oted down at the time,
and, translated, consists in substance as follows: 'I cannot be said
to have _escaped_ from my jailers,' he began, 'for I left the prison
in the most natural manner possible. Some time before the day of my
supposed death, a royalist committee was formed for the purpose of
saving me. One of these was M. Frotte, who, as the pupil of my
physician Dessault, was allowed free ingress and egress to the
Temple. One day he entered my cell, motioned me to be silent, seized
me, and dragged me to a cabinet under the spire of the tower. A sick
child who had been given over by the faculty was substituted in my
place, and he, dying two days after (8th June 1795), was buried as
Louis XVII. At my supposed death, there being no more prisoners in
the Temple, all the keepers and guards were withdrawn, and I was
conducted outside the walls without meeting a single official. The
ruse, however, got wind, and the decree of the 14th of June was the
consequence. To frustrate this, the royalist committee caused several
children to personate me, imparting to the impostors several
circumstances connected with my family. One they sent to Bordeaux,
another to La Vendee, a third to Germany, and so on. These are the
children who, when they became men, tried to keep up the character
which they had been previously taught to play. This explains the
incredible number of false _dauphins_ who have appeared.' He ended by
declaring that when, in 1814, the Congress of Vienna ceded the crown
of France to Louis XVIII., they knew perfectly well of his existence;
but the obligations the allies were under to 'his uncle,' overwhelmed
the scruples they felt at investing that prince with a sovereignty to
which he had no title.

One thing appeared improbable--how the assumed prince should have
forgotten his native language. He was ten years of age at the period
of his leaving France, and spoke French as cleverly as any other boy,
if not more so. How, then, did he lose this faculty? A residence in
Germany, even for so great a length of time as thirty-seven years,
could hardly have obliterated the French language from his mind. This
does not appear to have teen explained, and, with some other
circumstances, it served to check the credulity of parties half
inclined to believe the representations of M. Neuendorf.

Further proofs were therefore required; and several were afterwards
afforded. The details of the first are somewhat singular. At this
ti