All other claimants, however plausible, were shown to be impostors. Each one in his secret heart had acted out a fantasy, laughing at the credulous world. They had all tried to exploit the circumstances of Louis-Charles’s death for their own financial, political and social gain; all apparently equally happy to submit his sister, Marie-Thérèse, to further anguish as they pursued their dubious ambitions. Each must have died, surely aware that they were passing a lie on to their descendents. It is perhaps hardly surprising that after two hundred years, Naundorff’s descendents do not accept these genetic findings and are hoping to fund further tests. From the Institut Louis XVII in Paris, they continue to assert their royal pedigree on their website,
www.louis-xvii.com
.
As for the other stories that had been cited for so long as evidence of Louis-Charles’s escape, these, too, fell into place. Widow Simon, the shoemaker’s wife, fearing retribution at the Hôpital des Incurables for the brutish treatment her husband had measured out to the dauphin, had evidently invented her own escape story and repeated it so often that she came to believe it. The silent child seen in his cell in the Tower by Jean-Baptiste Harmand and many others was no substitute but in fact the young prince himself, then so traumatized by his tormentors that silence seemed the only way he could deal with an inexplicable and hostile world. In the words of Dr. Pierre Desault, shortly before his own death—almost certainly of natural causes—Louis-Charles had been reduced to “a child who is now mad, dying, a victim of the most abject misery and of the greatest abandonment, a being who has been brutalized by the cruellest of treatments and who it is impossible for me to bring back to life. What a crime!” As for the various documents appearing to provide proof of the dauphin’s escape, like Naundorff’s forged letters apparently setting out a twenty-year correspondence with his “sister,” all this amounted to no more than the cruel and Machiavellian twists of the human mind exploiting tragedy for self-interest. No worse perhaps than the fact that a nation in a moment of madness was quite prepared to sacrifice one small boy for the greater good and that one small boy, alone and defenseless, turned out to be quite a hero of whom his mother would have been most proud.
“For me it’s a very important day,” said Delorme, “a very moving day for a historian. It’s an affair that has lasted two centuries. There have been around eight hundred books written on the subject and we never managed to find the response. I think now we are bestowing justice on this child. Until now, his death was stolen. It was not admitted that he died in such a horrible way.”
“More than two centuries of mystery have ended here today,” declared Prince Louis de Bourbon. The discovery should be dedicated to the “memory of an innocent child who was a victim of history,” he said, and called on the French authorities to bury Louis XVII’s heart next to the tombs of his father and mother in the royal crypt. He was not alone in the desire to give
the heart, the only surviving remnant of Louis-Charles’s body, a proper memorial. “We would like to see him buried between his mother and his father, which would be very fitting,” said the Duc de Bauffremont.
The next day the child’s heart made headlines around the world. Whatever the motive that prompted Dr. Philippe-Jean Pellatan to steal the child’s heart—whether royal fervor, curiosity or a desire to make money—it is ironic that an act of thievery should lead two hundred years later to such a satisfactory resolution. As Pellatan had consistently maintained, the child who lived and died alone and in such misery in the Temple, unrecognizable as a royal prince and heir, his sickly body covered in sores and ulcers, was indeed the ten-year-old dauphin. At last, the tragic circumstances of Louis-Charles’s death were now proved to the world.
As for his heart, this has been returned to Saint-Denis. It is still hidden from public gaze, having finally come to rest in the shadow world of the crypt. The urn has been resealed and the heart itself, with the tip carefully sawn away, bears the hallmarks of twentieth-century science. More than two hundred years have passed since the owner of the heart suffered in silence, paying a high price for the extravagant mistakes of his forebears. But now justice was done: he has been given a voice, the secrets of his life and death are exposed, and his life, in some small way, is resurrected at last.
Chapter One: “The Finest Kingdom in Europe”
An intimate account of Marie-Antoinette’s early years in France has been written by her First Lady of the Bedchamber: Campan, Madame.
Memoirs of the Private Life of Marie Antoinette, Queen of France and Navarre.
2 vols, 1824. For Marie-Antoinette’s personal correspondence to her mother see: Bernier, O.
Imperial Mother, Royal Daughter: The correspondence of Marie-Antoinette and Maria Teresa
(London, Sidgwick and Jackson, 1986); and also Arneth, A., and Geffroy, M. A., eds.
Correspondance Secrète entre Marie-Thérèse et le Comte de Mercy-Argenteau avec les letters de Marie-Thérèse et de Marie-Antoinette.
3 vols., Paris 1874. See also: Weber, J.
Mémoires concernant Marie Antoinette Archiduchesse d’Autriche, Reine de France,
1822.
Of the many biographical works exploring Marie-Antoinette’s early days in the French court and events leading to the revolution, I would particularly recommend: Fraser, A.
Marie Antoinette
(Weidenfeld and Nicolson, 2001); Dunlop, I.
Marie-Antoinette
(London: Sinclair-Stevenson, 1993); Lever, E.
Marie-Antoinette: The Last Queen of France,
trans. Temerson, C. (New York: Farrar, Straus & Giroux, 2000); Seward, D.
Marie Antoinette
(London, Constable, 1981). A description of the French palaces is given in: Dunlop I.
Royal Palaces of France
(London: Hamish Hamilton, 1985).
For a full discussion of France’s financial problems during Louis XVI’s reign and how this issue became politicized see: Schama, S.
Citizens:
A
Chronicle of the French Revolution
(London: Penguin, 1989). See also Bosher, J.F.
French Government Finance 1770-1795
(Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 1970).
Chapter Two: “Grâce pour Maman”
Marie-Thérèse wrote a short but vivid narration of the royal family’s experiences during the revolution, which covers the period from their forced departure from Versailles until the reported death of her brother in 1795. This was written in two parts. The second part was written first, toward the end of Marie-Thérèse’s period of imprisonment in the Tower:
Mémoire écrit par Marie-Thérèse-Charlotte de France sur la captivité des princes et princesses, ses parents, depuis le 10 août 1792 jusqu’à la mort de son frère arrivé le 9 juin 1795.
The original version of this manuscript was first given to her guardian, Madame de Chanterenne, who made a copy when Marie-Thérèse left the Temple at the end of 1795. A revised edition, apparently incorporating some changes requested by Louis XVIII, appeared in 1817, published by L. E. Audot. Subsequent editions aiming to be based more closely on her original manuscript also appeared in 1862, published by Poulet-Malassis and in 1892 by Costa de Beauregard. The first part of Matie-Thérèse’s narrative, starting with her departure from Versailles, was written after her marriage to the Duc d’Angoulême:
Journal de Marie Thérèse de France, Duchesse d’Angoulême, 5 Octobre 1789—2 Septembre 1792
, introduced by Baron Imbert de Saint-Amand, 1893.
For an analysis of events leading up to and during the French Revolution, in addition to the biographies and Simon Schama cited above, see: Cobban, A. A History of Modern France (London: Penguin, 1961); Cronin, V.
Louis and Antoinette
(London: Collins, 1974); Roberts, J. M.
The French Revolution
(London: Oxford University Press, 1978); Cobb, R.
The French and their Revolutions,
ed. Gilmour D. (1998); John Murray, London: A unique colorful nineteenth-century account is given by Carlyle, T. The French Revolution A History (1889), reprinted ed. Fielding & Sorensen, (London: Oxford University Press, 1989).
Chapter Three: The Tuileries
Apart from the journal of Marie-Thérèse, another firsthand account of events at the Tuileries and the flight to Varennes is provided by Madame de Tourzel, who remained with the royal family as governess until she was forced to leave the Tower in September 1792: Tourzel,
Mémoires de Madame la Duchesse de Tourzel, Gouvernante des Enfants de France de 1789 à 1795
(Paris, 1883).
For perspectives on this period see also Loomis S.
The Fatal Friendship: Marie Antoinette, Count Fersen and the Flight to Varennes
(1972). Soderhjelm, A.
Fersen et Marie-Antoinette
(1930); Farr, E.
The Untold Love Story, Marie Antoinette and Count Fersen
(London: Allison & Busby, 1997); Oscar, B.,
The Flight to Varennes and other Historical Essays
(1892); Chateaubriand, Vicomte René de,
Mémoires d’Outre-Tombe
(Paris, 1949); and Fersen, Count,
Le Comte de Fersen et la cour de France,
ed. R. M. De Klinckowstrom (Paris, 1877-78).
The royal family’s “silent decoronation” on their return from Varennes is discussed by Yalom, M.
Blood Sisters. The French Revolution in Women’s Memory
(London: HarperCollins,
1995). For the rise of the revolutionary in Paris see Rose, R. B.
The Making of the Sans-culottes: Democratic Ideas and Institutions in Paris 1789-92
(Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1983).
An absorbing analysis of the destruction of Marie-Antoinette’s image in the popular press and
libelles
is in: Thomas, C.
The Wicked Queen: The Origins of the Myth of Marie Antoinette,
trans. J. Rose (New York, Urzone 1999). This includes
The Love Life of Charlie and Toinette
[1779],
The Royal Dildo
[1789],
The Royal Orgy
[1789] and many other pamphlets. See also Fleischmann, H.
Les Pamphlets Libertins Contre Marie-Antoinette
(Paris, 1908).
Chapter Four: “God Himself Has Forsaken Me”
The king’s valet, Cléry, was a key witness to the life of the royal family in the Tower and events leading to the execution of Louis XVI. See his memoirs: Cléry, J.
Journal de ce qui s’est passé à la Tour du Temple pendant la captivité de Louis XVI, roi de France, par M. Cléry, valet de chambre du roi et autres mémoires sur le Temple.
(Paris: C. Bertin, 1861). See also an account from François Hüe:
The Last Years of the Reign and Life of Louis XVI,
trans. R. C. Dallas (1806); and from the Abbé Edgeworth: Edgeworth de Firmont, Abbé.
Mémoires
(Paris, 1816) and Turgy, L. F.,
Fragment historique sur la captivité de la famille royalle
(Paris 1818).
Of the many works which deal with the king’s trial in addition to the biographies cited above see also: Jordan, D.
The King’s Trial
(Los Angeles, 1979). Hardman, J.
Louis XVI
(New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 1993); Allen, R.
Threshold of Terror: The Last Hours of the Monarchy in the French Revolution
(Sutton. Stroud, Glos., 1999).
Chapter Five: The Young “Sans-Culotte”
Many historians have tried to investigate Louis XVII’s period of captivity with Simon as tutor such as: Lenôtre, G.
The Dauphin, Louis XVII. The Riddle of the Temple,
trans. F. Lees. (London: Heinemann, 1922) and Buckley, E.R.
Monsieur Charles. The Tragedy of the True Dauphin, Louis XVII of France
(London: Witherby, 1927). For more modern interpretations, Cronin [above] in his biography
Louis and Antoinette
also includes a short account of this period. The most recent analysis drawing together the evidence on Louis XVII’s captivity in the Tower is by French historian Philippe Delorme:
L’affaire Louis XVII
(Paris: Tallandier, 1995).
For more information on Marie-Antoinette’s trial and final months: Lenôtre, G.
La Captivité et la mort de Marie-Antoinette
(Paris, 1902). Furneaux, R.
Last Days of Marie Antoinette and Louis XVI
(London: Allen & Unwin, 1968); & Yalom [above].
Note: there has been some debate about the authenticity of the queen’s last letter to her sister-in-law. In the letter she says she dies in the “Catholic, Apostolic and Roman religion” and yet had received no spiritual consolation “not knowing if there still exist any priests of this religion.” However, there is evidence that she did receive the ministration of the Abbé
Magnin, in which case she could not have said that she did not know if any true Catholic priests existed. Others argue that the letter is indeed authentic and she specifically failed to mention that she had seen a nonjuring priest since this would put him at risk.
Chapter Six: The Orphan of the Temple
The most comprehensive source on the imprisonment of Louis XVII once separated from his family is Beauchesne,
Alcide de Louis XVII: His Life, His Suffering, His Death
. 2 vols., trans. W. Hazlitt (London: Harper and Bros., 1853). After the Restoration, Beauchesne interviewed many surviving witnesses and guards who had worked at the Temple. Although their interviews are couched in the royalist sentiments of the time, they provide a detailed perspective on this period of Louis XVII’s captivity, as reported by the only witnesses, his guardians. Beauchesne’s extensive study has provided much of the material and anecdotes debated by numerous historians over the years when trying to resolve the fate of Louis XVII. See also Lenotre and Delorme above.
For a compelling analysis of events leading the downfall and death of Robespierre, see Schama and also Hardman, J.
Robespierre.
(Edinburgh: Pearson, 1999). For Princess Élisabeth’s support for her brother and a description of her death:
Life and Letters of Ma(cf4)dame Elizabeth de France
, cited in Wormeley, K. P.,
Ruin of a Princess
(New York: Lamb Publishing, 1912), also Debriffe, M.
Madame Élisabeth: la princesse martyre
(Paris, Le Semaphore, 1997).
Dr. Philippe-Jean Pellatan’s admission that he stole the heart of the child who died in the Temple and his detailed statement on the history of the heart while in his possession is in
Documents Concernant Le Coeur de Louis XVII. Revue Retrospective
1.3.1894 (Paris).
Mémoire Historique sur les derniers jours de la vie de Louis XVII et sur la Conservations de ses précieux restes.
Biographical details and Pellatan’s correspondence relating to the heart are included in the Appendix.
A full investigation into the strange odyssey of the heart taken from the orphan of the Temple has been carried out by historian Philippe Delorme, who was also instrumental in trying to obtain genetic testing. He summarizes his conclusions in
Louis XVII: La Verité. Sa mort au Temple confirmée par la
science (Paris: Pygmalion, G. Watelet, 2000). See also Delorme’s website:
www.chez.com/louis17
.
Chapter Seven: Farce and Fraud
Different perspectives on Marie-Thérèse’s life in exile are provided by: Saint-Amand, Baron Imbert de.
The Duchesse d’Angoulême and the Two Restorations,
trans. J. Davis, (London: Hutchinson & C., 1892); Turquan, J.
Madame Royale, The Last Dauphine,
trans. T. Davidson, (London: Fisher Unwin, 1910); Weiner, M.
The French Exiles 1789—1815
(London: Murray, 1960); Mansel, P.
Louis XVIII
(Blond & Briggs, 1981). For Sainte-Beuve’s observations see:
Prescott-Wormeley, K., trans.
The Ruin of a Princess
(New York: Lamb Publishing Co., 1912).
Colorful details of the pretenders can be found in many sources. Hervagault’s life is described in: Morton, J.B.
The Dauphin, A biography of Louis XVII.
(London: Longmans & Co, 1937); Minnigerade, M.
The Son of Marie Antoinette and the Mystery of the Temple Tower.
(London, Jarrolds, 1935); Welch, C.
The Little Dauphin, Louis XVII.
(London: Methuen, 1908); and also Lenôtre and Buckley [above].
Chapter Eight: Return of the Lilies
For a detailed analysis of the inconclusive evidence of the dauphin’s death and the problems facing the official inquiry into his case, in addition to Beauchesne and Lenôtre see Francq, H. G.
Louis XVII, The Unsolved Mystery
(Leiden: E. J. Brill, 1970).
An account of the colorful life of Mathurin Bruneau is given by Morton, Lenôtre and the police records on his case:
Procès de Mathurin
Bruneau
se disant Louis XVII, par devant le Tribunal de police correctionale de Rouen
(Marseille: A. Ricard, 1818).
The controversy over Tillos’s theft of the heart and Pellatan’s countless fruitless attempts to return it to the royal family are described in:
Dépôt conservation du Coeur de Louis XVII, incident du vol qui m’en a été fait et de la restitution
… etc. in
Documents Concernant Le Coeur de Louis XVII. Revue Retrospective
1.3.1894 (Paris), pp. 8-19.
Chapter Nine: The Shadow King
The dauphin’s identification as Eleazer Williams: Evans, E. E.
The Story of Louis XVII of France
(London: Swan & Sonnenschein, 1893); Stevens, A. de Grasse.
The Lost Dauphin or Onwarenhiiaki, The Indian Iroquois Chief
(Orpington: G. Allen, 1887); Richemont’s claims are set out in:
Mémoires du Duc de Normandie, fils de Louis XVI, écrits et publiés par lui-même
(Paris: July 1831) and also Richemont,
Mémoires du contemporain que la Révolution fit orphelin en 1793 et qu’elle raya du nombre des vivants en 1795
(Paris: Maistrasse-Wiart, 1846); Creissels, L.,
Louis XVII et les Faux Dauphins
(Paris: Albin Michel, 1936).
Biographies of Karl Wilhelm Naundorff include: Madol, R. H.
The Shadow King. The Life of Louis XVII of France and the Fortunes of the Naundorff-Bourbon Family
(London: Allen and Unwin, 1930; Allen, P.
The Last Legitimate King of France, Louis XVII
(London: Dent & Sons, 1912); Eckard, J.
The King Who Never Reigned: Being Memoirs upon Louis XVII
(London: Eveleigh Nash, 1908). Manteyer, G. P.
Les Faux Louis XVII. Le roman de Naundorff et la vie de C. Werg
(Paris: Librarie Universelle Gamber, 1926); Decaux, A.
Louis XVII retrouvé. Naundorff roi de France
(Paris: L’Elan, 1947; Bazan E. P.
The Mystery of the Lost Dauphin,
trans. A .H. Seeger. (New York: Funk and Wagnalls, 1906); Treherne, P.
Louis XVII and Other Papers
(London: Fisher Unwin, 1912; Weldon, G.
Louis XVII of France, Founder of Modern Spiritualism
(London: Virtue & Co., 1896.
Naundorff’s extraordinary letters to his “sister” Marie-Thérèse and numerous other details of correspondence relating to his identity are cited in: Perceval, C. G.
An Abridged Account of the Misfortunes of the Dauphin
(London: Fraser, 1838). This also includes a translation of Naundorff’s own account of his life history.
For details of Péllatan’s transfer of the heart to Archbishop de Quélin see
Narration simple et vraie des démarches que je n’ai cessé de faire … pour déposer le précieux objet …
etc. in
Revue Retrospective
cited above, pp. 29-34, and correspondence between Pellatan and Quélin pp. 51-57. A statement from Pellatan’s son, Philippe-Gabriel, sets out details of the raid on the archbishop’s palace and the subsequent recovery of the heart, see pp. 57-59.