the old 
 monkish chroniclers gravely tell of his occasional 
 appearance and of his certain return in the future. 
 So Charlemagne, William Tell, Boabdil, Sebastian, 
 Frederick Barbarossa, and many other redoubtable 
 w r arriors await in silence the angelic trumpet call to 
 lead their armies again to victory. Mohammed's 
 death was discredited by his disciples, and for years 
 after the infamous Nero had met his fate his reap- 
 pearance was looked for by the Koman populace. 
 During the Middle Ages the common people of En- 
 gland, with characteristic pertinacity, refused to be- 
 lieve the reputed death of several of their princes, 
 
The Lost Heir of the Boukbons. 11 
 
 and treasure and life were readily expended in behalf 
 of worthless adventurers who personated the departed 
 heroes." Macaulay has left us a vivid picture of the 
 devotion of the English rabble to their idol, Mon- 
 mouth. After the disaster at Sedgemoor, and the 
 subsequent trial and execution of the duke, " such was 
 the devotion of the people to their unhappy favorite 
 that, in the face of the strongest evidence by which the 
 fact of a death was ever verified, many continued to 
 cherish a hope that he was still living, and that he 
 would again appear in arms. A person, it was said, 
 who was remarkablv like Monmouth, had sacrificed 
 himself to save the Protestant hero. ,The vulgar 
 long continued, at every important crisis, to whisper 
 that the time was at hand, and that King Monmouth 
 would soon show himself. In 1686, a knave who 
 had pretended to be the duke, and had levied contri- 
 butions in several villages of Wiltshire, was appre- 
 hended, and whipped from Newgate to Tyburn. In 
 1698, when England had long enjoyed constitutional 
 freedom under a new dynasty, the son of an inn- 
 keeper passed himself off on the yeomanry of Sussex 
 as their beloved Monmouth, and defrauded many who 
 w T ere by no means of the lowest class. Five hundred 
 pounds were collected for him. The farmers pro- 
 
12. Who Was He? 
 
 vided him with a horse. Their wives sent him bas- 
 kets of chickens and ducks, and were lavish, it was 
 said, of favors of a more tender kind ; for in gal- 
 lantry, at least, the counterfeit was a not unworthy 
 representative of the original. When this impostor 
 was thrown into prison for his fraud, his followers 
 maintained him in luxury. Several of them ap- 
 peared at the bar to countenance him when he was 
 tried at the Horsham Assizes. So long did this de- 
 lusion last that when George III. had been some 
 years on the English throne Voltaire thought it 
 necessary gravely to confute the hypothesis that the 
 Man in the Iron Mask was the Duke of Monmouth." 
 In our own day the bucolic backwoodsmen of the 
 west and south-west voted quadrennially for Andrew 
 Jackson long after the decease of their beloved " Old 
 Hickory," while the ignorant and faithful French 
 peasantry still sturdily deny the defeat and death of 
 Napoleon III. 
 
 Oftentimes the testimony in favor of these myth- 
 ical survivals seems all but conclusive to uncultured 
 minds, while in other cases the circumstantial evi- 
 dence is weighty enough to stagger the practiced 
 observer. Hence it is that we frequently find men 
 of acknowledged ability, whose names are a tower of 
 
The Lost Heir of the Bourbons. 13 
 
 strength, ranging themselves on the side of the popu- 
 lar belief, and by the power of their pens and the 
 force of their influence propping a fabric that would, 
 unaided, soon topple to earth. 
 
 The attention of the reader is invited to one of the 
 most interesting of these historical enigmas. Orig- 
 inating in France, in the stormy epoch of the Terror, 
 the drama was shifted to the hither side of the At- 
 lantic, in the first half of the present century, with a 
 minister — a missionary to a tribe of aborigines — and 
 a prince of the blood royal of France as chief per- 
 formers. The popular trait above alluded to is un- 
 doubtedly partly responsible in this case for the 
 belief that the hero of this episode survived, in an- 
 other clime and amid other conditions, his reputed 
 death. The case evoked a controversy as interesting 
 as it w T as unique, and one that was not the less acri- 
 monious because it was so short-lived.* 
 
 * The literature of this controversy consists of Tlie Life, Suffer- 
 ings, and Death of Louis XVII., by M. de Beauchesne; Vie Lost 
 Prince, by the Rev. J. H. Hanson, published in New York ; various 
 articles in the London Quarterly Revieiv for October, 1853, and in 
 Putnam's Magazine for February, April, and July, 1853, aud Febru- 
 ary, 1854; a review of the evidence, entitled "A Charge to the Jury 
 in the Dauphin Case," in the Knickerbocker Magazine in 1854, of 
 which an able summary, together with other matters of interest to 
 
14 Who Was He? 
 
 The royal chateau at Versailles was the scene of 
 more than ordinary gavety and rejoicing on March 
 27, 1785, the occasion being the birth to Louis XVI. 
 and his queen, Marie Antoinette, of a young prince, 
 their second Eon, who, we are told, opened his eyes 
 on this stormy world at five minutes before seven in 
 the evening. The king and his court signalized the 
 occasion by going to the palace to hear a grand Te 
 Deum sung in honor of the event. The infant was 
 christened Charles Louis, the ceremony being per- 
 formed by the Cardinal de Rohan — he who, the year 
 before, had been so scandalously implicated in the 
 Affair of the Diamond Necklace. 
 
 Though reared in a royal chateau, the boy grew 
 and prospered much as other children. When four 
 years of age his winning ways won the hearts of all. 
 In appearance he exhibited a slight, but well-shaped, 
 body, a broad and open forehead, finely arched eye- 
 brows, and large blue eyes, a fair and rosy complex- 
 ion, with dark chestnut curls falling in ringlets on 
 
 those versed in the case, appeared in the columns of the New York 
 I ling Post in 1883. In the same journal may also be found a let- 
 ter from its Pans correspondent, Mr. I'M ward Kinp, on the hist days 
 of Louis XVII. Reference will be made hereafter to each and all of 
 the above. 
 
The Lost Heir of the Bourbons. , 15 
 
 his shoulders. Though his countenance favored both 
 parents, the likeness to Marie Antoinette was most 
 marked. He was of a lively, yet tractable, disposi- 
 tion, very affectionate, and quick to learn. A t a later 
 period it was said of him : " He appears to be both 
 thoughtful and bold, and endowed with a quick sense 
 of his own rights and of what justice demands in re- 
 spect of others." 
 
 His elder brother, the little Duke of Normandy, 
 died when Charles Louis was four years old, and he 
 thus became the heir-apparent to the throne of 
 France. 
 
 The mutterings of the coming tempest that was to 
 shake France to its center, and whose reverberations 
 were to be heard with terror and dismay by every 
 crowned head in Europe, were inaudible to the child 
 nurtured amid the peaceful recesses of Versailles. 
 The days passed brightly with the little prince, but 
 their tranquillity was destined soon to be troubled and 
 disturbed. 
 
 The summer of 1789 witnessed the first of those 
 great tumults to which the populace of Paris, ever 
 prone to riot and insurrection, were urged by scarcity 
 of food, by vague and alarming rumors of wars and 
 massacres, and by desperation arising out of their 
 
16 Who Was He? 
 
 hopeless aristocrat- and priest-ridden condition. The 
 States-General met, for the first time in many years, 
 on May 5, and constituted itself the " National As- 
 sembly" on June 17. Thenceforward event suc- 
 ceeded event with startling and dramatic suddenness. 
 The Bastile was stormed and sacked on July 14, the 
 title of the monarch was changed from " King of 
 France " to that of " King of the French," the prop- 
 erty of the Church and the clergy was confiscated, 
 and the emigration of the nobles and gentry speedily 
 followed. 
 
 In the capital the dearth of bread stirred the pas- 
 sions of the people. On the morning of October 4, 
 1789, the authorities of the Hotel de Ville having 
 proved unable to deal with the emergency, " some- 
 body suggested the bold expedient of going to Ver- 
 sailles to fetch the king." Led by Stanislas Mail- 
 lard, a mob of eight thousand infuriated women, 
 followed by some hundreds of armed insurgents — a 
 hungry, excited, undrilled multitude — entered the 
 royal city of Versailles, chanting revolutionary bal- 
 lads. They were led by Maillard first to the Na- 
 tional Assembly, where a few were allowed to enter 
 and present the plea of the citizens for bread. But 
 the Assembly was as powerless to afford relief as the 
 
The Lost Heir of the Bourbons. 17 
 
 city fathers of Paris had been. So on the morrow 
 the royal residence was besieged, and the king and 
 his family commanded and compelled to remove to 
 the capital. Escorted by the National Assembly, 
 which had voted its inseparability from his majesty, 
 by thousands of the National Guard, and by tens of 
 thousands of his turbulent subjects, Louis XVI., his 
 wife, and his children, Marie Therese and Louis, left 
 Versailles never to return. 
 
 There was no attempt at order among the noisy 
 rabble. " Clinging to his mother in terror of the 
 horde of wild-looking men and women who were 
 shouting in demoniac laughter, the dauphin entered 
 one of the coaches, the queen alternately trying to 
 pacify his fears and to look with calmness on the 
 terrific throng. Already blood had been shed. The 
 mob, in forcing the palace, had killed two of the 
 guards who defended the queen's apartments from 
 outrage, and with the heads of these unfortunate and 
 brave men stuck on the end of pikes, a party pre- 
 ceded the royal carriages to Paris." On the way 
 they halted at Sevres, and compelled a barber to 
 dress the dripping heads according to the prevailing 
 fashion. 
 
 In the rear of this band caine the noisy procession 
 2 
 
18 Who Was He ? 
 
 of soldiers, citizens, and women, some riding astride 
 of cannon or clinging to the gun-carriages, some car- 
 rying pikes and muskets, and the majority waving 
 branches of the poplar trees so plentiful thereabouts. 
 In the course of the journey, which occupied many 
 hours, the royal prisoners were constantly reviled by 
 the riff-raff of the metropolis, who surged about the 
 carriages. In this species of abuse the women were 
 foremost and readiest. The scarcity of bread, though 
 owing entirely to natural causes, was imputed to the 
 king's influence, and now that he was in the hands of 
 the mob they believed that the counters of the bake- 
 shops would once more groan beneath the weight of 
 the staff of life. "We shall no longer," they shouted 
 at the windows of the royal carriages, " we shall no 
 longer want bread ; we have the bakers wife and the 
 baker's boy with us! " Amid such a scene of tumult 
 and terror was the child launched on the stormy 
 tide of the French Revolution that was to bear him 
 on its bosom to his doom. 
 
 Thus far what was destined to be the greatest 
 social upheaval of modern times had not shed much 
 blood. On July 14, 1790, one year from the fall of 
 the Bastile, the Confederation of the Champ de Mars 
 declared France a limited monarchy, and Louis XVI. 
 
The Lost Heir of the Bourbons. 19 
 
 swore to maintain the constitution. But with the 
 death of Mirabeau, who w r as the master-spirit of the 
 National Assembly, which occurred April 2, 1791, 
 the cunning hand that had guided, developed, and 
 given outward form to the revolution was removed 
 from the helm, and chaos and confusion soon had full 
 sway in unhappy France. The position of the king 
 soon became so irksome that he attempted, in June, 
 1791, to escape with his family from Paris, but the 
 scheme miscarried, and the fugitives were arrested at 
 Varennes and forced to return. By the insurrection 
 of August 10 of the same year the Jacobins, led by 
 Danton and Robespierre, " effected the total subver- 
 sion of the monarchy, and inaugurated the Reign of 
 Terror." " There is now no king in France ! " ex- 
 claimed the monarch on reading of his deposition. 
 The king and his family were removed from the 
 Tuilleries and confined in the tower of the Temple, 
 which became their prison, and which some of them 
 only exchanged for the guillotine-cart and the grave, 
 Louis being executed January 21, 1793, and Marie 
 Antoinette in the following October. 
 
 We are told that the Temple, " though now no 
 longer in existence, once held an important place 
 among the historical monuments of Paris. It de- 
 
20 Who Was He 3 
 
 rived its name from the Templars, the first of the 
 military and religious orders founded in the twelfth 
 century for the defense of the Holy Sepulcher at 
 Jerusalem. In 1792 it consisted of a large square 
 tower. Hanked at its four angles by four round 
 towers, and having on the north side another sep- 
 arate tower, or keep, of less dimensions than the first, 
 surmounted by turrets, and called the White Tower." 
 Here apartments were prepared for the royal family, 
 but after a time the king was, by order of the As- 
 sembly, confined separately in the Great Tower, and 
 only allowed to spend a portion of each day with his 
 family. 
 
 Throughout these troublous times the little Charles 
 Louis figures inconspicuously. Too young to appreci- 
 ate the immense consequence to himself of the events 
 happening around him, he knew not the value of the 
 heritage he had lost through his father's deposition. 
 As we have seen, on August 13, 1791, together 
 witli his parents, his sister, and his aunt, he took up 
 his abode in the Temple. Two years later he emerged 
 thence, but whether dead or alive, whether in a coffin 
 or living and cunningly disguised, is not certainly 
 known. 
 
 Louis XVI. seems, from the first day of his actual 
 
The Lost Heir of the Bourbons. 21 
 
 imprisonment, to Lave realized that the current of 
 events was hurrying him toward a fatal goal. But 
 while life remained there was for him no greater 
 pleasure than to resume the interrupted education of 
 his son, and in this occupation he apparently forgot 
 his troubles. M. de Beauchesne says of the dauphin 
 at this time : " In this child of six and a half years 
 old there was a combination of force and grace rare 
 even in the most highly endowed natures. Some- 
 times the seriousness of his thought gave his conver-. 
 sation a character full of nobleness ; sometimes, on 
 the contrary, the frank playfulness of his years shone 
 forth without regrets and without desires. Already 
 he thought no more of past greatness ; he was happy 
 to live, and he was only turned to grief by the tears 
 which sometimes stole down his mother's cheeks. 
 He never spoke of the games and walks of other 
 days ; he never uttered the name of Versailles or of 
 the Tuilleries ; he seemed to regret nothing." 
 
 The close affection subsisting between the members 
 of this little circle in the gloomy tower, far above the 
 rumble and roar of the turbulent city, served to unite 
 them more closely in this hour of trial and danger. 
 There are on record many pen -pictures of scenes 
 from their daily life, most of them written in after 
 
22 Who Was He? 
 
 life by the Princess Marie Therese (who became 
 eventually the Duchess d'Angouleme). Here is one, 
 describing the efforts of the king to at once amuse 
 and instruct the boy : 
 
 " Louis," said lie, " what is that which is white and 
 black, weighs not an ounce, travels night and day like 
 the wind, and tells a thousand things without speak- 
 ing?" 
 
 " It must be a horse," answered the dauphin, after 
 a spell of thinking. " A horse may be white and 
 black ; a horse runs races, and a horse does not speak. " 
 
 " So far so good, my boy ; but a horse weighs more 
 than an ounce, and I never heard of his telling any 
 news." 
 
 "Ah, now I have it!" and the young prince's 
 merry peal of laughter almost awoke an answering 
 echo from the anxious group of listeners. " It is a 
 newspaper ! " 
 
 " Here is another question for you, Louis," re- 
 sumes the king. " Who is she, the most beautiful, 
 the noblest, the best — " 
 
 "Who but my mother!" interrupts the lad, 
 springing into the queen's arms. 
 
 " But you did not give me time to finish," says his 
 father. " I asked you who is the most beautiful, the 
 
The Lost Heir of the Boukbons. 23 
 
 best, the noblest, and who yet repels the greater part 
 of mankind ? " 
 
 " It is Truth," replied the prince ; u but I did not 
 guess it myself; my sister whispered it to me." 
 
 The autumn and winter of 1792 passed with no 
 amelioration or hope of change in the condition of 
 the royal prisoners. When Louis XVI. was removed 
 to the great tower it was decreed that the dauphin 
 should accompany him. He was permitted to see 
 his mother only at those times when the king was 
 suffered to join his family — an hour or two daily — 
 and this brutal separation so grieved him that, though 
 usually of a sunny and sweet temper, he let no op- 
 portunity pass of showing his resentment to the jail- 
 ers. One of them, who thought the young prince 
 did not treat him with sufficient respect, said : 
 
 " Do you not know that liberty has rendered us 
 free, and that now we are all equal ? " 
 
 " Equal, if you like," replied the dauphin, glancing 
 toward his father, " but it is not in this place you will 
 persuade me that liberty has made us free." 
 
 When the king was arraigned and tried for his life 
 Louis was once again relegated to his mother's care. 
 Upon the day before that on which the king was to 
 meet his death at the guillotine a farewell interview 
 
24 AViio AVas He? 
 
 was allowed the unhappy monarch and his loved 
 ones. They met with embracings and sobbings, but 
 after a while " the king sat down, the queen placed 
 herself on his left hand, Madame Elizabeth on hjs 
 right, Marie Therese jnst before him, and the young 
 prince stood between his father's knees." The king 
 made all promise that they would never attempt to 
 avenge his death. This was the final parting. 
 
 After the death of Louis XVI. the survivors were 
 permitted to dwell together in the same chambers. 
 The queen and Madame Elizabeth, the sister of the 
 king, continued the task of educating the children. 
 Some months passed in this outwardly tranquil man- 
 ner, only faint echoes from the outer world reaching 
 the ears of the prisoners in the Temple. But a harsh 
 change was at hand. On July 1, 1793, the following 
 decree appeared : 
 
 " The Committee of Public Safet} r decrees that the 
 son of Capet be separated from his mother, and com- 
 mitted to the charge of a tutor, to be chosen by the 
 Council-General of the Commune." 
 
 On the third of the month, at ten in the evening, 
 while the prince was sleeping, the two ladies were 
 aroused by the tread of many feet. Hoarse and bru- 
 tal voices were heard without. Bolts and bars were 
 
The Lost Heir of the Bourbons. 25 
 
 shot back, and a band of six delegates from the Com- 
 mune entered the room. 
 
 " We are come," one of them explained, " to ac- 
 quaint you with an order from the committee that 
 the son of Capet be separated from his mother and 
 family." 
 
 The queen rose, for a moment pale and speechless 
 at the suddenness of this dastard attack. 
 
 " Take my child from me ! " at length she gasped. 
 " No, no ; it is not possible ! " Marie Therese and 
 Madame Elizabeth stood by in tears. 
 
 " Gentlemen," said the queen, steadying her voice, 
 " the Commune cannot think of separating me from 
 my son ! " 
 
 But the committee's emissaries were inexorable. 
 Tears, prayers, entreaties, were of no avail. Aroused 
 by the tumult the young Louis awoke, and sat up on 
 his narrow couch. The messengers would permit no 
 delay, and the wretched queen was forced to part 
 from her darling. With eyes red with weeping, and 
 with fingers that trembled with emotion, she drew 
 on his little garments. At length the mournful task 
 was completed, and, seating herself, she drew the boy 
 to her heart, and, with forced composure, thus ad- 
 dressed him : 
 
20 Who Was He? 
 
 " My child, we are going to part. Remember 
 your duty when I am no longer present to remind 
 you of it. Never forget the good God who tries 
 your faith, nor your mother who loves you. Be 
 good, patient, and straightforward, and your Father 
 will bless you in heaven." 
 
 Then she strained him to her bosom, and with a 
 passionate embrace they parted. 
 
 Mother and son never met again. In their daily 
 walks around the narrow prison gallery she some- 
 times saw his face from a distance through the chinks 
 of a railing, herself unseen ; this was all. On Octo- 
 ber 16, 1793, the unhappy Marie Antoinette followed 
 in her husband's footsteps along the pathway to the 
 scaifold. 
 
 And now, separated from both parents by death, 
 and from sister and aunt by a cruel confinement, let 
 us see how it fared with the little dauphin. Here 
 we shall follow the narrative of Beauchesne, which 
 voices the generally accepted view, that Louis XVII. 
 died of neglect or of poison in the Temple ; present- 
 ing the adverse view further on. 
 
 [Jpon leaving his mother the dauphin and his six 
 guards were conducted by a jailer to the chamber in 
 the great tower formerly occupied by the king, and 
 
The Lost Heir of the Bourbons. 27 
 
 there Louis was placed in charge of a " tutor." This 
 was a neighbor of Marat, who lived next door to hira 
 in the Rue des Cordeliers — a man who had former- 
 ly been a cobbler, but whom the whirligig of the 
 revolution had cast upon the surface of the bubbling 
 current of events, and who had been one of the six 
 commissioners appointed to supervise the confine- 
 ment of the royal family in the temple. His name 
 was Simon. He was coarse, ignorant, and unscrupu- 
 lous by nature, and in person ill-favored. He had 
 attained some prominence among his fellows by his 
 contemptuous and insulting treatment of the illustri- 
 ous prisoners, and he let slip no opportunity of show- 
 ing his ultra-democracy. 
 
 When the young Louis was torn from his mother, 
 like a tender shoot from its protecting parent stem, 
 she was grandiloquently assured that the nation, "al- 
 ways great and generous," would provide for his 
 education. Simon, the shoemaker, was the person 
 selected by Marat and Robespierre to execute the 
 promise. He was paid a salary of four hundred 
 francs a month " on condition that he was never to 
 leave his prisoner, or on any pretense whatever to quit 
 the tower." Madame Simon, not quite as coarse and 
 brutal as her husband, and who showed herself capa- 
 
Who Was He? 
 
 ble of many acts of womanly tenderness, assisted liim 
 in his duties. This, then, was the couple to whose 
 tender mercies the child, reared amid kindness, refine- 
 ment, and luxury, was now delivered. 
 
 Upon his appointment Simon inquired of the 
 Committee of Safety : 
 
 " What is to be done with the young wolf ? " 
 " I will tame him," he said ; " but what, after all, is 
 desired ? Carry him away i " 
 
 " No." 
 
 "Kill him ?" 
 
 " No." 
 
 " Poison him % " 
 
 " No." 
 
 " What then?" 
 
 " Get rid of him." 
 
 This was a distinction without a difference which 
 the brutal brain of Simon could not detect, but his 
 cruel animal instincts prompted him none the less 
 surely to carry it into effect. He failed — but that 
 was not his fault. 
 
 Prostrated by grief the boy passed the first night 
 in tears. The next morning his proud spirit took 
 refuge in a dogged silence, and for the first two days 
 he refused to accept aught but a morsel of bread 
 
The Lost Heir of the Bourbons. £9 
 
 from bis keeper's hands. Taunts, threats, and the 
 vilest abuse were continually hurled at the inoffens- 
 ive child, and it would seem that Simon's settled 
 plan was to render his ward as miserable as possible. 
 For every little act of so-called insubordination, blows 
 soon came to be regularly inflicted. Hibald songs 
 were sung in his hearing, and the descendant of a 
 line of kings was compelled to join in the scurrilous 
 chorus, in which the names of his parents were held 
 up to derision. 
 
 Simon added drunkenness to his other vices, and 
 draughts of fiery liquor were forcibly poured 
 down the boy's throat until he became stupefied. 
 Such was the admirable manner in which Simon 
 sought to " educate " his pupil. His severity and 
 brutality increased as time wore on. Indeed, it has 
 been asserted, with great probability, that he was 
 but the tool of others, and was only carrying out 
 secret orders looking to the slow murder of the " son 
 of the tyrant," as the little Louis was termed by the 
 infuriated rabble of Paris. But the crowning in- 
 iquity of his jailers lay in compelling the boy to 
 repeat and sign a scandalous charge against his own 
 mother, Marie Antoinette, which was used against her 
 on her trial. After this infamy a settled melancholy 
 
30 Who Was He? 
 
 took possession of the dauphin, though at the time he 
 knew not what use had been made of the extorted 
 falsehood. 
 
 One day a rumor became current in Paris, causing 
 great excitement, that the dauphin had been spirited 
 away from the Temple by General Dillon and others, 
 and that he had escaped to England. The story 
 proved to be only a canard, but from that time on a 
 system of espionage was adopted as effective as it was 
 cumbrous. The whole city was divided into forty 
 districts ; from each of these a commissioner was 
 chosen, whose sole duty it was to visit the prince 
 once each day, and see that he was properly guarded. 
 Each commissioner saw him but once, and with this 
 visit his official term expired. 
 
 Louis was never informed of the death of his 
 mother, Marie Antoinette, nor of his aunt, the Prin- 
 cess de Lamballe, and his repeated requests to be 
 allowed to see them once again were answered with 
 curses and reproaches. Again and again the little 
 fellow appealed to the official visitors for protection, 
 but they did nothing for his relief. Simon was a 
 partisan of Marat — in fact, owed his place to him — 
 and the day after the assassination of the demagogue 
 by the dagger of Charlotte Corday, July 14, 1793, 
 
The Lost Heir of the Bourbons. 31 
 
 the news of the event penetrated within the prison 
 walls, and plunged the gloomy place into great ex- 
 citement. Simon began to drink heavily, and that 
 he might hear something of the uproar in the streets 
 of Paris he ordered his wife and Louis to the rampart 
 of the great tower. 
 
 " Capet," said he, " do you hear these noises down 
 there ? They are the groans of the people round the 
 death-bed of their friend. I did intend to have 
 made you leave ofl: your black clothes to-morrow, but 
 you shall keep them on now. Capet shall wear 
 mourning for Marat." 
 
 Then turning round, and swearing furiously, he 
 proceeded : 
 
 " You don't looked distressed at all ; you are glad 
 of his death." 
 
 " I did not know the person who is dead," replied 
 the child. " Don't think that I am glad of it ; we do 
 not wish for the death of any one." 
 
 "Ah, we do not wish, don't we! Do you pre- 
 tend to talk to us in the style of your tyrants of 
 fathers \ " 
 
 " I said we in the plural," rejoined the boy; " for 
 my family and myself." 
 
 A few days after this event the whim seized the 
 
32 Who Was He? 
 
 jailer that the child should be attired in red, the 
 color of the Commune. His black garments — the 
 mourning for his father — were taken away, so he had 
 no choice but to don the hated color. But when it 
 came to placing the red " liberty " cap on his head 
 his spirit revolted, and he dashed it on the ground, 
 saying he would go bareheaded. 
 
 " Let him alone," said Madame Simon, " he will 
 come to reason." 
 
 To assist in bringing him to such a desirable state 
 of mind the worthy woman cut off his long and silky 
 curls, whereupon, in shame at the shearing, Louis 
 yielded, and donned the hated article. 
 Said Simon, elated at his triumph : 
 " Capet, after all I believe you're a Jacobin." 
 Among the duties which were forced on this lad, 
 in whose veins flowed the blood of a long line of 
 illustrious kings, were the cleaning and polishing of 
 Madame Simon's shoes, the kindling of fires, the car- 
 rying of a foot-stove to her bed-side when she rose, 
 and other similar menial tasks. 
 
 The foregoing are but a few of the atrocities of 
 the Simon regime. Happily, it was short-lived ; yet 
 in those few brief months irreparable injury had 
 been wrought to the tender mind and body of the 
 
The Lost Heir of the Bourbons. 33 
 
 little Louis. Simon held his office from July 3, 
 1793, to January 19, 1794, when he was dismissed 
 by the Council-General. The Committee of Public 
 Safety " had cause to regard the monster's services 
 as useless, and were of opinion that the members of 
 the council alone ought to superintend the Prisoner 
 of the Temple. Four of them were accordingly ap- 
 pointed to the charge, and the dauphin was thence- 
 forth su5jected to a more rigorous treatment than 
 before." 
 
 Louis was now nearly nine years old. His face 
 was pale with sorrow, and his body emaciated with 
 privation, abuse, and hardship. The new arrange- 
 ments, we are told, " were concerted by Hebert and 
 Chaumette — two of the most hateful characters that 
 appear in the Eevolution — and were such as reflected 
 the merciless savagery of their natures. They re- 
 stricted the prisoner's habitation to a single room — a 
 back chamber, without outlooks or connection, save 
 with another room in front. The door of communi- 
 cation between the two was cut down, so as to leave 
 it breast high, fastened with nails and screws, and 
 grated from top to bottom with bars of iron. Half- 
 way up was placed a shelf, on which the bars opened, 
 
 forming a sort of wicket, closed by other movable 
 3 
 
34 Who Was He? 
 
 bars, and fastened with an enormous padlock. By 
 this wicket his coarse food was passed in to little 
 Capet, and it was on the ledge that he had to put 
 whatever he wanted to send away. It was the sys- 
 tem of solitary confinement. . He had room to walk 
 in, a bed to lie upon ; he had bread and water and 
 linen and clothes, but lie had neither fire nor candle. 
 His room was warmed only by a stove-pipe, the stove 
 being placed in the outer room ; it was lighted only 
 by the gleam of a lamp suspended opposite the grat- 
 ing, through the bars of which, also, it was that the 
 stovepipe passed. By a fatal coincidence, the royal 
 orphan was transferred to his new prison on the an- 
 niversary of the day of his father's execution. 
 
 " But there was neither date nor anniversary for 
 him thenceforth ; months and weeks, day and night, 
 the dancing hours as they sped round in their rota- 
 tion — all were confused together in his mind, and 
 produced only the impression of a continuous, un- 
 varying perpetuity of suffering. Shut up in dim 
 seclusion, with nothing but his thoughts and the 
 most painful remembrances to dwell upon, the heavy 
 hours rolled on in slow succession, prolonging and 
 intensifying only a monotonous sensation of abandon- 
 ment and isolation. The fresh air of heaven never 
 
The Lost Heir of the Bourbons. 35 
 
 came into his chamber ; the light was dim that en- 
 tered through the gratings; the victim did not see 
 the hand that passed his food through the grated 
 door ; often he was left to shiver in the coldest 
 weather without heat ; and at other times his prison 
 was like a furnace from the reckless heaping of too 
 much fuel in the stove. He heard no sound but the 
 clang of bolts ; no one came to cleanse his room, no 
 one visited him when he was sick or ministered to him 
 in the helplessness of his prostration. Only, as the day 
 closed in, a stern voice would call to him and command 
 him to go to bed, that the municipality might not be 
 burdened by providing him with a light. His food was 
 a watery soup, with some bits of bread in it, of which 
 he received only two little portions in a day, along 
 with a morsel of beef, a loaf, and a pitcher of water. 
 His bed — a palliasse and a mattress — which he was 
 left to manage as he pleased, soon became unfit to 
 sleep in, and no one cared to restore it to a state of 
 wholesomeness and order. The commissaries of the 
 Commune, who were removed daily, were almost all 
 men of that ignoble class which the Leavings of the 
 Revolution had now raised to the surface of society. 
 The food, the health, the existence of the child, were 
 of no concern to them ; their vigilance was limited 
 
36 Who Was He ? 
 
 to the watching of his person, that they might give 
 an account of him from day to day, and pass him 
 over to the charge of those who succeeded them in the 
 duty. Most of them were cruel by nature, and the 
 rest were rendered so by fear ; the least mercy or 
 leniency being certain to be construed into defect- 
 ive patriotism or sympathy with tyrants. Thus the 
 invariable treatment of the little prisoner was one of 
 uncompromising harshness. No one for a moment 
 was aifected by any consideration for his comfort or 
 convenience." 
 
 If the settled purpose of his captors had been to 
 worry the life out of the frail body they could not 
 have chosen titter measures. All this while, says the 
 Abbe Beauchesne, 
 
 " The general citizens of Paris had no definite con- 
 ception of what was going on within the Temple ; the 
 only rumor that reached them being to the effect that 
 the health of the dauphin was visibly declining, and 
 that he had become at length so much reduced as to 
 be unable to stand or sit from weakness. Such was 
 the state of matters when, after the fall of Robes- 
 pierre, Barras, the new dictator, with several mem- 
 bers of the committees and deputies of the conven- 
 tion visited the Temple, to double the guard there, 
 
The Lost Heir of the Bourbons. 37 
 
 and receive from tlie troops the oath of fidelity to 
 the new government. From some motive of interest 
 or policy Barras conceived that, independently of the 
 municipals, who relieved each other daily at the 
 tower, it would be desirable to have a permanent 
 agent stationed there, in whom the government could 
 repose entire confidence. Accordingly, on his propo- 
 sition, the committee appointed Citizen Laurent to 
 be official keeper to the royal children, and forthwith 
 installed him in the Temple." 
 
 It affords some slight gratification to the student of 
 this hideous tale to learn that our friend Simon went 
 to the guillotine in company with Robespierre and 
 other worthies. The day after that event Laurent 
 arrived at the Temple to assume charge of his new 
 trust. It was two o'clock in the morning before the 
 official preliminaries were concluded and the munic- 
 ipals were ready to turn over their prisoner to his 
 new keeper. Arriving at the cell of the child his 
 name was called loudly many times ere a feeble an- 
 swer issued from the interior. Louis was too weak 
 to rise and come to the wicket, so it was only at the 
 distance of several feet, and by the feeble light of a 
 lantern, that Laurent caught his first glimpse of his 
 ward. What he saw, however, was enough to arouse 
 
38 Who Was He? 
 
 in hiin feelings of horror and disgust. On the ensu- 
 ing morning he informed the Committee of Public 
 Safety, and requested them to make a personal exam- 
 ination of the little prisoner and his surroundings. 
 In response to this appeal certain members of the 
 committee did visit Louis, and expressed themselves 
 as horrified and disgusted at what they witnessed ; 
 but their visit of inspection terminated without any 
 definite instructions to Laurent. 
 
 But the latter was at once a humane man and a 
 man of action. Here is what he found : " In a dark 
 room, exhaling an odor of corruption, on a dirty, un- 
 made bed, barely covered with a filthy cloth and a 
 pair of ragged trousers, a child of nine years old was 
 lying motionless, his back bent, his face wan and 
 wasted, and all his features exhibiting an expression 
 of mournful apathy and rigid unintelligence. He 
 found his head and neck fretted with sores ; his legs 
 and arms disproportionately lengthened ; his knees 
 and legs covered with blue and yellow swellings ; his 
 hands and fingers disfigured so as to have no resem- 
 blance to human flesh, and his nails grown long and 
 horny like the claws of a wild animal. On his tem- 
 ples his once beautiful hair was matted for want of 
 combing, and his scalp exhibited an inveterate growth 
 
The Lost Heir of the Bourbons. 39 
 
 of dandruff, while from head to foot his whole body 
 was covered with vermin." On the table was his last 
 meal, scarcely touched, and on being asked several times 
 why he did not eat he at length answered briefly : 
 
 " I wish to die." 
 
 Laurent took speedy steps to remedy this horrible 
 condition of affairs. The room was cleansed and re- 
 furnished, new clothes were provided for the child, 
 his person was attended to, and in a short time the 
 orphan was restored to a condition of comparative 
 wholesomeness. His mental faculties also revived 
 somewhat, and from an apathetic and dull-eyed re- 
 ception of these attentions he came to regard his 
 benefactor with symptoms of affection. 
 
 But Laurent found tlfe task of constant attention 
 at the Temple too onerous, so he petitioned for a col- 
 league, and one Gomin, a royalist, was appointed to 
 that post. When Laurent, in March, 1795, finally 
 left the Temple on account of the pressure of his 
 private affairs, he was succeeded by Etienne Lasne, a 
 captain in the National Guard, and these two, Lasne 
 and Gomin, remained with the prince until his re- 
 ported death. Under their sway, through some se- 
 cret influence, the discipline of the prison was much 
 relaxed. 
 
40 Who Was He? 
 
 The seeds of disease, however, added to an inher- 
 ited scrofulous taint, had been too deeply sown in the 
 constitution of the little captive during his cruel im- 
 prisonment to yield to any such kindnesses as were 
 now showered upon him. He was obviously growing 
 weaker day by day. 
 
 In May, 1795, Lasne and Gomin reported to their 
 superiors that "the little Capet is dangerously 
 ill." In their next report they say, " It is .feared 
 he will not live," and immediately a physician, 
 Dr. Desault, was despatched to attend on him. 
 He reported that the patient was in no immediate 
 danger, and established a mild system of treatment. 
 Desault was a surgeon of unblemished probity. He 
 attended daily up to May 30, until which time there 
 was no appreciable change in the dauphin's health. 
 On June 1, however, Dr. Desault died suddenly and 
 mysteriously. Simultaneously the child was reported 
 to be much worse, and on June 5 another physician, 
 Dr. Pelletan, was appointed. He had never seen the 
 prince before. He found the child, he says, " in so 
 sad a state " that he demanded instantly " that an- 
 other professional person be joined with me to re- 
 lieve me from a burden I did not wish to bear 
 alone." On June 7 M. Dumangin, chief physician 
 
The Lost Heir of the Bourbons. 41 
 
 to the Hospital of the Unity, was detailed to assist 
 M. Pelletan. 
 
 But at half-past two on the afternoon of June 8 
 the Orphan of the Temple ceased to breathe. A post- 
 mortem examination was held, and the cause of death 
 declared to be " of a scrofulous nature and of long 
 standing." The body was buried in the cemetery of 
 L'Eglise Ste. Marguerite on June 10. 
 
 "Whether it was Louis XVII. who died, and was 
 then and there buried, is the question upon which the 
 whole of the succeeding controversy rests. 
 
 Thus far we have followed what may be termed 
 the " orthodox " account of the fate of Louis XVIL, 
 the version which Louis XVIII. and his niece, the 
 Duchess d'Angouleme (sister of the dauphin, and his 
 fellow-prisoner in the Temple), feigned to believe and 
 wished all the world to adopt. That there were and 
 are weighty reasons for believing it to be apocryphal 
 we shall proceed to show. To the Rev. J. H. Han- 
 son belongs the credit of first presenting, in 1853, the 
 evidence on this 'point in a masterly and most con- 
 vincing shape, though his accompanying effort to 
 identify the dauphin with a then living, character 
 cannot be said to have been crowned with success. 
 
 What are the reasons prompting the belief that 
 
42 Who Was He? 
 
 Louis XVII. did not die in the Temple, that he was 
 clandestinely removed prior to June 8, and that an- 
 other boy was substituted in his place, whose body it 
 was upon which Pelletan and Dumangin performed 
 their autopsy, while the real dauphin was transported 
 to a foreign clime, there to drag out the remainder 
 of his existence in obscurity ? 
 
 At the death of Louis XYI. the little dauphin, 
 Charles Louis, became the rightful king of France. 
 During all the stormy period from 1788 to 1793 the 
 king's brothers, the Comte de Provence and the 
 Comte d'Artois, were ever on the alert to trim their 
 conduct so as to best serve their own fortunes. In 
 his will Louis XYI. does not commend his son to the 
 care of his uncles, but to that of his aunt, the Prin- 
 cess Elizabeth, and his sister, who afterward became 
 the Duchess d'Angouleme. After the execution of 
 the kino: the Comte de Provence became the self- 
 appointed regent of France ? the guardian of Louis, 
 and the heir-presumptive to the throne. In 1S15 he 
 actually became king as Louis XVIII. From the 
 death of Louis XVI. to the reputed death of his son 
 both Provence and Artois, particularly the former, 
 coquetted with the Vendean army, intrigued with the 
 government at Paris, and plotted with foreign courts 
 
The Lost Heir of the Bourbons. 43 
 
 for their own aggrandizement, while the true heir lay 
 rotting in the tower of the Temple. Without making 
 any specific charges, it is clear that it was to the 
 manifest interest of the Comte de Provence that 
 Louis XVII. should never be heard of again. His 
 overweening ambition to be king of France is too 
 well known to need more than a passing reference 
 here. 
 
 What Mr. Hanson and those who think with him 
 insist is the true version of the dauphin's fate may 
 be briefly outlined as follows : With the introduction 
 of Lasne and Gomin to the keepership in the Temple 
 the rigor of the child's imprisonment was much relaxed 
 — purposely so. Gomin was a royalist, believed to 
 be in the pay of the Comte de Provence, and Lasne 
 was only a moderate republican. A compact had 
 been made by the government in Paris with Charette, 
 the Vendean general, for the delivery of the dauphin 
 as a condition of peace. To this arrangement the 
 Comte de Provence had assented, though, of course, 
 it was against his interest that it should ever be con- 
 summated. It was felt in Paris that the retention of 
 the royal children in captivity was no longer possible. 
 After the mysterious death of Dr. Desault, it is 
 claimed, the dauphin was secretly conveyed from the 
 
44 AViio Was He ? 
 
 Temple by one Bellanger, an artist and a royalist, who 
 is known to have visited the child and gained his half- 
 idiotic confidence ; another boy, far gone in scrofula 
 and nigh unto death, was smuggled into the prison 
 in his stead and palmed off by Lasne and Gomin on 
 Drs. Pelletan and Dumangin, who had never seen the 
 real prince. (This chimes well with the sudden and 
 mysterious death of Dr. Desault. Had he been permit- 
 ted to visit the changeling he would have at once 
 detected and exposed the cheat. This, it is asserted, 
 was provocation enough to those interested to war- 
 rant Desault's " removal," and on this rests the belief 
 that he was poisoned.) That the pseudo prince it 
 was who died and w T as buried, while Charles Louis 
 w T as carried first to the Netherlands, and then out of 
 Europe. 
 
 The General State-Advocate, some years later, in 
 the progress of one of the trials of the claim of a 
 certain personage to be the lost prince, said : " In 
 regard to the flight of the dauphin from the Temple, 
 the investigations w r hich I have made have brought 
 me to the conclusion that it is incontestable." This 
 is the testimony of a lawyer, who was familiar with 
 documentary evidence and accustomed to deciding 
 upon its value. • 
 
The Lost Heir of the Bourbons. 45 
 
 Of course the reputed death of the dauphin in the 
 Temple precluded his delivery to the Yendean army. 
 That the prince really escaped is indicated by another 
 circumstance. The Parisian police records show that 
 an order, dated June 8, 1795, was sent out notifying 
 officials throughout the country to arrest any travel- 
 ers bearing with them a child of eight or nine years, 
 as there had been an escape of royalists from the 
 Temple. 
 
 The findings of the post-mortem examination and 
 the description therein of the malady and symptoms 
 of the patient do not, and cannot be made to, corre- 
 spond with the known condition of the dauphin when 
 Laurent and Desault left him. 
 
 Further: After the restoration, when the bodies of 
 Louis XVI. , Marie Antoinette, and the Princess de 
 Lamballe were disinterred and " identified " from 
 among thousands of other victims of the Revolution, 
 and from under cartloads of quicklime, and re-in- 
 terred with regal pageant and religious pomp in the 
 Church of St. Denis, no effort was made to recover 
 the body of the dauphin. Though orders were issued 
 to that end, and the place of sepulture was well 
 known, the recovery and removal of his remains 
 never took place, and the bones of Louis XVII. were 
 
46 Who Was He? 
 
 allowed to remain alone and unmarked by sculptured 
 stone or glowing epitaph. This marked omission re- 
 vived all the former doubts concerning the death of 
 the prince, which had slumbered during the Napole- 
 onic regime, and the long exile of the Bourbons. 
 
 Again: The physician, Pelletan, at. the autopsy, 
 removed the heart of, as he believed, the dauphin, 
 and preserved it. At the restoration of the Bourbon 
 dynasty, twenty years later, he offered it to Louis 
 XVIII., but though an order was issued that the 
 relic should be deposited in St. Denis, the matter 
 rested there, and both the king and the Duchess 
 d'Angoulenie showed the utmost indifference to the 
 existence of so precious a memento of' their departed 
 kinsman. Do not these circumstances indicate that 
 the royal family of France knew that Louis XYI. 
 was not really dead, " and therefore dared not risk 
 the mockery of searching for a corpse that had never 
 been buried, of consecrating a relic which they knew, 
 though honestly preserved, had throbbed in no bosom 
 of their race ? " 
 
 There is a mass of testimony, direct and indirect, 
 too voluminous for insertion here, tending to establish 
 the fact of substitution, and also that Louis XVII. 
 did not die in the tower as testitied by Lasne and 
 
The Lost Heir of the Bourboxs. 47 
 
 Gomin. These men were the only witnesses of his 
 death ; they alone were with him from June 1 to 
 June 8, 1795. But their testimony has been proved 
 to be false in many minor particulars, why not as to 
 the main fact, since they were interested parties ? It 
 is possible, but not probable, that they spoke the truth 
 on this occasion. 
 
 Many persons in Europe, and particularly in 
 France, believed then and still believe that the un- 
 fortunate son of Louis XVI. and of Marie Antoinette 
 did not die in the Temple, and that the body interred 
 as his was that of another child. For many years 
 succeeding the restoration of the Bourbons this feel- 
 ing was intensified and kept alive by the comparative 
 freshness of the events in the public memory and by 
 the appearance of a number of pretenders who, with 
 greater or less plausibility, claimed to be the orphan 
 of the Temple. 
 
 There have been several of these pseudo Louis Seven- 
 teenths. There died in London so recently as the 
 year 1880 an insane person named Augustus Meves, 
 who, during his prime, claimed to be the dauphin, 
 and'who found many persons to accept his story as 
 true. Meves was said to have escaped from the Tem- 
 ple and sought refuge in England. In 1874 a man, 
 
48 Who Was He? 
 
 calling himself Auguste de Bourbon, asserted that he 
 was the son of Meves, and the lost heir of the 
 Bourbons. 
 
 But one of the most persistent and plausible, and 
 perhaps the most famous, of these impostors — for that 
 he was such there can be but little doubt — was 
 Charles William Naundorff. 
 
 In 1833 a stranger arrived in Paris who claimed to 
 be the son of Louis XYI. He assumed the name of 
 Louis Charles, Duke of Normandy, introduced him- 
 self into Legitimist circles, and very soon gained a 
 number of ardent and very respectable adherents. 
 Among these was Madame de Bambaud, who had 
 been nurse to the dauphin from his birth till his 
 confinement in the Temple; M. Marco de St. Hilaire, 
 formerly gentleman-usher to Louis XYI. ; and M. 
 Morel de St. Didier. Of the perfect sincerity and 
 honorable conviction of these persons there can be 
 no question. Madame de Bambaud professed to 
 identify him by a crescent shaped vaccination mark, 
 which all agreed in stating that the dauphin bore. 
 
 So far as could be ascertained, NaundorfFs history 
 began with his arrival in Prussia in 1810, when he 
 followed the trade of watch-maker. He was married 
 in 1818 at Spandau, but was then unable to produce 
 
The Lost Heir of the Bourbons. 49 
 
 any certificate of birth. From 1820-28 he led a check- 
 ered existence. He was imprisoned for some petty of- 
 fense, and on his trial declared himself to be a prince, 
 and in 1828 was pardoned, and went to Silesia. u In 
 1832 he obtained a passport to France, and passing 
 through Bavaria and Switzerland, arrived in Paris, 
 declared himself to be the Duke of Normandy, and 
 affirmed that the documentary proofs of his identity 
 were in the hands of the Prussian cabinet." 
 
 He asserted that his memory extended as far back 
 as the memorable journey from Versailles to Paris 
 when he was four years old. " From that time on 
 he professed the most minute knowledge of persons, 
 places, names, dresses, the situation of furniture, the 
 succession of events, and every thing, public and pri- 
 vate, that happened to the dauphin." He also showed 
 an evident familiarity with the purlieus of the Tem- 
 ple. His account of his escape was to the effect that 
 some months before the reported death of the prince 
 he was removed to a garret in the roof of the Tower, 
 and there concealed, another child being substituted 
 in his place ; that his destination was the "Vendean 
 army, but on the way thither, in company with a 
 lady and gentleman and a little girl, he fell ill, and 
 
 was carried to a chateau, where he was visited by 
 4 
 
50 Who Was He? 
 
 General Charette and his friends, lie was hurried 
 from one place to another on the Continent ; was im- 
 prisoned for some years at Strasburg; but was finally 
 liberated in 1S09 through the secret intercession of 
 the Empress Josephine. In 1810 he reached Berlin, 
 followed his trade of watchmaker (though he could 
 not tell certainly where he had learned it), and as- 
 sumed from compulsion, as he said, the name of 
 Charles William Naundorff. From 1812 to 1832 he 
 wrote innumerable letters " to the Duchess d'Angou- 
 leme, to Prince Ilartenburg, to Louis XVIIL, and 
 other eminent persons, but without obtaining any 
 response." He claimed to possess valuable papers, 
 which had been sewn into the lining of his coat by 
 Marie Antoinette. 
 
 He sought, without success, an interview with the 
 Duchess d'Angouleme, whom he addressed as ' ; sis- 
 ter," and was denied a hearing before the French 
 tribunals. The duchess stipulated that before she 
 could grant an audience the claimant must send cer- 
 tain information which, if he really were the dauphin, 
 he must possess. Xaundorff did not respond to this 
 demand, and the duchess utterly repudiated his claim. 
 Her conduct is inexplicable " except on the score of 
 her knowledge of some secret which undercut the 
 
The Lost Heir of the Bocrboxs. . 51 
 
 claims of Naundorff, the nature of which would not 
 permit her to publicly state her grounds of action." 
 She also insisted that JNaundorff should send her the 
 minutest details of his escape from the Temple, which 
 argues that she was aware her brother did escape, 
 else how could she subject the claimant's statements, 
 however false, to any test ? 
 
 Though Naundorff had the entree into the most 
 exclusive Legitimist circles, and kept a handsome 
 establishment in Paris, with horses and carriages and 
 liveried servants, supported by the contributions of 
 his adherents, skeptics, nevertheless, were abundant 
 enough among the royalist folk of the Faubourg St. 
 Germain, particularly as Naundorff was ignorant of 
 the dauphin's mother tongue. One, interrogating 
 him, observed, " You — supposing you to be the dau- 
 phin — were an extremely clever child, and spoke 
 French with ease ; how happens it that you have 
 completely forgotten your own language ? " The 
 pretender replied that " thirty -seven years of absence 
 from France was surely enough to account for this 
 circumstance ;" but the answer was not considered 
 satisfactory. About the year 1838 he w T as expelled 
 from France, the police suspecting that he was the 
 object of certain intrigues, and, going to England, he 
 
52 • Who Was He? 
 
 established himself at Camberwell and at Chelsea as a 
 manufacturer of fireworks and a new patent explosive 
 shell. Failing in these pursuits he went to Holland, 
 and died at Delft in August, 1S44, in great poverty. 
 The appeal of the widow Naundorff and her chil- 
 dren was finally heard in February, 1874, when the 
 court, after due investigation, decided that the tale 
 told by the elder Naundorff of his escape from 
 prison by means of a double substitution was " most 
 fantastic;" that Naundorff had himself fabricated the 
 documents on which his claims and those of his de- 
 scendants were based, and that the wdiole case con- 
 sisted of " singular allegations, vain rumors, and fu- 
 tile presumptions." The judgment went on to say 
 that Naundorff exhibited no qualifications but those 
 of an audacious adventurer, a man without talent, 
 who undertook to play a part rendered the more easy 
 by the mystery of his birth and origin. It was added 
 that the cunning and skill which he had exhibited 
 were not more remarkable than those of other im- 
 postors, his predecessors in the same character, the 
 court further observing that "a large following of 
 credulous believers has never been wanting for 
 pseudo dauphins in France." 
 
 There can be but little doubt that Naundorff was 
 
The Lost Heir of the Bourbons. 53 
 
 an impostor, who had in some manner become pos- 
 sessed of facts relating to the imprisonment, escape, 
 and subsequent career of the dauphin, together with 
 certain documentary evidence, which he proceeded to 
 digest and commit to memory until he became an 
 adept in his tale. In 1883 the son of this pretender, 
 who styled himself "Prince Charles Edward de Bour- 
 bon," died at Breda, in Holland, in such distressed 
 circumstances that his body was placed in a pauper's 
 coffin and buried at the expense of a charitable 
 society. 
 
 The Baron de Richemont also posed for some years 
 as the dauphin, and, as was the case with Naundorff, 
 won many noble names to the support of his preten- 
 sions. " Of all the claimants to the honors and emolu- 
 ments of the Bourbons," says a recent writer, * " the 
 Baron de Richemont presents the greatest amount of 
 probabilities and plausibilities. Throughout his life 
 he persistently asked the question in courts of law 
 and other places, ' If I am not Louis XVII., who am 
 I?' and we believe the question was never satisfac- 
 torily answered. His life was a long succession of 
 strange adventures, which, although lying before us, 
 and abounding in incident and entertainment, are too 
 
 * In the Leisure Hour, 1885. 
 
54 Who Was He? 
 
 lengthy for these pages. Each period of his life 
 seems to be distinctly traceable, whether in Africa or 
 America, or in Austrian prisons, to which the schemes 
 of French governments consigned him. In 1S30 he 
 sent a protest to all the governments in Europe 
 against the ascension of Louis Philippe to the 
 throne, and it is very singular that the Duchess of 
 Orleans, the mother of Louis Philippe, steadily sup- 
 ported his claims ; and it was probably owing to her 
 influence that he was permitted to continue for some 
 time unmolested in Paris. But when the government 
 was apparently firmly established, and it was believed, 
 and even came to be generally known, that he held 
 in his hand sufficient evidence of his identity, it was 
 determined to silence him. He was arrested on a 
 charge of conspiring against the safety of the State. 
 His trial continued during a period of fifteen months. 
 The very prosecutors were compelled almost to ac- 
 knowledge his identity with the dauphin, and during 
 this long course of investigation no answer was given 
 to his question, i If I am not Louis XVIL, who am 
 I?' Even the language of the president of the 
 court to the jury, toward the close of the trial, was 
 remarkable, and seems to show the drift of his own 
 thought. * Gentlemen, who is the accused now 
 
The Lost Heir of the Bourbons. 55 
 
 standing before you ? What is his true name, his 
 origin, his family ? What are his antecedents % 
 What is his whole life ? Is he a tool of the enemies 
 ■of France, who strive to stir up civil war throughout 
 our land % Or is he, rather, only an unfortunate man 
 who, as by a miracle, escaped from the horrors of a 
 bloody revolution ? who, outlawed and excommuni- 
 cated from his very birth, finds no name and no 
 refuge where he can lay his head !' Such was the 
 language of a president of a court of justice concern- 
 ing an accused man. The jury could not agree upon 
 his identity, and only found him guilty of conspiracy 
 against the safety of the State. The difficulty was, 
 beneath what name to condemn him ; but lie was 
 condemned to twelve years' imprisonment. He es- 
 caped, however, and found his way to Switzerland. " 
 
 Much was hoped for his cause at the social up- 
 heaval of the Revolution of 1848, but, as is known, 
 Napoleon the Little was the only one to permanently 
 profit thereby, and Richemont again sank into ob- 
 scurity. But the drama was not yet played out. 
 "It was in the year 1853," says the writer last 
 quoted, " that a stir of unusual curiosity was awak- 
 ened in Yillefranche, near Lyons. The countess of 
 one of the oldest and richest Legitimist families had 
 
56 Who Was He? 
 
 sent her carriage to await the arrival of a train, her- 
 self following on foot, although seventy years of age, 
 leaning on the arm of her son, the Count Maurice. 
 The train arrived, the count advanced, uncovered, 
 hat in hand, and received a vigorous but vener- 
 able old man, in simple attire. Still uncovered, the 
 count conducted him to the carriage ; the countess, it 
 is said, receiving him also with those distinguished 
 marks of the politeness of the ancient regime which 
 are now rarely affected anywhere but* on the stage. 
 No wonder that the personality of the mysterious 
 stranger excited curiosity. Startling, indeed, when 
 that very night in the old castle the mysterious per- 
 son died of apoplexy. The funeral followed ; but 
 before that the train which arrived from Paris 
 brought about twenty men, simply attired, but among 
 whom many persons declared they recognized dukes 
 and princes, the known attaches of the great and true 
 Legitimist family of France. The funeral over — and 
 it was, naturally enough, a large one — all these re- 
 turned b} T the next train to Paris. 
 
 ".The mystery seemed to be solved when, eight 
 days after, a gravestone arrived from Paris, upon 
 which, when placed over the remains, the astonished 
 spectators read : ' Here rests Louis Charles of France. 
 
The Lost Heir of the Bourbons. 57 
 
 Born in Versailles, March 27, 17S5 ; died at Castle 
 Vreux Renard, August 10, 1853.' Now the people 
 were enlightened as to the personality of the old gen- 
 tleman who was received with such distinguished 
 honors, and who had been for so brief a time the 
 guest in the old castle ; and at the same time the 
 Paris newspapers announced the death of the Baron 
 de Richemont, whose life had been one long succes- 
 sion of persecutions in defiance of his claims to be 
 regarded as the legitimate successor to the scepter of 
 France. Naturally enough, however, the gravestone 
 was not allowed to retain its place long. On No- 
 vember 12 arrived the Prefect of the Department, 
 the Judge of Inquiry, and a band of military officers. 
 These summoned the mayor, and they all proceeded 
 to the church-yard, attended by a great crowd, and 
 the tombstone was demolished. But the greatest 
 mystery remained behind. As the prefect was about 
 to leave the church-yard a telegraphic dispatch from 
 Paris was handed to him. He was surprised, start- 
 led, consulted with his fellow-officers, then called for 
 the grave-diggers, and commanded that the grave 
 should be immediately opened. The expressions on 
 the faces were curious — incredulity, contempt, aston- 
 ishment — but the work was done. The grave diners 
 
5S Who Was He? 
 
 came to the coffin. What next? The prefect com- 
 manded them to lift the cover. The order was exe- 
 cuted, but this only showed a second coffin of lead. 
 This was also opened. A cry of astonishment burst 
 from the crowd ; the coffin was empty ! " 
 
 Xo elucidation entirely satisfactory has ever been 
 ottered concerning this most mysterious transaction. 
 
 To America, however, belongs the honor of produc- 
 ing a claimant to the throne of the Bourbons whose 
 pretensions were as weighty and as strongly substan- 
 tiated as those of either of his predecessors. This 
 was the Rev. Eleazar Williams, a missionary among 
 the Indians of the State of New York, and a reputa- 
 ble and cultured clergyman of the Protestant Episco- 
 pal Church. A little more than thirty years ago an 
 active dispute enlivened our papers and periodicals 
 respecting his claim, and the Rev. J. H. Hanson 
 published a volume of some five hundred pages, 
 bringing Mr. Williams prominently before the pub- 
 lic and championing his "rights." At the same time 
 a translation of the voluminous work of M. de Beau- 
 chesne was issued by the Harpers, and became the 
 adverse authority. 
 
 There arrived in Albany, New York, direct from 
 France, in the year 1795 a French family consisting 
 
The Lost Heir of the Bourbons. 59 
 
 of a lady, a gentleman, and two children, a boy and a 
 girl. They were known by the name of De Jardin 
 or De Jourdan, and although the man and woman 
 bore the same name, they seemed not to occupy the 
 conjugal relation. They were, like many of the 
 French emigres then crowding to America, at first 
 plentifully supplied with money ; but while Madame 
 de Jardin and the children always appeared richly 
 attired, her companion, Monsieur Jardin, dressed 
 meanly, and apparently occupied the position of a 
 courier. The little girl was named Louise, while the 
 boy, about nine or ten years old, was addressed in- 
 variably as Monsieur Louis. He was kept apart 
 from company, and on the few occasions when he 
 was permitted to be seen " did not appear to notice " 
 those who surrounded him. 
 
 Madame de Jardin averred that she had filled the 
 post of maid of honor to Marie Antoinette, and in 
 proof exhibited many articles of dress, jewelry, plate, 
 etc., marked with the royal arms, and formerly be- 
 longing to the king and queen of France. The chil- 
 dren were thought by their limited circle of acquaint- 
 ance to belong to the royal family of that nation. 
 x\fter dwelling a short time in Albany the De Jar- 
 dins sold their effects and quietly disappeared. The 
 
CO Who Was He? 
 
 mystery attaching to the family was intensified for 
 a time by their sudden departure, but the episode 
 shortly faded from the recollection of the com- 
 munity. 
 
 There lived in Caughnawaga, in Canada, on the 
 south shore of the St. Lawrence, about this time, a 
 half-breed Indian, Thomas Williams, with his numer- 
 ous family. This man was remotely descended from 
 the Rev. John Williams, a white resident of Deer- 
 field, Mass., who was captured in 1704 at the time of 
 the combined attacks of the French and Indians on 
 that town. Thomas Williams had married an Indian 
 girl in 1779, and the couple had in all eleven chil- 
 dren, wdiose names were duly recorded in the records 
 of the little Catholic Church at Caughnawaga. 
 
 Williams, wdiose " residence " may be said to have 
 been at the latter place, visited Lake George annu- 
 ally on a fishing and hunting expedition, accompanied 
 by his family and many other Indians. In the fall 
 of 1795 two Frenchmen, "one of them having the 
 appearance of a priest," came to Ticonderoga, on the 
 shore of Lake George, bringing a " weak and sickly 
 boy, in a state of mental imbecility, whom they left 
 among the Indians." He was born in France, said 
 his conductors, and he was adopted into the family 
 
The Lost Heir of the Bourbons. 61 
 
 of John Williams, and named Eleazar. Though, as 
 we have seen, the name of Williams's eleven children 
 were all duly registered in the baptismal roll at 
 Caughnawaga, yet the name of the adopted child, 
 Eleazar, does not appear therein, nor would his puta- 
 tive mother ever admit that he was her son, although 
 she as studiously refrained from declaring that he 
 was not. 
 
 For some years after the above event the stranger 
 boy remained in delicate health, both physically and 
 mentally. But a rugged life in the open air and the 
 administration of large quantities of Indian herb de- 
 coctions wrought wonders, and " though still unsound 
 in mind, he took delight in playing with the other 
 bo} T s," and became proficient in their rude sports. 
 During one of these periodic sojourns at Lake 
 George the youngsters were all bathing in the lake, 
 and one after the other diving from a rock near the 
 shore. Eleazar, in one of his plunges, struck his 
 head against a stone at the bottom, and rose to the 
 surface bleeding and insensible from a gash in the 
 temple. He was put to bed, and his wounds attended 
 to ; when he regained consciousness his idiocy had 
 fled forever. From that time all distinct recollection 
 — all intellectual perception — began. 
 
62 Who Was He \ 
 
 On a later occasion two richly dressed French gen- 
 tlemen visited the Indian encampment, and inquired 
 for the adopted boy. One of these was much af- 
 fected, shed tears, kissed Eleazar, and repeatedly ex- 
 claimed, " Pauvre gargon!" He remained at the 
 camp two days, and at parting embraced the boy, and 
 presented him with a piece of gold. 
 
 Thomas Williams received at stated periods remit- 
 tances of money from Europe, ostensibly for the care 
 of Eleazar. A few days after the visit just recorded 
 Eleazar and one of his reputed brothers, named John, 
 were sent to Long Meadow, Mass., to be educated, 
 and were placed under the care of a Mr. Nathaniel 
 Ely. Eleazar was now about fifteen. 
 
 As might have been anticipated, the progress of 
 John in his studies was abnormally slow. On the 
 other hand, Eleazar made rapid strides, and made 
 light of the difficulties of acquiring an English edu- 
 cation. The marked difference in the personal ap- 
 pearance of the two lads was such as to call forth 
 expressions of astonishment whenever they were seen 
 together. John looked, as he was, a nearly full- 
 blooded Indian ; in Eleazar's face and form no traces 
 of aboriginal descent could be discerned. 
 
 In course of time the education of Eleazar Will- 
 
The Lost Heir of the Bourbons. 63 
 
 iams was completed, and he made known his desire 
 to become a missionary to the Indians. In the War 
 of 1812, and later, he figured as the friend of the red 
 man, and until 1822 he labored most effectually as a 
 lay missionary among that people. In the spring of 
 1826 he was ordained a priest by Bishop Hobart, of 
 the Protestant Episcopal communion, and appointed 
 to Green Bay, Wis., there to spend his life in mis- 
 sionary labor among the rude people he loved. On 
 March 3, 1823, he married at Green Bay a young 
 lady of French and Indian extraction, named Magde- 
 line Jourdan, who possessed in her own right several 
 thousand acres of the finest land on the borders of 
 the Fox River. In the treaty disputes between the 
 tribes of the Six Nations and the United States re- 
 specting the land formerly held by the Indians, Mr. 
 Williams bravely championed the rights of the red 
 man, and in so doing achieved an almost national 
 reputation. 
 
 In journeying to and fro in the then wild West, 
 preaching, baptizing, and marrying, and in every 
 way seeking to elevate and educate his half-savage 
 people, passed the next quarter century of the life of 
 this heroic missionary. 
 
 In the autumn of 1851 there appeared a brief arti- 
 
64 Who Was He? 
 
 cle in the columns of a New York journal recount- 
 ing the " strange eventful history " of this Indian 
 missionary, and affirming that there were strong rea- 
 sons for supposing him to be the son of Louis XVI., 
 and that one of the circumstances favoring such a 
 belief was his strong personal resemblance to the 
 Bourbon family. This elicited statements of various 
 half-forgotten events, and soon the journals of the 
 Western continent teemed with items about the un- 
 fortunate dauphin, coupling his name with that of 
 the Rev. Eleazar Williams. 
 
 The Rev. J. H. Hanson, in common with many 
 others, read the articles in question with some inter- 
 est, but thought the conjectures nothing more than 
 mere newspaper gossip. A short time thereafter he 
 chanced to meet Mr. Williams in the cars while jour- 
 neying between Ogdensburg and New York. A 
 number of hours passed in his company afforded Mr. 
 Hanson an opportunity to inquire if Mr. Williams 
 was aware of the rumors afloat affecting his origin. 
 
 He replied that he was ; that he remembered noth- 
 ing about his infancy ; that until the age of fourteen 
 or fifteen years his mind was a blank, and that prior 
 to his fall in the lake he was substantially an idiot. 
 His mental awakening after that accident was the 
 
The Lost Heir of the Bourbons. 65 
 
 first lie knew of life. Being asked how he came to 
 entertain tliis belief concerning his high birth and 
 origin, he replied : 
 
 " I was under the impression that I was at least 
 partly of Indian extraction until the time that the 
 Prince de Joinville (son of Louis Philippe) came to 
 this country." 
 
 This visit occurred in 1841. Mr. Williams then 
 and on subsequent occasions gave Mr. Hanson the 
 following particulars of what transpired between 
 himself and the prince : 
 
 " One of the first questions he asked on his arrival 
 in New York was whether there w r as not a person 
 known as Eleazar Williams among the Indians of the 
 northern part of the State." 
 
 He was informed that there was, and through a 
 third party the prince signified that he would be 
 happy to have an interview with Mr. Williams. In 
 October, 1841, it " chanced " that the Prince de Join- 
 ville and the humble missionary were fellow-passen- 
 gers on a steamboat between Mackinac and Green 
 Bay. The prince requested an introduction, and 
 they became acquainted. The son of Louis Philippe 
 was visibly affected at the meeting, and the better 
 
 part of two days was spent in conversation, in the 
 5 
 
M Who Was He? 
 
 course of which the prince referred frequently to the 
 events of the French Kevolution and to the troubles 
 and misfortunes of the royal family at that time. 
 
 When the party arrived at Green Bay the 
 prince desired that Mr. Williams would visit him at 
 his hotel, saying he had matters of great moment to 
 communicate. In the evening Mr. Williams made 
 the promised call, and, after further conversation, was 
 informed by the prince that he was none other than 
 Louis XVII. ! In the end he was asked to sign a 
 parchment renouncing all claim on the part of him- 
 self and his heirs to the throne of France, in return 
 for which a munificent pecuniary settlement was 
 promised, as well as the restitution of the private 
 estates belonging to Louis XVI., which were confis- 
 cated during the Revolution. 
 
 The effect of this sudden disclosure Mr. Williams 
 described as crushing. In the end, however, he re- 
 fused to sign, returning to the prince the answer 
 which the Count de Provence gave under similar 
 circumstances to the emissary of Napoleon : 
 
 " Though I am in poverty and exile, I will not 
 sacrifice my honor ! " 
 
 Upon this refusal the Prince de Joinville showed 
 signs of anger, but finally they parted friends. 
 
The Lost Heir of the Bourbons. G7 
 
 This was the substance of the statement made to 
 Mr. Hanson by Mr. Williams. It should be stated 
 here that the Prince de Joinville, on the publication 
 of the article, " Have we a Dauphin Among Us ?" by 
 Mr. Hanson in Putnarrfs Magazine, repudiated all 
 those portions of the interview tending to establish 
 the identity of Mr. Williams with Louis XVII. 
 
 In sketching the life and history of this remarkable 
 man, we have of necessity omitted many minor details 
 which, taken collectively, tend to amazingly strengthen 
 his case. Grouped and arranged, as they were by Mr. 
 Hanson, with much ability and all the zeal of a spe- 
 cial pleader, they form a well-connected chain of cir- 
 cumstantial evidence. It was, to say the least, a re- 
 markable coincidence that a half-witted boy, in poor 
 health, of French lineage, and of the same age as the 
 dauphin, should, in the year of the reported escape 
 from the Temple, appear in America, the country of 
 all best fitted for concealment, and there be buried 
 alive among a tribe of half-savage Indians, his re- 
 puted father receiving from France remittances on 
 account of his maintenance. 
 
 Allusion has been made to the close physical and 
 facial resemblance of Mr. Williams to the Bourbon 
 family. He possessed the Austrian lip, and his 
 
OS Who Was He? 
 
 whole personal presence favored the idea that he 
 came of kingly stock. Persons familiar with the 
 features of Louis XVIII., on being shown a portrait 
 of Mr. W 7 illiams, insisted that it was the likeness of 
 the king. To the day of his death Mr. Williams was 
 afflicted with scrofula at the knee-joints, and also 
 bore two scars on his face, corresponding with two 
 wounds made by the brutal Simon in chastising the 
 little dauphin ; neither was the crescent-shaped vac- 
 cination mark on the arm wanting. Inoculation was 
 not known or practiced among the Indians until 
 many years after the arrival among them of the boy 
 whom they called Eleazar. 
 
 Poor, well-nigh friendless, and in his declining 
 years but little known, Mr. Williams took no steps to 
 push his remarkable claim. He died in 1858. That 
 he honestly believed himself to be the rightful son of 
 Louis XYI. there is as little reason to doubt as that 
 his well-known probity would not have permitted 
 him to lend himself knowingly to an imposture. 
 Whether or no the salient details of the interview" with 
 the Prince de Joinville were the figment of a disor- 
 dered brain will never, in all probability, be known. 
 The story of Eleazar Williams is only paralleled in 
 its romantic details by that of the Due de Richemont. 
 
The Lost Heir of the Bourbons. 69 
 
 Of course, there were not two real dauphins, and an 
 acceptance of the claims of either of necessity pre- 
 cludes all consideration of those of his rival. 
 
 The summing up of this remarkable case in the 
 Knickerbocker Review, before referred to as substan- 
 tially reproduced in the columns of The Evening 
 Post, leaves so little to be said that we quote it here 
 in its entirety : 
 
 " Two witnesses, according to M. Beauchesne, tes- 
 tify positively as to the death of the prince, namely : 
 Lasne and Gomin. They tell us that they were his 
 attendants, the one from March 31, 1793, the other 
 from November 8, 1794, to the day of his death. 
 They further minutely describe the condition of the 
 prince from June 5 to June 8 (there is a blank in 
 Beauchesne's account from the first to the fifth), and 
 then his last moments, and the hour and the minute 
 when he died. In the eloquent language of his biog- 
 rapher, ' Lasne put his hand upon the heart of the 
 child. The heart of Louis XVII. had ceased to beat. 
 It was two hours and a quarter after midday.' As 
 these persons were both in the Temple before May 
 29, 1795, it is evident that they both knew the real 
 prince. As they were constantly and solely in at- 
 tendance, it is evident that no exchange could have 
 
70 Who Was He? 
 
 been brought about without their knowledge. As 
 they testify explicitly and positively that no ex- 
 change did take place, and that Louis XVII. died on 
 June 8, ill the Temple, there is no ground for mis- 
 take. We must therefore conclude either that Louis 
 XVII. died as they describe, or that their statements 
 are willfully false. What, then, are the facts, in the 
 nature of circumstantial evidence, which tend to dis- 
 credit this positive testimony and throw a doubt upon 
 the alleged death of Louis XVII.? 
 
 " The eminent physician Desault attended the 
 prince up to May 29, 1775. He had known him and 
 been his medical attendant before his imprisonment. 
 His character is beyond suspicion, and his evidence 
 beyond doubt. Both parties agree that his testimony 
 is to be taken as absolute truth. Desault found the 
 prince worn and emaciated, showing little intelli- 
 gence, and preserving a continued silence. Although 
 lie made every effort to arouse his faculties and win 
 liis affection, the child gave no stronger sign of men- 
 tal power than feebly taking hold of his coat as he 
 was about to leave the room. On the night of May 
 20, Desault died. Subsequently to this the child in 
 the Temple seems to have talked frequently, as is 
 shown by at least Lasne, Gomin, Bellanger, and the 
 
The Lost Heik of the Bourbons. 71 
 
 physicians Pelletan and Dumangin. Nor had his dis- 
 ease been subject to sudden changes, as the account 
 of the first visit of Laurent, nearly a year before his 
 death, sufficiently shows. ' The noise around him,' 
 says Laurent, ' made him tremble, bat he did not 
 stir. He answered no question. He was conscious 
 of nothing. He breathed. His open eyes had no 
 expression. Their color had changed. He had the 
 look, not of a fool, but of an idiot.' In addition to 
 this, the evidence of the physicians shows that the 
 child dissected by them had died with unimpaired 
 intellect. ' The brain and its dependencies,' says the 
 jproces-verbal, ' were in their most perfect integrity.' 
 The evidence incontrovertibly shows that on or about 
 the first of June a sudden change took place, and con- 
 tinued till his death. 
 
 " Next in the chain of circumstantial evidence is 
 the alleged change in the physical condition of the 
 prince. It may be summed up in two sentences : 
 First, Desault testifies that the prince had ' the germ 
 of scrofulous affection,' and that the malady had 
 * scarcely imprinted its seal on his constitution, nor 
 manifested itself with any violent symptoms — neither 
 vast ulcers nor rebellious ophthalmias nor chronic 
 swellings of the joints.' Secondly, the surgeons 
 
72 Who Was He ? 
 
 who, ten days after the last visit of Desault, made the 
 post-mortem examination, testify that all the appear- 
 ances were 'evidently the effects of a scrofulous disease 
 of long standing, and to which the death of the child 
 should be attributed.' In support of these opinions 
 respectively, we find, first, that Desault applied gen- 
 tle remedies up to May 29, recommended air and ex- 
 ercise, and, according to the Duchesse d'Angouleme, 
 ' undertook to cure ' the prince. Secondly, that Pel- 
 letan, on June 5, found the child so low that he in- 
 stantly called in a consulting physician, M. Dumangin, 
 chief physician of the Hospital of the Unity. The 
 eminence of all these physicians precludes a doubt as 
 to professional errors or intentional misrepresenta- 
 tions. We have the undoubted proof that a very 
 great change had taken place in a period of seven 
 days, which is not noticed, explained, or mentioned 
 by the attendants, Lasne and Gomin. 
 
 " Next as to the circumstances attendant on the 
 death or disappearance of the dauphin : 1. The gov- 
 ernment separated the prince from the rest of the 
 family. 2. They appointed a keeper, a friend of 
 Marat, known from his hatred of the royal race. 
 3. This man was obliged to become a prisoner in 
 the Temple ; he was not even allowed to go to his 
 
The Lost Heir of the Bourbons. 73 
 
 own home except when guarded by a file of sol- 
 diers. 4. The government set apart as large a sum 
 for the expenses of keeping and guarding the child 
 as for all the other members of the family. 
 
 5. A system of espionage was established, intricate, 
 troublesome, and expensive. Paris was divided into 
 forty districts ; from each district one commissioner 
 was elected. A commissioner visited the Temple 
 each day, and each commissioner visited it but once. 
 With his single visit his term of office ended. 
 
 6. Toward the end of the supposed existence of the 
 prince the three most eminent physicians in France 
 were appointed his attendants. Whatever was the 
 motive, an intent to carefully preserve the life of the 
 dauphin is apparent. 
 
 " It is next to be noted that the Comte de Pro- 
 vence, the uncle of the prince and his heir, endeav- 
 ored (whatever his motive may have been) to obtain 
 possession of his nephew. It is an undoubted fact 
 that he at that time had emissaries in Paris, foremost 
 among whom was the Comte de Fenouil. Now, of 
 the three persons who were in attendance on the 
 prince, Gomin was a royalist, Lasne a moderate re- 
 publican, afterward employed by the Comte de Pro- 
 vence, while Bellanger had been his ornamental 
 
74 Who Was He? 
 
 painter. It has been alleged that these persons ob- 
 tained an entrance to the prison of the dauphin 
 through the intrigues of the Comte de Fenouil ; and 
 all this raises a presumption of the intent on the part 
 of the Comte de Provence to procure the escape of 
 the dauphin, and on the part of the government to 
 connive at it. 
 
 " But at this time a very startling event occurred 
 in this drama. Desault, within a few hours of his 
 last visit to the prince, died. It is again to be re- 
 marked that he was personally acquainted with the 
 prince, was a physician of eminent reputation, and a 
 man of stainless integrity. M. Beauchesne asserts 
 that he died of ataxic fever ; Mr. Hanson, that he 
 was poisoned by the government. ■ Aside from the 
 suddenness and the singularity of his death at this 
 particular time there is no evidence indicating that 
 it was unnatural, unless we except statements said to 
 have been made several years ago by M. Abeille, 
 the pupil of Desault. But there is one circum- 
 stance to be noted, which is that the death of 
 Desault was falsified in the records of the govern- 
 ment. Whatever may have been the motive, it was 
 registered (as is shown by Beauchesne) four days 
 later than it actually occurred. During these four 
 
The Lost Heir of the Bourbons. 75 
 
 days no physician attended the prince, and of them 
 the account of Beauchesne is silent. 
 
 " The conduct of the royal family, it is alleged, 
 was equivocal, suspicious, and irreconcilable with a 
 belief in the death of the dauphin. Although the 
 highest marks of respect were paid to the memory 
 of Louis XVI., Marie Antoinette, and the Due 
 d'Enghien, none w T ere given to the last, though youth- 
 ful, king. In the graves of the two former quick- 
 lime had been emptied, and hundreds of victims bur- 
 ied over them and around them to obliterate the spot. 
 The grave of the dauphin could have been easily dis- 
 covered, and the surgeons' examination of the skull 
 afforded certain proof to identify the remains ; yet 
 while the supposed dust of Louis XVI. and Marie 
 Antoinette was exhumed, to be reburied with stately 
 pomp and studied mourning, the bones of Louis 
 XVII., in an obscure cemetery, unmarked by a single 
 memorial, still rest like those of a common pauper. 
 
 " Again, Pelletan, the physician, carried from the 
 post-mortem examination the heart of the child who 
 died in the Temple, and he offered it to the king as 
 the heart of the dauphin. An inquiry was instituted, 
 in which Lasne testified that he was present at the 
 examination, and nothing was carried away. The 
 
76 Who Was He \ 
 
 evidence, although contradictory, can be reconciled ; 
 for the statement of Lasne amounts to nothing more 
 than that he observed closely and did not see any 
 thing taken. Pelletan was a physician of the highest 
 standing, and entitled to belief, yet Louis XVIII. 
 adopted the statement of Lasne, and rejected the 
 relic. 
 
 " More interesting, if not more clear, are the ad- 
 missions to be derived from the conduct of the 
 Duchess d'Angouleme. She was a woman of daunt- 
 less energy, unwavering resolution, and possessed of 
 self-command beyond the ordinary measure of her 
 sex or race. She was dignified, stern, conscientious, 
 believing fully in the religion which she professed, 
 and devoted to the system of which her family was 
 the exponent. So greatly, indeed, did she possess 
 these qualities, that Bonaparte is reported to have 
 said of her that she was the only man in her family. 
 Her position was as peculiar as her character. She 
 was the daughter of the murdered king, the niece of 
 the reigning one, the sister of the rightful prince, 
 and the wife of the heir-apparent. Like Louis 
 XVIIL, she erected no monument, and allowed the 
 heart produced by Pelletan to be retained by his 
 family. We cannot discover a single act indicating 
 
The Lost Heir of the Bourbons. 77 
 
 the sisterly regard which would naturally be shown 
 toward the remains of a brother. Yet to the other 
 members of her family who had been the victims of 
 the Revolution no testimonials that an affection al- 
 most fanatical could prompt were unpaid. For her 
 cousin, the Due d'Enghien, once a week for months 
 she had masses performed, and repaired to her chapel 
 to pray for his soul. It is truly said, in reply to 
 this, that the like offices were unnecessary, according 
 to the tenets of the Catholic faith, for the soul of a 
 child. But, while this is true, it nevertheless shows 
 a carelessness in regard to her brother strangely at 
 variance with the fervor of the devotion which she 
 rendered to what she deemed the sacred victims of an 
 unholy rebellion. 
 
 " To the duchess, Naundorff preferred his claim. 
 Repeated were his applications for a personal inter- 
 view, and repeated her refusals. To every request 
 she returned, not a decided negative, but a condition 
 that he should send her the documentary evidence 
 he pretended to possess. At one time she appears to 
 have deemed a personal interview with the King of 
 Prussia necessary to resolve her doubts. Whenever 
 this subject was brought to her notice, strong 
 agitation is said to have shaken her entire frame. 
 
78 Who Was He? 
 
 From her character and conduct two inferences 
 may be drawn : first, that she would never have 
 consented to have deprived her brother of .his rights, 
 and that her agitation was due to the love she bore 
 him and the horrors he had endured; secondly, that 
 she did assent to the surrender of his rights from 
 motives of state policy, but, in the unbending pride 
 of her nature, scorned to render those testimonials of 
 respect and love to the unknown dust of the supposi- 
 titious prince which she would eagerly have given to 
 a murdered- brother and the heir of her kingly race." 
 From the foregoing resume it will be seen that the 
 escape of the prince was, if not probable, at least 
 quite possible, and that there were a hundred strange 
 occurrences which it is almost impossible to reconcile 
 with his death in the Temple. In the words with 
 which the Rev. J. Hanson concludes the first part of 
 his able work : " A great wrong has been done, and 
 we can clearly trace the whole course of motives and 
 events up to a certain point, and then there is an 
 abrupt cessation, with only here and there an indica- 
 tion of a dark secret to which the published annals of 
 Europe afford no clue. Like one of those rivers 
 which suddenly lose themselves in the earth, and roll 
 their tide along in subterranean darkness, the fate of 
 
The Lost Heir of the Bourbons. 79 
 
 Louis XYII. is hidden from the eyes of men, and 
 every attempt hitherto made to unriddle the enigma 
 of his destiny only deepens the mystery, and carries 
 the mind into more inextricable labyrinths which, 
 like the mazes of some primeval forest, afford no 
 outlet." 
 
 The drama opened on French soil, and amid the 
 tumult and terror of the bloodiest revolution that 
 ever reddened the page of history. Whether or no 
 its closing scenes were enacted on the shores of " that 
 new world which is the old " remains, and probably 
 will remain, one of the enigmas of history. 
 
II. 
 THE UNKNOWN OF THE BASTILE. 
 
THE 
 
 UNKNOWN OF THE BASTILE. 
 
 BTE of the most perplexing, and at the 
 same time one of the most ro- 
 mantic, of the enigmas of history 
 is the mystery concerning the 
 identity of the personage known 
 in French State annals as I? Homme au 
 Masque de Fer — u the Man of the Iron 
 Mask." 
 
 During his lifetime, and for a century after his 
 decease, public curiosity was so whetted by the se- 
 crecy which enveloped the famous prisoner and his 
 movements, that, in the eagerness to discover the key 
 to the riddle, innumerable papers were written and a 
 variety of theories propounded — all plausible, a few 
 probable, but most of them collapsing like a house of 
 cards, when blown upon by the rude breath of persist- 
 ent inquiry. 
 
S4 Who Was He? 
 
 Of late years, though the mystery is scarcely 
 nearer solution than before, the subject has not 
 received much attention — not from lack of interest in 
 the matter, but because of the apparent difficulty of 
 arriving at any definite or satisfactory conclusion. 
 Never were the lovers of the romance of history 
 invited to a more alluring banquet. The hidden 
 crimes of the Borgias and the nameless iniquities of 
 the Inquisition were paralleled, if not surpassed, by 
 the enormity of immuring a man of noble birth — in 
 the prime of life, and against whom no heinous 
 crime was charged — in a living tomb for a lifetime. 
 
 " No certain clue," says Voltaire, writing in 1752, 
 " has ever been obtained as to the history of the mys- 
 terious stranger. The closest scrutiny has been baf- 
 fled, the most diligent search foiled, in the attempt to 
 fathom the most singular historical mystery that has 
 ever presented itself." 
 
 Briefly, the commonly received story of the Iron 
 Mask runs as follows : In 1662, shortly after the 
 death of Cardinal Mazarin in 1661, there was sent 
 to the fortress of the Isle de Ste. Marguerite, in 
 the Mediterranean, an unknown prisoner. He was 
 young, in stature above the average height, and of a 
 handsome, noble figure. On the journey thither he 
 
The Unknown of the Bastile. 85 
 
 wore a mask of black velvet, strengthened by steel 
 bands (popularly called an iron mask), the lower part 
 of which was provided with a hinged attachment that 
 permitted of his eating without ever removing the 
 mask. His guards were told to kill him if he ever 
 told who he was or removed his disguise. 
 
 He remained at Ste. Marguerite and other prisons 
 for twenty-nine years, all the time closely guarded, 
 and was then removed to the Bastile in Paris. While 
 at Ste. Marguerite it was said that lie scratched some 
 words, with the tine of a fork, on a silver platter, and 
 Hung it out of the window to a spot where he saw 
 a fisherman's boat moored to the shore near by. 
 The man picked up the plate and carried it to the 
 governor of the castle, thinking it had fallen out of 
 the window by an accident. The governor, after he 
 had perused the writing, appeared much troubled, 
 and asked the fisherman if he had also read it, and if 
 he had shown it to any person. The man replied that 
 he could not read, and when the officer had satisfied 
 himself that this was true, he dismissed him, saying : 
 
 " It is well for you that you do not know how to 
 read ! " 
 
 The physician who prescribed for the Mask during 
 his detention at the Bastile said that, though he had 
 
80 Who Was He? 
 
 long attended him, lie had never seen his face — only 
 his tongue — and that he was admirably formed. 
 The mysterious prisoner never complained of his 
 condition, nor did he ever drop a chance word that 
 might afford an insight into his identity. It was, 
 however, clear to all who came in contact w r ith him, 
 that he was a personage of rank and social impor- 
 tance. " His rooms," we are told, " were handsomely 
 furnished ; he was served with the greatest respect 
 possible ; the governor of his prison himself waited 
 upon him at meals, and never remained covered or 
 seated in his presence without permission. The pris- 
 oner's taste for fine linen and lace was gratified to the 
 utmost, and many diversions were allowed with a 
 view to making his rigorous confinement as light as 
 possible, and he amused himself frequently with a 
 guitar. To give some idea of the importance of the 
 prisoner, it may be mentioned that the Marquis de 
 Louvois, prime-minister to Louis XIV., visited him 
 prior to his removal from Isle Ste. Marguerite, and 
 at all the interviews he never once sat down." 
 
 M. de Chamillart, French Minister of State, was 
 one of the few who possessed a knowledge of the 
 truth of the mystery. When he was dying, his son- 
 in-law, the Marechal de la Feuillade, begged him on 
 
The Unknown of the Bastile. 87 
 
 his knees to tell him who the Mask was. The dying 
 statesman refused, saying it was a State secret he was 
 sworn never to divulge. 
 
 It should be said here, however, that there are 
 numberless remarkable stories connected with the 
 Mask which have no foundation in fact, being mere 
 legendary appendages to the true story, affixed by 
 popular rumor or belief. Voltaire, " who first gave 
 the story a fixed place in history, delivered it as 
 rumor had conveyed it to him — inaccurately, and 
 with sundry embellishments well fitted to encourage 
 still wilder surmises." Several of the incidents, as 
 that of the silver platter, were subsequently proved to 
 have had no connection with the Iron Mask. On 
 this account, therefore, we may hesitate to accept as 
 genuine many of the more ornate details. However, 
 enough remains to render the episode not only a 
 striking feature of the time in which it occurred, but 
 also to provoke ths astonishment of posterity. To 
 Voltaire's account are we indebted for the romantic 
 aspect in which the case was early set before the 
 world. 
 
 In 1703 the Masque de Fer died suddenly in the 
 Bastile. His funeral was conducted with the great- 
 est secrecy, the body being interred at night in the 
 
88 Who Was He ? 
 
 church-yard of St. Paul, with the facial lineaments 
 hidden from mortal ken. After his death his effects 
 were burned, and the walls of his chamber were 
 scraped and freshly painted so as to completely oblit- 
 erate all trace of any tell-tale inscriptions. Nearly two 
 centuries have rolled away " since Death, the great 
 liberator, freed the captive from his prison, and no 
 voice has been found to declare either his name Or his 
 generation. Suggestions there have been in plenty, 
 but all shoot wide of the mark." 
 
 The register of the Bastile contains the following 
 entries : 
 
 " Names and Qualities of the Prisoners. — An old 
 prisoner from Pignerol, obliged always to wear a 
 mask of black velvet, whose name and quality have 
 never been known. 
 
 "Date of Entry.— September 18, 1698, at three 
 o'clock in the afternoon. 
 
 " Reasons for Detention. — Never known. 
 
 " Observations. — This is the famous Man of the 
 Iron Mask, whom no one has ever seen or known. 
 This prisoner was brought to the Bastile by M. de 
 St. Mars, in a litter, when he took possession of the 
 government of the Bastile, coming from his governor- 
 ship of the Isle Ste. Marguerite and St. Honorat, and 
 
The Unknown of the Bastile. 89 
 
 whom lie had before had with him at Pignerol. This 
 prisoner was treated with distinction by the gov- 
 ernor, and was only seen by him and M. de Rosarges, 
 Mayor of the Fortress, who had the care of him." 
 And again, five years later : 
 " Date of Death.— November 19, 1703. 
 " Observations. — Died, November 19, 1703, aged 
 forty-five, or thereabouts,* and buried at St. Paul's the 
 next day, at four in the afternoon, under the name of 
 Marchiali, in the presence of M. de Bosarges, Mayor 
 of the Fortress, and of M. Beilh, Surgeon-Major of 
 the Bastile, who signed their names to the extract of 
 the burial-register of St. Paul's. His burial cost forty 
 livres. This prisoner remained at the Bastile five 
 years and sixty-two days, the day of his burial not 
 included. He was only ill for some hours, and died 
 almost suddenly ; he was buried in a winding-sheet of 
 new linen ; and for the most part every thing that 
 was found in his chamber was burnt, such as every 
 part of his bed, including the mattresses, his tables, 
 chairs, and other utensils, which were all reduced to 
 powder and to cinders, and thrown into the drains. 
 The rest of the things, such as the silver, copper, and 
 pewter, were melted. This prisoner was lodged in 
 
 * The Bastile record undoubtedly understates his age. 
 
90 Who Was He? 
 
 the tower Bertaudiere, which room was scraped and 
 filed quite to the stone, and fresh whitewashed from 
 the top to the bottom. The doors and windows were 
 burnt like the rest." 
 
 Attention has been called to the fact that in the 
 name " Marchiali," which was given to the Unknown' 
 in the burial-register of St. Paul's, are to be found 
 the exact letters of the two following words, one 
 Latin, the other French : Hie Amiral, namely, " Here 
 is the admiral." The discovery of this far-fetched 
 anagram was one of the causes which led to the wild 
 supposition that the Iron Mask was either the Due de 
 Beaufort or the Comte de Vermandois, both of whom 
 were great admirals of France. 
 
 The array of names put forward, as in other cases, 
 by various writers and theorizers on this alluring 
 topic is sufficient evidence of the magnificent conject- 
 ures of former days. The " claims of Arwediks, an 
 Armenian patriarch forcibly carried off from Con- 
 stantinople ; of the Due de Vermandois, son of Louis 
 XIV., who was reported to have perished in the 
 French camp before Dixmude ; of the Due de Beau- 
 fort, whose head was said to have been taken off be- 
 fore Candia ; of James, Duke of Monmouth, executed 
 on Tower Hill after the fatal battle of Sedgemoor, 
 
The Unknown of the Bastile. 91 
 
 but whom many believed to have escaped ; of a natu- 
 ral son of Anne of Austria, wife of Louis XIII., by 
 Cardinal Mazarin or by the Duke of Buckingham ; 
 of the twin brother of Louis XIV. ; of a Chevalier de 
 Kiffenbach, accused of plotting against the life of 
 Louis ; of Foucquet, an eminent and accomplished 
 statesman of the time of Louis XIY. ; and of Count 
 Matthioli, secretary of State to Charles III., Duke of 
 Mantua, have been presented by such writers as Vol- 
 taire, Dutens, St. Foix, La Grange Chancel, Gibbon, 
 Pere Papon, Pere Grilfet, the Chevalier de Tantes, 
 Mr. Quintin Cravvfurd, the Hon. G. Agar Ellis, M. 
 Delort, Paul Lacroix, M. Letournier, and M. Roux. 
 But most of the foregoing can be readily disposed of. 
 
 1. Arwediks, the Armenian patriarch, is known to 
 have died at least ten years before the Mask. 
 
 2. The Comte de Vermandois, son of Louis XIY. 
 and Madame de Valliere, died in the camp before 
 Dixmude, in 1683, and his body was interred at 
 Arras.* 
 
 3. The Due de Beaufort was a grandson of Henry 
 IY. Being sent to assist the Yenetians against the 
 Turks, he w T as slain and beheaded by the latter at the 
 siege of Candia in 1669.f 
 
 * f See page 90 for a reference to these two men. 
 
92 Who Was II k? 
 
 4. The belief that James, Duke of Monmouth, the 
 darling of the people, who was executed on Tower 
 Hill by order of James II., was the Mask, has no 
 other basis than the reluctance of the masses, peculiar 
 to all climes and to all people, to believe in the death 
 of a popular idol.* 
 
 5. The hypothesis that makes the Mask a natural 
 and elder son of Anne of Austria, mother of Louis 
 XIY., is the one that finds favor with Yoltaire. 
 Such a child might have disputed the succession, 
 hence the motive for his suppression by a life-long im- 
 prisonment. The historian Gibbon arrives at much 
 the same conclusion. The prisoner's love of fine linen 
 was adduced as corroborative evidence, as Anne's aver- 
 sion to coarse drapery amounted to almost a mania. 
 
 6. That the Mask was a twin brother of Louis 
 XIY. is believed by many — that he was the latest 
 born, and for reasons of State policy was suppressed, 
 and his existence kept a secret. The story that he 
 was imprisoned for boxing the dauphin's ears is prob- 
 ably only another of the many wild conjectures 
 drawn forth by this thrilling tale. 
 
 Foucquet and Kiifenbach are now admitted to have 
 had no proper place in the controversy. 
 
 * See page 11. 
 
The Unknown of the Bastile. 93 
 
 These, then, are some of the leading theories put 
 forward by those who have essayed to clear up what 
 has been termed the most singular and astounding of 
 all historical mysteries. Of them all, Nos. 5 and 6 
 least violate the laws of probability. 
 
 But, amid these romantic, conflicting, and highly- 
 spiced conjectures, the assertion was made that the 
 Iron Mask was really a personage of no great impor- 
 tance in the social scale ; that no noble blood coursed 
 through his veins, and that political treachery, and 
 not the exigencies of royalty, was the cause of his 
 merciless and lifelong detention. Thus we come 
 to the consideration of the last name on the list 
 — that of the Count Matthioli — and of the nar- 
 ratives of M. Delort and the Hon. G. Agar 
 Ellis. 
 
 M. Delort obtained access to the musty archives of 
 the French foreign department during the reign of 
 Louis XIV., and found documentary evidence point- 
 ing to the conclusion that the Iron Mask was none 
 other than Count Matthioli. To M. Roux belongs 
 the honor of first naming the count, for in a pam- 
 phlet issued in 1801 he published abstracts of several 
 of the documents subsequently seen by M. Delort. 
 In 1827 the Lion. G. Agar Ellis, afterward Lord Dover, 
 
94 Who Was He 2 
 
 gave to the world a work in English* containing, 
 besides his own narrative, translations of the whole 
 series of State papers collated by Delort. These 
 documents consisted chiefly of correspondence be- 
 tween Louvois and other French ministers and gen- 
 erals and M. de St. Mars, the custodian of the Mask, 
 and relate largely to the keeping and treating of the 
 mysterious prisoner, who in these documents is often 
 referred to as "the Sieur de Lestang." There is, 
 however, one link missing in the case presented in 
 favor of the count, to which we shall refer later. 
 Here is the story of his life : 
 
 Hercules Anthony Matthioli was a native of Bo- 
 logna. He came of an ancient and honorable family, 
 distinguished in the legal profession. His parents 
 were Valerian Matthioli and Girolama Maggi. and 
 he first saw the light December 1, 1640. He mar- 
 ried, January 13, 1661, Camilla Piatesi, a widow, by 
 whom he had two sons, but his posterity ultimately 
 sank into obscurity. 
 
 About the time of his marriage he filled the post of 
 public reader in the famous University of Bologna, but 
 eventually quitted his native city to enter the service 
 of Charles III., Duke of Mantua. So greatly pleased 
 
 * History of the State Prisoner called the Iron Mask, London, 1827. 
 
The Unknown of the Bastile. 95 
 
 t 
 
 was the duke with his services that he promoted 
 Matthioli to be Secretary of State. The successor of 
 Charles III., Ferdinand Charles IV., the last ruler of 
 the house of Gonzaga, created Matthioli supernu- 
 merary Senator of Mantua, a post that had been he- 
 reditary in his family, and gave him the title of count. 
 Precisely when Matthioli ceased to be Secretary of 
 State does not appear. It is certain that he was not 
 in that office when he became involved in an intrigue 
 which, as is believed by many, cost him liberty and 
 life. 
 
 Ferdinand was a weak and unfortunate prince. 
 Himself and his court were ruled by his mother, 
 Isabella Clara of Austria, while the young duke, 
 " plunged into pleasures and excesses of every kind, 
 took little apparent interest in politics." He died 
 July 5, 1708, it was thought, of poison administered 
 by a lady with whom he was in love. 
 
 At this time France and Spain were bitter rivals in 
 the Italian States bordering on the Mediterranean. 
 About the end of 1677 the Abbe de Estrades was 
 embassador from the Court of Louis XIY. to the 
 Eepublic of Venice. He " conceived the idea, which 
 he was well aware would be highly acceptable to the 
 insatiable ambition of his master, of inducing the 
 
96 Who Was He? 
 
 Duke of Mantua to permit the introduction of a 
 French garrison into Casale, a strongly fortified 
 town, the capital of the Montferrat," and then con- 
 sidered the key of Italy. In 1632 the French had 
 become possessed of the fortress of Pignerol, which 
 gave them control of Piedmont ; could they but gain 
 Casale, the Milanese would also be at their mercy. 
 
 There was one great barrier to the success of this 
 crafty scheme. Isabella Clara, the mother of the 
 young duke, w r as a stanch partisan of the Court of 
 Spain, and would be certain to bitterly oppose the 
 project. It must be kept from her at any cost. So 
 it w r as resolved to privately approach the duke him- 
 self, who was known to feel somewhat chagrined at 
 the subjection in which he was kept by his mother. 
 It was also suspected that he was none too friendly 
 to the Spaniards, whom he suspected of casting an 
 equally longing eye on Casale and the Montferrat. 
 
 A trusty emissary between Estrades and the duke 
 was needed, and the Abbe thought he had found such 
 in the Count Matthioli, who was an adept in the wiles 
 of Italian politics, who was in the duke's confidence, 
 and who shared his antipathies to the Spaniards. 
 But the cautious Estrades would not trust his man 
 till he had sent some one to spy on him and find out 
 
The Unknown of the Bastile. 97 
 
 his inclinations. These being- found favorable, one 
 Giuliani was sent to Matthioli with proposals that he 
 represent to the duke the advantages to be derived 
 from placing himself under the protection of France. 
 
 Matthioli entered into the intrigue, and promised 
 to see his prince. This he did, and reported to 
 Estrades, through Giuliani, that the duke was entirely 
 favorable to the alliance with France, and to the ces- 
 sion of Casale, on condition that he receive a grant 
 of money, and be made generalissimo of any French 
 army that might be sent into Italy. 
 
 When the matter was thus far advanced the Abbe 
 d'Estrades sent an account of the plot to Louis XIY., 
 who, as might be expected, thought well of the 
 scheme. The negotiations continued to progress 
 favorably, and at length, on the 13th of March, 1678, 
 during the carnival at Venice, the Duke of Mantua 
 and the Abbe d' Estrades held a secret interview in 
 one of the open squares of the city. On this occasion 
 the duke expressed himself as very anxious for the 
 settlement of the matter. In November, 1678, 
 Matthioli set out for Paris, ostensibly to conduct the 
 final negotiations, and obtained an interview with 
 Louis XIY., who presented him with a valuable 
 
98 Who Was He > 
 
 But suddenly Matthioli's ardor cooled. By one 
 pretext and another he delayed the conclusion of 
 the affair. u At one moment his own ill-health de- 
 tained him at Mantua ; at another, the Duke of 
 Mantua could not raise a sufficient sum of money to 
 enable him to transport his court to Casale ; and 
 again, the duke was obliged to stay at Venice, having 
 promised to hold a carnival there." The truth of the 
 matter seems to be that Matthioli had been playing a 
 double game with the French diplomat e. Whether 
 or no he at first looked favorably on the scheme to 
 sell Casale does not appear ; it is certain, however, 
 that, at a later stage of the proceedings, while pre- 
 tending to the French to forward their interests, he 
 used all his influence with his master to dissuade him 
 from tli e design. 
 
 " This faithful minister," says one writer, " made 
 the duke understand that it was necessary for his 
 interest and his honor to preserve his duchy inviolate* 
 and thus made him change his intention ; he did 
 still more — he obliged him to unite himself with 
 other princes of Italy in a league to oppose the 
 designs of France. He visited almost nil the Courts 
 of Italy ; he went to Venice and Genoa ; and he suc- 
 ceeded every-where so well that he had almost 
 
The Unknown of the Bastile. 99 
 
 entirely detached those powers from the interests of 
 France. Finally, he went to Turin witli the same 
 object." If he imagined that his movements were 
 unknown to the agents of Louis XIV. he was mis- 
 taken. The ministers of the French court, b} r means 
 of their spies, had been kept apprised of all his 
 movements. The various excuses made by Matthioli 
 for the non-execution of his pledges, all more or less 
 frivolous, appear to have first awakened in the French 
 government a suspicion of his fidelity. 
 
 But so secure did Matthioli feel, that he often 
 visited the Marquis d'Arcy, the French embassador 
 at the Court of Savoy, though that minister was all 
 the time kept fully informed of the doubts current 
 about the integrity of his guest. "He paid him 
 many civilities, asked him very often to dinner, and 
 finally invited him to come and hunt with him at 
 some distance from Turin." Matthioli endeavored to 
 excuse himself on the plea of having no horses, but 
 the embassador disposed of that difficulty by offering 
 to lend him some. The secretary dared not refuse, 
 lest thereby he should invite suspicion. 
 
 " The day for the hunt being arrived, they set off 
 together, but they were hardly at the distance of a 
 league from the town when Matthioli was surrounded 
 
100 Who Was He? 
 
 by ten or twelve horsemen, who seized him, dis- 
 guised him, masked him, aud conducted him to the 
 fortress of Pignerol." From this time Matthioli was 
 lost to the haunts of men. 
 
 Such is the narrative pieced together by Messrs. 
 Delort and Ellis. It is undoubtedly historically cor- 
 rect up to the seizure of Matthioli and his incar- 
 ceration in Pignerol. The identifying him with the 
 Mask is not so certain a matter. 
 
 After the arrest it became important, we are told, 
 u to recover some documents which Matthioli had 
 received from the French government for the pur- 
 pose of concluding the treaty, and those being con- 
 cealed at Padua, the prisoner was compelled to write 
 for them to his father. Three letters were accord- 
 ingly prepared and entrusted to Giuliani, with orders 
 to deliver one or more in succession, as circumstances 
 might require. Matthioli himself was in the mean 
 time rigorously examined by Catinat, as to the cir- 
 cumstances and motives of his treason. The culprit 
 prevaricated ; the inquisitor threatened, and, on one 
 occasion, Catinat terrified his prisoner by calling in 
 soldiers to administer the torture. He acknowledged 
 that, in passing through Turin, on his return from 
 Paris, he had betrayed the secret to his friend, the 
 
The Unknown of the Bastile. 101 
 
 President Turki, with whom he afterward corre- 
 sponded on the subject ; that he had received two 
 thousand livres at Turin, but only as a recompense 
 for some former services ; that he had held commu- 
 nication respecting the treaty both with the Spanish 
 governor of Milan, and with individuals in the Ger- 
 man service, but that these were already apprised of 
 the transaction by the Duke of Mantua's mother, 
 who had drawn an avowal from her son. He de- 
 clared that he himself always intended to fulfill his 
 engagements with France, and had, with that view, 
 obtained credentials under the hand of Ferdinand 
 which would have enabled him to have secured 
 Casale even after the duke's defection ; but the 
 papers themselves, when delivered to Giuliani, proved 
 inadequate to such a purpose. Catinat returned to 
 France, leaving Matthioli, whom, for the better con- 
 cealment, he had named L'Estang, a close prisoner in 
 the hands of St. Mars." 
 
 Assuming, for the present, at least, that Matthi- 
 oli and the Mask are identical, let us glance at 
 the prisons and the prison life of the unfortunate 
 man. 
 
 The fortress of Pignerol was the citadel of the 
 town of the same name, in Italy, at the foot of 
 
102 Who Was He? 
 
 the Alps, about twenty miles south-west of Turin. 
 Here, in " the lower part of the tower," in a dungeon 
 
 " Dim with a dull, imprisoned ray — 
 A sunbeam which had lost its way, 
 And through the crevice and the cleft 
 Of the thick wall is fallen and left; 
 Creeping o'er the floor so damp, 
 Like a marsh-meteor's lamp," 
 
 Matthioli was confined — at first alone', but subse- 
 quently, to save expense and trouble, a crazy Jacobin 
 monk was given him for company. 
 
 In the correspondence between Louvois and M. de 
 St. Mars, respecting the treatment of the prisoner at 
 Pignerol, the name of Matthioli frequently occurs 
 until July 9, 16S1, when all mention of him by name 
 ceases, and thenceforward the difficulty of identifying 
 Matthioli with the Mask is enhanced. That at this 
 period his release was deemed possible is proved by 
 the following extract from a letter of Louvois on the 
 eve of the removal of St. Mars to Exilles : 
 
 " With regard to the effects belonging to the Sieur 
 Matthioli, which are in your possession, you will 
 have them taken to Exilles in order to be given back 
 to him if ever his majesty should order him to be set 
 at liberty." 
 
The Unknown of the Bastile. 103 
 
 The question arises, Whether Matthioli was of suf- 
 ficient importance, either socially or politically, to 
 warrant such stringent precautions as we have seen 
 were taken to insure his remaining incognito? Had 
 he been of royal blood, and occupying the relation 
 toward the throne of France of a possible claimant, 
 is it conceivable that his release would ever have 
 been deemed remotely possible ? These are difficult 
 questions for the advocates of the Matthioli theory to 
 answer — they have never been answered. The above 
 extract shows that Louvois made no secret of the 
 name of Matthioli in his early correspondence with 
 M. de St. Mars ; why, then, if the Mask and Matthi- 
 oli were identical, were the custodians of the former 
 ordered to kill him if he uncovered or divulged 
 his identity ? Further, Matthioli having been kid- 
 napped by a party of soldiers, there must have 
 been for several years a number of witnesses living 
 who were acquainted with the facts, and who, in the 
 eager quest for the solution of the mystery surround- 
 ing the Iron Mask, could have easily been reached. 
 Yet none of them ever spoke. Do not all the 
 known facts point irresistibly to the conclusion that 
 Matthioli could not have been the Mask ? Of this, 
 however, more anon. 
 
104 Who Was I1k? 
 
 Shortly after the year 1G81 the unhappy pair of 
 prisoners became nameless, and we find them thence- 
 forward referred to as " the two prisoners in the lower 
 part of the tower." The records show that these two 
 companions in misery accompanied St. Mars when 
 lie was transferred to Exilles. The Jacobin priest 
 died in this fortress, and then we find St. Mars con- 
 veying a solitary figure, mysteriously denoted " the 
 prisoner," with him to Ste. Marguerite and to the 
 .Bastile, and always with the same painful secresy. 
 When this carefully-guarded culprit enters France 
 proper his features are shrouded behind a mask. It 
 is also to be noted that all the versions of the confine- 
 ment of the Iron Mask agree in stating that he was 
 first kept at Pignerol, then transferred to Exilles, 
 Ste. Marguerite, and the Bastile. 
 
 Now, if Matthioli were the Mask, one would sup- 
 pose that the time for disguise would be while he 
 remained on foreign soil, where the risk of escape, 
 discovery, or recapture would be greater, and that, 
 once his captors had him safe on French soil, all ne- 
 cessity for concealment would be at an end. On the 
 other hand, were the Mask of French royal lineage, 
 the necessity of this precaution would be apparent. 
 To the question so often propounded during this 
 
The Unknown of the Bastile. 105 
 
 century, Who else but Mattliioli could the Iron Mask 
 be? The answer is that St. Mars, in all likelihood, 
 had the custody of both Mattliioli and the mysterious 
 Mask ; that the former died, or was quietly released 
 long prior to the removal of the latter to the Bastile, 
 and that the personage so jealously guarded from dis- 
 covery was probably of far greater importance than 
 the secretary of the ruler of a petty Italian state. 
 
 But let us resume the narrative. 
 
 "In 1681," we are told, " St. Mars was removed to 
 the command of Exilles, a few leagues from Pignerol, 
 but ' the prisoners ' were not suffered to pass into the 
 hands of a new jailer ; St. Mars carried them with 
 him. They traveled in a litter, and under military 
 escort. Their new lodging was prepared with the 
 most anxious attention to secresy ; two soldiers of St. 
 Mars's own company watched the tower in which 
 they lay ; passengers were not allowed to linger in its 
 neighborhood, and the governor could observe the 
 sentinels from his own window. A lieutenant slept 
 above the prisoners, and received from the servants 
 whatever was brought for their use ; their physician 
 never spoke to them but in St. Mars's presence ; a 
 permanent screen was contrived, so that the priest 
 who said mass to them did not see their persons, and 
 
106 Who Was He? 
 
 their confessor was commanded never to ask their 
 names or inquire into their former condition, to re- 
 ceive no message or writing from them, and never to 
 talk of them.'' 
 
 The fortress of Exilles was a stronghold command- 
 ing the pass near Susa, on the frontier of Piedmont 
 and the Erianconnois. The place constantly changed 
 masters during the many European wars that deso- 
 lated the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. The 
 following letter from St. Mars to the minister Lou- 
 vois gives a glimpse at the condition and mode of 
 life of the prisoners while there : 
 
 "Exilles, March 11, 1682. 
 " Sir : I have received the letter which you were 
 pleased to do me the honor to write to me on the 
 27th of last month, in which you acquaint me, sir, 
 that it is important my two prisoners should have no 
 communication with any one. Since the first time 
 that you, sir, gave me this order, I have guarded 
 these two prisoners, who are under my care, as se- 
 verely and exactly as I formerly did Messieurs Fou- 
 quet and Lauzun, who could not boast that they had 
 either sent or received any news while they were in 
 confinement. These prisoners can hear the people 
 
The Unknown of the Bastile. 107 
 
 speak as they pass along tlie road which is at the 
 bottom of the tower; but they, if they wished it, 
 could not make themselves heard ; they can see the 
 persons on the hill which is before their windows, 
 but cannot themselves be seen on account of the bars 
 which are placed across their room. There are two 
 sentinels of my company always night and day on 
 each side of the tower, at a reasonable distance : who 
 can see the window of the prisoners obliquely. 
 They are ordered to take care that no one speaks to 
 them, and that they do not cry out from their win- 
 dows ; and to make the passengers walk on if they 
 wish to stop in the path or on the side of the hill. 
 My own room being joined to the tower, and having 
 no other look-out except toward this path, I hear and 
 see every thing, even my two sentinels, who are by 
 this means always kept alert. 
 
 " As for the inside of the tower, I have divided it 
 in such a manner that the priest who says mass to 
 them cannot see them on account of a curtain I have 
 made, which covers their double doors. The serv- 
 ants, who bring their food, put whatever is necessary 
 for the prisoners upon a table on the outside, and my 
 lieutenant carries it in to them. No one speaks to 
 them except myself, my lieutenant, M. Yigneron, the 
 
108 Who Was He? 
 
 confessor, and a physician, who only sees them in my 
 presence. 
 
 " I am, etc., De Saint-Mars." 
 
 The foregoing severe, and even harsh, treatment 
 meted ont to the prisoner whom we must regard as 
 Matthioli does not accord with the known facts re- 
 specting the environment of the Iron Mask in the 
 Bastile. Either a marked change took place in his 
 treatment, or two different personages are to be con- 
 sidered, though of course it is possible, as time tied, 
 that the rigors were somewhat relaxed. 
 
 M. de St. Mars was, in 1687, transferred to the 
 command of the island of Sainte Marguerite, which, 
 with Saint Honorat, constitute the two chief islets of 
 a group in the Mediterranean, near the coast, and in 
 the Department of Var. They are now known as 
 the Lerins Isles. Here stood a military fortress or 
 prison, which still exists. As before, St. Mars took 
 with him his mysterious captive. 
 
 His prison at the He de Ste. Marguerite consisted 
 of a room lighted by a single window on the north, 
 which was pierced in a wall several feet in thickness, 
 fortified with bars of iron, and looking upon the sea, 
 whence its occupant might have 
 
The Unknown of the Bastile. 109 
 
 " Felt the winter's spray 
 Wash through the bars when winds were high 
 And wanton in the cloudy sky." 
 
 The unknown was removed from Exilles in a spe- 
 cies of sedan-chair or litter, u borne by men, and cov- 
 ered with oilcloth, so that he was invisible even to 
 the soldiers who closely surrounded him. The un- 
 fortunate captive fell sick on the way for want of 
 air ; St. Mars hastened his journey, but still kept his 
 prisoner from all men's view, of course exciting, by 
 his precautions, a general eagerness to know who the 
 concealed person was." 
 
 In 1698 St. Mars was again promoted, this time to 
 the command of the Bastile, in Paris, and the Mask 
 was conveyed thither in another close litter, and care- 
 fully escorted by a troop of soldiers. 
 
 The testimony in favor of the supposition that 
 Matthioli was the Iron Mask is in the main purely 
 circumstantial. Yet the cumulative effect of this 
 evidence, much of it fragmentary and gleaned from 
 widely divergent sources, is very strong, and would 
 be well-nigh conclusive, but for a few serious flaws. 
 Some of these we have already noted. Attention 
 has been called by various writers to the undoubted 
 fact that at the time of the seizure of Matthioli, and 
 
110 Who Was He? 
 
 his subsequent disappearance from the scene of the 
 world's activities, no second person of eminence in 
 the whole of Europe was known to be missing. It has 
 been claimed that all the clues connected with other 
 names end abruptly, and that there is absolutely no 
 other personage around whom the known facts can 
 be made to group themselves. But if we suppose 
 that the Mask was in truth a brother of Louis XIV., 
 and that, to avoid all chance of a war of succession, 
 he had been immured in prison from infancy, this 
 objection falls to the ground. The existence of such 
 a child could have been known to but few, and the 
 lips of that limited circle were resolutely silent con- 
 cerning the mystery. 
 
 Again : We are confronted with the fact that 
 while the imprisonment of the Mask dates from 
 1662, the Count Matthioli was not arrested until 
 1678, sixteen years later. It is clear, then, that some 
 other personage was confined during those sixteen 
 years who was guarded with great secrecy, and who, 
 at the time of the first public mention of his incar- 
 ceration, in 1662, was young and handsome, and of 
 noble birth. Unless this discrepancy can be ex- 
 plained it would seem that the elaborate case of 
 Messrs. Delort and Ellis must fall to the ground. 
 
The Unknown of the Bastile. Ill 
 
 The writer lias seen no reference to this matter by 
 any of the authorities on the subject, yet certain it is 
 that Voltaire and others name the year 1GG2 as the 
 beginning of the imprisonment of the person who 
 afterward became celebrated as the Iron Mask, while 
 it is equally unquestionable that the arrest of Mat- 
 thioli did not occur until 1678. 
 
 We have shown that the most extraordinary pre- 
 cautions were taken to guard against the discovery of 
 the identity of the Unknown until and after the 
 day of his death in the gloomy recesses of the Bastile. 
 Only one or two persons were allowed to enter his 
 presence; even the administrations of a confessor 
 w T ere denied for a time, and when at last a priest was 
 permitted to visit him it was always in the presence 
 of M. de St. Mars or of his trusty lieutenant. The 
 advocates of the Matthioli theory find ample warrant 
 for this caution in the fact that by his seizure and 
 subsequent incarceration an unwarrantable offense 
 against the law of nations had been committed. For, 
 says Mr. Ellis, " Matthioli, at the time of his arrest, 
 was the plenipotentiary of the Duke of Mantua for 
 concluding a treaty with the king of France, and for 
 that very sovereign to kidnap him and confine him 
 in a dungeon was certainly one of the most flagrant 
 
112 Who Was He? 
 
 acts of violence that could be committed ; one which, 
 if known, would have had the most injurious effect 
 upon the negotiations of Louis with other sovereigns ; 
 nay, would probably have indisposed other sover- 
 eigns to treat at all with him. It is true the Duke 
 of Mantua was a prince insignificant both in power 
 and character, but if in this way might was allowed 
 to overcome right, who could possibly tell whose turn 
 might be the next ? Besides, it was important for 
 Louis that the Duke of Mantua should also be kept 
 in good humor, the delivery of Casale not having 
 been effected ; nor is it to be supposed that he would 
 have consented to give it up to the French monarch 
 within two years- of this period had he had a suspi- 
 cion of the way his diplomatic agent and intended 
 prime minister had been treated. The same reasons 
 for concealment existed till the death of Mattlrioli, 
 since that event happened while both Louis XIV. 
 and the Duke of Mantua were still alive, which ac- 
 counts for his confinement continuing to be always 
 solitary and always secret." 
 
 Mr. Ellis thinks that Louis XIV., whose vindictive 
 nature is well known, determined to exact ample 
 revenge to " satisfy his wounded pride and frustrated 
 ambition," and to this end consigned the count to a 
 
The Unknown of the Bastile. 113 
 
 dungeon from whence only death could deliver him. 
 " The arrest of Matthioli certainly appears to have 
 been the effect of a vindictive feeling against him in 
 the breast of Louis himself ; for it is impossible to 
 imagine that any minister would have ventured, of 
 his own free-will, upon a step by which so much was 
 to be hazarded and nothing, in fact, was to be 
 gained. The act is only to be explained in this man- 
 ner : that the monarch insisted upon his revenge, 
 which the ministers were obliged to gratify, and at 
 the same time, in order to prevent any ill conse- 
 quences that might result from it, determined upon 
 burying the whole transaction under the most im- 
 penetrable veil of mystery. The confinement of 
 Matthioli is decidedly one of the deadliest stains that 
 blot the character of Louis XIV. ; for, granting that 
 Matthioli betrayed the trust reposed in him by that 
 monarch, one single act of diplomatic treachery was 
 surely not sufficient to warrant the infliction of the 
 most horrible of punishments — solitary confinement 
 in a dungeon." 
 
 But, even granting that Louis XIY. was as bitterly 
 
 revengeful as here represented, is not the story of the 
 
 imprisonment of the Mask utterly disproportioned to 
 
 the offense of Matthioli ? Is it conceivable that a 
 
 8 
 
114 Who Was He? 
 
 culprit whose treachery merited solitary confinement 
 for life would have been treated with so great per- 
 sonal respect and consideration ? In short, the advo- 
 cates of the Matthioli theory prove altogether too 
 much. The picture which they present only serves 
 to pile up the circumstantial proof that the Iron 
 Mask was a personage of infinitely more importance 
 to the crown of France than could have been the 
 envoy of a fifth-rate European kinglet. 
 
 With regard to the treatment of the Mask during 
 his long captivity authorities differ, as we have seen. 
 Some represent that every thing short of absolute 
 cruelty or torture was done to render life intolerable 
 to the prisoner, and Matthioli's confinement in the 
 dungeon at Pignerol, and the placing of a crazy 
 monk in his cell, are adduced to support this view. 
 
 On the other hand, equally trustworthy authorities 
 say that the Mask was treated with profound respect 
 and " distinguished consideration ;" that St. Mars 
 waited on him in person, and always remained stand- 
 ing and bareheaded in his presence ; and that his 
 slightest wishes or caprices, within certain limits, 
 were gratified. 
 
 Does not the existence of these two sets of equally 
 credible details point conclusively to the fact that there 
 
The Unknown of the Bastile. 115 
 
 were two prisoners — a disgraced embassador and an 
 unfortunate, but personally blameless, scion of the 
 royal family of France ? In the one case no punish- 
 ment could be too severe for the outraged majesty of 
 the foremost nation of Europe to inflict on him who 
 had betrayed her ; in the other, every effort was made 
 to ameliorate the cruel condition of him who was 
 perforce sacrificed to the welfare of the State. 
 
 As bearing on the supposed identity of Matthioli 
 with the Iron Mask, the two following extracts are 
 not without interest. M. Dutens,* says : 
 
 "In order to treat this subject (that of the Iron 
 Mask) methodically, I will begin with what the Duke 
 de Choiseul has often related to me. Louis XY. once 
 day told him that he was acquainted with the history 
 of the prisoner with the Mask. The duke begged the 
 king to tell him who he was, but he could get no 
 other answer from him except' that all the con- 
 jectures which had been hitherto made with regard 
 to the prisoner were false. Some time afterward 
 Madame de Pompadour, at the request of the duke, 
 pressed the king to explain himself upon this subject. 
 Louis XY. upon this told her that he believed he was 
 the minister of an Italian prince." 
 
 * La Correspondance Interceptee, 1789. 
 
116 Who Was He? 
 
 The same testimony, in slightly different garb, is 
 produced by Mr. Quintin Crawfurd :* 
 
 " I had heard it said that M. de Choiseul had spoken 
 to Louis XY. on the subject of the masked prisoner, 
 but that he had not been able to obtain any satisfac- 
 tory answer. I addressed myself to the Abbe Bar- 
 thelemi and to the Abbe Beliardi, who had both 
 lived in intimacy with M. de Choiseul; they ac- 
 quainted me that it was at their request the Duke de 
 Choiseul had spoken upon this subject to Louis XY. ; 
 that the king had answered him that he believed the 
 prisoner was a minister of one of the courts of Italy, 
 but that the duke observed that this conversation ap- 
 peared to embarrass him. The Abbe Beliardi told 
 me in proper terms that the king wished to evade 
 the subject. They then begged M. de Choiseul to 
 engage Madame de Pompadour to speak to the king. 
 She did so ; but the answer of Louis XY. to his mis- 
 tress was not more instructive than that which he had 
 given to his minister." 
 
 We venture to say that the foregoing evidence, 
 coining as it does from manifestly interested or prob- 
 ably biased parties, would not count for much in a 
 court of law. 
 
 * Melanges cV Histoire et de Litterature. 
 
The Unknown of the B as tile.. 117 
 
 A mournful interest will ever cling to the moving 
 tale of the Unknown of the Bastile. With the Pris- 
 oner of Chillon he might well have said : 
 
 " My hair is gray, but not with years, 
 
 Nor grew it white 
 
 In a single night, 
 As men's have grown with sudden fears: 
 ' My limbs are bowed, though not with toil, 
 
 But rusted with a vile repose, 
 For they have been a-dungeon's spoil, 
 
 And mine has been the fate of those 
 To whom the goodly earth and air 
 Are banned and barred, forbidden fare." 
 
 He died, was buried, and carried his weird secret 
 to the silence of the grave. Though a more romantic 
 atmosphere would perhaps surround the story were 
 we able to assert that without a doubt the brother of 
 a king, or even a royal duke, was thus consigned to a 
 living tomb, the mysterious and tragic features of the 
 case appeal just as powerfully to the sympathy and 
 the imagination when we are forced to confess that 
 the identity of the Man in the Iron Mask is still an 
 impenetrable secret, known only to Him who reads 
 and fathoms the hearts of men. 
 
III. 
 
 THE 
 
 YOUTH WHO FELL FROM CROWN TO KITCHEN, 
 
 AND 
 
 SOME SIMILAR STRANGE STORIES. 
 
THE YOUTH WHO FELL FROM 
 CROWN TO KITCHEN. 
 
 jENRY, Earl of Richmond, the founder 
 of the royal line of Tudor, 
 ascended the throne of England 
 in 1485, after defeating Richard 
 III. on Bosworth field. Pie was the 
 champion and acknowledged leader of 
 the House of Lancaster, and w T as also not 
 without favor in the sight of the rival York- 
 ist party. To establish the new dynasty more firmly,- 
 and to still more firmly cement the allegiance of all En- 
 glishmen, Henry, in 1486, married Elizabeth, daughter 
 of Edward IV., an event which gladdened the hearts 
 of his people from Solent to Firth of Forth. 
 
 The reign thus auspiciously begun was in the main 
 fortunate for the nation, though the king's rapacity 
 and occasional lack of veracity dimmed the luster of 
 his prudence, vigor, and excellent aptitude for public 
 
122 Who Was He? 
 
 affairs. Ko great wars disturbed his sway, yet for 
 many years the court and the country were kept 
 in a fever of excitement by the intrigues of the par- 
 titans of two youthful claimants to the throne, whose 
 stories were so plausible — not to say probable — as to 
 entitle them to rank among the historic doubts 
 which have remained unsolved until our own time. 
 We will glance at them in the order of their occur- 
 rence. 
 
 While men of all parties w T ere united in their 
 fealty to Henry, and rejoiced at the cessation of the 
 bloody wars that had desolated for so many years the 
 fairest of her shires," there were not wanting in nooks 
 and corners of the kingdom knots of turbulent and 
 factious men ready to leap into insurrection on the 
 slightest pretext. A danger of this sort first show T ed 
 itself in Ireland. An intriguing priest intimated to 
 an assemblage of warlike chieftains, held in Dublin, 
 that the true heir of the English crown was then in 
 his possession, and, on their vowing to espouse his 
 cause, presented to them a remarkably well-favored 
 and intelligent youth as Edward, Earl of Warwick, 
 nephew of Edward IV., and son of that Duke Cla- 
 rence (brother of Edward IY.) who came to such an 
 ignominious and untimely end in a butt of wine. 
 
From Crown to Kitchen. 123 
 
 Now, Henry's claim to the throne was of a very slen- 
 der nature, as he very well knew. By his father, the 
 Earl of Richmond, he was descended from the royal 
 line of France ; by his mother, Margaret Beaufort, 
 he derived his title to the English throne, as one of 
 her ancestors was John of Gaunt, head of the House 
 of Lancaster. Therefore the appearance of this 
 young rival, claiming to be Edward, Earl of War- 
 wick, nephew of Edward IV., was truly a most em- 
 barrassing turn of affairs. Was his claim a just 
 one? 
 
 The Irish hated the English yoke then as now, 
 and any pretense, however ill-founded, was sufficient 
 to arouse them to arms. But so well substantiated 
 was the story told by the claimant and his sponsor, 
 the priest, that it doubtless appeared in those lawless 
 times of sufficient weight upon which to wage war. 
 The boy was hailed with acclamations as nearest in 
 succession to Edward IV., and preparations were at 
 once set on foot to assert his claim. 
 
 As a first step messengers were sent into Flanders 
 to solicit substantial aid from the Duchess of Bur- 
 gundy, a sister of Edward IV., who cordially hated 
 Henry VII. and all his ways. The assistance of the 
 duchess was promptly given, and two thousand men- 
 
124 Who Was He? 
 
 at-arms were placed under the command of Martin 
 Swartz, a famous Free-lance, and despatched to Dub- 
 lin. There the boy was crowned king of England in 
 the great cathedral, and John, Earl of Lincoln, son of 
 the Duke of Suffolk, and himself a nephew of roy- 
 alty, acknowledged the newly coroneted boy as the 
 rightful sovereign of England. The Earl of Kildare, 
 Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland, also threw himself at his 
 feet, and caused him to be proclaimed to the four 
 winds of heaven from the ramparts of Dublin 
 Castle. 
 
 The news soon spread across the Channel to En- 
 gland, and the Irish rising found an answer in 
 many an English yeoman's heart. When tidings" of 
 these doings reached Henry at Westminster he " went 
 in royal state through the disaffected parts of the 
 eastern counties ; he put on penitential apparel, and 
 went in holy pilgrimage to the shrine of our Lady of 
 Walsingham, and sought to enlist Heaven on his side 
 by the splendor of his gifts and promises. He then 
 proceeded to Kenilworth, where he left his wife and 
 son in safety, and having seen the disposition of 
 many parts of his kingdom, and procured a bull 
 from the Pope anathematizing any person who took 
 up arms to oppose him in the enjoyment of the 
 
From Crown to Kitchen. 125 
 
 throne, lie prepared for the struggle with the in- 
 surgents." 
 
 But his long inactivity had emboldened the party 
 of the young Edward, and the " expedition of hungry 
 Germans and savage Irish " set sail across the Irish 
 Sea, and landed in England at a secluded spot in 
 Westmoreland. Marching inland and southward, 
 they gained accessions to their ranks from the disaf- 
 fected every-where, and by the time the insurgent 
 army reached the gates of York it amounted to live 
 or six thousand men. 
 
 On June. 16 the opposing forces of Henry came 
 in sight, and both sides prepared for battle. Henry 
 does not appear to have been unduly confident, either 
 as to the justice of his own title to the throne or as 
 to the result of the impending struggle. Just before 
 the onset he is reported to have said : 
 
 " If yonder stripling wins, I lose my crown ; if I 
 win, I will make him a scullion in my kitchen!" 
 But the result belied his fears, if he had any. The 
 sturdy English yeomanry made short work of the 
 Irish and German mercenaries, and the slaughter was 
 terrific. More than half the invading force was slain ; 
 Lincoln and Fitzgerald bit the dust ; while among 
 the prisoners was the rash aspirant to the throne. 
 
126 Who Was He 3 
 
 Being brought before Henry, and questioned, he 
 confessed that the whole affair was an imposture ; 
 "that his real name was Lambert Simnel, that he was 
 the son of a baker at Oxford, and that he had been 
 tutored for his part by the friar, whose name was 
 Simon." 
 
 True to his word, Henry degraded the self-con- 
 fessed pretender to the rank of scullion in the royal 
 kitchen, but such was his address that he afterward 
 rose to be king's falconer, an office of some honor in 
 those days. Thus ends this short-lived romance. 
 
 Scarcely had the echoes of this battle died away, or 
 its cause been consigned to oblivion, than a new and 
 far more formidable aspirant to the throne arose. The 
 long and curious romance of Perkyn Warbeck sprung 
 into life, with Lambert Simnel and his fate in full 
 view, and was " carried through with a princely dig- 
 nity and consistency of behavior that won many to 
 the cause." 
 
 " Richard IY. " was the title assumed or claimed 
 by this youth. He first appeared, as his predecessor 
 had done, on the shores of Ireland, and declared that 
 he was not the nephew of a king, but Richard of 
 York, son of Edward IY., who had contrived to 
 escape from the Tower when his elder brother, 
 
From Crown to Kitchen. 127 
 
 Edward V., had been murdered by Forest and 
 Dighton ! 
 
 Tliis revived an episode in English history that, by 
 its elements of romance, cruelty, and mystery, has ever 
 appealed to the sympathies of the people, and which, 
 at the time of which we write, was still fresh in 
 memory. The story of the youth excited universal 
 interest, both in England and on the adjacent conti- 
 nent. He was not yet twenty years of age, and in 
 person and manners he was handsome and fascinat- 
 ing. He " threw himself on the gallantry, and ap- 
 pealed to the chivalry, of the Irish nation,'' we are 
 told, and the chieftains, from dislike to Henry VII., 
 as had been the case with Lambert Simnel, rallied to 
 his support as one man. 
 
 But ere he could make use of their hearty proffers 
 of aid he received overtures from the French king, 
 who deemed it a shrewd stroke of statecraft to have 
 at his court a rival to Henry VII., as a menace to him 
 in certain negotiations then pending. The French 
 Court hailed him as the true heir of England's 
 throne, and he was loaded with honors and presents. 
 
 But in the course of a few months Charles of 
 France and Henry of England patched up a peace, 
 and the claimant, being cast adrift by his patron, 
 
128 Who Was He? 
 
 made his way to the Duchess of Burgundy, his puta- 
 tive aunt. This noble dame recognized the youth as 
 her nephew, espoused his claim, and her example was 
 followed by those Englishmen resident in Flanders. 
 
 The old Yorkist party at home sent over an envoy 
 to investigate him and his claims, who reported "that 
 he was the true and lawful prince, the White Rose of 
 England." King Henry also sent out secret spies, 
 who, on the contrary, asserted that the young man 
 was an impostor, and through their intrigues many 
 noble adherents of the White Rose were, on one pre- 
 text or another, assassinated or put to death. 
 
 These latter outrages impelled the party of Perky n 
 Warbeck to decisive action. A descent was made upon 
 England, a landing being effected near Deal, with 
 a few followers. But these were speedily dispersed 
 by Henry's men-at-arms, and the captives, to the 
 number of one hundred and sixty, were hanged on 
 posts all around the realm, u to serve as sea-marks for 
 any more Flemings who might wish to come over." 
 
 By a treaty concluded about this time with Philip 
 of Burgundy, the duke promised Henry that he 
 would compel the duchess to drive Perkyn out of 
 her dominions. So the wanderer next took refuge 
 in Ireland — then, as now, the land of the disaffected 
 
From Crown to Kitchen. 129 
 
 and the Achilles' Heel of England. But, having no 
 money, he could raise no friends. He next carried 
 his case to Scotland, and with such address and win- 
 sorneness that James IV., the brave but unhappy 
 Scottish monarch, espoused his cause, heart and soul, 
 and gave him his cousin, Lady Catherine Gordon, a 
 daughter of the Earl of Huntley, as "his wedded wife. 
 
 An armed expedition across the Border was speed- 
 ily planned and executed, but this demonstration in 
 favor of the pretender was attended by disaster, and 
 met with no good result. Henry VII., who was 
 more of a diplomatist than a fighter, secured the 
 friendship of James IV. with the hand of his daugh- 
 ter, Margaret Tudor, and once more Perkyn Warbeck 
 became a friendless outcast. 
 
 An opportune rising, however, of the men of Corn- 
 wall encouraged Perkyn to try his fortunes in the 
 west of England. He landed with a small force in 
 Whitsand Bay, and, making his way inland, gathered 
 adherents at every mile's march, attacked Exeter, was 
 repulsed, and was finally confronted by the king's 
 army at Taunton. But the half-armed and ill-disci- 
 plined rabble could not stand an hour before the 
 trained bowmen who fought under the royal stand- 
 ard, and Perkyn, foreseeing defeat, rode off at night, 
 9 
 
130 Who Was Hk? 
 
 and never drew rein till he reached Beaulieu, in the 
 heart of the New Forest. Being at last captured, he 
 made a free confession of his imposture, admitting 
 that he was the son of a merchant of Tournay, named 
 Warbeck. At first his imprisonment was merely 
 nominal, but being detected in a plot to escape, he 
 was formally tried, condemned, and hung at Tyburn 
 in 1499. 
 
 The story of Perkyn Warbeck must ever remain, 
 says the Rev. James White, one of the mysterious 
 incidents by which every now and then the prosaic 
 monotony of history is relieved. Lambert Simnel 
 and Perkyn Warbeck are generally set down as pre- 
 tenders, but was there no basis of fact for their 
 imposture ? As has been more than once remarked, 
 there is much to be said in favor of Perkyn War- 
 beck. Some have even conjectured that he was a 
 natural son of Richard III., and in Francis Peek's 
 Desiderata Curiosa, published in 1779, there is a 
 remarkable account of a Richard Plantagenet who 
 died at Eastwell on December 22, 1550, at the age of 
 more than eighty. He was a laborer on the estate of 
 Sir Thomas Moyle, and was treated with great indul- 
 gence by that gentleman. The story goes that " Sir 
 Thomas noticed that in this man's vacant hours, 
 
Fkom Crown to Kitchen. 131 
 
 when he left off working, he took from his pocket a 
 book and occupied himself in reading. One day he 
 came upon him unexpectedly, and seizing the book 
 found it to be Latin. Sir Thomas discovered in him 
 a Latin scholar, and this led to conversation, and, 
 by-and-by, to the quiet telling of a strange story : 
 He remembered that he had boarded, until ho 
 was quite a youth, with a Latin scholar, or school- 
 master ; that a gentleman came to see him and 
 his guardian about every three months, paying all 
 charges, and taking care that the lad wanted for 
 nothing; but that one day he came and took him 
 away, carrying him to a fine, great house, of which he 
 remembered the large and stately rooms, in one of 
 which the gentleman left him alone, when there came 
 to him another gentleman very richly dressed — it 
 will be remembered by our readers that Richard was 
 very careful about his dress — and he was adorned 
 with a star and rich garter; this gentleman talked 
 very kindly to him, gave him mone # y, then called for 
 the gentleman who had brought him there and who 
 took him back again to his old guardian. 
 
 "Not long after this the same gentleman came 
 again, and told him that he was to take him a long 
 journey. He provided him with horse and accouter- 
 
132 Who AVas He? 
 
 ments, and they rode on until they came to Leicester- 
 shire, and went to Bosworth Field, and straight on to 
 the tent of Richard, the king, who proved to be the 
 person whom he had seen in the great house, and who 
 now embraced him very tenderly, and told him that 
 he was his son ; ' But, child,' said he, ' to-morrow I 
 must tight for my crown, and be you sure that if I 
 lose it I shall lose my life, too ; but I hope to preserve 
 both.' Then lie pointed the lad to a place where he 
 was to lie out of danger. ' And when I have gained 
 the victory,' he said, ' come to me, and I will own you 
 for mine ; but if I should lose the battle you will 
 have to shift for yourself, but take care to let no 
 one know that 1 am your father, for no mercy will 
 l)e shown to any one related to me.' Then the king 
 put into his hand a purse of gold, and dismissed him. 
 The boy followed the king's directions. We know 
 how the battle turned. ' There were probably no indi- 
 cations either in the caparisonings of the horse or in 
 hie own attire to lead to suspicion. He fled, but suc- 
 ceeded in selling the horse and parting with his 
 clothes for plainer apparel, and, that he might sustain 
 himself by honest labor, bound himself apprentice to 
 a bricklayer. t In the midst of such lowly occupation 
 he still sustained the reserve of a gentleman, and cul- 
 
From. Crown to Kitchen. loo 
 
 tivated his taste for scholarly books. He was far 
 advanced in life when Sir Thomas met him, who cer- 
 tainly treated him as no impostor, but, offering to 
 take him into his house and keep hirn there, the old 
 man begged of him rather to build for him a little 
 house in the park. i There,' said he, * by your good 
 leave I will live and die.' " 
 
 This modest request was granted, and there the 
 mysterious individual lived until his death, concern- 
 ing which the parish register of Eastwell contains the 
 following entry : 
 
 "Richard Plantagenet was buried the 22d day of 
 December, 1550." 
 
 The cabin in which he died long remained an ob- 
 ject of curiosity to travelers, and the Earl of Win- 
 chelsea, on his accession to the estate, refused to sanc- 
 tion its removal, saying he would as soon have razed 
 Eastwell Place itself. 
 
 This, then', is the enigma concerning Richard IV., 
 but whether this boy was legitimate or not will never 
 be known. It has been thought highly probable that 
 he was, and that Richard III. was hoping for the 
 time to arrive when, delivered from his enemies, he 
 might proclaim the boy as his rightful successor. 
 
 Were those who concocted the impostures of Lam- 
 
134 
 
 Who Was He? 
 
 bert Siinnel and Perkyn Warbeck (if impostor the 
 last named really was) aware of the existence of this 
 unacknowledged son of Richard, and did they hope, 
 eventually, to palm them off on the people as such "i 
 
 Those who are fond of such speculations, or of 
 weaving curious fancies, or of having such w T oven for 
 them, will find ample scope for their imagination in 
 the trio of tales told above. 
 
IV. 
 
 THE FOUNDLING OF NUREMBERG. 
 
THE 
 
 FOUNDLING OF NUREMBERG. 
 
 HE sufferings of the young and help- 
 less appeal directly to the sym- 
 pathies of the most stoical, while 
 the picture of a child of tender 
 years in pain or distress cannot 
 fail to arouse the liveliest pity in the 
 bosoms of the compassionate. 
 
 A little more than half a century ago 
 the civilized world was shocked at the 
 discovery of one of the crudest crimes that ever dis- 
 graced humanity, the victim of which had been kept 
 in a narrow and dimly-lighted dungeon, separated 
 from all communication with his kind from baby- 
 hood, robbed of his childhood and boyhood and of 
 the care of his natural guardians, until, at the age of 
 seventeen, he was cast adrift on the common high- 
 way, helpless as an infant, unable to talk or to walk, 
 
138 Who Was He? 
 
 Lis mind a blank, Lis faculties undeveloped, and Lis 
 body a torment. Scarcely Lad tliis youth been re- 
 stored to the companionship of mankind, and partially 
 taught and civilized — the progress of his mental and 
 moral education being watched with intense interest 
 by the physician and the physiologist, by the minister 
 and the moralist — than an attack upon his life was 
 made by persons unknown. He recovered from this 
 assault, but a second attempt to murder him, made 
 some three years later, was only too successful. 
 
 All efforts to discover the authors of these vil- 
 lainies failed, and the youth bade farewell to the 
 world as mysteriously and as tragically as he had 
 entered it. Needless to say that these events aroused 
 widespread wonder. Great pains were taken to rend 
 the veil of darkness enshrouding the foul transaction, 
 but without avail, and in all the capitals of Europe 
 men asked each other, Who was he ? The query has 
 never yet been answered, and the crime has never 
 yet been brought home to its perpetrators. 
 
 In the city of Nuremberg, between four and five 
 o'clock on the afternoon of Whit-Monday, May 26, 
 1828, a citizen who resided in the Unschlitt Place, 
 near the lonely Haller Gate, was standing at his door 
 enjoying the cool of the evening. A short distance 
 
The Foundling of Nuremberg. 139 
 
 away, jnst within the barrier, lie noticed a youth, 
 clad in peasant's clothes, who, with a shambling and 
 staggering gait, was endeavoring to move forward, 
 but who appeared to be unable to stand erect or to 
 control the motions of his body. 
 
 The citizen approached the stranger, who, with an 
 appealing look, handed him a letter addressed, " To 
 his Honor, the Captain of the Fourth Squadron 
 of the Cavalry Regiment, Nuremberg." As the 
 captain lived not far from the Haller Gate the 
 citizen undertook to lead the strange lad thither. The 
 boy walked, or rather painfully stumbled along, when 
 unsupported, w T ith hands thrust out before him, sway- 
 ing from side to side, and lifting his feet wholly 
 from the ground like a toddling infant. 
 
 On the way to the residence of Captain W., who 
 at that time commanded the fourth squadron of the 
 Sixth Regiment of the Chevaux-legers, the citizen 
 made several efforts to learn whence he came,* his 
 
 * It has been put on record that, in answer to this query, the boy- 
 replied, "From Regensburg." It would seem, however, that his 
 companion must have mistakenly supposed that some of the nearly 
 unintelligible sounds uttered by the stranger were the name of that 
 city. It is certain that at that time the words, "From Regensburg," 
 were not in his vocabulary. 
 
140 Who Was He* 
 
 name, and how he came to be so helpless. But he 
 soon found that his questions were entirely unintel- 
 ligible to the lad. To all interrogatories he returned 
 answer in a jargon of w T ords : 
 
 "Ae sechtene mocht ih waeh ne, wiemei Yotta 
 waehn is ;" or, " Woas nicht ;" or " Reuta wahn, wie 
 mei Yotta wahn is;" or " Iioani wissa." 
 
 These nearly unintelligible phrases comprised his 
 sole vocabulary, and they were delivered in a groan- 
 ing, guttural tone of voice, more like the whining of 
 an animal than the speech of a human being. 
 
 Arrived at the house of Captain W., the unknown 
 staggered to the door, and to the servant who an- 
 swered the summons presented his letter, with the 
 words : 
 
 " Ae sechtene mocht ih waehn, wie mei Yotta 
 waehn is." 
 
 Again he was asked what he wanted, whence he 
 came, who he was, etc., but he appeared to compre- 
 hend none of these questions, and in reply only 
 moaned out his " Woas nicht." 
 
 The officer to whom the note was addressed being 
 from home, and the lad appearing to be so fatigued 
 that he could hardly stand, as the domestic expressed 
 it, he was conducted to the stable, where he imme- 
 
The Foundling of Nuremberg. 141 
 
 diately curled himself up on the straw and fell asleep. 
 As he seemed to be suffering from hunger and thirst 
 a piece of meat was handed to him, but scarcely had 
 it touched his lips when his face became convulsed 
 with horror, and he violently spat it out. The same 
 disgust was manifested at a glass of beer. A slice of 
 bread and a goblet of fresh water he consumed eager- 
 ly and with every sign of relish. 
 
 The children stood around him in silent wonder. 
 His language consisted of tears, moans, and meaning- 
 less sounds, while with gestures of pain he pointed to 
 his feet. It is not to be wondered at that the family 
 set him down as a harmless savage. 
 
 A dozen hours after his arrival Captain W. arrived 
 home, and immediately went to the stable to look at 
 the strange being who had been so mysteriously di- 
 rected to his house, and of whose antics the children 
 told such strange tales. The boy was still sleeping, 
 and all efforts to arouse him were for a long time 
 fruitless. He was shaken, pinched, rolled over and 
 over, stood on his feet, and shouted at, but still he 
 slept on. At length, we are told, "after many troub- 
 lesome and painful experiments upon the sleeper's 
 capacity of feeling," he slowly opened his eyes, 
 awoke, gazed intently at the gay colors and gold 
 
142 Who Was He 3 
 
 braid of the captain's uniform, and then groaned out, 
 
 with tearful eves : 
 
 " Keuta wahn, wie mei Yotta wahn is."* 
 
 Could any thing be more puzzling or ridiculous ? 
 
 Eecourse was next had to the letter which the boy 
 
 had brought. It ran as follows : 
 
 " From a place near the Bavarian frontier which shall be name- 
 less, 1828. 
 
 " High and Well-born Captain : 
 
 "I send yon a boy who wishes faithfully to serve 
 his king. This boy was left in my house the 7th 
 day of October, 1812 ; and I am myself a poor day- 
 laborer, who have also ten children, and have enough 
 to do to maintain my own family. The mother of 
 the child only put him in my house for the sake of 
 having him brought up. But I have never been able 
 to discover who his mother is, nor have I ever given 
 information to the provincial court that such a child 
 was placed in my house. I thought I ought to re- 
 ceive him as my son. I have given him a Christian 
 education, and since 1812 I have never suffered him 
 to take a single step out of my house. So that no 
 one knows where he was brought up. Nor does he 
 
 * ; * I would be a rider, or trooper, as my father was." 
 
The Foundling of Nuremberg. 143 
 
 know either the name of my house or where it is. You 
 may ask him, but he cannot tell you. I have already 
 taught him to read and write, and he writes my 
 handwriting exactly as I do. And when we asked 
 him what he would be he said he would be one of 
 the Chev'aux-legers, as his father was. If he had had 
 parents different from what he has he would have 
 become a learned lad. If you show him any thing 
 he learns it immediately. I have only showed him 
 the way to Neumark, whence he was to go to you. 
 I told him that when he had once become a soldier I 
 should come to take him home or I should lose my 
 head. Good Mr. Captain, you need not try him ; he 
 does not know the place where I am. I. took him 
 away in the middle of the night, and he knows not 
 the way home. 
 
 " I am your most obedient servant. I do not sign 
 my name, for I might be punished. He has not a 
 kreutzer of money, because I have none myself. If 
 you do not keep him you may get rid of him or let 
 him be scrambled for." 
 
 This remarkable "lying letter" was written in 
 German characters, but the style and orthog- 
 raphy were evidently disguised so as to pass for 
 
144 Who Was He? 
 
 those of some ignorant peasant. But with it, in the 
 same hand, but in Latin, was inclosed the following 
 paper : 
 
 " The child is already baptized. You must give 
 him a surname yourself. You must educate the 
 child. His father was one of the Chevaux-legers. 
 When he is seventeen years old send him to Nurem- 
 berg to the Sixth Chevaux-leger Regiment, for there 
 his father also was. I ask for his education till he is 
 seventeen years old. He was born the 30th of April, 
 1812. I am a poor girl and cannot support him. 
 His father is dead." 
 
 These documents shed no light on the matter ; on 
 the contrary, they rather deepened the mystery. 
 Captain W. knew nothing of the stranger, nor could 
 he gather any clue to his past history from the fore- 
 going papers. The assertion that his father had been 
 a member of the regiment it was impossible to either 
 verify or disprove. As nothing could be ascertained 
 by questioning the chief performer in this strange 
 case but the interminable " Woas nicht," or " Reuta 
 walm," etc., he was turned over to the police, and to 
 them was confided the task of discovering the stran- 
 ger's identity. 
 
 On arriving at the police office the boy was shown 
 
The Foundling of Nuremberg. 145 
 
 into the guard-room and into the presence of several 
 of the town magistrates, soldiers, police officers, etc. 
 The simple routine questions : 
 
 " What is jour name ? 
 
 " What is your business ? 
 
 " Whence came you ? 
 
 " For what purpose are you here ? 
 
 " Where is your passport ? " 
 met with no other response than : 
 
 " Hoam w r eissa ! " u Woas nicht!" or "Reutawahn, 
 wei mei Yotta wahn is !" 
 
 If w r as afterward learned that to these syllables he 
 attached no meaning. They had been taught him as 
 we teach a parrot, and he uttered them indiscrim- 
 inately as expressive of all his sensations, whether of 
 pain, grief, joy, or terror. 
 
 The police could make nothing of him. He ap- 
 peared to possess no more intelligence than a dog or 
 a horse. The objects and persons surrounding him 
 appeared to arouse neither emotion nor confusion. 
 He stared about him, but apparently the things he 
 saw excited no thought, and, as a bystander said, " he 
 evinced as much perception as a turnip." Some pres- 
 ent even doubted whether he were not a clever im- 
 postor, so difficult did. they find it to. believe that .ao 
 10 
 
1±6 Who Was He? 
 
 much vacuity could be contained in a single human 
 being. 
 
 This suspicion, unfounded as it afterward proved 
 to be, received apparent confirmation from an unex- 
 pected source. As a last resort an officer handed the 
 boy a pen and paper, motioning that he should write. 
 An expression of placid pleasure spread over his 
 face, and not at all awkwardly he took the pen be- 
 tween his fingers and wrote in a good plain hand the 
 
 name 
 
 Kaspar Hauser. 
 
 Then he was told to add the name of the place 
 whence he came, but laying down the pen he only 
 groaned out the interminable " Reuta wiihn," and 
 " Woas nicht/' 
 
 Here was a mystery, indeed. His tears and his 
 plaintive gestures and his helpless demeanor touched 
 the hearts of all present. A soldier brought him a 
 slice of meat and a glass of beer, but as before he 
 refused both with evident disgust, and would accept 
 nothing but plain bread and water. Another gave 
 liiin a piece of money. This he accepted with de- 
 light, toyed with it, cried, " Ross ! ross!" (horse, 
 horse), and seemed by his gestures to be trying to 
 hang the coin around the neck of a horse. " His 
 
The Foundling or Nuremberg. 147 
 
 whole conduct and demeanor," says Yon Feuerbach, 
 " seemed to be that of a child scarcely two or three 
 years old with the body of a young man." 
 
 As it was clear that the police could make nothing 
 of this strange case, for the present, at least, Kaspar 
 was handed over to the care of a porter, who con- 
 ducted him to a chamber in the tower of the Vestner 
 Gate. On the way thither he fell down several 
 times, and on reaching his room sank down imme- 
 diately in sound slumber. 
 
 A word here as to the personal appearance, dress, 
 etc., of Kaspar Ha user (for by this name he came to 
 be known, though it was doubtless not his own) at 
 this time may be of interest. Writing in 1831, dur- 
 ing the lifetime of the lad, Yon Feuerbach has given 
 us the following vivid portraiture : 
 
 "Kaspar Hauser was, when he appeared at Nu- 
 remberg, four feet nine inches in height, and from 
 sixteen to seventeen years old. His chin and lips 
 were very thinly covered with down ; the so-called 
 wisdom teeth were yet wanting, nor did they make 
 their appearance before the year 1831. His light 
 brown hair, which was very fine, and curled in ring- 
 lets, was cut according to the fashion of peasants. 
 The structure of his body, which was stout and broad- 
 
US Who Was He? 
 
 shouldered, showed perfect symmetry without any 
 visible defect. Plis skin was fine and very fair ; his 
 complexion was not florid, but neither was it of a 
 sickly hue ; his limbs were delicately built ; his small 
 hands were beautifully formed, and his feet, which 
 showed no marks of ever before having been con- 
 fined or pressed by a shoe, were equally so. The 
 soles of his feet, which were without any horny skin, 
 were as soft as the palms of his hands, and they were 
 covered all over with blood blisters, the marks of 
 which were some months later still visible. Both his 
 arms showed the marks of inoculation, and on his 
 right arm a wound, still covered with a fresh scab, 
 was observable, which, as Kaspar afterward related, 
 was occasioned by a blow given him with a stick or a 
 piece of wood by the man ' with whom he had al- 
 ways been,' because he had made rather too much 
 noise. His face was at that time very vulgar; when 
 in a state of tranquillity it was almost without any 
 expression, and its lower features, being somewhat 
 prominent, gave him a brutish appearance. The 
 staring look of his blue but clear and bright eyes 
 had also an expression of brutish obtuseness. The 
 formation of his face altered in a few months almost 
 entirely, his countenance gained expression and ani- 
 
The Foundling of Nuremberg. 149 
 
 mation, the prominent lower features of his face re- 
 ceded m<5re and more, and his earlier physiognomy 
 could scarcely any longer be recognized. His weep- 
 ing was at first only an ugly contortion of his mouth, 
 but if any thing pleasant affected his mind a lovely, 
 smiling, heart-winning sweetness diffused over all his 
 features — the irresistible charm that lies concealed in 
 the joy of an innocent child. He scarcely at all 
 knew how to use his hands and fingers. He 
 stretched out his fingers stiff and straight and far 
 asunder, with the exception of his first finger and 
 thumb, whose tips he commonly held together so as 
 to form a circle. Where others applied but a few 
 finders he used his whole hand in the most uncouth 
 and awkward manner imaginable. His gait, like that 
 of an infant making its first essays in leading-strings, 
 was, properly speaking, not a walk, but rather a wad- 
 dling, tottering groping of the way, a painful me- 
 dium between the motion of falling and the endeavor 
 to stand upright. In attempting to walk, instead of 
 first treading firmly on his heel, he placed his heels 
 and the balls of his feet at once to the ground, and, 
 raising both feet simultaneously, with an inclination 
 of the upper part of his body, he stumbled slowly 
 and heavily forward with outstretched arms, which he 
 
150 Who Was He J 
 
 seemed to use as balancing poles. The slightest im- 
 pediment in his way caused him often, in his little 
 chamber, to fall flat on the floor. For a long time 
 after his arrival he could not go up or down stairs 
 without assistance. And even now it is still impossi- 
 ble for him to stand on one foot and to raise or bend 
 or to stretch the other without falling down." 
 
 From the peculiar formation of his knee-joints it 
 would appear that the place in which he had been 
 confined had been so narrow and so short that Kas- 
 par had been unable to lie at full length. His com- 
 mon posture was sitting bolt upright on the floor, his 
 back against the wall, and his thigh and leg forming 
 a right angle with his body — a most difficult posture 
 for one not accustomed to it, as the reader may prove 
 for himself. 
 
 When first found he wore upon his head a round, 
 coarse, felt hat, lined with yellow silk, and bound 
 with red leather, inside of which was pasted a picture 
 of the city of Munchen, nearly illegible. A much- 
 worn pair of high-heeled boots, shod with iron tips 
 and heavy nails, and much too large, and from which 
 his toes protruded, were on his feet. Around his 
 throat was knotted a black silk handkerchief. He 
 wore pantaloons, shaped like riding-gaiters, made of 
 
The Foundling of Nuremberg. 151 
 
 fine gray cloth and lined inside, which seemed to 
 have belonged to some well-to-do peasant, forester, or 
 groom. Over a coarse shirt and a faded red waist- 
 coat he wore a short jacket, which was declared by a 
 tailor to have been made by cutting off the tails of a 
 frock-coat, the alterations having been made by a 
 hand unfamiliar with tailoring. A white handker- 
 chief striped with red, and marked in red witii the 
 initials K. H., completed his wearing apparel. 
 
 In his pockets were found some blue and white 
 figured rags, a key of German make, a paper of gold 
 dust, a small rosary, and a number of pious Catholic 
 tracts, some of them printed at Allottingen, Burghau- 
 sen, Salzburg, and Prague. The title of only one of 
 these is worth reproducing here — " The Art of Re- 
 gaining Lost Time and Years Misspent " — because of 
 the supposed scoffing allusion therein to the life led 
 hitherto by this unfortunate boy. 
 
 None of the foregoing articles aided in casting the 
 faintest ray of light upon the black mystery of his 
 origin. Indeed, very early in the history of the case, 
 and while public opinion was divided upon the ques- 
 tion of Kaspar Hawser being an impostor, some of his 
 clothing was destroyed, with no thought of the possi- 
 ble clues which might have been furnished thereby. 
 
152 Who Was He? 
 
 It may be proper, for the better understanding of 
 the strange story of Kaspar Hauser, to introduce here 
 some account of his former life. At a later period, 
 when he had been taught to read and write and 
 express himself connectedly, he composed a written 
 memoir, which he affirmed to be true before a court 
 of inquiry held in 1829. The narrative contained 
 therein was substantially as follows, though we con- 
 dense it somewhat, and may be found in the account 
 published by M. von Feuerbach : 
 
 " He neither knows who he is nor wmere his home 
 is. It was only at Nuremberg that he came into the 
 world. Here he first learned that, besides himself 
 and ' the man with whom he has always been,' there 
 existed other men and other creatures. As long as he 
 can recollect he had always lived in a hole (a small, low 
 apartment, which he sometimes called a cage), where 
 he had always sat upon the ground, with bare feet, 
 and clothed only with a shirt and a pair of breeches." 
 " This was confirmed," says Yon Feuerbach, " by 
 marks upon his body which cannot be mistaken, by 
 the singular formation of his knee and knee-hollow, 
 and by his peculiar mode of sitting upon the ground 
 with his legs extended, which is possible to himself 
 alone." Kaspar himself said that " he never, even in 
 
» The Foundling of Nuremberg. 153 
 
 his sleep, lay with his whole body stretched out, but 
 sat, waking or sleeping, with his back supported in an 
 erect posture." Some peculiar property of his 1 place 
 of rest or some particular contrivance must prob- 
 ably have made it necessary for him to remain con- 
 stantly in such a position. 
 
 " In his apartment he never heard a sound, whether 
 produced by a man, by an animal, or by any thing 
 else. He never saw the heavens, nor did there ever 
 appear a brightening (daylight) as at Nuremberg. 
 He never perceived any difference between day and 
 night, and much less did he ever get a sight of the 
 beautiful lights in the heavens." From this it is 
 inferred that his prison was a dimly lighted dungeon, 
 and that even at high noon the place was in twilight. 
 " Whenever he awoke from sleep he found a loaf of 
 bread and a pitcher of w r ater beside him. Some- 
 times this water had a bad taste ; whenever this was 
 the case he could no longer keep his eyes open, but 
 was compelled to fall asleep, and on these occasions, 
 when he afterward awoke, he found that he had a 
 clean shirt on, and that his nails had been cut." It 
 has been supposed that this water of which Kas- 
 par complained was drugged with opium, from 
 the following test : After he had been at Nurem- 
 
154 Who Was He? 
 
 berg some time his physician attempted to admin- 
 ister to him a drop of opium in a glass of water. 
 He had scarcely wet his lips when he exclaimed : 
 " This water is nasty ; it tastes exactly like the water 
 I was obliged to drink in my cage." One thing, 
 however, is certain from the above — Kaspar was 
 always treated with some sort of care. He long re- 
 tained a sort of mild regard for " the man with whom 
 he had always been," and never desired to have him 
 punished. 
 
 Kaspar "never saw the face of the man who 
 brought him his meat and drink. In his hole lie 
 had two wooden horses and several ribbons. With 
 these horses he had always amused himself as long as 
 he was awake, and his only occupation was to make 
 them run side by side, and to fix or tie the ribbons 
 about them in different positions. Thus one day 
 had passed as another ; he had never felt the want of 
 any thing; he had never been sick and had only 
 once felt the sensation of pain. Upon the whole, he 
 thought he had been happier far than in the world, 
 where he was obliged to suffer so much. 
 
 " How long he had continued to live in this situa- 
 tion he knew not, for he had no knowledge of time. 
 He knew not when nor how he came there, nor had 
 
The Foundling of Nuremberg. 155 
 
 he any recollection of ever having been in a different 
 situation or in any other than that place. The man 
 with whom he had always been never did him any 
 harm. But one day, shortly before he was taken 
 away — when he had been running his horse too 
 hard, and had made too much noise — the man came 
 and struck him upon his arm with a stick, 1 ' and this 
 caused a wound, the scar of which he bore when he 
 arrived at Nuremberg. 
 
 About the same period "the man came into his 
 prison, placed a small table over his feet, and spread 
 something white upon it, which he now knows to 
 have been paper. He then came behind him, took 
 hold of his hand, and moved it backward and for- 
 ward upon the paper with a thing [a lead pencil] 
 which he had stuck between his fingers. Kaspar was 
 then ignorant of what it was, but he was mightily 
 pleased when he saw the black figures which began 
 to appear upon the white paper. When he felt 
 that his hand was free, and that the man was gone 
 from him, he could never grow tired of drawing these 
 figures repeatedly upon the paper. This new-found 
 occupation almost made him forget his horses, al- 
 though he did not know what the characters signi- 
 fied." The man repeated these lessons several times. 
 
156 Who Was He? 
 
 There would appear to be no reasonable doubt that 
 Kaspar Hauser received during his imprisonment 
 regular elementary instruction in writing. We have 
 seen how he wrote his name at the police office. On 
 the following morning, when his keeper came to him 
 in the prison, he gave him, in order to amuse him, 
 a sheet of paper and a lead pencil. Kaspar seized 
 both with avidity, set diligently to work, and never 
 ceased till he had covered the four sides of the folio 
 sheet with well-formed letters and syllables such as 
 school-children have in their copy-books. In the 
 last line of one sheet he placed all the letters of the 
 alphabet in proper order and in another a row of 
 numerals from 1 to 0. Repeated tests proved con- 
 clusively that the boy had at that time no idea of the 
 power or value of the letters and figures, and that he 
 wrote them "down mechanically. 
 
 " Another time," the sworn narrative proceeds, 
 " the man came again, lifted him from the place 
 where he lay, placed him on his feet, and endeav- 
 ored to teach him to stand and to walk. This he 
 repeated at different times. The manner in which 
 he effected this was as follows: He seized Kaspar 
 firmly around the breast from behind, placed his feet 
 behind and under Kaspar's feet, and then lifted 
 
The Foundling of Nuremberg. 157 
 
 them as in stepping forward. Finally, the man 
 appeared once again, placed the boy's hands over his 
 shoulders, tied them fast, and thus carried him on 
 his back out of the prison. He was borne up or 
 down a hill, and then all became night ?' — by which 
 latter term he meant that he fainted or became in 
 some manner unconscious. The journey must have 
 continued some days ; " he often lay with his face to 
 the ground ; he often ate bread and drank water ; 
 and ' the man with whom he had always been ' was at 
 great pains to teach him to walk." This man never 
 conversed with him, but continually dinned in his 
 ears the refrain, " Reuta walm," etc. u The face of 
 this personage Kaspar never saw, either on this jour- 
 ney or before in prison. Wherever he led him he 
 directed him to look down upon the ground and at 
 his feet — an injunction which he' always strictly 
 obeyed, partly from fear and partly because his 
 attention was occupied with his own person and with 
 his painful efforts at locomotion." Not long before 
 he was found at Nuremberg the man had clothed him 
 in the garments which he then wore. 
 
 The putting on of his boots long caused this 
 strange youth great pain. We have before alluded to 
 the fact that his feet showed clearly that they had 
 
158 Who Was He? 
 
 been unaccustomed to the pressure of a shoe. He 
 said that his jailer used to make him sit on the 
 ground, seize him from behind, draw his feet up, 
 and then force them into the boots. They then 
 proceeded onward, still more painfully and miserably 
 than before. Kaspar neither then nor ever before 
 perceived any thing of the objects around him ; he 
 neither observed nor saw them, and he could not 
 therefore tell from what part of the country, in what 
 direction, or by which way he came. " All that he 
 was conscious of was that the man who had been 
 leading him put the letter which he had brought 
 with him into his hand, and then vanished, after 
 which a citizen observed him and took him to the 
 address named therein." 
 
 Such was the moving history of Kaspar Hauser 
 prior to his discovery at Nuremberg. As time 
 passed the fruitless efforts of the police to discover a 
 clue to the dark and horrid enigma gradually les- 
 sened and public interest in the case died away for 
 want of food to feed upon. But a number of schol- 
 arly and humane gentlemen had become interested in 
 the phenomenon of a youth of seventeen with a nor- 
 mal body and the mind of an infant. Among these 
 were Messrs. Daumer and Binder, the tirst a professor 
 
The Foundling of Nuremberg. l.V.) 
 
 at the university, and who at once interested himself 
 in the education of the lad. 
 
 It was soon discovered that the boy was neither an 
 idiot nor a madman. On the contrary, so mild, so 
 obedient, so sunny tempered was he, that no one 
 could be tempted to believe that he came of brutish 
 parents or had grown up among such. Writing of 
 him at this time, Yon Feuerbach says : 
 
 u He was so entirely destitute of words and concep- 
 tions, he was so totally unacquainted with- the most 
 common objects and daily occurrences of nature, and 
 he showed so great an indifference — nay, such an ab- 
 horrence — to all the usual customs, conveniences, and 
 necessaries of civilized life, and at the same time he 
 evinced such extraordinary peculiarities in all the 
 characteristics of his mental, moral, and physical 
 existence, as seemed to leave us no other choice than 
 either to regard him as the inhabitant of some other 
 planet miraculously transferred to the earth, or as 
 one who (like the man Plato supposes) had been 
 born and bred underground, and who, now that he 
 had arrived at the age of maturity, had for the first 
 time ascended to the surface of the earth and beheld 
 the light of the sun." 
 
 Turn we aside for a moment to refer to a some- 
 
160 Who Was He? 
 
 what similar case which a few years previously had 
 agitated an English community — that known as the 
 " Lady of the Haystack." 
 
 " In the year 1776 a young woman suddenly made 
 her appearance at the village of Bourton, near Bris- 
 tol, and attracted universal attention by the strange- 
 ness of her life. Young and beautiful in person and 
 graceful in her manners, she nevertheless lived a 
 desolate life for four years, without knowing the 
 comfort of a bed or the protection of a roof. Her 
 place of refuge was a haystack, to which she fled 
 with a kind of wild rapture when remonstrated with 
 or wdien any attempt w r as made to restrain her ac- 
 tions. The ladies of the neighborhood supplied her 
 with the necessaries of life, but she would neither 
 wear nor, indeed, accept of any finery or ornaments. 
 When such things were forced upon her she hung 
 them on the bushes, as being unworthy of her at- 
 tention. 
 
 " Her exposed manner of life had gradually under- 
 mined her health and impaired her beauty before, 
 after repeated trials, she was prevailed upon to 
 retire under the care of Mr. Henderson, the keeper 
 of a private asylum, where she was supported by the 
 benevolent Mrs. Hannah More and her sisters. As 
 
The Foundling of Nuremberg. 161 
 
 her health improved it became more and more evi- 
 dent that her intellect was impaired. She spoke 
 English with a German accent, but every attempt to 
 inquire into her history was baffled either by her 
 reticence or her increasing idiocy. A gentleman 
 spoke to her in German, when her emotion was so 
 great that she turned from him and burst into tears. 
 
 " The circumstances under which she had been 
 found, and every slight suggestion that could be 
 gathered from repeated conversations with her, were 
 published in German and French throughout the 
 Continent, but led to no result till the year 1785, 
 when a pamphlet appeared in the French language, 
 without either name or place which might serve as a 
 clue to its authorship, under the title of The Stran- 
 ger: a True History. From this pamphlet the fol- 
 lowing particulars of a strange story are derived, 
 and when we have recited them the reader must 
 judge for himself whether the Lady of the Haystack 
 and the young lady described in the pamphlet were 
 one and the same person. 
 
 " In the year 1768 (the French pamphlet relates) a 
 letter was received from a lady at Bordeaux by Count 
 Cobenzel, the Austrian minister at Brussels, entreat- 
 ing for the writer his advice and assistance, and 
 11 
 
162 Who Was He? 
 
 signed, in very indifferent French, (Mademoiselle) 
 La Frulen. Not lon£ afterward the count also re- 
 ceived a letter from Prague, signed Count J. AVeis- 
 sendorf, in which he was entreated to comply with 
 mademoiselle's request, and even to advance her 
 money. The letter concluded thus : ' When you shall 
 know, sir, who this stranger is, you will be delighted 
 to think you have served her, and grateful to those 
 who have given you an opportunity of doing so.' 
 
 " A third letter came to the minister's hand from 
 Count Dietrichstein, of Vienna, urging a like re- 
 quest, but at the same time desiring him to advise 
 mademoiselle to be frugal in her expenditure. The 
 count replied to the last two letters, but got no re- 
 joinder, and in the meantime he continued the cor- 
 respondence with Mademoiselle La Frulen at Bor- 
 deaux, who finally stated that she could not intrust 
 her secret to writing, but that she intended to visit 
 the Austrian Netherlands, and would see him person- 
 ally. She meantime sent him her portrait, in which 
 the count saw nothing more than the features of a 
 lovely woman, while Prince Charles of Lorraine de- 
 clared that it bore a strong resemblance to the late 
 emperor, his brother. 
 
 " The pamphleteer continues the account of the 
 
The Foundling of Nuremberg. 163 
 
 circumstances which followed with much detail. 
 Dispatches from Vienna led to mademoiselle's arrest. 
 It appears that while Joseph II. was on his travels in 
 Italy the King of Spain had received a letter, pur- 
 porting to be written by the emperor, and informing 
 him in confidence that his father had left a natural 
 daughter, whose history was known only to his sister, 
 the Archduchess Marianne, himself, and a few inti- 
 mate friends. The King of Spain thought this letter 
 so extraordinary that he sent it to the emperor. Its 
 authorship was denied, and, as a consequence, Made- 
 moiselle La Friilen was arrested and conveyed to 
 Brussels. 
 
 "It is as strange as the other particulars of this 
 strange story that just before she quitted the French 
 dominions a person unknown, in the habit of a cour- 
 ier, put a note into her hand at the coach window 
 and then retired with the utmost precipitation. The 
 officer by whom she was accompanied read the note, 
 which contained only these words : ' My dear girl, 
 every thing has been done to save you ; keep up 
 your spirits, and do not despair.' She afterward de- 
 clared that she neither knew the courier nor the 
 handwriting. 
 
 " At Brussels, notwithstanding her winning ap- 
 
164 Who Was He? 
 
 pearance and engaging manners, she was subjected 
 to the severest tests. She spoke French with a Ger- 
 man accent. Details of her early history were 
 extracted from her, which are all related in the 
 pamphlet. She had understood that Bohemia was 
 the name of the country in which she had been 
 brought up, in the care of two ladies, one of whom 
 she had been accustomed to call ' mamma,' the other 
 Catharine; she had also received instruction from 
 an ecclesiastic who frequently visited the house. She 
 described certain visits made at distant intervals by a 
 handsome gentleman in a hunting suit, beneath whose 
 riding-coat she once noticed something red. At one 
 time this visitor was expected, but did not come ; 
 and he afterward accounted for his absence by ex- 
 plaining that he had been ill in consequence of over- 
 heating himself in the chase. Prince Charles recol- 
 lected that at the time corresponding to this state- 
 ment the emperor was actually taken ill on his return 
 from hunting. 
 
 " Then came the time when she heard of the 
 strange gentleman's death, which corresponded with 
 that of the emperor's ; and La Friilen related a long 
 story about her removal from Bohemia, and from the 
 companionship of the two ladies, by the ecclesiastic. 
 
The Foundling of Nuremberg. 1G5 
 
 In some particulars of this part of her story she was 
 convicted of prevarication ; but then, again, confirm- 
 ing circumstances occurred. Unexpectedly seeing a 
 portrait of the late emperor she was so affected by it 
 that a lono: and serious illness ensued. The result of 
 her alleged removal from Bohemia was her settle- 
 ment at Bordeaux, where she lived luxuriously, and 
 there she most certainly forged letters as a means of 
 recommending herself to the Due de Richelieu. 
 These acts she did not conceal from her examiners, 
 but declared, with all the appearance of simplicity 
 and frankness, that, forsaken as she. was, and certain 
 as she felt of her parentage, she did what she had a 
 right to do for her own protection. Before any con- 
 clusion was come to concerning her, Count Cobenzel 
 died, and from what he told a friend there is reason 
 to believe he was more than half satisfied of the sub- 
 stantial truth of her representations. Mademoiselle 
 was then liberated from prison, fifty louis d'or were 
 placed in her hands, and she was turned adrift in the 
 'wide, wide world.' This w r as in 1769, and if she 
 was the same person afterward discovered at Bristol, 
 and known as the i Lady of the Haystack,' there is an 
 interval of seven years, which it is but little likely 
 will ever be accounted for in her sad history. Con- 
 
16C Who Was He \ 
 
 sidering the condition in which she was found the 
 story would probably be one of hopeless wandering 
 from place to place until her reason was impaired. 
 
 "The Lady of the Haystack had been named 
 Louisa by her benefactors, but there are so many 
 coincidences in what little she related, and in her 
 manners, with the story of La Friilen, that it is 
 almost impossible to resist the conclusion that we are 
 reading the history of one and the same person. Two 
 scars which marked her person corresponded with 
 the description given of the stranger by the pam- 
 phleteer, and her beautiful features, with a touch 
 of 'the Austrian lip,' further established her iden- 
 tity. When sudden remarks were purposely made 
 there were proofs given in her manner that she 
 had been accustomed to luxurious living and to rid- 
 ing in a carriage. Besides this but little remains to 
 relate of her. After remaining for a considerable 
 time under the care of Mr. Henderson, Louisa was 
 removed, as incurable, to Guy's Hospital. As years 
 passed on the contraction of her limbs, from exposure 
 to cold in the fields and from her subsequent inac- 
 tivity, rendered her an object of the strongest com- 
 passion. She died rather suddenly, after a long ill- 
 ness, on December 18, 1801, and on the 23d her 
 
The Fou-ndlmjg of Nuremberg. 1G7 
 
 remains were interred in the hospital grounds, at the 
 expense of Mrs. More." * 
 
 To return to the Foundling of Nuremberg. 
 
 Kaspar Hauser showed the most remarkable aver- 
 sion to even the plainest kinds of food in use among 
 the good people with whom his lot was now cast. 
 Dry bread and cold water composed the only diet he 
 relished, and, without swallowing or even tasting 
 them, the sight or smell of tea, coffee, wine, beer, 
 pastry, or vegetables was enough to nauseate him. A 
 single drop of either of the above-named liquids in a 
 glass of water " occasioned him cold sweats or caused 
 him to be seized with vomiting or violent headache." 
 Even milk, whether boiled or fresh, was distasteful to 
 him. His nights began with the set of sun, and his 
 days with the rising of that orb. 
 
 His lack of knowledge of the relation of cause and 
 effect was ludicrous. The first time he saw a lighted 
 candle he was delighted with its brightness, and in- 
 nocently put his lingers in the flame to feel of it, 
 and was greatly grieved when he burned himself. 
 So, also, on being shown his face in a mirror, he 
 looked behind it to find the person whom he sup- 
 posed was concealed there. Feigned passes were 
 
 * World of Wonders. i 
 
16S Who Was He? 
 
 made at his chest with a naked sword, and on 
 one occasion a pistol was discharged at him, but lie 
 seemed to have no idea that bodily harm could come 
 to him through these things. In fact, his infantile 
 mind had every thing to learn. 
 
 At first, owing, it was supposed, to the fact that 
 they had never been used, his senses appeared to be 
 dormant. He appeared to take no notice of any 
 thing that passed before his eyes, and when his atten- 
 tion was directed to certain things, as horses, trees 
 or animals, he gazed at them with dull eyes and 
 evinced neither astonishment nor curiosity. . 
 
 It was not until the lapse of several days that he no- 
 ticed the striking of the town clock and the chiming 
 of the bells, and then onl} r by a listening posture and 
 a twitching of the face. A few weeks later, when a 
 band of music passed by, Kaspar became suddenly 
 motionless, and his face took on an ecstatic expres- 
 sion ; lon^ after the strains had become inaudible he 
 maintained his listening attitude. On another occa- 
 sion, at a military parade, he was placed near the 
 great regimental drum, and the effect of its booming 
 was to send him into convulsions. 
 
 In his queer vocabulary, most of the terms in 
 which he seemed to have coined himself, he had 
 
The Foundling of Nuremberg. 169 
 
 only two words to distinguish all living things. 
 Every thing human, whether man or woman, boy or 
 girl, he called " bua ;" every animal he met, whether 
 quadruped or biped, fur or feather, he named "ross" 
 (horse). If these last were white he manifested de- 
 light ; if black or brown he showed signs of aversion 
 or fear, even going so far as to run away from a 
 black hen as fast as his clumsy feet could carry him. 
 
 The one idea which tilled his narrow mind was 
 horses, particularly wooden horses. The word "ross" 
 was more frequently on his lips than any other, and 
 whenever any glittering trifle was given him he would 
 cry, "Ross! ross!" and motion as though he would 
 hang it around the neck of some animal. He was 
 daily conducted to the guard-room of the police 
 office, and in a few days became domesticated there. 
 His frequent repetition of this word, and his babyish 
 ways, prompted one of the officers to bring him a 
 wooden horse for a plaything. Kaspar, usually so 
 stolid and undemonstrative, when he saw this toy 
 w T ent wild with delight and acted as though he had 
 found an old and long-lost friend — as indeed he had. 
 He immediately squatted on the floor, stroked and 
 patted the insensible image by his side, and essayed 
 to hang around its neck all the glittering gew-gaws 
 
1T0 Who Was Hk? 
 
 of which he was possessed. " For liours together," 
 said one of the soldiers, in a declaration made before 
 a magistrate, " Kaspar sat playing with his horse be- 
 side the stove, without attending in the least to any, 
 thing that passed around him." 
 
 Through the kindness of some of his. many visitors 
 he was soon supplied with a number of horses, and 
 whenever he was at home these were his constant 
 companions and playmates. lie never suffered them 
 to leave his side, sleeping or waking, as was ascer- 
 tained by a concealed opening in his door, through 
 which his actions were observed. 
 
 " Every day, every hour, resembled the other in 
 this, that all of them were passed by Kaspar sitting 
 on the floor by the side of his horses, with his legs 
 stretched out before him, and continually employed 
 in ornamenting them one way or another with rib- 
 bons and strings or with bits of colored paper, some- 
 times bedecking them with coins, bells, and spangles, 
 and sometimes appearing to be immersed in the 
 thought how this decoration might' be varied by 
 successively placing these articles in different posi- 
 tions. He also often dragged his horses backward 
 and forward by his side without changing his place 
 or altering his position ; yet this was done silently 
 
The Foundling or Nuremberg. 171 
 
 and very carefully for fear, as he afterward said, 
 that the rolling of the wheels might make a noise 
 and he might be beaten for it.'' * 
 
 There were a number of ludicrous incidents con- 
 nected with these horses. 
 
 He never, we are told, ate his bread without first 
 holding every morsel of it to the mouth of some one 
 of his horses ; nor did lie ever drink water without 
 first dipping their mouths in it, which he afterward 
 carefully wiped off. When his keeper sought to 
 make him understand that they could not eat Kaspar 
 pointed triumphantly to some crumbs adhering to 
 their mouths. 
 
 One of these horses was made of plaster, and con- 
 stant wetting with water caused its nose and jaw to 
 crumble away, whereat the boy was greatly grieved. 
 Having fallen asleep on a rocking-horse he rolled 
 over and pinched his finger, so he whined that the 
 animal had bitten him. At another time, while he 
 was 'rolling one of his horses over the floor, its hind 
 feet slipped into a hole and caused it to rear up. 
 This so delighted the innocent that he must needs 
 show the trick to every visitor thereafter. Once, 
 when this horse, in rearing, fell down, he ran to it 
 
 * Von Feuerbaeb. 
 
172 Who Was He? 
 
 with precipitate tenderness, and showed every mark 
 of sorrow that it had hurt itself, and he was quite in- 
 consolable when the prison keeper once drove a nail 
 into one of his pets. 
 
 Enough has been said to show that in mind Kaspar 
 was on a par with the veriest infant, and that his per- 
 ceptions of things animate and inanimate were almost 
 hopelessly confused. 
 
 Animals and men he distinguished only by their 
 form, just as he knew men from women solely by their 
 dress. The clothing of the female sex, because of its 
 gayer colors, was most attractive to him, and he after- 
 ward, on this score, expressed a wish that he could 
 become a girl — that is, wear a girl's clothes. That 
 boys and girls should grow up to be men and women 
 was quite inconceivable to him, and he could only be 
 convinced of the fact of his own growth by repeated 
 markings on the wall which proved his own very 
 rapid increase of stature. 
 
 As to ideas upon religion, right and wrong, he of 
 course had none. But it was remarked by all with 
 whom he came in contact that his mind was as pure 
 as that of a baby, and his demeanor was ever modest 
 and retiring.* 
 
 When Kaspar had been a little over a month at 
 
The Foundling of Nuremberg. 173 
 
 Nuremberg lie came under the notice of Herr Ansel in 
 von Feuerbach, president of one of the Bavarian 
 Courts of Appeal, to whom the world is indebted for 
 a dispassionate and candid history* of this remark- 
 able youth. On July 11, 1828, this gentleman went 
 to Nuremberg expressly to visit and to study Kaspar 
 Hauser. The following is his account of his appear- 
 ance, actions, etc., at that time : 
 
 " Kaspar's abode was in the tower at the Yestner 
 Gate, where every body was admitted who desired to 
 see him. I therefore proceeded thither, in company 
 with Colonel D., two ladies and two children, and 
 we fortunately arrived at an hour when no other vis- 
 itors happened to be present, Kaspar's abode was in 
 a small but cleanly and light room, the windows of 
 which opened upon an extensive and pleasant pros- 
 pect. We found him in his bare feet, clothed, beside 
 his shirt, only with a pair of old trousers. The walls 
 of the chamber had been decorated by Kaspar, as 
 high as he could reach, with sheets of colored pict- 
 ures. He stuck them to the wall anew every morn- 
 ing with his saliva, and as soon as it became twilight 
 he took them dowm again and laid them carefully by 
 his side ere he slept. In a corner of a. fixed bench 
 * An Account of an Individual Kejrt in a Dimgeon. 1831. 
 
1 74 Who Was He"! 
 
 which extended around the room was his bed, which 
 consisted of a bag of straw, with a pillow and a 
 blanket. The whole of the remaining part of the 
 bench was covered with a variety of playthings, with 
 hundreds of leaden soldiers, wooden dogs, horses and 
 other toys, such as are commonly manufactured at 
 Nuremberg. These had already begun to occupy 
 much of his attention during the day, yet he was at 
 no little trouble to gather carefully together all these 
 trifles and all their appurtenances every evening, to 
 unpack them as soon as he awoke, and to place them 
 in a certain order alongside of each other. The be- 
 nevolence of the kind inhabitants of Nuremberg had 
 also prompted them to present him with various arti- 
 cles of wearing apparel, which he kept under his pil- 
 low, and displayed to us with a childish pleasure not 
 unmixed with a little vanity. Upon the bench there 
 lay, mingled with the playthings, several pieces of 
 money, by which, however, he set no store. From 
 these I took a soiled and worn crown piece and a 
 quite new piece of 24- kreutzers, and asked him 
 which he liked best, He chose the small shining 
 one; said the larger one was ugly, and regarded it 
 with a look expressive of aversion. When I endeav- 
 ored to make him understand that the larger piece 
 
The Foundling of ^Nuremberg. 175 
 
 was nevertheless the more valuable of the two, and 
 that he could get more pretty things for it than for 
 the smaller one, he listened attentively and assumed 
 for a moment a thoughtful stare, but at length told 
 me frankly that he did not know what I meant. 
 
 u When we entered his apartment he showed noth- 
 ing like shyness or timidity ; on the contrary, he met 
 us with confidence and seemed to be rejoiced at our 
 visit. He first of all noticed the colonel's bright uni- 
 form, and he could not cease to admire his bright 
 helmet, which glittered with gold ; then the colored 
 dresses of the ladies attracted his attention ; as for 
 myself, being dressed in a modest black coat, I was 
 at first scarcely honored with a single glance. Each 
 of us placed himself separately before him and men- 
 tioned distinctly his name and title. Whenever any 
 person was thus introduced Kaspar went up very 
 close to him, regarded him with a sharp, penetrating 
 look, noticed every feature — forehead, eyes, nose, 
 mouth, chin, etc., successively, with rapid glance, and, 
 as it seemed, gathered all the different parts of the 
 countenance, which at first he had noted separately 
 and piece by piece, into one whole. He then re- 
 peated the name of the person as it had been men- 
 tioned to him. And then he knew the person, and, 
 
176 Who Was He? 
 
 as experience afterward proved, lie knew him forever. 
 He averted his eyes as much as possible from every 
 glare of light, and he most carefully avoided the rays 
 of the sun, which directly entered the window. 
 When such a ray encountered his eye by accident he 
 winked very much, wrinkled his forehead, and showed 
 that he suffered pain and annoyance. His eyes were 
 much inflamed, and he betrayed in every respect the 
 greatest sensibility to the effects of light. 
 
 " Although his face became afterward perfectly 
 regular, yet at that time a striking difference was 
 perceptible between the left and the right side of it. 
 The left side was drawn awry and distorted, and con- 
 vulsive spasms passed over it like flashes of lightning. 
 By these spasms or twitchings the whole left side of 
 his body, and particularly his arm and hand, were 
 visibly affected. If any thing was shown to him 
 which excited his curiosity, if any word was spoken 
 which caught his attention and was unintelligible to 
 him, these spasms immediately made their appear- 
 ance and were generally succeeded by a kind of ner- 
 vous rigidity. He then stood motionless; not a mus- 
 cle of his face moved ; his eyes remained wide open 
 without winking and assumed a stony stare ; he ap- 
 peared like a statue, unable to see, to hear, or to be 
 
The Foundling of Nuremberg. 1 
 
 * i 
 
 excited to any living movement by external impres- 
 sions. This state was observable whenever he w T as 
 meditating upon any thing, whenever he was seeking 
 the conception corresponding to any new word or 
 the word corresponding to any new thing, or when- 
 ever he endeavored to connect any thing that was 
 unknown to him with something that he knew, in 
 order to render the first conceivable to him by means 
 of the latter. 
 
 " His enunciation of words which he knew was 
 plain and determinate, without hesitation or stam- 
 mering. But coherent speech w T as not yet to be ex- 
 pected of him, and his poverty of words was equaled 
 by lils stock of ideas. It was, therefore, extremely 
 difficult to make one's self intelligible to him. 
 Scarcely had you uttered a few sentences to him 
 which he appeared to understand than you found 
 that something was mingled with them which w T as 
 foreign to him, and if he wished to understand it his 
 spasms immediately returned. In all that he said the 
 conjunctions, participles, and adverbs were still al- 
 most entirely wanting ; his conjugation embraced lit- 
 tle more than the infinitive, and he was most of all de- 
 ficient in respect to his syntax, which was in a state 
 
 of miserable confusion. ' Kaspar very well,' 'Kas- 
 12 
 
ITS Who Was He > 
 
 par shall Julius tell,' instead of 'I am very well,' 
 and k I shall tell Julius,' were his common modes of 
 expressing himself. The pronoun ' I' occurred very 
 rarely ; he generally spoke of himself in the third 
 person, calling himself Kaspar. In the same manner 
 lie also spoke to others in the third person instead of 
 the second ; for instance, in speaking to a colonel or a 
 lady, instead of saying "you," he would say " colonel" 
 or " lady " such an one, using the verb in the third 
 person. Thus, also, in speaking to him, if you wished 
 him immediately to understand you, you must not 
 say " you " to him, but Kaspar. The same word was 
 often used by him in different significations, which 
 often occasioned ludicrous mistakes. Many words, 
 which signify only a particular species, Avould be ap- 
 plied by him to the whole genus. Thus, to illustrate, 
 he would use the words "hill" or "mountain" as if 
 they applied to every protuberance or elevation, and in 
 consequence thereof, he once called a corpulent gen- 
 tleman, whose name he could not recollect, 'the man 
 with *the great mountain.' A lady, the end of whose 
 shawl he once saw dragging on the floor, he called 
 1 the lady with the beautiful tail.' 
 
 " The curiosity, the thirst for knowledge, the in- 
 flexible perseverance with which he fixed his atten- 
 
The Foundling of Nuremberg. 179 
 
 tion on any thing that he was determined to learn or 
 comprehend, surpassed every thing that can be con- 
 ceived, and the manner in which they were expressed 
 was truly affecting. It has already been stated that 
 he no longer employed himself in the day-time with 
 his playthings ; his hours throughout the day were 
 occupied with drawing, with writing or with other 
 instructive employments. Bitterly did he complain 
 that the great number of people who visited him left 
 him no time to learn any thing. It was very affect- 
 ing to hear his oft-repeated lamentation that the peo- 
 ple in the world knew so much and that there were 
 so many things he had not yet learned. Next to 
 writing, drawing was his favorite occupation, for 
 which he showed great capacity, joined to an equal 
 perseverance. For several days he had undertaken 
 the task of copying a lithographic print of the Bur- 
 gomaster Binder. A large package of quarto sheets 
 had already been filled with the copies which he had 
 drawn ; they were arranged in a long series in the 
 order in which they had been produced. I exam- 
 ined each of them separately. The first attempts 
 resembled exactly the pictures drawn by little chil- 
 dren, who imagine that they have drawn a face when 
 they have scratched upon the paper something meant 
 
180 Who AVas He? 
 
 to represent an oval figure with a few long and cross 
 strokes. Yet in almost every one of the succeeding 
 attempts some improvements were distinctly visible, 
 so that these lines began more and more to resemble 
 a human countenance, and finally resembled the orig- 
 inal, though still in a crude and imperfect manner, 
 yet so that their resemblance to it might be recog- 
 nized. I expressed my approbation of some of his 
 last attempts, but he showed that he was not satisfied, 
 and insisted that he should be obliged to draw the 
 picture a great many times before it was drawn as it 
 ought to be, and then he would make it a present to 
 the burgomaster. 
 
 " With his life in the world he appeared to be by 
 no means satisfied ; he longed to go back to the man 
 with whom he had always been. At home (in his hole), 
 he said, he had never suffered so much from headache 
 and had never been so much teased as since he was 
 in the world. By this he alluded to the unpleasant 
 and painful sensations which were occasioned by the 
 many new impressions to which he was totally unac- 
 customed, and by a great variety of smells which 
 were disagreeable to him, etc., as well as to the nu- 
 merous visits of those who came to see him from 
 curiosity, to their incessant questioning of him, and 
 
The Foundling of Nuremberg. 181 
 
 to some of their inconsiderate and not very humane 
 experiments. He had, it was plain, no fault to find 
 with the man with whom he had always been, except 
 that he had not yet come to take him back again, 
 and that he had never shown him or told him any 
 thing of the many beautiful things which were in the 
 world. 
 
 "About an hour after we had seen him we met 
 him again on the street. We addressed him, and 
 when we asked him whether he could recollect our 
 names he mentioned without the least hesitation 
 the full name of every one of the company, to- 
 gether with all our titles, which must nevertheless 
 have appeared to him as unintelligible nonsense. 
 The physician, Dr. Osterhausen, observed, on a dif- 
 ferent occasion, that, when a nosegay had been given 
 him, and he had been told the names of all the differ- 
 ent flowers of which it was composed, he recognized 
 several days after every one of these flowers, and he 
 was able to tell the names of each of them. But the 
 strength and quickness of his memory decreased 
 afterward precisely in proportion as it was enriched 
 and as the strain on his mental faculties was increased. 
 
 " His obedience to all those persons who had ac- 
 quired authority over him was unconditional and 
 
1S2 Who Was He? 
 
 boundless. That the burgomaster or Professor Dan- 
 mer had said so was to him a reason for doing or 
 omitting to do any thing which was final, and totally 
 exclusive of all further questions and considerations. 
 When once I asked him why he thought himself 
 obliged to yield such punctual obedience he replied : 
 4 The man with whom I always was taught me that 
 I must do as I am bidden.' Yet in his opinion this 
 submission to the authority of others referred only to 
 what he was to do or not to do, and it had no con- 
 nection whatever with his knowing, believing, or 
 opining. Before he could acknowledge any thing to 
 be certain and true it was necessary that he should 
 be convinced either by the intuition of his senses or 
 by some reasoning so adapted to his powers of compre- 
 hension and to the scanty requirements of his well- 
 nigh vacant mind as to appear to him to be striking. 
 Whenever it was impossible to reach his understand- 
 ing by any of these ways he did not, indeed, contra- 
 dict the assertion made, but he would leave the mat- 
 ter undecided until, as he used to say, he had learned 
 more. I spoke to him, among other things, of the 
 impending winter, and I told him that the roofs of 
 the houses and all the streets of the city would then 
 all be white — as white as the walls of his chamber. 
 
The Foundling of Nuremberg. ISo 
 
 He said that this would be very pretty, but he 
 plainly intimated that he should not believe it before 
 he had seen it. The next winter when the first snow- 
 fell he expressed great joy that the streets, the trees, 
 and the roofs had now been so well painted, and he 
 quickly went down into the yard to fetch some of 
 the ' white paint ; ' but he soon ran to his preceptor 
 with all his fingers stretched out, crying and blubber- 
 ing, and bawling out that ; the white paint had burnt 
 his hand ' ! 
 
 " A most surprising and inexplicable property of 
 this young man was his love of order and cleanliness, 
 which he even carried to the extreme of pedantry. 
 Of the many hundreds of trifles of which his little 
 household consisted each had its appropriate place, 
 was properly packed, carefully folded, and symmet- 
 rically arranged. Un cleanliness, or whatever he con- 
 sidered as such, whether in his own person or in 
 others, was an abomination to him. He observed 
 almost every grain of dust upon our clothes, and 
 when lie once saw a few grains of snuff on my frill 
 lie showed them to me," briskly indicating that he 
 wished to wipe the offensive particles away." 
 
 Here, then, we have a most entertaining picture of 
 the mental and physical peculiarities of this strange 
 
184: Who Was He? 
 
 boy. That the study of his unfolding mind and the 
 development of his body yielded an interest surpass- 
 ing for the time being the question of his identity 
 can readily be credited. Such an opportunity for 
 physiological and psychological investigations had 
 never before been afforded men of science, and they 
 embraced it with such ardor that before long the 
 health of the subject of their studies began to seri- 
 ously suffer under the strain to which he was sub- 
 jected. This, together with the high-pressure efforts 
 at educating him, and the varied influences brought 
 to bear upon his immature brain by the interminable 
 procession of visitors, resulted at length in an illness 
 that for a time threatened serious results. He be- 
 came " melancholy, very much dejected and greatly 
 enfeebled," says Dr. Osterhausen. 
 
 On July 18, 1829, Kaspar Hauser was removed 
 from his abode in the tower and transferred to the 
 home-like care and superintendence of the Professor 
 Daumier before alluded to, who assumed entire 
 charge of his education, and in whose house he was 
 shielded from the exciting influences that had come 
 so near costing him his life. In this family, consist- 
 ing of the professor's mother and sister, Kaspar 
 received much of that motherly and womanly care of 
 
The Foundling of Nuremberg. 185 
 
 which his harsh fate had deprived him hitherto. 
 The magistracy of Nuremberg gave notice in the 
 public prints that Professor Daumer had been em- 
 powered to admit or exclude visitors as he saw fit. 
 
 In the professor's house Kaspar was first treated to 
 the luxury of a bed and made the acquaintance of 
 the thousand and one refinements which adorn the 
 daily life of cultured people. He afterward said that 
 " it was only after he slept in a bed that he began to 
 have dreams," and at first he would amuse his 
 friends by recounting them as real events ! He 
 gradually learned to vary his diet, and grew to eat 
 meat, when his bodily strength became greatly aug- 
 mented, and he increased more than two inches in 
 height in a few weeks. His mental activity, how- 
 ever, declined in a marked degree. 
 
 There are many curious anecdotes extant respect- 
 ing the boy's ludicrous difficulty in distinguishing 
 between things animate and inanimate — between rep- 
 resentations of things and the things themselves. It 
 puzzled him greatly that hewn or painted horses, 
 birds, dogs, gilded weather-vanes, etc., remained al- 
 ways in the same place and in one attitude ! He 
 complained loudly of the uncleanliness of a statue in 
 a garden because it did not wash itself! Being taken 
 
ISO Who Was He? 
 
 to the Church of St. Sebaldus, the sight of the great 
 stone crucifix with its dead Christ tilled him with 
 anguish and dismay, and "he earnestly entreated 
 that the man who was being so dreadfully tormented 
 might be taken down." 
 
 At this time, too, any mechanical or natural mo- 
 tion which he observed to take place in any thing he 
 ascribed to life within the object. Thus, the tossing 
 of the limbs of tree in a gale and the quivering of its 
 leaves he looked on as the spontaneous action of the 
 tree; and when a sheet of paper was wafted oft' the 
 table at which he sat by a sudden draught he 
 thought the paper had flown away from the table ; 
 the balls in a nine-pin alley he supposed ran along of 
 their own volition, they "hurt" the other balls or the 
 ninepins when they bounded against them, and they 
 finally stopped because they were " tired." Professor 
 Daumer fought against this belief for a long time 
 unsuccessfully. At length the lad became convinced 
 "that a humming-top which he had been spinning 
 did not move voluntarily only by finding that, after 
 frequently winding up the cord, his own arm began 
 to hurt him, being thus sensibly convinced that lie 
 had himself exerted the power which was expended 
 
The Foundling of Nuremberg. 1ST 
 
 Kaspar's conceptions respecting the powers and 
 capacities of animals were equally laughable. For a 
 long time he ascribed to them the same powers as 
 men, and thought it was only perversity that made 
 them refuse to exercise or develop them. " He was 
 angry with a cat for taking its food only with its 
 month, without ever using its 'hands' for that pur- 
 pose. He wished to teach it to use its paws and sit 
 upright. He spoke to it as to a being like himself, 
 and expressed great indignation at its unwillingness- 
 to attend to what he said and to learn from him. 
 On the contrary, he once highly commended the 
 obedience of a certain dog. Seeing a gray cat he 
 asked why she did not wash herself, that she might 
 become white. When he saw oxen lying down on 
 the pavement of the street he wondered why they 
 did not go home and lie down there. If it was re- 
 plied that such things could not be expected from 
 animals, because they were unable to act thus, his 
 answer was immediately ready : " Then they ought 
 to learn. There were so many things which he also 
 was obliged to learn. " 
 
 " Still less had he any conception of the origin and 
 growth of any of the organic productions of nature. 
 He always spoke as if all trees had been stuck into 
 
188 Who Was He? 
 
 the ground ; as if all leaves and flowers were the work 
 of human hands. The first glimmerings of an idea of 
 the origin of plants were furnished him by his plant- 
 ing, according to the directions of his instructor, a 
 few beans, with his own hands, in a flower-pot, and 
 by his afterward being made to observe how they 
 germinated and produced leaves, as it were, under his 
 own eye. But in general he was accustomed to ask, 
 respecting almost every production of nature, Who 
 made that thing ? 
 
 " Of the beauties of nature he had no perception. 
 Nor did nature seem to interest him otherwise than 
 by exciting his curiosity and by suggesting the ques- 
 tion, Who made such a thing ? When, for the first 
 time, he saw a rainbow its view appeared for a few 
 moments to give him pleasure. But he soon turned 
 away from it, and he seemed to be much more inter- 
 ested in the question, Who made it? than in the 
 beauty of its appearance." * 
 
 The first occasion on which his attention was directed 
 to the starry heavens marked an epoch in his mental 
 growth. Hitherto he had gone to bed with the sun, 
 but in the month of August, 1829, he was persuaded 
 to keep awake, and after darkness had set in Professor 
 
 * Von Feuerbach. 
 
The Foundling of Nuremberg. ISO 
 
 Daumer took him out of doors and silently pointed 
 upward. His wonder and delight passed all bounds. 
 It was, he said, the most beautiful sight he had yet 
 seen in this world. The different constellations being 
 pointed out to him, and the stars in these last of vary- 
 ing magnitudes, he fixed them accurately in his mem- 
 ory and never afterward forgot their names or their 
 locations. He could not sufficiently feast his eyes on 
 the sublime spectacle, and was continually running 
 out to gaze upon it. He wanted to know who 
 " placed all those beautiful candles there, and who 
 lighted them and put them out ? " On being in- 
 formed, he fell into a reverie ; his head sunk on his 
 chest, and his body became motionless. When roused 
 he burst into tears, and for the first time manifested 
 anger against the man who had kept him in prison, 
 because, as he said, he had kept him from all knowl- 
 edge of such beautiful things. 
 
 At another time he asked what was meant by the 
 terms " mother," " sister," " brother," etc., and w T hen 
 these different relationships were explained to him he 
 fell into a moody silence. Being asked what was the 
 matter he expressed his sorrow at the thought that 
 he had neither father, mother, sister, nor brother. 
 
 His friends were amazed to find that, being allowed 
 
190 Who Was He? 
 
 to mount a spirited horse, lie almost immediately be- 
 came an expert rider, extending his excursions on 
 horseback far into the suburbs without the least sign 
 of fatigue, and this at a time when a walk of a mile or 
 two taxed his endurance to the utmost. It was argued 
 from this that Kaspar Hauser must have descended 
 from a race of horsemen ; and this belief is not unrea- 
 sonable when we recall his former passionate fond- 
 ness for toy horses. It is a well-known fact that skill 
 in exercises or employments at first acquired artificially 
 may be, and often is, transmitted throughout succes- 
 sive generations, as witness, says Yon Feuerbach, the 
 dexterity in swimming peculiar to the South Sea 
 Islanders, and the keen woodland craft of the North 
 American Indians. 
 
 Kaspar's senses of sight and hearing were phenom- 
 enally acute. He could see in the dark better than 
 by daylight, and used to laugh at those by whom he 
 was surrounded because they would take a candle or 
 lamp with them in going up and down stairs at night. 
 His long residence in the twilight of his dungeon 
 might, and probably would, account for this cat-like 
 power. It is on record that his hearing was so keen 
 that he could distinguish three persons walking to- 
 gether by their step ! But a still greater surprise to 
 
The Foundling of Nuremberg. l'Jl 
 
 his friends consisted in the acuteness of his sense of 
 smell. Kaspar himself said that through this his sen- 
 sations were always painful, and his existence rendered 
 most uncomfortable. Things that to ordinary mortals 
 were entirely odorless had for him a subtle perfume, 
 and in corresponding ratio the odor of flowers, to 
 most mortals so grateful and delightful, possessed for 
 him insufferable stenches which painfully affected his 
 nervous system! He could distinguish apple, pear, 
 and plum trees from each other at a considerable 
 distance by the smell of their leaves. 
 
 The different colorings used in the painting of walls 
 and furniture and in the dyeing of cloths, etc., the 
 pigments with which he colored his pictures, the pen- 
 cil with which he wrote, all things about him, wafted 
 odors to his nostrils which were unpleasant or painful 
 to him. If a chimney-sweeper walked the streets, 
 though at the distance of several paces from him, he 
 turned his face shuddering from the smell. The 
 scent of an old cheese made him feel unwell, and 
 affected him with nausea. The smell of strong 
 vinegar, though fully a yard distant, operated so 
 powerfully upon his nerves of sight and smell as 
 to bring the water into his eyes. When a glass 
 of wine was filled at the table, at a considerable dis- 
 
102 Who Was He? 
 
 tance away from him, he complained of a disagree- 
 able smell and of a sensation of heat in his head. The 
 smell of fresh meat was to him the most horrible of 
 smells. When Professor Daunier, in the autumn of 
 1828, walked with Kaspar near to Saint John's 
 churchyard, in the vicinity of JSuremburg, the smell of 
 the dead bodies, of which, of course, the professor had 
 not the slightest perception, affected Kaspar so pow- 
 erfully that he was immediately seized with an ague 
 and began to shudder. This ague was soon succeeded 
 by a feverish heat, which at length broke out into a vio- 
 lent perspiration. He afterward said that he had never 
 before experienced so great a heat. Animal magnetism 
 exhibited itself in the lad in a manner equally surprising. 
 The mutations of Kaspar 1 s mind presented fully as 
 startling phenomena as the foregoing physical and 
 physiological details. " Raised like an animal,'' says 
 Yon Feuerbach, "slumbering even while awake, sen- 
 sible in the twilight of his narrow dungeon only of 
 the crudest wants of animal nature, occupied with 
 nothing but the consuming of food and the eternal 
 sameness of his wooden horses, the life of his soul 
 could be compared only to the life of an oyster, which, 
 adhering to its rock, is sensible of nothing but the 
 absorption of its food, and perceives only the eternal 
 
The Foundling of Nuremberg. 193 
 
 uniform dashing of the waves, and in its narrow shell 
 finds no room even for the most narrow idea of the 
 world without it." As may be imagined, then, the 
 labor of instilling into such a mind ideas of God, 
 religion, nature, humanity, and the thousand things 
 which ordinary children learn by imitation, was a slow 
 and tedious process. But, assisted both by his natural 
 aptitude and by his intense desire to learn, his prog- 
 ress in the first year was phenomenally rapid, and, 
 under the kind care of the Professor and his mother 
 and sister, Kaspar soon became a rational, well- 
 informed being. By the careful attention of these 
 same worthy people, too, the boy's health was vastly 
 improved. Such was his mental progress that, in the 
 summer of 1829, a little more than a year after his en- 
 try into Kuremburg, he was able to collect his recol- 
 lections of his marvelous career into a well-written me- 
 moir. This production so delighted him that, like many 
 another young author, he never wearied of telling of 
 his performance, and it was soon announced in various 
 European journals that the Foundling of Nuremberg 
 was writing his life! It has been thought by his 
 biographers that it was this announcement that pre- 
 cipitated an attack that was doubtless intended to 
 
 abruptly terminate his short but sorrowful career. 
 13* 
 
194 Who Was He. 
 
 The motive for this dastardly act is not far to seek. 
 We must bear in mind the probability that the chief 
 reason why Kaspar's jailers had found it necessary to 
 get rid of him was the fact that he had become a 
 dangerous burden whom it was daily becoming more 
 and more difficult to conceal. He was no longer an 
 infant or a mere boy. lie had increased in stature 
 with his years, was nearly a man, was often noisy and 
 unruly, so that it had become necessary to beat him 
 into submission. The marks of these blows he bore 
 when he came to Nureniburijr. What were the 
 reasons forbidding his murder when an infant or in 
 early childhood it is useless to conjecture. Whatever 
 they were, they were weighty enough to preserve his 
 life up to the date of his liberation. Doubtless it was 
 thought and hoped that, being cast adrift in the 
 world, unlearned and unknown, he would speedily lapse 
 into obscurity and be forgotten. But this was not to 
 be. Kaspar fell into humane hands, and the youth 
 whose early years had been spent in a dungeon bade 
 fair to become an honor to his rescuers and a respect- 
 able and talented member of society. 
 
 With his growth in knowledge, and because of the 
 smoldering public interest in his tale being thus per- 
 petually fanned into flame, he had become an object 
 
The Foundling of Ncep:mbeeg. 195 
 
 of clanger to those whose dark and dastardly ends had 
 been served by his long confinement. How much he 
 remembered, how much he would divulge tj> the 
 world, or what might be discovered by his powerful 
 friends with his written narrative as a foundation for 
 their investigations, these guilty ones could only won- 
 der and tremble thereat. From beini>; the Foundling 
 of Nuremberg he had become the Child of Europe, 
 and a continent rang with his fame and ten thousand 
 hearts beat with sympathy for the waif. How differ- 
 ent his fate from that intended by those who thought 
 themselves secure in the secret of their crime! 
 
 On Saturday, October 15, 1829, Kaspar happened 
 to be left alone in the home of Professor Daumer. 
 The house then stood in a thinly-peopled quarter, 
 surrounded by open fields, and far from any other 
 structure. About eleven o'clock he had occasion to 
 visit an outhouse, and on his return thence was 
 stabbed or struck in the temple with some sharp 
 instrument by a man whose features were probably 
 masked, and who immediately fled. Kaspar stag- 
 gered toward the house, and either fell or stumbled 
 down the cellar steps, at the foot of which he was 
 found an hour later, insensible from loss of blood. A 
 little after noon Miss Daumer was sweeping the hall- 
 
196 Who Was He? 
 
 way, when she observed on the stairs several drops of 
 blood, and bloody footsteps. These marks she traced 
 along the passageway to the closet, and there, to her 
 horror, found a mass of clotted blood. In great alarm 
 she summoned her mother, and together they tracked 
 the boy to the cellar, whence he was carefully and 
 tenderly removed to his room. 
 
 The blow, said the physicians and other experts, 
 was doubtless intended for the boy's throat, but 
 he probably " ducked his head " in time, and thus 
 escaped a fatal stroke. Beyond the shock and pain, 
 confinement to his room for a few days was all the 
 inconvenience Kaspar suffered. But for a time he 
 was insensible, then he gave a deep groan, slowly 
 opened his eyes, and exclaimed : 
 
 " Man ! Man ! — mother ! — tell professor ! — closet ! " 
 — after which he was seized with a n't of shivering 
 which lasted forty-eight hours. In his wanderings 
 he murmured at various times : 
 
 " Man came ! — don't kill me ! — I love all men ! — 
 do no me any thing! — Man, I love you too! — don't 
 kill— why man kill?" 
 
 Thus the enemies of Kaspar Ilauser added another 
 crime to the already brimming measure of their 
 iniquity. 
 
The Foundling of Nuremberg. 197 
 
 By order of the municipal authorities the boy 
 was attended by the medical officer of the city and 
 constantly guarded by two soldiers. Under the loving 
 care of the Daumer family he soon recovered, and 
 when strong enough the magistrates caused him 
 to be examined concerning the attempt on his 
 life. 
 
 Kaspar deposed that while in the shed he heard 
 footsteps stealthily treading the passage, and presently 
 the head of a " black " man appeared. In an instant 
 he received a severe blow on the forehead, which 
 felled him to the ground. Then he must have 
 fainted, for he did not fully recover his senses till he 
 found himself in the cellar. How he got thither he 
 could not tell, but supposed that he must have 
 crawled there while in a condition of semi-conscious- 
 ness, and taken refuge therein, partly from fright and 
 partly because of his inability, in his dazed condition, 
 to find his way to his room. 
 
 In a very brief while, however, Kaspar's splendid 
 constitution triumphed over the shock ; he was soon 
 restored to his former health, and was enabled to re- 
 sume his studies. At this time it was said of him that 
 in the company of others he would never be known 
 from other young men, who had been reared in ordi- 
 
108 Who Was He? 
 
 nary circumstances. His temper was good, and his 
 manners suave, modest, and polite. 
 
 Among the privileged visitors while Kaspar was 
 under Professor Daumer's care was Lord Stanhope, 
 an English nobleman of wealth and generosity, who 
 had become intensely interested in the boy, his story, 
 and his career. This gentleman offered to assume 
 the entire charge and expense of his education. The 
 offer was accepted, and, as a first step, Kaspar was 
 sent to Anspach, and there placed under the care of 
 an accomplished tutor. His career while at Anspach 
 fulfilled every expectation, and" in a few months he 
 was deemed competent to assume the duties of an 
 official appointment, and he was accordingly made 
 clerk in the Registrar's Office of the Court of Ap- 
 peal. It was Lord Stanhope's idea to by this means 
 accustom Kaspar to the ordinary duties of life, and 
 in time to take him to England and adopt him as his 
 foster son. 
 
 But the deep and diabolical mystery which hung 
 over his young life pursued him to his new abode, 
 and the benevolent intentions of the philanthropist 
 were frustrated. 
 
 At mid-day on December 17, 1833, while the 
 youth was returning home from his official duties, he 
 
The Foundling of Nuremberg. 199 
 
 was accosted by a stranger, who said he was in pos- 
 session of important information concerning the birth 
 and origin of Kaspar Hauser (though he informed 
 him that this was not his rightful name), which he 
 would divulge if he would meet him in the park at- 
 tached to the castle of Anspach late that afternoon. 
 
 All on tire to possess the priceless secret, Kaspar 
 very imprudently kept the appointment without in- 
 forming his protectors or his friends of his intention, 
 secrecy having been enjoined by his unknown ac- 
 quaintance. 
 
 Arrived at the rendezvous, the stranger was at his 
 post. Without a word he took Kaspar by the arm, 
 and led him aside until they were surrounded by 
 trees and bushes, and were absolutely alone. Then, 
 in silence, he plunged a dagger in his breast, and was 
 gone ! 
 
 Kaspar had only strength to totter to the public 
 highway. He was speedily carried to the residence 
 of his tutor, gasped out a few indistinct phrases tell- 
 ing of the attempt on his life, and fell fainting to the 
 floor. The police were summoned, but ere a final 
 deposition could be taken, or he could furnish any 
 clue to the perpetrator of the outrage, Kaspar Hauser 
 was no more. All the resources of the police were 
 
200 Who Was He? 
 
 set in motion to endeavor to apprehend the mur- 
 derer, but without avail. The author of the dual 
 crime (for doubtless the same coward hand dealt both 
 blows) was never discovered, and the secret preserved 
 at the expense of so much iniquity is still masked 
 from the eyes of men. 
 
 With regard to the question, Who was he ? as ap- 
 plied to Kaspar Hauser, mention has been already 
 made of the belief of many, at first, that he was a 
 clever impostor. Julius Meyer wrote a book to 
 prove this. But we think this view so widely im- 
 probable, in view of all the known facts, as to be not 
 worth an instant's consideration. To substantiate it 
 we must needs credit Kaspar Hauser with a vast 
 amount of cunning and deceit — traits utterly wanting 
 in his mental and moral make-up. Besides, the ques- 
 tion may well be asked, " To whose good ? " 
 
 Others regarded him as a " Wild Boy," several well- 
 authenticated instances of such characters being on 
 record. In fact, as has been well said, the amount 
 " that has been written regarding wild children and 
 wild men and women who have been found in civil- 
 ized Europe during the last few centuries will 
 astound any one who looks into it. A celebrated 
 case is the child recorded in the annals of Hesse, in 
 
The Foundling of Nuremberg. 201 
 
 1341, discovered among wolves, who leaped, ran 
 on all fours, and ate like his wolfish friends ; another 
 wild boy was found in the woods in another part of 
 Germany, in 1314. In this case the child seems to 
 have been lost when about three years old. He was 
 absolutely wild for three years ; being captured one 
 snowy winter. He lived to reach eighty. Perhaps 
 the wolves were a piece of embroidery on the part 
 of the monkish chronicler, who remembered the 
 famous story of Romulus and Remus and the she- 
 wolf. Yet it might also be argued the other way ; 
 that the Romulus story had a foundation in fact, so 
 far as the occasional occurrence of cases in which she- 
 wolves, losing their own young, have satisfied the 
 maternal instinct with an abandoned human infant. 
 We know that cats and other beasts sometimes adopt 
 and suckle the young of other animals. The great 
 Dutch physician Boerhave used to cite in his lectures 
 a live-year-old boy who became absolutely wild in the 
 forest, and remained so for sixteen years. When 
 caught he was always trying to escape. He ate 
 fruits and roots, herbs, and other things that the 
 woods afforded, finding them by an exquisite sense of 
 smell. He was aware of the coming of the woman 
 who guarded him long before she appeared, and 
 
202 Who Was II si 
 
 could pick her out of a crowd of women exactly as a 
 dog scents his master. This delicacy of smell became 
 blunted after he accustomed himself to ordinary food. 
 The physicists of the seventeenth century were 
 greatly excited over an Irish boy of sixteen who had 
 lived, apparently always, among half- wild sheep. 
 He was completely naked, hairy, and bent for- 
 ward, bleated like a sheep, and ate grass and 
 hay. iNever quiet a moment, he had wonderful 
 health and strength. His tongue seemed grown to 
 his gums. The 'bear boy ' of Lithuania was another 
 pretext for violent quarrels among the philosophers. 
 He had to be taught to walk upright. His hair was 
 thick and white, but he was not seriously malformed, 
 and finally learned to talk. His first notes were 
 growls like those of bears, and the belief was that a 
 she-bear wmose cubs had died and whose udders 
 were full of milk had adopted him. In the next 
 century a wild girl is recorded in Holland, who would 
 never speak, though completely tamed, and in the 
 Pyrenees two boys. These cases were eagerly exam- 
 ined by the famous Jean Jacques Rousseau, who had 
 theories to support which went to prove that all the 
 evils of the world came from civilization. Linnaeus 
 formed a special name for such abnormal specimens 
 
The Foundling of Nuremberg. 203 
 
 of our race, calling them homo sapiens ferus. In 
 1724 a man found a wild boy in Hanover, who after- 
 ward went to England, and died there, aged about 
 seventy. He could never talk distinctly, and may 
 have been merely an idiot who escaped from or was 
 abandoned by his parents. The famous girl of Songi, 
 in Champagne, appears to have come from the West 
 Indies. She made a great sensation by springing up 
 from table, jumping out of the window, catching frogs 
 with the swiftness of a cat, and bringing them in to 
 her friends to eat raw. There are indications that she 
 did not lack cleverness, and used the extraordinary 
 interest people took in her for her own good. In 
 1767 a case is reported in Hungary. Here hunters 
 of bears found human footsteps in the snow and 
 caught a wild girl in a cave of bears. She refused 
 cooked meat, bread, and other human food. These 
 cases, and that of the tongue-tied man found near 
 Kronstadt, the youth of the woods of Aveyron, 
 France, and still others, gave a chance for numerous 
 comparisons between such degraded types and ordi- 
 nary savages. A hairy dwarf, whose skeleton was 
 preserved at "Wilna, was compared by one naturalist 
 with the orang-outang." 
 
 But the letters found on the person of our Found- 
 
204 Who Was He? 
 
 liner, and the civilized clothing he wore, would seem 
 to dispose of the wild-boy theory in the case of Kas- 
 par Ilauser. 
 
 Professor Daumer considered him to have been a 
 son of the Grand-Duke Charles of Baden and of his 
 wife Stephanie, " pushed aside in some criminal way 
 in order to secure the succession to the children of 
 the Grand Duke Charles Frederick and the Countess 
 of Iloehberg." But this theory, though substanti- 
 ated by an array of corroborative incidents, is little 
 more than a mere guess, although it is perhaps the 
 most plausible, not to say probable, of all the theories 
 offered in solution of the puzzle. After all, as lias 
 been well said, this part of the story has compara- 
 tively little interest in view of the many curious 
 psychological problems presented in the course of the 
 boy's education. 
 
 A haze of impenetrable secrecy surrounds the story 
 of Kaspar Hauser, from his tottering appearance in 
 the streets of Nuremberg down to his tragic taking 
 off. by the assassin's dagger. Not until the last great 
 day, when the secrets of all hearts shall be laid bare, 
 will the true history of the Foundling of Nuremberg 
 be known. 
 
V. 
 
 THE WANDERING JEW. 
 
THE WANDERING JEW. 
 
 ,LSE WHERE in this volume we have 
 referred to the Undying Ones. 
 In the following pages we pur- 
 pose to give some account of the 
 nearly related Wanderers, chief 
 among whom, completely overshadowing 
 all his congeners, towers the mysterious em- 
 bodiment of legendary lore whose name heads 
 this chapter. For upward of five centuries 
 the Wandering Jew w r as regarded by many throughout 
 Christendom as a being of flesh and blood, and his 
 thrilling tale as veritable history — a belief kept alive 
 
 * Though this weird story differs from the other narratives here 
 grouped together in that it rests upon a basis purely legendary and 
 mythical, yet the well-attested appearance of a number of personages, 
 at various intervals in the Middle Ages, claiming to be the Wander- 
 ing Jew has to that extent brought it within the domain of veritable 
 history. 
 
208 Who Was He? 
 
 until so recently as the last century by periodic reap- 
 pearances of various individuals — rank impostors — 
 claiming to be the hoary wanderer. 
 
 Two things are worthy of note : The ranks of the 
 Undying Ones included men of every condition and 
 of every clime — saint and sage, priest and poet, sol- 
 dier and seer — who, in the popular belief, as a reward 
 for their valor or their virtue, were by the All- Father 
 rendered superior to the power of death, and rele- 
 gated to a slumberous existence somewhere on earth 
 till the crack of doom should sound. On the other 
 hand, the Wanderers, one and all, were men -and 
 women who, for treating the suffering Christ with 
 cruelty or contumely, or for blasphemy against God, 
 were doomed to stalk restlessly up and down the 
 earth, amid its constant changes, themselves alone un- 
 changed, until "the last pulsation of recorded time." 
 
 Certain it is, says Baring-Gould, 45 " that the mytliol- 
 gies of all peoples teem " witli legends of favored or 
 accursed mortals who had reached beyond the term 
 of days set to most men. Some had discovered the 
 water of life, the fountain of perpetual youth, and 
 were ever renewing: their strength. Others had 
 dared the power of God, and were therefore sen- 
 * Curious Myths of (he Middle Ages. 
 
The Wandering Jew. 2U1) 
 
 tenced to feel the weight of his displeasure with- 
 out tasting the repose of death. John the Divine 
 slept at Ephesus, untouched by corruption, with the 
 ground heaving over his breast as he breathed, wait- 
 ing the summons to come forth and witness against 
 Antichrist.* The Seven Sleepers reposed in a cave, 
 and centuries glided by as a watch in the night. 
 The Monk of Hildesheim, doubting how with God a 
 thousand years could be as yesterday, listened to a 
 melody of a bird in the greenwood during three 
 minutes, and found that in those three minutes three 
 centuries had flown. Joseph of Arimathea, in the 
 blessed city of S arras, draws perpetual life from the 
 San Graal. Merlin sleeps and sighs in an old tree, 
 spell bound of Vivien. Paracelsus was said to be 
 seated alive, sleeping or napping, in his sepnlcher at 
 Strasburg, preserved from death by some of his spe- 
 cifics. Charlemagne and Barbarossa wait, crowned and 
 armed, in the heart of the mountain till the time comes 
 for the release of the Fatherland from despotism. 
 
 * There is an old legend which states that St. John did not continue 
 
 to rest in his grotto, but undertook to make pilgrimages, in one of 
 
 which he asked alms of Edward Confessor, at Westminster, who gave 
 
 the mendicant a gold ring, which was afterward returned to him 
 
 from the East with the saint's benediction. — M. D. Conway. 
 14 
 
210 Wno Was He? 
 
 And, on the other hand, the curse of a deathless life 
 has passed on the Wild Huntsman because he desired 
 to chase the red deer for evermore ; on the Captain 
 of the Phantom Ship because he vowed he would 
 double the Cape whether God willed it or not ; on 
 the Man in the Moon because he gathered sticks dur- 
 ing the Sabbath rest ; on the dancers of Kolbeck be- 
 cause they desired to spend eternity in their mad 
 gambols." All will recall that our own Hiawatha 
 was supposed never to have died — she "sailed into 
 the purple sunset," says the legend. 
 
 Let us glance at the origin of the legend of the 
 Wandering Jew. For this we must go to the Script- 
 ures and to the words of the Master himself. 
 
 In Matthew xvi, 28, we are told: "Verily I say 
 unto you, There be some standing here which shall 
 not taste of death, till they see the Son of Man com- 
 ing in his kingdom." So Mark ix, 1. 
 
 In Luke ix, 26, 27, the coming of the kingdom 
 refers to the judgment day, where the same thought 
 is expressed as follows : " For whosoever shall be 
 ashamed of me and of my words, of him shall the Son 
 of man be ashamed, when he shall come in his own 
 glory, and in his Father's, and of the holy angels. 
 But I tell you of a truth, there be some standing 
 
The Wandering Jew. 211 
 
 « 
 
 here, which shall not taste of death till they see the 
 kingdom of God." 
 
 Again, in John xxi, 21-23: "Peter seeing him 
 [the Beloved Disciple] saith to Jesus, Lord, and what 
 shall this man do % Jesus saith unto him, If I will 
 that he tarry till I come, what is that to thee ? Fol- 
 low thou me. Then went this saying abroad among 
 the brethren, that that disciple should not die : yet 
 Jesus said not unto him, He shall not die ; but, If I 
 will that he tarry till I come, what is that to thee ? " * 
 
 "There can be no doubt," says Baring-Gould, "m 
 the mind of an unprejudiced person, that the words 
 of the Lord do imply that some one or more of those 
 then living should not taste death till He came again. 
 We may not insist on a literal interpretation, but it is 
 certainly compatible with the power and attributes of 
 the Lord to have fulfilled His words to the letter. 
 We are also to remember that mysterious witnesses 
 are to appear in the last great eventful days of 
 
 * The legends concerning St. John given by Hippolyte, followed 
 by Eusebius and Augustine, and the ordeals he survived — such as 
 the drinking of hemlock — were suggestive of the potency of the 
 words spoken by Christ, however casually, " Tarry till I come." The 
 same formula spoken to the Wandering Jew made him as indestruct- 
 ible as " the disciple whom Jesus loved." — M. D. Conway: The Wan- 
 dering Jew. 
 
212 Who Was He? 
 
 • 
 
 earth's history, and bear testimony to the Gospel 
 truth before an antichristian world. One of these 
 has been often conjectured to be St. John the Evan- 
 gelist, and the other has been variously conjectured 
 to be Elias, or Enoch, or the Wandering Jew." 
 
 While the tradition that " the disciple whom Jesus 
 loved " should not die obtained credence in the 
 Christian Church, we are presented, as its corollary, 
 with the story of an enemy of the Redeemer sen- 
 tenced by divine justice or compelled by remorse to 
 ceaseless wanderings until II is second coming. But, 
 like many another, this legend appears in diverse 
 forms. The earliest extant mention of the story by a 
 Christian writer is in the Book of the Chronicles of 
 the Abbey of St. Albans — the Ilistoria Major — con- 
 tinued by the Benedictine historian, Matthew Paris, 
 who died in the year 1259. This account lie claims 
 to have received from an Armenian Bishop, to 
 whom the Wandering Jew had related his weird 
 history. 
 
 He records that in the year 1228 "a certain arch- 
 bishop of Armenia Major came on a pilgrimage to 
 England to see the relics of the saints and visit the sa- 
 cred places in the kingdom, as he had done in others ; 
 he also produced letters of recommendation from His 
 
The Wandering Jew. 213 
 
 Holiness the Pope to the religious men and prelates of 
 the churches, in which they were enjoined to receive 
 and entertain him with due reverence and honor. 
 On his arrival he went to St. Albans, where he was 
 received with all respect by the abbot and monks ; 
 at this place, being fatigued with his journey, he 
 remained some days to rest himself and his follow- 
 ers, and a conversation was commenced between him 
 and the inhabitants of the convent by means of their 
 interpreters, during which he made many inquiries 
 concerning the religion and the religious observances 
 of this country, and related many strange things con- 
 cerning Eastern lands. In due course he was asked 
 whether he had ever seen or heard any thing of 
 Joseph, a man of whom there was much talk in the 
 world, who, when our Lord suffered, was present and 
 spoke to him, and who is still alive in evidence of 
 the Christian faith. In reply to which a knight in 
 his retinue, who was his interpreter, said, speaking in 
 French : ' My lord well knows that man, and a little 
 before he took his way to the western countries the 
 said Joseph sat at the table of my lord the archbish- 
 op, in Armenia, and he had often seen and held con- 
 verse with him.' He was then asked about what had 
 passed between Christ and the same Joseph, to which 
 
214 Who Was He? 
 
 lie replied : ' At the time of the suffering of Jesus 
 Christ He was seized by the Jews and led into the 
 Hall of Judgment before Pilate the governor, that IJc 
 might be judged by him on the accusation of the 
 Jews; and Pilate, finding no cause of adjudging Him 
 to death, said to them : Take Him, and judge Him 
 according to your law. The shouts of the Jews, 
 however, increasing, he at their request released unto 
 them Barabbas, and delivered Jesus to them to be 
 crucified. When, therefore, the Jews were dragging 
 Jesus forth, and had reached the door, Cartaphilus, a 
 Roman porter of the hall in Pilate's service, as Jesus 
 was going out of the door, impiously struck Him on 
 the back with his hand, and said in mockery : ' Go 
 quicker, Jesus, why do you linger?' And Jesus, 
 looking back on him with a severe countenance, said 
 to him : ' I am going, but you will wait till 1 re- 
 turn ! ' And, according as our Lord had said, this 
 Cartaphilus is still awaiting his return. At the time 
 of our Lord's suffering he was thirty years old, and 
 when he attains the age of a hundred years he always 
 returns to the same age as he was when our Lord 
 suffered. After Christ's death, when the Catholic 
 faith gained ground, this Cartaphilus was baptized by 
 Ananias (who also baptized the Apostle Paul) and 
 
The Wandering Jew. 215 
 
 was called Joseph, after Joseph of Arimathea. He 
 often dwells in both divisions of Armenia and in 
 other Eastern countries, passing his time amid the 
 bishops and other prelates of the Church ; he is a 
 man of holy conversation and religious ; a man of 
 few words and circumspect in his behavior, for he 
 does not speak at all unless when questioned by the 
 bishops and religious men, aad then he tells of the 
 events of old times, of the events which occurred at 
 the suffering and resurrection of our Lord, and of the 
 witnesses of the resurrection, namely, those who rose 
 with Christ, and went into the Holy City and ap- 
 peared unto men. He also tells of the creed of the 
 Apostles, and of their separation and preaching. 
 And all this he relates without smiling or levity of 
 conversation, as one who is well practiced in sorrow 
 and the fear of God, always looking forward with fear 
 to the coming of Jesus Christ, lest at the last judg- 
 ment he should find Him in anger whom, on His way 
 to death, he had provoked to just vengeance. Num- 
 bers come to him from different parts of the world 
 enjoying his society and conversation, and to them, 
 if they are men of authority, he explains all doubts 
 on the matters on which he is questioned. He re- 
 fuses all gifts that are offered to him, being content 
 
210 Who Was He \ 
 
 with slight food and clothing. He places his hope of 
 salvation on the fact that he sinned through igno- 
 ranee, for the Lord, when suffering, prayed for his 
 enemies in these words : " Father, forgive them, for 
 they know not what they do !'" 
 
 Such is the earliest written form of the legend, told 
 with all the circumstantiality one would expect to 
 h'nd were the person claiming to be the Wanderer so 
 in fact. Another account of this same Armenian 
 patriarch, written in 1242, contained in the Rhyming 
 Chronicle of Philip Moushes, who subsequently became 
 Bishop of Tournay, gives substantially the same story. 
 
 Both in art and in literature the Jew is depicted as 
 a man of "handsome and melancholy countenance," 
 with snowy hair and beard, of dignified mien, and, 
 though often clad only in rags, yet inspiring respect 
 by his manner and his weird tale. According to 
 some, he. bore in the center of his forehead a blood- 
 red cross, a species of Cain-mark, placed there by the 
 indelible finger of God, and by this sign the Inquisi- 
 tion sought to detect him, but he concealed it by a 
 black skull-cap. Again and again, in more than one 
 city of Europe, the cry that the Jews were harboring 
 the accursed Wanderer served as a pretext for pillag- 
 ing their quarters. 
 
The Wandering Jew. 217 
 
 The Wandering Jew is not heard from again in a 
 circumstantial manner for nearly three hundred years. 
 In 1505 we catch a glimpse of him in Bohemia, where 
 a person claiming to he Cartaphilus assists a poor 
 weaver, named Kokot, to reclaim a treasure buried 
 sixty years before by the grandfather of Kokot in the 
 presence of the Jew. About this time various places 
 in the Low Countries were, it was claimed, visited by 
 this restless one. A few years later he turns up in the 
 East, and is assumed to be Elijah. About this time, too, 
 he appears.to one Fadhillah, near the city of El van, un- 
 der the name of Zerib Bar Elia. The Arabs having 
 captured the place, Fadhillah, a Moslem warrior, at the 
 head of three hundred horsemen, encamps in a defile be- 
 tween two mountains. At the hour of sunset he falls 
 on his knees at his prayers, and is astonished to hear 
 every word of his supplication repeated in a loud and 
 distinct voice. At first he thought this phenomenon 
 was the result of an echo, but at length he cried out : 
 
 " O thou ! whether thou art of the angel ranks, or 
 whether thou art of some other order of spirits, it is 
 well ; the power of God be with thee. But if thou 
 art a man, then let mine eyes light upon thee, that I 
 may rejoice in thy presence and society ! " 
 
 The words were scarcely out of his mouth when a 
 
2 IS Who Was He? 
 
 venerable man stood before him, white with age, car- 
 rying a rough staff, and much resembling a holy 
 dervish. In answer to Fadhillah's questions as to 
 who he was and whence he came, the stranger an- 
 swered : 
 
 " Bassi Hadhret Issa, I am here by command of the 
 Lord Jesus, who has left me in this world that I may 
 live therein until He comes a second time to earth. I 
 wait for this Lord, who is the Fountain of Happiness, 
 and in obedience to His command I dwell beyond 
 yonder mountain." 
 
 Being asked by Fadhillah when the Lord Christ 
 would appear, he replied : 
 
 "At the end of the world, at the last judgment." 
 
 Fadhillah, next inquired of the signs heralding the 
 approach of that momentous event, " whereupon 
 Zerib Bar Elia gave him an account of the general, 
 social, and moral dissolution which would be the 
 climax of this world's history," saying that "when 
 there shall be no difference in sex between men and 
 women ; when the blood of innocents shall be shed ; 
 when abundance of food shall not lessen its price ; 
 when the poor beg alms without finding any thing to 
 live on ; when love to man shall be lost ; when the 
 holy Scriptures shall be put into songs ; when the 
 
The Wandering Jew. 219 
 
 temples dedicated to the true God are filled with 
 idols — then be sure that the day of judgment is 
 near ! " 
 
 The year 1547 brings in its train the next well- 
 attested account of the appearance of the Wandering 
 Jew and of his mournful tale. The narrative is chiefly 
 derived from the learned Dr. Paulus von Eitzen, 
 who subsequently became Bishop of Schles'wig. He 
 was accustomed to tell how, " when he was young, 
 having studied at Wittenberg, he returned home to 
 his parents in Hamburg, in the winter of 1547, and 
 that on the following Sunday, in church, he ob- 
 served a tall man, with his hair haninnof over his 
 shoulders, standing barefoot during the sermon over 
 against the pulpit, listening with the deepest atten- 
 tion to the discourse ; and, whenever the name of 
 Jesus was mentioned, bowing himself profoundly and 
 humbly, with sighs and beatings of the breast. He 
 had no other clothing in the bitter cold of the winter 
 except a pair of hose which were in tatters about his 
 feet, and a coat with a girdle' which reached to his 
 heels ; while his general appearance was that of a man 
 of fifty years. And many people, some of high de- 
 gree and title, have seen this same man in England, 
 France, Italy, Hungary, Persia, Spain, Poland, Mos- 
 
220 Who Was He? 
 
 cow, Lapland, Sweden, Denmark, Scotland, and other 
 places. 
 
 " Every body wondered over the man. Now, after 
 the sermon, the said doctor inquired diligently where 
 the stranger was to be found, and when he had sought 
 him out he inquired of him privately whence he came, 
 and how long that winter he had been in the place. 
 Thereupon the stranger replied modestly that he was 
 a Jew by birth, a native of Jerusalem, by name 
 Ahasuerus,* by trade a shoemaker; he had been 
 present at the crucifixion of Christ, and had lived 
 ever since, traveling through various lands and cities, 
 the which he substantiated by accounts he gave; lie 
 related also the circumstances of Christ's transference 
 from Pilate to Herod, and the final crucifixion, to- 
 gether with other details not recorded in the evangel- 
 ists and historians ; he gave accounts of the changes 
 of governments in many countries, especially of the 
 East, through several centuries, and moreover he de- 
 tailed the labors and deaths of the holy apostles of 
 Christ most minutely. 
 
 "Now, when Dr. Paulus von Eitzen heard this 
 with profound astonishment, on account of its incred- 
 
 * For a curious speculation by Moncure D. Conway as to the origin 
 of the various appellations of the Wandering Jew. see pp. 230, 231. 
 
The Wandering Jew. 221 
 
 iblc novelty, he inquired further, in order that he 
 might obtain more accurate information. Then the 
 man answered that he had lived in Jerusalem at the 
 time of the crucifixion of Christ, whom he had re- 
 garded as a deceiver of the people and a heretic ; he 
 had seen Him with his own eyes, and had done his 
 best, along with others, to bring this deceiver, as he 
 thought Him, to justice, and to have Him put out of 
 the way. When the sentence had been pronounced 
 by Pilate, Christ was about to be dragged past his 
 house ; then he ran home and called together his 
 household to have a look at Christ, and see what sort 
 of a person He was. This having been done, he had 
 liis little child on his arm, and was standing in his 
 doorway to see the concourse go by. 
 
 " As, then, Christ was led past, bowed under the 
 weight of the heavy cross, He tried to rest a little, and 
 stood still a moment ; but the shoemaker, in zeal and 
 rage, and for the sake of obtaining credit among the 
 other Jews, drove the Lord Christ forward, and told 
 Him to hasten on His way. Jesus, obeying, looked 
 at him and said : 
 
 "'I shall stand and rest, but thou shalt go on till 
 the last day ! ' 
 
 " At these words the man set down the child, and, 
 
222 Who Was He? 
 
 unable to remain where he was, followed Christ 
 and saw how cruelly He was crucified, how He suf- 
 fered, how He died. As soon as this had taken place, 
 it came upon him suddenly that he could no more 
 return to Jerusalem, nor see again his wife and 
 child, but must go forth into foreign lands, one after 
 another, like a mournful pilgrim. When, years 
 after, he returned to Jerusalem, he found it ruined 
 and utterly razed, so that not one stone was left stand- 
 ing on another, and he could not recognize former 
 localities. 
 
 " He believes that it is God's purpose, in thus 
 driving him about in miserable life, and preserving 
 him undying, to present him before the Jews at the 
 end as a living token, so that the godless and unbe- 
 lieving may remember the death of Christ and be 
 turned to repentance. For his part he would well 
 rejoice were God in heaven to release him from this 
 vale of tears. After this conversation, Dr. Paulas 
 von Eitzen, along with the rector of the school of 
 Hamburg, who was well read in history, and a trav- 
 eler, questioned him about events which had taken 
 place in the East since the death of Christ, and he 
 was able to give them much information on many 
 ancient matters ; so that it was impossible not to be 
 
The Wandering Jew. 223 
 
 convinced of the truth, of his story, and to see that 
 what seems impossible with men is, after all, possible 
 with God. 
 
 " Since the Jew has had his life extended he has 
 become silent and reserved, and only answers direct 
 questions. When invited to become any one's guest 
 lie eats little, and drinks in great moderation ; then 
 hurries on, never remaining long in one place. 
 When, at Hamburg, Dantzig, and elsewhere, money 
 has been offered him, he never took more than two 
 skillings (about ten cents), and at once distributed it 
 to the poor, in token that he needed no money, for 
 God would provide for him, as he rued the sin he had 
 committed in ignorance. 
 
 " During the period of his stay in Hamburg and 
 Dantzig he was never seen to laugh. In whatever 
 land he traveled he spoke its language, and when he 
 spoke Saxon it was like a native. Many people came 
 from far and near to see and hear this man, and were 
 convinced that the providence of God was exercised 
 in this individual in a very remarkable manner. He 
 gladly listened to God's word, and heard it spoken of 
 always with great gravity and compunction, and he 
 ever reverenced with sighs the pronunciation of the 
 name of God or of Jesus Christ, and could not en- 
 
22± Who Was He? 
 
 dure to hear curses ; but whenever he heard any 
 one swear by God's death or pains he waxed indig- 
 nant, and exclaimed with vehemence and -with 
 sighs : 
 
 ik ' Wretched man and miserable creature thus to 
 misuse the name of thy Lord and God and His bitter 
 suffering and passion! Hadst thou seen, as I have, 
 how heavy and bitter were the pangs and wounds 
 of thy Lord, endured for me and for thee, thou 
 wouldst rather undergo great pain than take His 
 sacred name in vain.' 
 
 "Such is the account given to me by Dr. Paulus 
 von Eitzen, with many circumstantial proofs, and 
 corroborated by certain of my own old acquaintances 
 who sa\v this same individual with their own eyes in 
 Hamburg. 
 
 "In the year 1575, the Secretary Christopher 
 Krause and Master Jacob von Holstein. Legates to 
 the Court of Spain, were sent into the Netherlands to 
 pay the soldiers serving his majesty in that country. 
 They related on their return home to Schleswig, and 
 confirmed with solemn oaths, that they had come 
 across the same mysterious individual at Madrid, in 
 Spain, in appearance, manner of life, habits, clothing, 
 just the same as he had appeared at Hamburg. 
 
The Wandering Jew. 225 
 
 They said that they had spoken with him, and that 
 many people of all classes had conversed with him, 
 and found him to speak good Spanish. 
 
 " In the year 1599, in December, a trustworthy 
 person wrote from Brunswick to Strasburg that the 
 same mentioned strange person had been seen alive 
 at Vienna, and that he had started for Poland, and 
 that he purposed going on to Moscow. This 
 Ahasuerus was at Lubeck in 1601 ; also, about the 
 same date, in Iieuel, in Livonia, and in Cracow. In 
 Moscow he was seen by many and addressed by 
 numbers. 
 
 "What thoughtful, God-fearing persons are to 
 think of the said person is at their option. God's 
 works are wondrous and past finding out, and are 
 manifested day by day, only to be revealed in full 
 at the last great day of account." 
 
 The foregoing circumstantial narrative* is signed 
 and duly attested by Chrysostomus Dudolceus West- 
 phalus, and dated at Reuel, August 1, 1613. That a 
 person or persons answering the descriptions, and 
 giving some such account of himself or themselves, 
 w r ere really seen by these witnesses there can be but 
 
 *For this and other extracts the writer is indebted to the works of 
 
 Messrs. F. Baring-Gould and Moncure D. Conway. 
 15 
 
Who Was He? 
 
 little doubt. As much canuot be said for the truth 
 of his pretensions. 
 
 The following quaint verses are known as The 
 Wandering Jew's Complaint. They have been 
 rendered with some variations into many languages, 
 and are said to have originated in Flanders at the 
 time of the first appearing of the Jew. To the 
 frequent flittings and reappearances of this mysteri- 
 ous being are we largely indebted for their preserva- 
 tion down to our own era : 
 
 "We used to think your story- 
 Was but an idle dream; 
 
 But when thus wan and hoary 
 And broken down you seem, 
 
 The sight cannot deceive 
 
 And we the tale believe. 
 
 " Are you that man of sorrow 
 
 Of whom our authors write? 
 Grief comes \vith every morrow, 
 
 And wretchedness at night. 
 0, let us know, are you 
 Isaac, the Wandering Jew ? 
 
 " Then he replied : ' Believe me, 
 
 I suffer bitter woe ; 
 Incessant travels grieve me, 
 
 No rest 's for me below ; 
 
The Wandering Jew. 227 
 
 A respite have I never, 
 But onward march forever! 
 
 14 'Twas by my rash behavior 
 
 I wrought this fearful scathe. 
 As Christ, our Lord and Saviour, 
 
 Was passing to the grave 
 His mild request I spurned. 
 His gentle pleading scorned. 
 
 44 ' A secret force expelled me 
 
 That instant from my home, 
 And since the doom hath held me 
 
 Unceasingly to roam. 
 But neither day nor night 
 Must check my onward flight. 
 
 14 ' I have no home to hide me, 
 
 No wealth can I display; 
 Yet unknown powers provide me 
 
 Five farthings every day. 
 This always is my store. 
 'Tis never less nor more.' " 
 
 From the beginning of the seventeenth century 
 scarcely a decade passes without mention of the reap- 
 pearance of the hoary Wanderer. The year 1604 
 finds him at Paris, and it would seem as if all 
 Europe at that time rang with his fame. Says Ru- 
 dolph Botoreus, writing from that city : "I fear lest 
 
22S Who Was Ue'. 
 
 I be accused of giving ear to old wives' fables if I 
 insert in these pages what is reported all over jJiirope 
 of the Jew coeval with our Saviour Christ. ... I 
 may say that he who appeared not in one century 
 only, and in Spain, Italy, and Germany, was also in 
 this year seen and recognized as the same individual 
 who had appeared in Hamburg, anno 1566. " Of this 
 Hamburg visit J. C. Bulenger says : " It was re- 
 ported at this time that a Jew of the era of Christ 
 was wandering without food and drink, having for a 
 thousand and odd years been a vagabond and an out- 
 cast, condemned by God to rove because he, of that 
 generation of vipers, was the first to cry out for the 
 crucifixion of Christ and the release of Barabbas, and 
 also because soon after, when Christ, panting under 
 the burden of the rood, sought to rest before his 
 workshop (lie was a cobbler), the fellow ordered Him 
 away with acerbity. Thereupon Christ replied, ' Be- 
 cause thou grudgest me such a moment of rest I shall 
 enter into my rest, but thou shalt wander restless.' 
 At once frantic and agitated, he fled through the 
 whole earth, and on the same account to this day he 
 journeys through the world." 
 
 The mysterious Jew next shows himself in Naum- 
 berg, where he was again noticed in church, attentive 
 
The Wandering- Jew. 229 
 
 to the sermon, and as at Hamburg he, being ques- 
 tioned after the service, told anew his marvelous tale. 
 Among the events of the year 1633 is the reappear- 
 ance of the Jew at Hamburg. 
 
 In 1640 he turns up at Brussels under a new name. 
 Says Baring-Gould : " In the year aforesaid two cit- 
 izens, living in the Gerbertstrasse, in Brussels, were 
 walking in the Sonian Wood, when they encountered 
 an aged man, whose clothes were in tatters and of an 
 antiquated appearance. They invited him to go with 
 them to a house of refreshment, and he went with 
 them, but would not seat himself, remaining standing 
 to drink.* When he came before the doors with the 
 two burghers he told them a great deal, but they 
 were mostly stories of events which had happened 
 many hundred years before. Hence the burghers 
 gathered that their companion was Isaac Laquedem, 
 
 * The never-halting Jew of some accounts may, according to 
 others, obtain occasionally a brief respite. Thus, in Westphalia, the 
 belief is, or was, that the Jew may gain a night's repose if there be 
 left in a field two harrows with the tines pointing earthward. In 
 other sections of Germany he can find rest ;it any place where two 
 oaks grow together in such a way as to form a cross. In Oldenburg 
 it is said he can find rest from the middle of May to the end of July, 
 which is also the time when the Wild Huntsman may find repose. — 
 M. D. Conway. 
 
230 Who Was He? 
 
 the Jew who had refused to permit our blessed Lord 
 to rest for a moment on his doorstep, and they left 
 him, full of terror." 
 
 In a curious medical work, printed at Frankfort in 
 1604, the Jew is referred to by yet another name — 
 Buttadaeus. 
 
 Not the least puzzling feature of this weird tale is 
 the variety of names under which the personality of 
 the ubiquitous Jew is veiled. Mr. Moncure D. Con- 
 way attempts to answer the questions : How is it 
 that the name Cartaphilus was replaced by Ahasue- 
 rus ? How did the door-keeper of the thirteenth 
 century become the shoemaker of the sixteenth cen- 
 tury legend ? We subjoin his answer, chiefly to 
 show the author's ingenuity in this sort of speculative 
 reasoning : 
 
 u Mr. Blind, with creditable caution, suggests that 
 the name may have been a modification of As-Vidar. 
 The god Yidar was, in the Scandinavian mythology, 
 the symbol of everlasting force. . . . He makes shoes 
 for which the stuff has been gathering for ages. It 
 may be remarked that the name Buttadaeus, given to 
 the Wandering Jew by Libavius, may possibly refer 
 to the boot (A. S. hutte) of the Wanderer, and it may 
 have been that deus was added. Whether it meant 
 
The Wandering Jew. 231 
 
 the ' booted God,' or the man who struck God with 
 a boot,* or holder Dieu, to push God, must remain 
 doubtful. Cartaphilus is pretty certainly Kapra </>/Aof, 
 in allusion to the ' Beloved ' Disciple. Ahasuerus is 
 perhaps the Hebrew form of Xerxes, though there is 
 nothing in the history of that king to connect him 
 with the Wandering Jew. ... If the name Laque- 
 dem is written and pronounced in French lakedem, 
 and is derived from the Hebrew, it can scarcely be 
 any thing else but la-kedem — that is, ' the former 
 world,' in which case we must say the use of the 
 prefix la is without a parallel in the names of later 
 Jews, and therefore the la, the French article, may 
 be considered due to a half-learned inventor of 
 names." i 
 
 In 1642 the Jew was reported at Leipzig, and on 
 Whitsunday, 1658, " about six of the clock, just after 
 evensong," he appeared suddenly in Stamford, En- 
 gland, and prescribed successfully for a sick man. 
 
 * In the government library at Berne a pair of shoes and a staff 
 are preserved as relics, purporting to have been once used by the 
 Wandering Jew. The seven nails in the soles of each of the shoes 
 were represented as forming a cross, leaving the imprint of that sa- 
 cred symbol wherever their wearer trod. [See the extract from 
 Eugene Sue, on p. 238.] 
 
232 Who Was He ? 
 
 <k For many a long day," we are told, . " there was 
 war, hot and tierce, among the divines of Stamford as 
 to whether the stranger were an angel or a devil." 
 In 1644: John Paul Marana, the famous " Turkish 
 Spy," then in Paris, and writing to a friend, Ibrahim 
 Haly Cheik, in the East, pens what deserves to rank 
 as the most realistic portraiture of the Jew on 
 record. Marana says that his name was Michob 
 Ader, and that he was an officer in the Court .of 
 Judgment in Jerusalem when Christ was condemned. 
 " He had seen Jesus hang upon the cross ; had often 
 been in the company of Mohammed at Annus, id 
 Persia ; was in Rome when Nero set fire to the city, 
 and stood triumphing on the top of a hill to behold 
 the flames ; heard Vespasian lament the destruction 
 of Solomon's Temple ; saw Saladin's return from his 
 conquests in the East ; was the intimate friend of 
 Godfrey de Bouillon, Scanderbeg, Bajazet, and Soli- 
 man the Magnificent, and told many remarkable pas- 
 sages concerning these famous men whereof our his- 
 tories are silent. He knew Tamerlane the Scythian, 
 and told me he was so called because he halted on 
 one leg. lie pretends also to have been acquainted 
 with Scanderbeg, the valiant and fortunate Prince of 
 Epirus. He remembers the ancient caliphs of Baby- 
 
The Wandering Jew. *Soo 
 
 Ion and Egypt, the empire of the Saracens, and the 
 wars in the Holy Land. He says he has washed 
 himself in the two headsprings of the river Nile, 
 which arise in the southern part of Ethiopia. That 
 its increase is occasioned by the great rains in Ethio- 
 pia, which swell all the rivers that fall into the Nile, 
 and cause that vast inundation to discover whose ori- 
 gin has so much puzzled philosophy. I tell thee, if 
 this man's pretenses be true, he is so full of choice 
 memories, and hath been witness to so many grand 
 transactions for the space of centuries of years, that 
 he may not unfitly be called a Living Chronology, 
 the Proton otary of the Christians' Hegira, or princi- 
 pal recorder of that which they esteem the last epocha 
 of the world's duration. By his looks we would take 
 him for a relic of the Old World, or one of the long- 
 haired fathers before the flood. To speak modestly, 
 he might pass for the younger brother of Time." * 
 
 On July 22, 1721, the Wanderer presented himself 
 at the gates of the city of Munich, in Bavaria. But 
 prior to this, about the end of the seventeenth century 
 or the opening of the eighteenth, "a man calling him- 
 self Michob Ader, and claiming to be the Wandering 
 Jew, attracted attention in England and was listened 
 
 * Moncurc D. Comvay: 77ie Wandering Jew. 
 
234 Who Was He? 
 
 to by the ignorant or despised by the educated. He 
 contrived to thrust himself into the notice of the 
 nobility who, half in jest, half in curiosity, ques- 
 tioned him and paid him as they might a juggler. 
 He declared that he had been an officer of the San- 
 hedrim, and that he had struck Christ as He left the 
 Judgment Hall of Pilate. He remembered all the 
 Apostles, and described their clothes, their personal 
 appearance, and their peculiarities. He spoke many 
 languages, claimed the power of healing the sick, and 
 asserted that he had traveled nearly all over the world. 
 Those who heard him were perplexed by his familiar- 
 ity with foreign tongues and places. Oxford and 
 Cambridge sent professors to question him and to 
 discover the imposition, if any. An English noble- 
 man conversed with him in Arabic, and the mysteri- 
 ous stranger told his questioner in that language that 
 historical works were not to be relied on. And, on 
 being asked his opinion of Mohammed, he replied 
 that he had been acquainted with the father of the 
 prophet, and that he had dwelt at Ormuz. As for 
 Mohammed, he believed him to have been a man of 
 intelligence ; once when he heard the prophet deny that 
 Christ w r as crucified, he answered abruptly by telling 
 him that he was a witness to the truth of that event.' , 
 
The Wandering Jew. 235 
 
 After appearing abruptly at various places in 
 Denmark and Sweden he vanished. In the fol- 
 lowing century, in the years 1818, 1824, and 1830, 
 various personages claiming to be the Wanderer 
 appeared in England, and made many converts 
 or dupes. It is perhaps needless to* remark that 
 these " reappearances " have totally ceased in recent 
 times. 
 
 The most remarkable literary production which 
 this theme has inspired is Eugene Sue's powerful tale, 
 The Wandering Jew, in the prologue of which the 
 narrative is so awe-inspiring that we cannot forbear 
 quoting therefrom : 
 
 " The Arctic Ocean encircles with a belt of eternal 
 ice the desert confines of Siberia and North America 
 — the uttermost limits of the Old and New Worlds, 
 separated by the narrow channel known as Behring's 
 Straits. 
 
 " The last days of September have arrived. 
 
 "The equinox has brought with it darkness and 
 northern storms, and night will quickly close the 
 short and dismal polar day. The sky, of a dull and 
 leaden blue, is faintly lighted by a sun without 
 warmth, whose white disc, scarcely seen above the 
 horizon, pales before the dazzling brilliancy of the 
 
236 Who Was He? 
 
 snow that covers, as far as the eye can reach, the 
 boundless steppes. 
 
 " To the north this desert is bounded by a rugged 
 coast, bristling with huge black rocks. 
 
 " At the base of this Titanic mass lies enchained 
 the petrified ocean, whose spell-bound waves appear 
 lixed as vast ranges of ice-mountains, their blue peaks 
 fading away in the far-off frost-smoke or snow vapor. 
 
 " Between the twin peaks of Cape East, the termi- 
 nation of Siberia, the sullen sea is seen to drive tall 
 icebergs across a streak of dead green. There lie 
 Behring's Straits. 
 
 " Opposite, and towering over the channel, rise the 
 granite masses of Cape Prince of Wales, the headland 
 of North America. 
 
 " These lonely latitudes do not belong to the habit- 
 able world ; for the piercing cold shivers the stones, 
 splits the trees, and causes the earth to burst in 
 sunder, which, throwing forth showers of icy spangles, 
 alone seems capable of enduring this solitude of frost 
 and tempest, of famine and death. 
 
 "And yet, strange to say, foot-prints may be traced 
 on the snow covering these headlands on either side 
 of Behring's Straits. 
 
 " On the American shore the foot-prints are small 
 
The Wandering Jew. 237 
 
 and light, thus betraying the presence of a woman. 
 She has been hastening up the rocky peak whence the 
 drifts of Siberia are visible. 
 
 " On the latter ground foot-prints larger and deeper 
 betoken the passing of a man. He also was on his 
 way to the Straits. 
 
 " It would seem that this man and this woman had 
 arrived here from opposite directions in hope of 
 catching a glimpse of one another across the arm of 
 the- sea dividing the two worlds — the Old and the 
 New. 
 
 " More strange still ! The man and the woman have 
 crossed the solitudes during a terrific storm. Black 
 pines, the growth of centuries, pointing their bent 
 heads in different parts of the solitude like crosses in 
 a church-yard, have been uprooted, rent, and hurled 
 aside by the blasts ! 
 
 " Yet the two travelers face this furious tempest 
 which has plucked up trees and pounded the frozen 
 masses into splinters with the roar of thunder. 
 
 " They face it without for one single instant devi- 
 ating from the straight line hitherto followed by 
 them. 
 
 " Who, then, are these two beings who advance thus 
 calmly amid the storms and convulsions of nature ? 
 
238 Who Was He? 
 
 " Is it by chance, or design, or destiny that the 
 seven nails in the sole of the man's shoe form a 
 cross, thus : 
 
 * * * 
 
 " Every-where he leaves. this impress behind him. 
 
 " On the smooth and polished snow these footmarks 
 seem imprinted by a foot of brass on a marble floor. 
 
 "Night without twilight has now succeeded day — 
 a night of foreboding gloom. 
 
 " The brilliant reflection of the snow renders the 
 white steppes still visible beneath the azure darkness 
 of the sky, and the pale stars glimmer on the obscure 
 and frozen dome. 
 
 " Solemn silence reigns. 
 
 " But toward the Straits a faint light appears. 
 
 " At first a gentle, bluish light, such as precedes 
 moonrise ; it increases in brightness and assumes a 
 ruddy hue. 
 
 " Darkness thickens in every other direction ; the 
 white wilds of the desert are now scarcely visible 
 under the black vault of the firmament. 
 
The Wandering Jew. 239 
 
 "Strange and confused noises are heard amid this 
 obscurity. 
 
 " They sound like the flight of large night-birds — 
 now flapping, now heavily skimming over the steppes, 
 now descending. 
 
 " But no cry is heard. 
 
 " This silent terror heralds the approach of one 
 of those imposing phenomena that are alike the most 
 ferocious and the most harmless of nature. An au- 
 rora borealis (magnificent sight !) common in the polar 
 regions, suddenly bursts forth. 
 
 " A half circle of dazzling whiteness becomes visi- 
 ble on the horizon. Immense columns of light stream 
 forth from this dazzling center, rising to a great 
 height, illuminating earth, sea, and sky. Then a 
 brilliant reflection like the blaze of a conflagration 
 steals over the snow of the deserts, purples the sum- 
 mits of the mountains of ice, and imparts a dark red 
 hue to the black rocks of both continents. 
 
 "After attaining this magnificent brilliancy the 
 northern lights faded away gradually, and their vivid 
 glow was lost in a luminous fog. 
 
 " Just then, by a wondrous mirage, an effect very 
 common in high latitudes, the American coast, though 
 separated from Siberia by a broad arm of the sea, 
 
240 Who Was 1 1 k ; 
 
 loomed so close that a bridge might seemingly be 
 thrown from one world to the other. 
 
 "Then human forms appeared in the transparent 
 azure haze overspreading both forelands. 
 
 " On the Siberian cape a man on his knees stretched 
 his arms toward America with an expression of in- 
 conceivable despair. 
 
 " On the American promontory a yonng and hand- 
 some woman replied to the man's despairing gesture 
 by pointing to heaven. 
 
 " For some seconds these two tall figures stood 
 out, pale and shadowy, in the farewell gleams of the 
 aurora. 
 
 " But the fog thickens, and all is lost in darkness. 
 
 "Whence came the two beings who met thus amid 
 polar glaciers, at the extremes of the Old and New- 
 Worlds ? Who were the two creatures brought 
 near for a moment by a deceitful mirage, but who 
 seemed eternally separated ? " 
 
 A glance at some interweavings of the myth of 
 this Wanderer may be of interest. " In some Eastern 
 lands," says Conway, " Cain has always been regarded 
 as a wanderer, still living, and to this day the Bedouin 
 recognizes his presence in the hot Khamsin (Cain- 
 
The Wandering Jew. 241 
 
 wind). For a long time, indeed, Cain was supposed to 
 be the Wandering Jew." In the Hartz Mountains, 
 the home of the legend of the Wild Huntsman, and 
 which is in full force even at the present day, one 
 form of the myth has it that the huntsman is a Jew 
 who denied to the suffering Christ the boon of quench- 
 ing His thirst at a wayside stream, but had brutally 
 directed Him to the hoof-print of a horse in which a 
 little rainwater had settled, and bade Him moisten His 
 lips there. A second version locates the Huntsman 
 (the Jew) in a Swabian forest, and makes him the 
 possessor of a purse containing a silver groschen 
 " which as often as it is expended returns to the 
 spender. 1 ' Another local legend identifies the Wan- 
 derer with the gypsies, who are popularly believed to 
 be suffering from a ban akin to that put upon Ahas- 
 uerus because " they refused to shelter the Yirgin and 
 Child on. their memorable flight through Egypt." 
 In parts of France the howling of a gale around the 
 eaves at midnight is said by the peasantry to be 
 caused by the passage of the Wandering Jew. A 
 Swiss story runs to the effect that on the judgment 
 eve the everlasting Jew will stand upon the Mat- 
 terberg. 
 
 Among the kindred myths the most curious is that 
 
 ' 16 
 
242 Who Was He? 
 
 of Herodias, the daughter of Herod. The legend 
 runs to the effect that she was deeply enamored of 
 John the Baptist, and that in revenge for his repul- 
 sion of her advances she secured his decapitation. 
 But when his gory head was brought in on the 
 charger her fierce affection prompted her to press her 
 lips to his. Even in death, however, she was scorned 
 by the murdered prophet, for a puff of air from the 
 still quivering lips sent her spinning through the 
 arched entrance to the chamber, and ever since she 
 lias been incessantly gyrating in the air, higher than 
 earth's highest building, being only suffered to rest 
 from the chiming of midnight to chanticleer's shrill 
 alarm. For nearly two score centuries she has been 
 thus restlessly whirling in mid-air, and can know no 
 rest until the judgment trumpet shall sound. 
 
 There is a similar Scandinavian legend entitled the 
 Gertrude Bird, which runs as follows : * 
 
 As our Lord Christ and St. Peter yet walked the 
 earth they came once to a woman who stood by her 
 bread-trough and kneaded dough. She was called 
 Gertrude, and had a red cap on. As they had both 
 traveled far that day, and were very hungry, the 
 Lord Christ asked the woman for a bit of bread. 
 
 * Literature and Romance of Northern Europe, William and Mary Howitt. 
 
The Wandering Jew. 24:3 
 
 " Yes, that He should have," said she, and took a 
 small piece of the dough and rolled it into shape ; 
 but immediately it became so large that it filled the 
 trough. 
 
 " Nay, that," said the woman, " was too large ; 
 that He must not have." 
 
 She now took another piece, but no sooner had she 
 kneaded it than it became just as large. " No, that 
 He could not have." The third time she took a very, 
 very little piece, but that also became as large. 
 
 " Well," said the woman, " I can give you nothing ; 
 you must therefore proceed without a taste, for the 
 loaf is always too big ! " 
 
 Then was the Lord Christ indignant, and said : 
 " Since thou hast so hard a heart that thou wilt not 
 give me a morsel of bread, thou slialt as a punish- 
 ment be changed into a bird, and seek thy food be- 
 tween wood and bark, and shalt have only to drink 
 when it rains ! " 
 
 And scarcely had He spoken the words when she 
 was changed into a bird, and flew out of the chim- 
 ney ; and still to the present day she is seen flying 
 about with a red head and a black body, for the soot 
 of the chimney has blacked her. She looks and 
 pecks continually in the trees for food, and always 
 
2U Who Was He? 
 
 pipes when it is about to rain, for she is always 
 thirsty.* 
 
 Nearly akin to the Wandering Jew is the Wild 
 Huntsman — indeed, as we have seen, the legends 
 sometimes overlap. This is a very popular and no 
 less widely diffused tradition concerning " a strange 
 and spectral hunter who appears by night surrounded 
 by dogs, and sometimes with a chain of attendants, 
 driving on the chase. " Perhaps," says Karl Blind, 
 " one of the clearest proofs of the phantom figure of 
 the Wandering Jew having been grafted upon that 
 of the great wanderer and world hunter, Wodan, is 
 to be found in the tale of the Hartz Mountains. 
 There it is said that the Huntsman careers i over the 
 seven mountain towns every seven years.' The rea- 
 son given for his ceaseless wanderings is that he 
 would not allow our Lord Jesus Christ to quench His 
 thirst at a river nor at a water-trough for cattle, tell- 
 
 * The story of another female wanderer deals with the fair and 
 faithless Lilis, Adam's legendary first wife, who, before the creation 
 of Eve, dwelt within the bowers of Eden, happy and beloved. She 
 revenges herself on Eve, her snpplanter, by bitter and implacable 
 hate of all her descendants. Endowed with perpetual youth and 
 beauty, she roams the world over in pursuance of her scheme of 
 revenge, " strangling children, kidnapping babes, maligning mothers, 
 and luring men into crime." 
 
The Wandering Jew. 2-45 
 
 ing him that lie ought to drink from a horse-pond. 
 For this reason the Huntsman must wander about 
 for ever, and feed upon horse-flesh. And whoever 
 calls out after him when his ghostly chase comes by 
 will see the Wild Huntsman turn around, and be 
 compelled by him to eat horseflesh too. No allu- 
 sion whatever is made in this tale to a Jew, though 
 the name of Christ is pressed into it in a way very 
 like the Ahasuerus legend. We seem to get here a 
 mythic rendering of the struggle between the old 
 Germanic faith and the Christian religion. The 
 ' horse-pond ' and the ' horse-flesh ' are to all appear- 
 ances references to our horse-worshiping, horse-sacri- 
 ficing, horse-flesh-eating forefathers who came to 
 Britain under Hengist and Horsa. To call out after 
 the eternal Huntsman entails the danger of being- 
 forced by him to eat horse-flesh — that is, to return to 
 the old creed. The Holy Supper of the Teutonic 
 tribes consisted of horse-flesh and mead. When 
 Christianity came in, the eating of horse-flesh w r as 
 abolished as a heathen custom.* 
 
 The Flying Dutchman, too, is a wanderer whose 
 adventures have been so often portrayed by pen and 
 pencil as to need no recital here. 
 
 * The Gentleman s Magazine. July, 1880. 
 
246 Who Was He? 
 
 Italian folk-lore furnishes ns still another variation 
 of the legend of the Jew. The story is called " Mal- 
 chus at the Column."' 
 
 "Malchus was the head of the Jews who killed 
 our Lord. The Lord pardoned them all, and likewise 
 the good thief, but He never pardoned Malchus be- 
 cause it was he who gave the Madonna a blow. He 
 is confined under a mountain, and condemned to walk 
 round a column without resting as long as the world 
 lasts. Every time that he w T alks about the column 
 he gives it a blow in memory of the blow he gave 
 the mother of our Lord. He has walked around the 
 column so long that he has sunk into the ground ; 
 he is now up to his neck. When he is under, head 
 and all, the world will come to an end, and God will 
 then send him to the place prepared for him. He 
 asks all those who go to see him (for there are such) 
 whether children are yet born, and when they say 
 Yes, he gives a deep sigh, and resumes his walk, 
 saying, 'The time is not yet, for before the world 
 comes to an end there will be no children born for 
 seven years.'' " * 
 
 That the stories of the Wandering Jew and his 
 congeners are pure myths none can now doubt, al- 
 
 * Italian Legends and Ghost Stories. 
 
The Wandering Jew. 247 
 
 though in former times they were regarded by many 
 as sentient beings. With this view of the case, we 
 must conclude that those personages who from time 
 to time claimed to be the hoary Jew were rank im- 
 postors. "Whether the allegory of Ahasuerus, or 
 this ever-restless being, is to be understood as a type 
 of the antichristian spirit of skepticism, or whether, 
 in a more concrete sense, it is meant to typify the 
 ever- wandering, homeless, yet still unchanged Jewish 
 people, is a question for critics to decide." While 
 there have not been wanting expounders who claimed 
 for the Jew a real existence, the weight of opinion 
 accepts the mythical and allegorical view. Even Mr. 
 Baring-Gould, perhaps the most devout and consid- 
 erate of all who have written thereon, admits the 
 shadowy basis on which the story rests. 
 
VI 
 
 JUNIUS AND THE JUNIUS QUEST. 
 
JUNIUS AND THE JUNIUS QUEST. 
 
 HE years 1767-68 are memorable as 
 the beginning of a period of 
 storm and stress in English po- 
 litical affairs. George III. was 
 in the twenty-ninth year of his 
 extended and eventful reign. The clever 
 and courageous but utterly unscrupulous 
 John Wilkes was at the zenith of his dear- 
 s ly-bought popularity with the people and 
 his no less well-deserved disfavor with the king and 
 court. In October, 1768, Lord Chatham retired from 
 the ministry which he had formed out of very dis- 
 cordant materials two years before, to be succeeded 
 for a brief term by the Duke of Grafton, a well- 
 meaning but unwise and incompetent statesman. 
 Almost the first event of the new regime was the 
 arrival of a military force in Boston, the initial act in 
 a drama out of the throes of which, fifteen years 
 
252 Who Was He? 
 
 later, a nation was to be born. In the same year 
 Captain Cook sailed on his lirst voyage round the 
 world, and James Bruce set out on his memorable 
 travels for the discovery of the sources of the Egyp- 
 tian Father of Waters. On the continent of Europe 
 there were " wars and rumors of wars " in which En- 
 gland could scarcely escape embroilment. 
 
 At the threshold of this season of ferment, about 
 the middle of the year 1767, a new political writer 
 arose sun-like above the stormy horizon, whose efful- 
 gence marks an epoch in the affairs of England. He 
 wielded a trenchant and truculent pen, and possessed 
 an evident familiarity with public affairs, coupled 
 with brilliant sarcasm, pungent invective, and incis- 
 ive wit. These qualities took men of all parties by 
 storm. No former English writer, it was said, suc- 
 ceeded in at once so completely exasperating and de- 
 lighting the English nation. 
 
 The Public Advertiser newspaper was made the 
 vehicle for the dissemination of these political epis- 
 tles, which were addressed to various persons. The 
 identity of their author was concealed under a variety 
 of pseudonyms — " Poplicola," " Memnon," " Lucius," 
 " Junius,'' " Philo-Junius," " Brutus, " Nemesis," and 
 others ; but the celebrity attaching to the entire series 
 
Junius and the Junius Quest. 253 
 
 centers around the pseudonym of Junius, which was 
 appended to the greater number and the more pun- 
 gent and powerful of the letters. The same hand is 
 now known to have indited many of the others, so 
 that the question of the authorship of most of these 
 may be considered as substantially settled. 
 
 The first of these famous epistles appeared April 
 28, 1767, and the series closed abruptly on May 12, 
 1772. As a " Granville " or " Rockingham " Whig 
 the polyonomous critic mercilessly assailed the new 
 prime minister, Grafton, and his foreign and domes- 
 tic policy, and similarly antagonized many features 
 of the ministerial programme during the two years 
 immediately following the accession of Lord North 
 to power. Nor was royalty itself sacred from attack. 
 The " divinity that doth hedge a king " offered no 
 protection from the well-feathered bolts that flew 
 thick and fast from the pen of this incomparable lit- 
 erary archer. John Wilkes, in his famous " Num- 
 ber 45," five or six years earlier, had the temerity to 
 accuse the monarch of uttering falsehood in a speech 
 from the throne. While Junius did not proceed to 
 such coarse extremes, his utterances were sufficiently 
 caustic and rancorous to arouse feelings of bitterest 
 hatred in the hearts of the king and the Tories. 
 
254 Who Was Hk \ 
 
 Could his identity have been unmasked there is lit- 
 tle doubt that a worse fate than that of Wilkes would 
 have been his. On the other hand, Junius became 
 the idol of the popular and thinking heart of 
 England. 
 
 No efforts were spared to discover the personality 
 'veiled behind the pen-name of Junius. Said Ed- 
 mund Burke, in a famous speech in the House of 
 Commons : 
 
 " How comes this Junius to have broke through the 
 cobwebs of the law, and to rage uncontrolled, unpun- 
 ished, through the land ? The myrmidons of the 
 court have been long and are still pursuing him in 
 vain. They will hot spend their time upon me or 
 you. No; they disdain such vermin when the 
 mighty boar of the forest, that has broken through 
 all their toils, is before them. But what will all 
 their efforts avail \ No sooner has he wounded one 
 than he lays another dead at his feet. For my part, 
 when I saw his attack upon the king, I own my 
 blood ran cold. King, Lords, and Commons are but 
 the sport of his fury. Were he a member of this 
 House what might not be expected from his knowl- 
 edge, his firmness, his integrity ! He would be easily 
 known by his contempt of all danger, by his penetra- 
 
Junius and the Junius Quest. 255 
 
 tion, by his vigor. Nothing would escape his vigi- 
 lance and activity. Bad ministers could conceal 
 nothing from his sagacity, nor could promises nor 
 threats cajole him to conceal any thing from the 
 public." 
 
 The theme of the Letters of Junius has been briefly 
 described as the vindication of popular liberty. The 
 key-note of the whole series is pitched in the follow- 
 ing passage : " The submission of a free people to 
 the executive authority of government is no more 
 than a compliance with laws which they themselves 
 have enacted." As has been well said by another 
 writer on this topic : 
 
 " Every leading political occurrence of the day was 
 turned to a vindication of popular liberty. It may 
 truly be said that the British Constitution never had 
 a bolder champion than Junius, nor in the majority 
 of cases a more learned or discriminating advocate. 
 The amount of his legal and constitutional knowl- 
 edge is extraordinary, especially if, as there is every 
 reason to believe, he was not a lawyer. The charac- 
 teristics of his style are energy, brevity, impetuosity, 
 and the striking employment of metaphor. The 
 principal drawback to the enjoyment of such talents 
 applied in so good a cause is the writer's rancor and 
 
256 Who Was He? 
 
 ferocity, and his incessant aspersions on private char- 
 acter." 
 
 And in an essay on Junius and his writings, pre- 
 fixed to WoodfalPs (1S12) edition of his works, Dr. 
 John Mason Good thus speaks of the characteristics 
 of these famous letters : 
 
 " The classic purity of their language, the exquisite 
 force and perspicuity of their argument, the keen 
 severity of their reproach, the extensive information 
 they evince, their fearless and decisive tone, and 
 above all their stern and steady attachment to the 
 purest principles of the Constitution, acquired for 
 them, with an almost electric speed, a popularity 
 which no series of letters has since possessed, nor, 
 perhaps, ever will ; and, what is of far greater con- 
 sequence, diffused among the body politic a clearer 
 knowledge of their constitutional rights than they 
 had ever before attained, and animated them with a 
 more determined spirit to maintain them inviolate. 
 Enveloped in the cloud of a fictitious name, the 
 w T riter of these philippics, unseen himself, beheld 
 with secret satisfaction the vast influence of his la- 
 bors, and enjoyed, though not always without appre- 
 hension, the universal hunt that was made to detect 
 him in his disguise. He beheld the people extolling 
 
Junius and the Junius Quest. 257 
 
 him, the court execrating him, and ministers — and 
 more than ministers — trembling beneath the lash of 
 his invisible hand," 
 
 In a very brief while all England rang with the 
 praise or the execration of the unknown, according 
 to the party affiliations of his readers, and the query 
 in all men's months was, " Who is Junius ? " Only 
 within comparatively recent time lias this interroga- 
 tory been answered with reasonable probability of 
 correctness. 
 
 As has been said, the period covered by the Letters 
 of Junius, and by those generally attributed to him, 
 extends from the communication signed " Poplicola," 
 dated April 28, 1767, down to the episode of " Nem- 
 esis," dated May 12, 1772. The "Letters of Ju- 
 nius," properly so named, and fathered by him, num- 
 ber in all fifty-nine epistles, from January 21, 1769, 
 to January 21, 1772, a period of exactly three years. 
 Forty-four bear the signature of " Junius," and fif- 
 teen that of " Philo- Junius" (acknowledged by Ju- 
 nius as his). The titles of these are : 
 
 Written by Junius : 
 
 To the Duke of Grafton 11 
 
 To the Printer of the Public Advertiser 10 
 
 To Sir William Draper 5 
 
 17 
 
:58 
 
 Who Was He? 
 
 i. 1 each. 
 
 To Chief- Justice Mansfield 3 
 
 To Edward Weston I 
 
 To Dr. William Blackstone 
 
 On Walpole's Case 
 
 To the Duke of Bedford 
 
 On the Rescue of General Gansel 
 
 On Modestus 
 
 Address to the King 
 
 Retrospect of the Parliamentary Session. . . 
 
 To Lord North 
 
 On the Falkland Islands 
 
 On Privileges of Parliament 
 
 On Parliamentary Resolutions 
 
 To the Rev. Mr. Home 
 
 To the Livery of London 
 
 To Lord Camden 
 
 =44 in all. 
 Written by Philo- Junius : 
 
 To the Printer of the Public Advertiser 10 
 
 On Walpblc's Case 1 
 
 On the Spanish Convention 1 
 
 To Modestus 1 
 
 To Zeno 1 
 
 To an Advocate of the Cause of the People. . 1 = 15 in all. 
 
 Those written over the other signatures, to which 
 reference has been made, possess internal evidences 
 pointing strongly to Junius as their author. 
 
 Almost sphinx-like was the air of cold, haughty, 
 
Junius and the Junius Quest. 259 
 
 and impenetrable secrecy with which Junius envel- 
 oped himself. The only being whom he admitted to 
 any thing approaching confidential relations was 
 Woodfall. To him Junius wrote frequently, and his 
 communications are couched in friendly and amiable 
 terms, but always in the feigned Junian hand- 
 writing, of which more anon. Perhaps Woodfall 
 may have made a shrewd guess at the secret of his 
 unknown contributor; it almost certainly was nut 
 confided to him. There is a story to the effect that 
 the identity of Junius eventually became known to 
 the government, and that immediately the Letters 
 ceased. George III. is reported to have said : " We 
 know who Junius is. lie will write no more." The 
 anecdote is probably an apocryphal one, yet it is at 
 least a curious coincidence that almost immediately 
 after the sudden cessation of the Letters one of the 
 very few men in Opposition to the government capa- 
 ble of penning such able philippics should have 
 been appointed by the ministry to a lucrative and 
 magnificent post in India. 
 
 " I am the sole depository of my own secret, and it 
 shall perish with me," wrote Junius to Woodfall. It 
 is safe to assert that he was in truth, as he said, the 
 depository of his own secret. He made no conti- 
 
260 Who Was He? 
 
 dants, and no one survived him who could throw a 
 gleam of radiance in the shape of direct evidence on 
 the darkness of the mystery. The testimony, how- 
 ever cumulative and conclusive, which many think 
 points in a certain direction, is purely circumstantial. 
 Doubtless much of the interest excited in the pop- 
 ular mind by the Letters of Junius was owing to this 
 success with which the identity of the writer was 
 concealed. Public curiosity was whetted to the ut- 
 most, and they read who never read before. Says 
 Dr. Samuel Johnson, in his sonorous style, alluding 
 to this feature : lli Junius burst into notice with a 
 blaze of impudence which has rarely glared upon the 
 world before, and drew the rabble after him as a 
 monster makes a show. When he had once provided 
 for his safety by impenetrable secrecy he had nothing 
 to combat but truth and justice — enemies whom he 
 knows to be feeble in the dark. Being then at lib- 
 erty to indulge himself in all the immunities of invis- 
 ibility,, out of the reach of danger he has been bold, 
 out of the reach of shame he has been confident. As 
 a rhetorician he has the art of persuading when he 
 seconded desire; as a reasoner he has convinced those 
 who had no doubt before ; as a moralist he has 
 taught that virtue may disgrace ; and as a patriot he 
 
Junius and the Junius Quest. 2G1 
 
 has gratified the mean by insults on the high. It is 
 not by his liveliness of imagery, his pungency of 
 periods, or his fertility of allusion, that he detains the 
 cits of London or the boors of Middlesex. Of style 
 and sentiment they take no cognizance." Clearly 
 the " Great Cham " was not among those who were 
 dazzled by the Junian " blaze of impudence." 
 
 There is one thing, however, for which the world 
 to-day cannot be too thankful to Junius. He 
 performed a real service to English journalism. 
 Says Mr. Green, in his History of the English Peo- 
 ple: "Junius attacked the government in letters 
 which, rancorous and unscrupulous as was their tone, 
 gave a new power to the literature of the press by 
 their clearness and terseness of statement, the finish 
 of their style, and the terrible vigor of their in- 
 vective." In fact, the virtual collapse of the pros- 
 ecutions against Wilkes for his memorable "Num- 
 ber 45," and against Junius for his Letter to the 
 King, u established the right of the press to criticise 
 the conduct, not of ministers or Parliament only, 
 but of the sovereign himself, and gave a weight 
 to journalism which it had not hitherto possessed." 
 The first great English papers sprang into being 
 about this time — The Morning Chronicle, The 
 
202 Who Was He? 
 
 Morning Post, The Morning Herald, and The 
 Times. 
 
 It may be of interest to the reader if we reproduce 
 here the names, collected by Allibone, of the more 
 prominent persons to whom has been ascribed the 
 authorship of the Letters of Junius. Well-nigh 
 every Englishman of note on the stage of human 
 action has been mentioned in connection with them, 
 and his " claims" advocated, at some time or other 
 during the past eighty years. The list embraces: 
 Mr. Sergeant Adair, Colonel Isaac Barre, Hugh Ma- 
 caulay Boyd, Edmund Burke, Bishop Butler, Lord 
 Camden, Lord Chatham, Lord Chesterfield, M. de 
 Lolme, Lord Ashburton, Samuel Dyer, Henry Flood, 
 Philip Francis, D.D. (father of the following), Sir 
 Philip Francis, Edward Gibbon, Richard Glover,' 
 Henry G rattan, William Greatrakes, George Gren- 
 ville, James Grenville, William Gerard ("Single- 
 Speech '') Hamilton, James Hollis, Sir William 
 Jones, John Kent, General Charles Lee, Charles 
 Lloyd, Lord Thomas Lyttleton, Laughlin MacLeary, 
 the Duke of Portland, Governor Thomas Pownall, 
 Sir Robert Rich, John Roberts, Rev. Philip Rosen- 
 hagen, Lord George Sackville, Earl Shelburne, Earl 
 Temple, John Home Tooke, Horace Walpole, John 
 
Junius and the Junius Quest. 2G3 
 
 Wilkes, Alexander Wedderburn, James Wilmot, and 
 Daniel Wray — no less than forty-two in all — and we 
 have only named the more prominent names. 
 
 But out of this lengthy list there are very few who 
 really possessed the intellect, the statesmanship, and 
 the knowledge of affairs manifested in the Letters of 
 Junius. The suggestion of so many names, how- 
 ever, all more or less probable, shows how difficult 
 was the task of discovering the real name of the hid- 
 den writer, and how completely nonplussed were the 
 critics. The "claims " of Boyd, Burke, Butler, Dun- 
 ning, Dyer, Flood, Lee, Lloyd, Eoberts, Rosenhagen 
 and Sackville were laboriously considered and sifted 
 by Dr. Good, and for wise and weighty reasons all 
 were declared out of the question. Macaulay dis- 
 •posed of five of the greatest names in almost as few 
 lines. He says : " Lord Lyttleton's claims to the au- 
 thorship of Junius are better than those of Burke 
 and Barre, and quite as good as those of Lord 
 George Sackville or * Single-Speech ' Hamilton." His 
 opinion as to the true identity of Junius will appear 
 later. The evidence " of places and circumstances, of 
 sentiments and opinions, of political connections and 
 of handwriting seems decisive" against nearly all 
 of those just enumerated. After the lapse of years 
 
20± Who Was He? 
 
 there remain but four or five names to whom the au- 
 thorship of the Letters can be attributed with the faint- 
 est show of probability. These names are those of 
 Colonel Barre, Lord George Sackville, the Grenvilles, 
 and Sir Philip Francis. But the field of inquiry has 
 been still further circumscribed, and the first member 
 of this trio may be declared out of the race. It is 
 now believed by many critics that "either the author- 
 ship remains an impenetrable enigma, or that it be- 
 longs to one whose name was not mentioned in con- 
 nection with it for many years subsequently " to the 
 cessation of the Letters — Sir Philip Francis. 
 
 As might be expected, the Junian controversy 
 gave birth to a vast literature. From 1779 to our 
 own day the battle raged with greater or less viru- 
 lence in book and broadside, pamphlet and penny-a- 
 liner. Several works emanated from this side the 
 Atlantic, and some of the most startling theories 
 sprung from the same fertile source. To an Ameri- 
 can magazine we are also indebted for a valuable 
 contribution to the elucidation of the mystery.* 
 Many of the theories advanced were fads which the 
 facts were distorted to fit ; others were weighty and 
 well-considered arguments in favor of some noted 
 
 * LippincoWs Magazine, Jan., 1870. 
 
Junius and the Junius Quest. 265 
 
 personage as the author ; yet others were card-castles 
 which a breath would cause to collapse. Most of the 
 theories, however, end t in impossibilities. But all 
 these contributions, wise and unwise, performed a 
 certain service : the ground was cleared for action 
 when the time came to consider the claims of those 
 few who were really worthy of consideration in con- 
 nection with the authorship of the famous epistles. 
 
 Those who have most arduously dug and delved 
 are sometimes the very first to confess themselves 
 furthest from any satisfactory conclusion. Thus, Sir 
 N. Harris Nicolas, perhaps the most painstaking of 
 the small army of Junius seekers, and who adopted a 
 system of posting, in ledger fashion, for many years, 
 the debits and credits against and in favor of particu- 
 lar persons, arrived, in 1843, at this not over-bright 
 result : 
 
 " So far from having any theory of our own on 
 Junius's identity, we are as entirely free from bias 
 on the subject, and confess ourselves as profoundly 
 ignorant of the authorship of those celebrated Letters, 
 as if, instead of having for many years constantly 
 had the question in our mind, and having read, we 
 believe, nearly every thing that has been written on 
 the point, we had never bestowed a thought on the 
 
206 Who Was He? 
 
 matter. We have, indeed, a strong impression that 
 Junius was not any one of the numerous persons 
 heretofore so confidently brought forward. . . . How- 
 ever startling the idea may be to the many pseudo- 
 discoverers of Junius on both sides of the Atlantic, 
 we found much of the claim of our observations to 
 attention in the very fact of our having no Junius of 
 our own, and on our disbelief in each of theirs." 
 
 If any one was competent to conduct such an in- 
 quiry it was this same Sir N. Harris Nicolas. He 
 was an accomplished antiquary, well able to weigh 
 documentary and other evidence, and a riian unlikely 
 to be carried away by enthusiasm for any particular 
 theory. 
 
 Dr. John Mason Good, another eminent Junius 
 hunter, thus expressed himself, writing to his friend 
 Barker, in 1827, after a decade of devotion to the 
 subject : 
 
 " Many years ago I entered at full speed into this 
 research, and beat the bush in every direction. At 
 that time, however, the claims of Sir Philip Francis 
 had not been advanced, at least before the public. 
 But had they been brought forward, the arguments 
 by which it is obvious they may be met, and many 
 of which you have yourself ably handled, would, I 
 
Junius and the Junius Quest. 207 
 
 think, have succeeded in putting him as completely 
 out of the list as all the other competitors appear to 
 be whose friends have undertaken to brine: them for- 
 ward. The question is nevertheless one of great in- 
 terest, as well on the score of national history as of 
 literary curiosity. Yet, like many other desiderata, 
 I am afraid it is likely to lie beyond the fathoming 
 of any line and plummet that will be applied to it in 
 our day." 
 
 We do not propose to inflict upon the reader a 
 dry bibliography of the Junian literature ; its perusal 
 would only afford evidence, where none is needed, of 
 the follies and foibles which have dominated many 
 otherwise well-balanced and estimable persons. Suf- 
 fice it to say that, although the judicious Allibone 
 has expressed the opinion that men are hanged every 
 year on less evidence than has been adduced in favor 
 of more than one of these claimants, the majority of 
 the publications on the subject are devoted to the 
 support of theories so wild and visionary that the 
 wonder is that men capable of. wielding a pen should 
 lend themselves to their advocacy. We shall content 
 ourselves, therefore, with glancing only at those works 
 whose authors devote themselves to considering or 
 pushing the claims of the candidates for honors 
 
208 AVno Was II k: 
 
 already named — the Grenvilles, Colonel Barre, Lord 
 Sackville, and Sir Philip Francis ; seeing that all other 
 el lies land the investigator, sooner or later, in a blind 
 alley. 
 
 A number of books, essays, etc., were written to 
 prove that Colonel Isaac Barre was Junius, chief 
 among which is the work of Mr. John Britton, who 
 contends that Barre was aided by Lord Shelbnrne 
 and Mr. Dunning. Conversely, in an article pub- 
 lished in the London Morning Herald in 1813, the 
 men composing this talented trio were shifted about, 
 and the assertion made that Lord Shelburne was 
 Junius, and that he was assisted by Barre and 
 Dunning! 
 
 Colonel Isaac Barre was an officer in the English 
 army, and was born in Dublin in 1726. He served 
 in Canada under Wolfe, and was returned to Parlia- 
 ment in 1701. In 1765 he won the applause of the 
 North American colonists by a spirited speech against 
 the iniquitous Stamp Act. This latter event, and his 
 subsequent course of action during Lord North's ad- 
 ministration, would seem to be among the chief 
 grounds on which his claims are based. But " one 
 swallow does not make a summer." Britton's work 
 has been summarized as " a curious instance of the 
 
Junius and the Junius Quest. 269 
 
 delusion to which ingenious men may resign them- 
 selves when they have a favorite opinion to up- 
 hold." 
 
 Lord George Sackville, who afterward becamp Lord 
 Germain, is the second of the quintet whose claims 
 have alone been thought worthy of serious considera- 
 tion. In a w r ork by George Coventry, published in 
 1S25, and entitled " A Critical Inquiry Regarding 
 the Real Author of the Letters of Junius," they are 
 proved (?) to have been written by Lord Sackville. 
 This theory was amplified and improved on in an 
 American publication emanating from Boston in 
 1828. Charles Butler, in his Reminiscences, also 
 thinks that Lord Sackville was the author of the 
 Junian letters, and that Sir Philip Francis was his 
 amanuensis and secretary. Still another change has 
 been rung on this pretty combination. Mr. Jaques 
 adopts the .theory that D'Oyly was a fellow-clerk 
 with Francis in the War Office, and the confidential 
 agent between Sackville and Francis. Dr. Good de- 
 cidedly rejects the Sackvillian theory. 
 
 As more than one writer has advanced the opinion 
 that Francis wrote the Letters for another person, but 
 was not himself the author of them, we will repro- 
 duce here, though somewhat out of its natural order, 
 
270 Who Was He? 
 
 a few brief observations of Mr. Tvvistleton which 
 completely upset this hypothesis : 
 
 " To make intelligible the precise bearing of the 
 handwriting on the authorship, it may be remarked 
 that the knowledge of who was the handwriter would 
 be conclusive as to who was the author for any one 
 who entertains a strong conviction of the truth of 
 any one of the four following propositions : 1. That 
 the known character of the handwriter forbids the 
 supposition of his having submitted during four or 
 five years to be the amanuensis of another author. 
 
 2. That Junius, in his Dedication to the English Na- 
 tion, would not have volunteered the assertion that 
 lie was the sole depository of his own secret if all the 
 while he had put himself in the power of another 
 person by making use of him as an amanuensis. 
 
 3. That the private Letters of Junius to Woodfall, 
 and the corrections in the proof-sheets, bear internal 
 marks of having been written, not by an amanuensis, 
 but by the author himself. 4. That, independently 
 of handwriting, the evidence which points to the 
 handwriter as the author is so strong, standing alone, 
 that although it may possibly not be conclusive, it 
 justifies vehement suspicion, and attains a high de- 
 gree of moral probability. Each reader must judge 
 
Junius and the Junius Quest. £71 
 
 for himself whether one or more of these proposi- 
 tions commands his assent. For any one who be- 
 lieves in the truth of all the four it would be idle to 
 undervalue the strength of moral conviction as to the 
 authorship, which must arise from the fact of the 
 handwriter having been definitely ascertained. And, 
 at the very lowest, if Francis was the handwriter, 
 this throws out of competition with him for the 
 authorship every individual candidate in regard to 
 whom it cannot be shown that he was more compe- 
 tent and more likely than Francis to have composed 
 the Junian Letters, and that he might possibly have 
 made use of Francis as his amanuensis." 
 
 Come we now to the most important of the coterie 
 above named, and the only one w r hose " claims" to the 
 authorship of the Letters of Junius have stood the 
 test of time and controversy, Sir Philip Francis. To 
 the consideration of the evidence pointing to this 
 personage many voluminous works have been de- 
 voted, to say nothing of a vast number of essays, 
 reviews, and magazine articles. Incidentally, also, 
 the advocates of the claims of others give more or 
 less space to the case against Francis. 
 
 But among all the Junian literature the palm for 
 scholarship, critical acumen, and painstaking investi- 
 
272 Who Was He? 
 
 gation must be awarded to the " The Identity of 
 Junius with a Distinguished Living Character Estab- 
 lished," by Mr. John Taylor, published in London 
 in 1816, during the lifetime of Sir Philip Francis, 
 and never contradicted, noticed, or refuted by 
 him. 
 
 Concerning this work and the evidence presented 
 therein Lord Brougham wrote : 
 
 " That it proves Sir Philip to be Junius we will 
 not affirm, but this we can safely assert, that it accu- 
 mulates such a mass of circumstantial evidence as 
 renders it. extremely difficult to believe he is not; 
 and that if so many coincidences shall be found to 
 have misled in this case, our faith in all conclusions 
 drawn from proofs of a similar kind may henceforth 
 be shaken." 
 
 To Mr. Taylor belongs the honor of this, the first 
 attempt, forty-four years after the cessation of the 
 publications in The Public Advertiser, to fix the 
 authoiJship on Francis, as it is by all odds the ablest. 
 In "A Supplement to Junius Identified" Mr. Taylor 
 considers more at length the question of the hand- 
 writing of Junius and Francis, and clinches the 
 argument he previously put forth. In connection 
 with this last most interesting phase of the contro- 
 
Junius and the Junius Quest. 273 
 
 versy, and of the labors of Messrs. Twistleton and 
 Cliabot, we shall have something to say fur- 
 ther on. 
 
 Sir Philip Francis first saw the light in 1740, in 
 Dublin, which was likewise the place of nativity of 
 Colonel Isaac Barre, who was, as we have seen, another 
 fetish of the Junius seekers. His father was the Rev. 
 Philip Francis, chaplain to Lord Holland, and pre- 
 ceptor to Charles James Fox. Dr. Johnson consid- 
 ered his translation of Horace the best then extant. 
 Young Francis removed to London when about ten 
 years of age. He was a clerk in the War Office from 
 1763 to 1772, and in 1773 was appointed a member 
 of the Supreme Council of Bengal, of which Warren 
 Hastings was president. Francis was the leader of 
 the faction which bitterly antagonized the measures 
 of Hastings. The outcome of this feud was a duel 
 between Francis and Hastings, who asserted that the 
 former was destitute of feelings of truth and honor, 
 in which Francis was seriously wounded. He re- 
 turned to England in 1780, entered Parliament in 
 1784, and took a leading part in the impeachment 
 and trial of his former enemy, Warren Hastings. 
 He voted with Fox, and strenuously advocated the 
 
 abolition of the slave-trade. In 1806 he was made a 
 18 
 
27± Who Was He? 
 
 Knight of the Bath, and shortly thereafter retired 
 from public life. He died in London in 1S18. 
 
 Of the abilities and character of Sir Philip, Lord 
 Macaulay has left on record the following opinion, 
 expressed in his essay on the career of Warren 
 Hastings : 
 
 " The ablest of the new councilors was, beyond all 
 doubt, Philip Francis. His acknowledged composi- 
 tions prove that he possessed considerable eloquence 
 and information. Several years passed in the public 
 offices had formed him to habits of business. His 
 enemies have never denied that he possessed a manly 
 and fearless spirit; his friends, we are afraid, must 
 acknowledge that his estimate of himself was ex- 
 travagantly high; that his temper was irritable ; that 
 his deportment was often ructe and petulant ; and 
 that his hatred was of intense bitterness and lung 
 duration." 
 
 When the publication of the J.unian Letters was 
 begun Francis had for some years been a clerk in 
 the War Office, and this circumstance furnished the 
 basis of the argument advanced by Mr. Taylor. 
 Many of the letters were penned on War Office paper. 
 " So accurate is the knowledge of the business of that 
 bureau betrayed by the writer, that the conviction of 
 
Junius and the Junius Quest. 275 
 
 his having been concerned in that department is irre- 
 sistible, nor can any other person in a similar position 
 capable of having penned the Letters be pointed out." 
 This may be ; yet the reader is immediately prompted 
 to inquire whether it was not an extremely daring 
 step for the writer of the famous philippics, suppos- 
 ing him to have been on the staff at the War Office, 
 to have used the official paper of that branch of the 
 service, seeing that such a course must inevitably 
 direct attention to the mvploy'es thereof ? The hand- 
 writing, of course, was feigned, and before the case 
 against Sir Philip could be advanced beyond conject- 
 ure it was necessary to settle the question whether 
 the feigned Junian hand could be identified with his. 
 An old love-letter was the means of starting this 
 pregnant inquiry, as we shall shortly show. 
 
 Just here the following anecdote may not be out 
 of place. It was related to Mr. Twistleton by Mr. W. 
 J. Blake, of Danesbury, to whom it was told by his 
 father, Mr. William Blake, and deals with the Junian 
 signature : 
 
 " After the publication of Junius Identified, Mr. 
 William Blake was in a country house with Sir 
 Philip Francis, and happened to converse with him 
 on the poetry of Lord Byron, to which Sir Philip 
 
276 Who Was He? 
 
 expressed his aversion. This induced Mr. Blake to 
 single out for his perusal the well-known lines in the 
 'Giaour,' beginning with 'lie who hath bent him 
 o'er the dead.' Francis read them, went to a writing- 
 table, seized a piece of paper, wrote down on it a 
 string of words which he extracted from those lines, 
 ending with ' nothingness ' and ' changeless,' added 
 below them the word ' senseless,' and then rapidly 
 subscribed his initials between two dashes. On ob- 
 serving the signature Mr. Blake said to him, ' Pra}', 
 will you allow me to ask you, Sir Philip, do you al- 
 ways sign your initials in that manner?' Sir Philip 
 merely answered gruffly, 'I know what you mean, sir,' 
 and walked away. This took place in or about the 
 year 1817, forty-eight years after May 3, 1769, the 
 date of the letter in which the signature of his in- 
 itials between two dashes first occurs." 
 
 As may be imagined, the labor involved in any 
 thing like a thorough test of the Junian and Francis- 
 can handwritings was prodigious. At the instance of 
 Mr. E. T. B. Twistleton (whose connection with the 
 love-letter episode will be narrated later) this investi- 
 gation was undertaken and carried to a conclusion by 
 Mr. Chabot, the eminent calligraphic expert, who com- 
 pared, not only the acknowledged handwriting of Sir 
 
Junius and the Junius Quest. 277 
 
 Philip Francis, but that of every other notable " claim- 
 ant" with the penmanship of Junius. 
 
 It occurred to Mr. Twistleton that if sufficient 
 documentary materials were placed at the disposal of 
 Mr. Chabot he would be able to give a valuable and 
 trustworthy opinion as to whether Sir Philip Francis 
 did or did not write the Letters of Junius. Mr. Twis- 
 tleton therefore procured from a granddaughter of 
 Francis a letter-book containing forty-two original 
 private letters written and sent by Francis to his 
 brother-in-law and to his wife during the years 
 1767-71 inclusive, very nearly the period covered by 
 the whole Junian correspondence. From the trust- 
 ees of the British Museum access was gained to all 
 the original MSS. of the writings of Junius, while 
 Mr. Murray allowed the use of the autograph MS. 
 of the letters of Junius to Mr. Grenville which were 
 in his possession. Mr. Twistleton's instructions to 
 Mr. Chabot were " that he should submit the hand- 
 writing of Junius to a searching comparison with the 
 letters of Sir Philip Francis, and should state profes- 
 sionally his opinion in writing whether the letters of 
 Francis and the Letters of Junius were or were not 
 written by the same hand." 
 
 The results of this inquiry were published by Mr, 
 
278 Who Was He? . 
 
 Twistleton in a volume of 197 pages quarto, with a 
 large number of facsimile plates of specimens from 
 Sir Philip's handwriting, that of Junius, and that of 
 Lord George Sackville, and must convince the unbi- 
 ased reader that, so far as the matter of penmanship 
 is concerned, the evidence which proves Francis and 
 Junius to have been one is circumstantially complete. 
 In an article in the London Quarterly Review, in 
 1871, the conclusions arrived at through this very 
 thorough investigation were summarized and re- 
 viewed, and to that article the writer is indebted 
 for the facts in this stage of the controversy. 
 
 At the outset Mr. Twistleton calls attention to one 
 peculiarity about these reports of Mr. Chabot's : 
 
 " As far as is known, they are the only instance in 
 which an expert has deliberately published the result 
 of his investigations intb the handwriting of Junius 
 and Francis; and most undoubtedly they are the 
 only instance in which any such expert has writ- 
 ten professionally, and subscribed his name to his 
 opinion. Still, although Mr. Chabot has written his 
 reports under professional responsibility, and they 
 thus deserve to be read with more than ordinary at- 
 tention, lie is desirous — and I publish his reports 
 with the same desire — that his conclusions should in 
 
Junius and the Junius Quest. 279 
 
 no respect be accepted on grounds of mere author- 
 ity, but that they should be judged of entirely by the 
 reasons which he advances in their behalf." 
 
 In seeking to prove that the same person has made 
 use of two radically different handwritings, it is im- 
 portant to note the method adopted in the inquiry. 
 An ordinary scrutiny would content itself with gen- 
 eral comparisons, " without endeavoring to ascertain 
 the principles which govern the handwriting, or the 
 characteristic habits in the two styles under discus- 
 sion. They thus form their judgment by the impres- 
 sion left upon their minds by general similarity, 
 without that careful examination of the peculiar and 
 distinctive formations of different letters which char- 
 acterize the writing. To prove that the documents 
 were written by different hands, discrepancies must 
 be pointed out in them which cannot be accounted 
 for by accident or design. These principles are easy 
 to understand, but to exemplify them in observations 
 is by no means always easy." Without the use of 
 the illustrations by which Mr. Chabot carries the 
 reader along with him in his very painstaking in- 
 quiry it would be useless to attempt an exhaustive 
 description of the methods he employed. But we 
 may state the general conclusion at which he arrived 
 
2S0 • Who Was He? 
 
 in the well-nigh interminable controversy concerning 
 the authorship of the Junian Letters. 
 
 " I find generally," he says, " in the writing of the 
 letters of Sir Philip Francis so much variety in the 
 formation of all letters which admit of variety as to 
 render his handwriting difficult to disguise in any 
 ordinary manner, and consequently easy to identify. 
 I discover also in the writing of the Letters and 
 manuscripts of Junius variations in the formation of 
 certain letters, in some cases very multifarious, and 
 of frequent occurrence, and that these variations 
 closely correspond with those observed in the writ- 
 ing of Sir Philip Francis. They are, however, 
 chiefly confined to the small letters in both hand- 
 writings ; the habitual formation of capital letters 
 being seldom departed from in any essential particu- 
 lar in .either. I find also, in some instances, wmerein 
 Junius makes exaggerated formations of certain let- 
 ters, exact counterparts of them are to be found in 
 the writing of Sir Philip Francis, and in some cases 
 as nearly as possible with the same frequency. I 
 further find in the handwriting of Sir Philip Francis 
 a repetition of all, or nearly all, the leading features 
 and peculiar habits of writing, independent of the 
 formations of letters, which so distinguish the Jun- 
 
Junius and the Junius Quest. ■ 281 
 
 ian writing. These are so numerous, so varied, and 
 in some cases so distinctive, that, when taken collect- 
 ively, it is scarcely within the limits of possibility 
 that they can be found in the handwriting of any 
 two persons. I am, therefore, irresistibly driven to 
 the conclusion that the Junian manuscripts and the 
 forty-four Letters of Francis have all been written by 
 one and the same hand." 
 
 To the trained eye of the expert it was obvious at 
 a glance that the Letters of Junius were written in a 
 feigned hand, for, says Mr. Chabot : 
 
 " Upon examination, I find that the principal feat- 
 ures of the disguise consist of the very common prac- 
 tice of altering the accustomed slope, and, in many 
 cases, writing in a smaller hand, whilst that which is 
 of more importance, namely, the radical forms of let- 
 ters, is repeatedly neglected. It is difficult, whilst 
 the mind is engaged on the subject-matter of the 
 writing, to avoid occasionally, indeed frequently, 
 falling into some of the habits peculiar to the writer. 
 The simple expedients of altering the usual slope 
 and size of the writing may be maintained without 
 difficulty, but it becomes very trying to attend to de- 
 tails at the same time. I have never met with a 
 writer who could do so and sustain a consistent and 
 
2S2 Who Was He? 
 
 complete disguise throughout a piece of writing of 
 moderate length." 
 
 Xot the least among the salient points of the 
 Junian calligraphy is the fineness of the strokes, and 
 many who have looked at the MS. have remarked 
 that the writer must have worked with a very fine 
 pen. " The writing is finer and smaller than that of 
 Francis, and a finely-made pen would be necessary to 
 enable a person like Francis, who habitually wrote in 
 a bold hand, to reduce the size of his writing." 
 Moreover, a bold hand would naturally suggest, for 
 the purpose of disguise, the adoption of a more del- 
 icate and diminished style of w T riting for a disguised 
 hand. Let us here enumerate a few instances of 
 habits peculiar alike to Junius and Francis given by 
 Mr. Chabot : 
 
 1. The mode of dating letters. 
 
 2. The placing a full stop after the salutation. 
 
 3. The mode of signing initials between two dashes. 
 
 4. Writing in paragraphs. 
 
 5. Separating paragraphs by dashes placed between them at 
 their commencement. 
 
 0. Invariable attention to punctuation. 
 
 7. The enlargement of the first letters of words. 
 
 8. The insertion of omitted letters in the line of writing 
 
Junius and the Junius Quest. 283 
 
 and not above it, and the various modes of correcting mis- 
 writing. 
 
 9. Mode of abbreviating words, and abbreviating the same 
 words. 
 
 10. Misspelling certain specified words. 
 
 The scrupulous attention paid by both Junius and 
 Francis to the matter of punctuation has also been 
 noticed by Mr. Taylor in his Junius Identified: 
 
 " Nothing affords greater scope for diversity of 
 practice than the mode of punctuation. It is. a com- 
 mon thing for writers to be very careless in this mat- 
 ter ; but Junius and Sir Philip are particular in the 
 use of stops, pointing with minute accuracy even the 
 most trifling notes. The principle upon which this 
 is done shows the closest conformity of plan. It may 
 seem a trivial circumstance to some, but the introduc- 
 tion of the short stroke — or dash — between words 
 as well as sentences, to the degree in which it is done 
 by both of them, is characteristic of the writers." 
 
 The following remarks of Mr. Twistleton on the 
 evidence adduced in the foregoing inquiry are worthy 
 of note here : 
 
 "It is to be remembered that the evidence of the 
 identity of Junius and Francis as handwriters is 
 cumulative ; that is to say, the force of the evidence 
 
2S4 Who Was He I 
 
 depends not on any one single coincidence, but on 
 numerous coincidences varying materially in their 
 individual strength, which when viewed in connec- 
 tion lead irresistibly to one inference alone, though 
 each by itself may be inconclusive. A common fal- 
 lacy in dealing with such evidence is to take each 
 coincidence separately, and to show that a similar 
 coincidence exists in some other writer. This would 
 be a perfectly legitimate mode of reasoning if any 
 one coincidence so dealt with were adduced as in 
 itself conclusive ; but it fails to meet the require- 
 ments of the case when the argument is based on 
 the combination of many such coincidences collect- 
 ively, and not on the separate existence of any one 
 of them. . . . Commencing w T ith the facsimiles of 
 the autographs of seventeen different contemporary 
 writers, search should be made to ascertain how 
 many of those twenty-eight habits co-exist in any 
 other autographs ; and the ultimate point to be de- 
 cided will be whether the combination of all of them 
 in Junius and Francis can have been accidental." 
 
 Another link in the chain of evidence forged by 
 Mr. Chabot concerns the proof-sheets of the Letters 
 returned to his printer by Francis. These proofs are 
 preserved in the British Museum. " They contain 
 
Junius and the Junius Quest. 2S5 
 
 various obliterations which, upon a narrow scrutiny, 
 were found to conceal precisely the same words and 
 figures as those which now stand in their places, and 
 which are made to appear as corrections of the oblit- 
 erated writing. The words obliterated are in the 
 handwriting of Francis / the words written over 
 them in that of Junius. This is especially seen in 
 the dates of the Letters. The dates were not in- 
 serted in the manuscripts as sent to the printer, but 
 were added in the proof-sheets. It would seem that 
 Francis, being more off his guard in correcting the 
 proofs than in writing the Letters, inadvertently 
 inserted the dates in his natural handwriting; but, 
 upon discovering the mistake he had committed he 
 carefully blotted out these dates, and rewrote them 
 above the obliterations in his feigned hand. But, 
 notwithstanding all the pains he took, the original 
 writing can still be deciphered behind the oblitera- 
 tions. To assist in concealing these inadvertencies, 
 and perhaps for the purpose of misleading those who 
 might seek to lay them bare, Francis, previously to 
 making the broad marks of defacement, tampered 
 with the writing, by the introduction of superfluous 
 letters or portions of them— a practice often resorted 
 to when obliterations are made in wills, but which 
 
286 Who Was He? 
 
 generally fails in effecting its object, as in the pres- 
 ent case." 
 
 After this accumulation of evidence can any one 
 doubt that the Letters of Junius were written by 
 Francis ? Yet there are many who are still un- 
 convinced. Of course the examples given are but a 
 tithe of those presented by this accomplished expert, 
 but all in all they derive their most telling effect 
 from their cumulative character. Singly, their' force 
 is striking ; collectively, they are deemed by many 
 well-nigh conclusive from the difficulty of explaining 
 their similarity ' through any possible accidental re- 
 semblances. 
 
 But one of the most interesting and romantic epi- 
 sodes of this inquiry into the Junian and Franciscan 
 handwriting remains to be narrated. Who would 
 imagine that a love-letter could supply an important 
 clue in determining the author of epistles breath- 
 ing biting sarcasm and bitter invective ? Says Twis- 
 tleton : 
 
 " In the Christmas season of 1770 or 1771, when 
 Mr. Francis was on a visit to his father at Bath, he 
 danced at the Assembly Kooms more than one even- 
 ing with a young lady named Miss Giles. This lady, 
 born in 1751, was a daughter of Daniel Giles, Esq., 
 
Junius and the Junius Quest. 287 
 
 afterward Governor of the Bank of England ; and in 
 January, 1772, she became Mrs. King by marrying 
 Joseph King, Esq., of Taplow. It was the custom at 
 balls a hundred years ago for a lady to retain the 
 same partner during the whole of the evening ; .so 
 that the fact of Miss Giles having thus danced with 
 Mr. Francis would imply more of an acquaintance 
 than would necessarily be involved in a young lady's 
 dancing with a gentleman at the present day." 
 
 One result of this acquaintance was that a set of 
 verses, accompanied by an anonymous note, was sent 
 to Miss Giles. The writer of the note declared that 
 he had found the verses, which were unaddressed, 
 and that he could not conceive for whom they were 
 meant unless for her. The anonymous note ran as 
 follows : 
 
 1 ' The inclosed paper of Verses was found this morning by 
 Accident. The person who found them, not knowing to 
 whom they belong, is obliged to trust to his own Judgment, 
 and takes for granted that they could only be meant for Miss 
 Giles." 
 
 •The verses were : 
 
 " When Nature has, happily, finished her Part, 
 There is Work enough left for the Graces ; 
 
 'Tis harder to keep than to conquer the Heart; 
 We admire and forget pretty Faces. 
 
2S8 Who Was He? 
 
 " In the School of the Grace?, by Venus attended, 
 
 Belinda improves ev'ry hour; 
 They tell her that Beauty itself may be mended, 
 
 And shew her the use of her Pow'r. 
 
 " They alone have instructed the fortunate Maid 
 
 In Motion, in Speech, and Address; 
 They gave her that wonderful Smile to persuade, 
 
 And the Language of Looks to express. 
 
 " They directed her Eye, they pointed the Dart, 
 
 And have taught her a dangerous Skill ; 
 For whether she aims at the Head or the Heart, 
 
 She can wound, if she pleases, or kill." 
 
 At the time their fair recipient suspected that 
 Francis was the author, but of course said nothing. 
 Though she subsequently became the wife of another 
 gentleman she preserved the verses and the anony- 
 mous note. Many years afterward it fell out that a 
 scrap of Junins's handwriting was being handed 
 round in the circle in which she happened to be. 
 "Why," exclaimed Mrs. King, "I know that writing. 
 The person who wrote that wrote me some verses 
 and a letter ! " 
 
 The verses and the note in question " were written 
 each on a separate sheet of common letter paper, and 
 the handwriting of the two is different. The reason 
 
Junius and the Junius Quest. 289 
 
 of this is obvious. The humor of the compliment 
 required such a difference. The two documents, 
 though wholly unconnected with St. Valentine's 
 Day, must be regarded in the light of a valentine ; 
 the essential idea of which is, that whereas certain 
 verses in praise of a young lady had been found by 
 accident, Miss Giles alone merited such praise, and 
 tlie verses were therefore sent to her as the person 
 for whom they were intended. Hence it would have 
 been out of keeping with the plan of the valentine if 
 the verses and the note had been in the same hand- 
 writing." 
 
 The linking of these twin documents with the solu- 
 tion of the query, Who wrote the Letters of Junius ? 
 we will now explain. The anonymous note is in 
 the handwriting of Junius, the verses are in the 
 handwriting of Francis's cousin, Tilghman. But 
 at first it was thought that the verses were in the 
 natural handwriting of Francis. Mr. Twistleton and 
 a number of experts and others were of this opinion. 
 But here the plot thickened. To clearly establish 
 this hypothesis Twistleton applied to Netherclift, the 
 famous expert, who had previously examined the 
 handwriting of the anonymous note, for an opinion. 
 
 But that gentleman, in consequence of illness, could 
 19 
 
290 Who Was He? 
 
 not undertake the labor of an investigation, so the 
 case was placed in the hands of Chabot. But 
 Chabot, after comparing the verses with the letters 
 of Francis, pronounced an opinion directly contrary 
 to what was expected. He maintained, not only that 
 " he should not be justified in stating that the verses 
 were in the handwriting of Francis, for he thought 
 he could prove the negative — that Francis had not 
 and could not have written the verses," and in cor- 
 roboration of his opinion he pointed out numerous 
 peculiarities of writing in the verses which were not 
 in the letters, and vice-versa. Mr. Twistleton, we 
 are told, at once acquiesced in the professional opin- 
 ion of Mr. Chabot ; but recollecting from the re- 
 cently published " Life of Francis " that his cousin 
 and familiar friend, Mr. Richard Tilghman, was with 
 Francis at Bath when the verses were sent to Miss 
 Giles, it struck Mr. Twistleton that Francis might 
 possibly have availed himself of the services of 
 Tilghman as an amanuensis. Fortunately, in the 
 letter-book of Francis, which was in Mr. Twistle- 
 ton's possession, there were six letters written to 
 Francis by Tilghman. These were now submitted, 
 together with the verses, to Mr. Chabot, who ex- 
 pressed his unhesitating conviction that the verses 
 
Junius and the Junius Quest. 291 
 
 were in the handwriting of Tilghman. From which 
 it would seem that u Francis, with his usual caution, 
 was unwilling to bring his own handwriting into any 
 connection with that of Junius, and accordingly wrote 
 the anonymous note himself in the Junian hand, em- 
 ploying Tilghman to copy the verses, who probably 
 never saw the note." The latter, as we have seen, is 
 in the disguised upright hand of Sir Philip Francis, 
 identical with that in which the Junian Letters were 
 penned. That the two documents were really sent 
 by Francis to Miss Giles there is no reasonable 
 doubt. Out of the foregoing inquiry as to who 
 wrote the love-letter and the accompanying verses 
 grew the greater investigation undertaken by Chabot 
 into the whole of the Junian correspondence, the 
 results of which we have already seen.. 
 
 That Sir Philip publicly and in the strongest terms 
 denied the authorship of the Letters of Junius is very 
 well known, but by that denial one is only reminded 
 of the reply said to have been made under similar 
 circumstances by the famed author of Ecce Homo : 
 " Why, if I had written it, you know, I should cer- 
 tainly say I hadn't." 
 
 The following passage occurs in Lord Malmesbury's 
 Memoirs of an Ex-Minister. According to Lord 
 
292 Who Was He? 
 
 Tankerville, " it was supposed that Francis intended 
 his name to be disclosed after his death, and had left 
 papers establishing his identity with 'Junius,' but 
 they were destroyed by his son-in-law. He deter- 
 mined not to acknowledge himself as the author of 
 those Letters during his lifetime, and disliked to be 
 asked questions on the subject. One evening at 
 Brooks's, the conversation having fallen on a book 
 just published which proved Francis to be Junius, 
 Kogers, the poet, went up to him and said, 'Sir 
 Philip, will you allow me to ask you a question ? ' 
 To which the other replied very fiercely, 'Yes, sir, 
 at your peril.' Upon which Rogers turned round 
 to some one near him and said, ' If he is Junius, he is 
 Junius Brutus.' " 
 
 The following concise and able summary of the 
 w r hole subject is from the pen of Mr. R. Garnett, 
 who evinces an intimate acquaintance with the mazes 
 of the Junius Quest : 
 
 " The external evidence for the Franciscan author- 
 ship of Junius, then, appears as strong as could be 
 reasonably expected. The impression left by the 
 whole investigation cannot be better summed up 
 than in the words of Mr. Merivale : All the lines of 
 investigation which have been followed in order to 
 
Junius and the Junius Quest. 293 
 
 trace the authorship of this or that known individual, 
 except Francis, fail at a certain point. They end in 
 impossibilities. The remaining path, to which one 
 clue only leads us, becomes plainer and plainer the 
 further the investigation is conducted. The ingenu- 
 ity of most formidable opponents has been exerted to 
 discover some demonstrable incompatibility between 
 the circumstances attending the production of the 
 letters and the authorship of Francis. None such 
 has been adduced. Francis, as was said of Godol- 
 phin, is never in the way and never out of the way. 
 The one argument against him is derived from the 
 evidence of style. But the distinction established is 
 rather one of degree than of kind. There is no such 
 incompatibility between the style of his acknowledged 
 writings and that of the Junius Letters as to render it 
 morally impossible to attribute them to the same 
 writer. It is not as though a pamphlet attributed to 
 Swift should bear the impress of Bolingbroke. The 
 admitted productions of Francis might pass for the 
 work of a disciple of Junius. The real difficulty is, 
 that Francis should never have equaled himself. 
 This certainly is a difficulty, and is hardly obviated 
 by Lord Macaulay's sensible but somewhat superficial 
 reply, that every work of the same author cannot be 
 
294 Who Was He? 
 
 the best. It can hardly, however, be held to count 
 for much against the weight of external testimony, 
 especially when the extraordinary moral resemblance 
 between Francis and Junius is taken into account. 
 Whoever Junius was, he must have been in tempera- 
 ment very much such a man as Francis is known to 
 have been — vehement, combative, opinionated, dis- 
 dainful, sarcastic, enthusiastically and disinterestedly 
 devoted to the public good as he conceived it, but 
 capable of the most unrelenting and unscrupulous 
 animosity to all who crossed his path. To appreciate 
 these characteristics it is essential to follow the next 
 episode in his career. Appointed to a magnificent 
 employment, a seat at the council of the Governor- 
 General of India, with a suddenness which certainly 
 suggests the suspicion that his secret had become 
 known, he quitted England for Calcutta in 1774. 
 His official career w r as a constant series of disputes 
 with the Governor-General, Warren Hastings, culmi- 
 nating in a duel, in which he was seriously wounded. 
 It is difficult to pronounce positively as to the merits 
 of the controversy. Infinitely inferior to Hastings in 
 administrative capacity, Francis does appear to have 
 possessed more enlightened views as to the duties of 
 government, and to have wished to introduce a spirit 
 
Junius and the Junius Quest. 2G5 
 
 of equity and clemency into the administration of 
 Bengal which would have greatly benefited it. Un- 
 able to contend with the genius and fortune of his 
 rival, he forsook India in disgust, retiring, however, 
 with a large fortune, said to have been partly ac- 
 quired by high play. On the return of Hastings he 
 became the life and soul of the memorable impeach- 
 ment directed against him, his whole behavior during 
 which, both as regards his unmitigated virulence and 
 his underhand method of action, tends as strongly as 
 any other proof to confirm his identity with Junius. 
 When, in his extreme old age, the authorship was first 
 publicly imputed to him he neither denied nor ad- 
 mitted it, but his demeanor showed that he wished it 
 to be believed.'' 
 
 Says Macaulay, in answer to the query, Was Philip 
 Francis the author of the Letters of Junius ? 
 
 "Our own firm belief is that he was. The evi- 
 dence is, we think, such as would support a verdict 
 in a civil, nay, in a criminal proceeding. The hand- 
 writing of Junius is the very peculiar handwriting of 
 Francis, slightly disguised. As to the position, pur- 
 suits, and connections of Junius, the following are 
 the most important facts which can be considered as 
 clearly proved : 1. That he was acquainted with the 
 
296 Who Was He? 
 
 technical forms of the Secretary of State's office ; 
 2. That he was intimately acquainted with the busi- 
 ness of the War Office ; 3. That he, during the year 
 1770, attended debates in the House of Lords, and 
 took notes of speeches, particularly of the speeches of 
 Lord Chatham ; 4. That he bitterly resented the ap- 
 pointment of Mr. Chamier to the place of Deputy 
 Secretary at War ; 5. That he was bound by some 
 strong tie to the first Lord Holland. Now, Francis 
 passed some years in the Secretary of State's office. 
 He was subsequently chief clerk of the War Office. 
 He repeatedly mentioned that he had himself, in 
 1770, heard speeches of Lord Chatham, and some of 
 these speeches were actually printed from his notes. 
 He resigned his clerkship at the War Office from re- 
 sentment at the appointment of Mr. Chamier. It 
 was by Lord Holland that he was first introduced 
 into the public service. Now, here are five marks, 
 all of which ought to be found in Junius. They are 
 all five found in Francis. We do not believe that 
 more than two of them can be found in any other 
 person whatever. If this argument does not settle 
 the question, there is an end of all reasoning on cir- 
 cumstantial evidence. 
 
 "The internal evidence seems to us to pcint the 
 
Junius and the Junius Quest. 23 7 
 
 same way. The style of Francis bears a strong re- 
 semblance to that of Junius ; nor are we disposed to 
 admit, what is generally taken for granted, that the 
 acknowledged compositions of Francis are very decid- 
 edly inferior to the anonymous letters. The argu- 
 ment from inferiority at all events is one which may 
 be urged with at least equal force against every claim- 
 ant that has ever been mentioned with the single 
 exception of Burke ; and it would be a waste of time 
 to prove that Burke was not Junius. And what con- 
 clusion, after all, can be drawn from mere inferi- 
 ority ? Every writer must produce his best work ; 
 and the interval between his best work and his sec- 
 ond best work may be very wide indeed. Nobody 
 will say that the best letters of Junius are more 
 decidedly superior to the acknowledged works of 
 Francis than three or four of Corneille's tragedies to 
 the rest, than three or four of Ben Jonson's comedies 
 to the rest, than the Pilgrims Progress to the other 
 works of Bunyan, than Don Quixote to the other 
 works of Cervantes. Nay, it is certain that Junius, 
 whoever he may have been, was a most unequal writer. 
 To go no further than the letters which bear the sig- 
 nature of Junius, the Letter to the King and the Let- 
 ters to Home Tooke have little in common except 
 
208 Who Was He? 
 
 the asperity ; and asperity was an ingredient seldom 
 wanting either in the writings or in the speeches of 
 Francis. 
 
 " Indeed, one of the strongest reasons for believing 
 that Francis was Junius is the moral resemblance be- 
 tween the two men. It is not difficult, from the let- 
 ters which, under various signatures, are known to 
 have been written by Junius, and from his dealings 
 with Woodfall and others, to form a tolerably correct 
 notion of his character. He was clearly a man not 
 destitute of real patriotism and magnanimity, a man 
 whose vices were not of the sordid kind. But he 
 must also have been a man in the highest degree ar- 
 rogant and insolent, a man prone to malevolence, and 
 prone to the error of mistaking his private malevo- 
 lence for public virtue. * Doest thou well to be an- 
 gry ? ' was the question asked in old time of the He- 
 brew prophet. And he answered : * I do well.' This 
 was evidently the temper of Junius, and to this cause 
 we attribute the savage cruelty which disgraces sev- 
 eral of his Letters. No man is so merciless as he who 
 under a strong self-delusion confounds his antipathies 
 with his duties. It may be added that Junius, 
 though allied with the democratic party by common 
 enmities, was the very opposite of a democratic poli- 
 
Junius and the Junius Quest. 209 
 
 tician. While attacking individuals with a ferocity 
 which perpetually violated all the laws of literary 
 warfare, he regarded the most defective parts of old 
 institutions with a respect amounting to pedantry, 
 pleaded the cause of Old' Sarum with fervor, and 
 contemptuously told the capitalists of Manchester 
 and Leeds that if they wanted votes they might buy 
 land and become freeholders of Lancashire and 
 Yorkshire. All this, we believe, might stand, with 
 scarcely any change, for a character of Philip 
 Francis." 
 
 In the .face of this judgment from so high an 
 authority it would be rash to affirm with certainty 
 that the quest of the Junius seekers has been unre- 
 warded. On the other hand, Mr. Pitt told Lord 
 Aberdeen that he knew who wrote the Junius let- 
 ters, and that it was not Francis! Lady Grenville 
 sent a letter to the editor of the Diaries of a Lady 
 of Qitality to the same effect. 
 
 The late Abraham Hayward, critic and essayist, 
 wrote a pamphlet on the Junius mystery, in 1868, in 
 order to disprove the claims of Sir Philip Francis. 
 In the judgment of Sir Alexander Cockburn he 
 successfully demolished the case for the defendant. 
 And in an article in the London Quarterly Review 
 
300 Who Was He? 
 
 Mr. Hay ward leaned toward Lord George Sackville, 
 for whom, he told a correspondent, he " could make 
 out a capital case if he thought it worth, while." 
 But afterward he "settled down in the belief that 
 the famous Letters were supplied by the Grenvilles, 
 but did not come to a conclusion as to which of 
 them, if either, was the actual writer of them. He 
 did not doubt that Pitt knew who the writer was. 
 No doubt Sir Philip Francis desired it to be be- 
 lieved that he was the author, and tried to leave 
 proofs of his claim." But, as one of Mr. Hayward's 
 correspondents points out, the real Junius, had three 
 sets of the letters bound in a specific fashion, and had 
 Francis been the author he could have produced 
 or accounted for these books. 
 
 The writer has no new name to advance, nor any 
 novel theory to broach, seeing that he has no desire 
 to be ranked among those foolish ones who " rush in 
 where angels fear to tread." If he has succeeded in 
 holding the attention of the reader, or in affording 
 an hours amusement by recounting the salient 
 features of this " strange eventful history," his ob- 
 ject will have been attained.