formed public continued devoted to the
cause of the pretender; and the convict secretaries, if they failed to
stir up the educated classes, at least succeeded in entrapping the
ignorant. The prison cell of Bruneau was converted into a scene of
uninterrupted revelling. Persons of all classes sent their gifts--the
ladies supplying unlimited creature comforts for their king, while
their husbands strove to compensate for their incapacity to
manufacture dainties by filling the purse of the pretender. Nothing
was forgotten: fine clothes and fine furniture were supplied in
abundance; and the adoring public were so anxious to consider the
comfort of the illustrious prisoner, that they even subscribed to
purchase a breakfast service of Sevres, so that the heir to the throne
might drink his chocolate out of a porcelain cup.

Meantime Madame Jacquieres had not been idle, and was ready to fulfil
her promise to send a messenger to the Duchess d'Angouleme. Her chosen
emissary was a Norman gentleman named Jacques Charles de Foulques, an
ardent Bourbonist and a lieutenant-colonel in the army. This officer
was both brave and suave, and seemed in every respect a fitting person
to act as an ambassador to the Tuileries. He was deeply religious,
very conscientious, and extremely simple. His mental capacity had been
accurately gauged by Bruneau and his associates, and care was taken to
excite his religious enthusiasm. The Abbe Matouillet plainly told him
that Heaven smiled upon the cause, and introduced him to the prince,
who administered the oath of allegiance, which the credulous Norman is
said to have signed with the seal of his lips on a volume that looked
like a book of _gaillard_ songs, but which the simple soldier mistook
for the Gospels. After several audiences, his mission was pointed out,
and Colonel de Foulques, without hesitation, agreed to proceed to
Paris, and there to place in the hands of the daughter of Louis XVI. a
copy of the "Memoirs of Charles of Navarre," and a letter from her
reputed brother.

The latter document was produced in the court at Rouen when Bruneau
was afterwards placed at the bar, and is a very curious production. In
it the maker of clogs thus addresses "Madame Royale:"--

"I am aware, my dear sister, a secret presentiment has long possessed
you that the finger of God was about to point out to you your brother,
that innocent partaker of your sorrows, the one alone worthy to repair
them, as he was fated