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Home , Dauphin of France, Duke, John James Audubon, Louis XVI, Louis XVII, Prince

476 H•o•, Audubonand the Dauphin [AukLoct.

AUDUBON AND THE DAUPHIN

BY FRANCIS H. HERRICK

I

WAS John JamesAudubon Louis Charles,Dauphin and of Nor- mandy, who by hereditaryright becameKing of in name, at the moment the head of his father, Louis XVI, fell under the guillotinein , January21, 17937 Was he the little boy ,who was "in the way", and "not wanted"by hisuncles and many of his countrymen,his potential subjects? Was he that unfortunatechild who, orphanedby regicides,was held a closeprisoner for three impressionableyears of his younglife? Was he the boy who, in consequenceof suchtreatment, accordingto somere- ports, developeda tendencyto scrofula,which we shouldnow call tuber- culosis?Finally, washe the ten-year-oldboy who wasoiSicially declared to have died in the Temple prison,June 7, 1795, a conclusionwhich many historiansaccepted, although there is now strongevidence, as somethink, that the true prince was spirited out of the Tower, but when or how, or whereor how longhe may have lived,are questionswhich have not yet been and perhapsnever will be, answeredwith finality. When everythingis considered,these questions relating to Auduboncan receive but one answer,--a decisivenegative. I repeat them now only becausethey have been seriouslyasked, and incredibleas it may seem, have beengiven a warm welcomeby two recentbiographers. ! Miss Rourke mentions a number of reasons which have led her to favor the fantasticDauphin idea. The fact that Audubonwas first called "Fou- g[re," and later "Jean Rabin," while for a time he used the name "La Forest," is cited with suspicion. When Captain Jean Audubonfinally returnedfrom Santo Domingoto France, late in 1789, "how many child- ren," sheasks, "did he bringwith him?"and, "if he wasaccompanied by a little boy, there is no certainty," shesays, "that this wasthe sameboy who was adoptedas Foug[re," in 1794. If this were not the sameboy, neither shenor Mrs. Tyler know what becameof the first, or have any proof that Audubonwas a substitutechild. Therewas a longperiod, says Miss Rourke, betweenAudubon's birth (April 26, 1785)and his adoption(March 7, 1794) of nearly nine years,and "this gap has neverbeen filled in. Where was this boy during this time? It is well within the range of possibilitythat after his return to France during the Revolution, a boy was entrustedto the care of Captain Audubonwhose identity he was inducedto hide. He may have usedthe approximatebirthday and later the name of the little

See "," by Constance R ourke, , 1936, and "I Who Should COmmand All," by Alice Jaynes Tyler, New Haven. 1937. 'Vol.1937 541J HERRICK,Audubon arid the Dauphin 477 boy born in SantoDomingo to coverthe historyof anotherchild. Someof thoseclosest to Audubonduring his lifetime believedimplicitly that he was of noble birth." Miss Maria R. Audubon,the naturalist'sgranddaughter, stated to me in 1914 that Jean Audubonand his wife settled someproperty upon "Jean Rabin, creolede Saint-Domingue,"which he refusedto acceptunder that name, saying,"My own name I have never beenpermitted even to speak; accord me that of Audubon, which I revere, as I have cause to do." This referenceto property probably has to do with the wills of his father and stepmother,in whichthe objectionablename occurs many times. Audubon's dislikeof the Rabin name doesnot seemto have persisted,for in view of the settlementof property under those wills, on July 25, 1817, a power of attorney was drawn in favor of his brother-in-, Gabriel Loyen du Pulgaudeau. In this curiousdocument the naturalist refers to himself as "John Audubon," and as "Jean Rabin, husbandof Lucy Bakewell," the Jean Rabin alias occurring four times in the text over the signatureof "John J. Audubon" at the end. An English reviewer once expressedregret that I had probed the birth and parentageof Audubon,saying that he preferredto take this illustrious man at his word that he "belongedto every country." Suchwriters forget that a prime duty of every biographeris to make his subject known, and that this is impossibleif he comesfrom nowhere,or as facetiously remarked,if he is "one of thoseextraordinary men who are erected,--never born at all." Audubon's father "had other reasons,"thinks Miss Rourke, "for sendingFoug•re to America which he did not disclose. They could not have had to do with money. Whatever his reasonswere they persisted,and may have had to do with the boy's parentage." Mrs. Tyler beginsher book with a quotation:"History has the inalien- able right to be written correctly,"to which every honestperson will sub-- scribe,but whichwriters of biographyare too proneto forget. Throughout her book she refersto me as "Robert," a praenomenI have never borne, but sincenames are easilyconfused, I forgiveher. The naturalist'sfather is usuallyreferred to as " Audubon,"which gives a senseof unreal- ity to her text, as the highestrank which Jean Audubon attained in the navy was lieutenant (lieutenantde vaisseaux),one grade below that of captain. In my 'Life of Audubon'I gave a summaryof the naval careerof his father in the merchantmarine and navy of France, as recordedin the officlalrecords of the navy departmentin Paris. Jean Audubonheld the rank of lieutenantfrom October11, 1797,until his retirementfor disability January1, 1801. PerhapsMrs. Tyler followedthe exampleof Miss Maria R. Audubon,who was accustomedto give this exaltedrank to her grand- father, and perhapsshe got it from a letter that Auduboncarried with him 478 HERRICK,Audubon and the Dauphin [Auk[Oct.

whenleaving for ,written by Mr. Hay, and addressed, March 15, 1827, to his brother, Robert William Hay, Downing St., West, and in which the followingoccurs: "Mr. Audubonis a son of the late French Admiral Audubon, but has himself lived from the cradle in the ,having been born in oneof the Frenchcolonies." Audubon certainlyshould have known his father'snaval rank, and alsothat he him- self could not have lived from the cradle in the United States, but the last statement is now believed to have been true. Strongpresumptive evidence had led me to concludethat JohnJames Audubonwas the illegitimateson of LieutenantJean Audubon and Made- moiselleRabin, a French cr6oleof SantoDomingo. "Rather than tolerate the suggestionof illegitimacyin regardto their grandfather,"says Mrs. Tyler, "the old ladiesdecided to bear the rigorsof publicity,if needsbe, and to give to the world the informationwhich would disprove this biog- raphy.• To that end they releasedme from the promiseto withholdpub- licationof their 'secret,'and perhapsthe world'ssecret also." This family secretof Audubon'snoble birth, which is revealedin Mrs. Tyler's 'I Who ShouldCommand All', was imparted by the naturalistin lettersto his wife, and in his Journals,which were written for her benefit, and for her alone, but with no thoughtof their publication. The significantpassages were copiedby his granddaughter,Miss Maria R. Audubon,into a little black notebook,which I was permittedto seein 1914but, out of respectto her wishesand those of her sister, Miss Audubon, they were only briefly referredto in my 'Life' of their grandfatherin 1917. In the course of our conversationMiss Audubon confessedthat she had really never known who her grandfatherwas, but that in the light of these journal entriesshe had cometo think that he might have been the lost Dauphin. In commentingon this questionMiss Audubonadded that a ,to whom these extractshad been shown,said that possiblythey had been written to obscurethe unwelcomefact of illegitimacy, a wise remark, as the sequelseems to have shown. I then tried to dissuadeMiss Audubon from her expressedintention of destroyingthe originalmanuscript, but to no avail. The entries in this notebook,which form the basisof Mrs. Tyler's 'I Who ShouldCommand All,' have recentlybeen published by StanleyClisby Arthur• in his fair-minded,detailed and altogetherexcellent biography. Mrs. Tyler saysthat I have not recordedone biographicalevent between the year 1794, the year of Audubon'sadoption, and 1800, the year of his baptism, and tries to put young Audubon in "Selkirk's Settlements,"in x See 'Audubon the l•aturaHst: A History of his Life and Time'; in two vols., New York, 1917. 2 See Stanley CHsby Arthur; 'Audubon: an Intimate Life of the American Woodsman,' , 1937. ¾ol.1937 54•J HERRICK,Audubon and the Dauphin 479

Canada,at sometime duringthese early years. All of thesequestions will be taken up a little later. u In 1914,at the very outbreakof the World War, a greatflock of docu- mentspertaining to LieutenantAudubon and his family was discoveredat CouSron,the seat of his country villa in France. Outstandingamong them was a curiousbill of Jean Audubon'sfamily physician, Sanson,of Les Cayes,Santo Domingo,covering a periodof nearly three years,from December29, 1783, to October 12, 1786. It was acceptedand signedby CaptainAudubon, and receiptedby the doctor,when paid on June7, 1787. This is particularlyremarkable in recordingthe birth of a child to "Mlle. Rabin" on April 26, 1785. The inference,supported by other documentary testimony,was that this wasthe identicalchild, who later becameknown as John JamesAudubon, and the preponderanceof evidencein favor of this conclusionis even strongertoday. Jean and Anne Moynet Audubonappeared in the town hall at , on March 7, 1794, and declaredthat they did "adopt and recognizefrom this moment as their lawful childrento wit: a male child, named Foug•re, born sincetheir marriage .... to him, JeanAudubon, and a woman livingin America,who has been dead about eight years, and a femalechild, named Muguet, born also sincetheir marriageaforesaid, to him and an- other womanliving in America,named Catharine Bouffard, of whosefate he is ignorant. "The two childrenbeing present,the first aged nine years, that will expireon the 22d of next April, the secondaged seven years, that will also expireon the 26th of April next, and both havingbeen born in America, accordingto the declarationwhich the witnessesabove mentionedhave signifiedas true, I have drawn up the presentact, whichthe natural father and the motherby adoption,as well as their witnesseshave signed,together with myselfin this said day and year." Foug[reor JeanR'abin was baptized, as Jean Jacques Foug[re (Audubon) on October23, 1800, and the act was signedby Tardiveau, priest of St. Similien Church. The Jean Rabin alias was usedin the six wills drawn by Jean Audubon and his wife betweenthe years 1812-21,and by Audubonhimself in the powerof attorney to which I have referred. It is thesevarious legal docu- mentsbearing upon Audubon's birth and parentage,which MissRourke and Mrs. Tyler set aside as "not proven," yet they do not hesitateto place Audubonat the foot of a longlist of spuriousclaimants to beingthe sonof LouisXVI and ,without a shredof documentarysupport to sucha claim,excepting the family tradition,based upon extracts from lettersand journalsintended by Audubonfor the perusalof his wife alone. 480 HERRICE,Audubon and the Dauphin •Auk[Oct.

III It is generallyassumed that the person,whose parents are not living, knowsmore about his early history than anybodyelse, and this is commonly true,except in the caseof a child'searly adoption, substitution, or abandon- ment by its true parents. What Audubonsaid publicly or privately about his birth, his age,and his parents,forms a mystifyingrecord. Accordingto VincentNolte, Audubon,after parryingsome prying questions about him- selfin 1811,admitted that he wasa Frenchmanby birth and a native of La Rochelle. JosephRobert Mason,youthful companion of Audubonon his famousjourney down the Ohioand MississippiRivers in 1820-21,and who was closelyassociated with him for twenty-onemonths, told John Neal fifteenyears later that Audubonhad repeatedlyrepresented to him that he was born in Santo Domingo. Audubon'sjournal record of this journey,which I was permittedto ex- amine rather cursorilytwenty years ago, was publishedin 1929, and is commentedon quite profuselyby StanleyClisby Arthur. While fortunate in escapingthe fire and generalmutilation by injudicioushands, this rec- ord hasbeen tampered with at onecritical point, in the entry of November 28, 1820, where Audubonspoke of his birth and parentage,and related incidentswhich he thoughtthat hisfamily in the futuremight wish to know. The mutilator of his text, however, as Mr. Arthur observed,did not suc- ceedin forever obscuringwhat it was intended to conceal. In the two linesat this point,which have been blotted out as effectivelywith a pen as couldhave beendone with an ink-filledbrush, we can reasonablyinfer that Audubongave his own mother'sname, and eitherstated or impliedthat he wasborn out of wedlock,and in SantoDomingo. This inferenceis justified by the additionthrough the mediumof another'shand and anotherkind of ink of the prefix"re" to the word "married" in what immediatelyfollows the blotted lines. This, as originallywritten, reads:"My Mother, who I have beentold was an extraordinarybeautiful Woman, died shortlyafter my Birth and my father having married in France I was removedthereto whenonly Two Years old and receivedby that Bestof Women,raised and cherishedby her to the utmostof her Means ." Now, it is evident that the person,who obliteratedthose two linesand changed"married" to "remarried,"was determinedto make it appearthat Captain Audubon had beenfirst marriedto hisboy's mother, but that after her deathhe took their child to France,where he marriedagain, and this time to the woman who becamethe boy's stepmother,when the truth, as Audubonhad evi- dentlffstated it, wasquite the opposite. A few yearslater, about 1824,when Audubon and his wife wereliving at 'Beechwoods',a plantationnear St. Francisville,Louisiana, the wife of his old friend and former clerk, Dr. NathanielWells ,left a recordof her Vol.1937 54]J HERRICK,Audubon and the Dauphin 481

reminiscences,quoted by Mr. Arthur, in whichshe said that Audubonhad often describedto her the cottagein which he was born, that was situated on the banksof the MississippiRiver in LowerLouisiana and surrounded by orangetrees. At Oxford,in 1828,a who wantedhis autograph,asked Audubon to write his name and the date of his birth. The latter, he said he could not do, "exceptapproximately," and his hostess"was greatlyamused that he should not know." As I have already noticed,Audubon appears to have told Mr. Hay, of Edinburghin March, 1827,that he wasborn in "oneof the Frenchcolonies." In the introductionto the first volumeof the 'OrnithologicalBiography,' Audubon, who was under no necessityof saying anything about his birth, madethe vagueafiqrmation: "I receivedlife and light in the New World," and continues:"When I had hardly yet learnedto walk, and to articulate thosefirst wordsalways so endearing to parents,the productionsof Nature, that lay spreadall around,were constantly pointed out to me"; and in the biographicalsketch, "Myself" he wrote'that "the first of my recollectlye powersplaced me in the centralportion of the city of Nantes,on the River, in France." How do suchstatements support the theorythat J. J. Audubonwas the lost Dauphin, or suggestthe palaceat Versailles,where Louis Charleswas born, with forty or more servitorsaround him with as- signmentsmainly directedto the careof this little boy, not to speakof his later governesses,tutors or teachers? In the biographicalsketch just referredto, supposedto havebeen written about 1835, and which, though edited by his granddaughter,is replete with palpableerrors, he wrotethat "the preciseperiod of my birth is yet an enigmato me." He then spokeof his father goingfrom SantoDomingo to Louisiana,and there marrying a Spanishlady of beauty and wealth, and of having three sonsborn to them, "I beingthe youngestof the sons,and the onlyone who survived extreme youth. My mother,soon after my birth [implyingthat he was born in Louisiana],accompanied my father to the estate(sic) of Aux Cayes,on the islandof SantoDomingo, and shewas one of the victimsof the ever-to-belamented period of the negroinsurrection of that island." The evidencenow availablefrom a variety of sourcesas already stated, pointsclearly to the fact that the motherof Audubonwas a Frenchcr4ole, MademoiselleRabin, native of Santo Domingo, where her children were all born, that she was not married to Audubon'sfather, who stated under oathin the bill of adoptionthat the motherof hisson had died"about eight years"prior to March7, 1794(the dateof the signingof theact) that is in 1786,or oneyear after 1785,the year of the birth of the childborn to Mlle. Rabin, as recordedin the Sansonbill, the later entriesof whichprove her to have beenin declininghealth. 482 HEaaIe•,Audubon and the Dauphin [oct.Auk

In variousextracts from Audubon'sjournals, written for the benefit of his wife, but not for the public,at varioustimes from 1826to 1828,chiefly at Edinburghand Paris,heffecords a visit from the Countessof Selkirk, speaksof his highbirth, of walkingthe streetsof Parislike a commonman, when he "should command all," of his hated uncle, "Audubon of La Rochelle,"and speaksof the oath underwhich he wasbound not to reveal hisidentity. The nameof the Dauphin,or of LouisXVII, doesnot appear in any of theseexcerpts, but the referenceseems to be clear. It shouldbe rememberedthat whenthe Dauphinand his motherwere separatedin the Temple prisonon July 3, 1793,Louis Charleswas in his ninth year, and that the boy wasnearly eight years old whenhis father was executed,so that their son had the memoryof severalyears of both hls parents,to whom,according to the testimonyof all who had knownthem, he was devotedlyattached. Mr. Arthur speaksof Miss Harriet BachmanAudubon, daughter of John WoodhouseAudubon by his first wife, telling how she had read in her grandfather'sjournal one significantsentence: he madereference to "my father, meaningJean Audubon,--and in the next sentencesaid 'my own father whom I saw shot.' He said 'shot' becausehe was only eight years old and the word 'to 'was not then invented." Miss Audubon was evidentlypromoting the idea that the naturalist's'own father' was LouisXVI, and that her grandfatherwas, or had been,the Dauphin,but if there is any truth in the quotationit would definitelyprove that J. J. Auduboncould never have been the Dauphin, becausethe executionof LouisXVI wasnot witnessedby any memberof the . When writing to Bachmanin 1832,Audubon gave his own age as forty- seven,which would imply that he was born in 1785, and this would agree with the date of the child born to Mlle. Rabin, as noticed in Dr. Sansoh's bill. In writing to Bachmanagain six yearslater, on April 14, 1838,Audu- bon speaksof his beingthen fifty-three years old, whichwould again point to the same birth date. In a letter to his wife, written from New Orleans,in 1837, as noticedby Mr. Arthur, he spokeof that town as "my natal city"; and the localnews- papersof that time hailedAudubon as a native of Louisiana. Moreover, Cuvier, in his report on 'The of America'to the Royal Academyof Sciencesof Paris,September 22, 1828,made the samestatement, which in this easecould have comeonly from Audubonhimself; and whenAudubon sailedfor the United Stateswith Rozierin 1806his passportindicated that he was born in New Orleans. Thosecommitted to the Dauphin theory seein Audubon'sfeatures a strongBourbon likeness, but suchfaneied resemblances never carry much Vol.1937 54]J HERRICK, a. Dauhi 483 weight. Rev. John Halloway Hanson,1 the biographerand protagonistof Eleazar Williams, was certain that this half-breed Indian was an aristocrat for he had the Bourbonfeatures from top to toe. To many, perhaps,it would seemstrange that J. J. Audubonshould have found so closea re- semblancebetween himself and JeanAudubon unless his father by adoption werehis "real father." Whenwriting in 1820,Audubon said that "Major Croghanof told me often that he [JeanAudubon] looked much like me [andhe] was particularly well acquainted with him". In the "My- self" sketchhe alsosaid: "In personalappearance my father and I wereof the sameheight and stature,being about five feet, ten inches,erect and with musclesof steel. In temper we much resembledeach other also." One day in October,1826, when Audubonreturned to his roomsin Edin- burgh, and lookedinto a mirror, he saw not only his own face, but "such a strongresemblance to that of my veneratedfather that I ahnostimagined that it washe that I saw;the thoughtsof my mothercame to me, my sister, and ,ny youngdays,--all was at hand, yet how far away." This doesnot soundlike a Dauphin speaking;and it is doubtlesstrue that comparisons drawnbetween the living or memoriesof the living are moresignificant than thosebased upon engravingsor reproductionsof old . In writing to young SpencerF. Baird in 1842, Audubonexpressed the curious,if purelyfanciful, idea that his motheronce lived at "Mill Grove," near Morristown in Pennsylvania. The foregoingrecord probably does not exhaustall the possibilities,but it is amazingenough, and partly explainswhy John Neal so often taunted Audubonfor havinghad as many birthplacesas the poet Homer. A remark- ablefact aboutmost of thesestatements is that they cometo us secondhand, that is from private letters and edited journals,the quotationsfrom the 'OrnithologicalBiography' being the only onesthat were publishedunder Audubon'sown signature. It would seemto be obviousthat Audubonwas determined that the facts concerninghis birth and parentageshould not be made public, and that to achievethis end he resortedto enigma,as the best available smoke-screen.If he thought that public knowledgeof those facts would have been a stumblingblock in his own career,and in that of his two sons,whom he oncesaid he hopedmight rise to eminence,he was indubitablyright, for strangeas it may seem,and unjustas it certainlyis, the stigmaof illegitimacyhas alwaysbeen a penalty which the public is everready to placeon the headof the innocent. What strangersor what his intimates knew about thosefamily matters is what Audubonwas willing to

• Author of 'The Lost Prince,' New York, 1854. With this book, said william W. Wight, the habit began of referring to Louis XVII as "lost" as if he had been mislaid or hidden. "He was 'lost' only in the sense that he died." Hanson's mother was a daughter of a brother of Oliver Goldsmith, the poet. 4s4 HERRICK,Audubon and the Dauphin [Oct.[Auk

tell them, and his own recordseems to showplainly enoughthat he pre- ferredto bear the tauntsof the uncharitablethan to facethe reality.

IV "One of the great miraclesof history would have occurred,"writes Miss Rourke,"if Audubonwere the lost Dauphin,but this is nothingagainst the idea." True enough,but the same could be said of Eleazar Williams, or any one of the numerouspretenders. If therewere solid,unmistakable evidenceto supportthis conclusion,I would be only too glad to acceptit, but the presumptiveevidence is all the other way. The theoryis too weak to stand on its own feet. "Someof those,"says Miss Rourke, "dosest to Audubonduring his life- time,believed implicitly that he wasof noblebirth." Thisis, no doubt,very true, but Audubonsaid many thingsat differenttimes to differentpersons that contradictany suchidea, as that he wasborn in the New World, that his first memorieswere of Nantes, or that the only mother he had ever knownwas his stepmother. Thus in forminga judgment,independent of all domesticpartiality, we seemto be thrownback upon those legal, family documents,which were drawn up beforethe youth was grownto man's estateand wasobliged to fight hisway in a hostileworld. "There was a gap," Miss Rourke thinks, "of nine yearsbetween Audu- bon'sbirth (April 26, 1785) and his adoption(March 7, 1794),which has not beenfilled in. Wherewas the boy duringthis time?" The evidenceis fairly conclusivethat Jean Audubontook his sonto France late in 1789,so that this "gap" is reducedto about five years, and it seemsto me that in his 'OrnithologicalBiography' and the "Myself" sketchhe has filled this interval quite well enoughhimself. In the latter he spokeof "being con- stantly attendedby two black servants,who had followedmy father from Santo Domingo to New Orleansand afterwardsto Nantes." Mrs. Tyler saysthat "it can be only mental inertia whichhas allowedhundreds of intelligentpeople to read this sentence,and not pressthe inquiry why the illegitimateson of a common,seafaring captain of Nantesshould have been constantlyattended by one or two black servants." But what shallbe said of the mentalcondition of the peoplewho read the openingsentence of the sameparagraph about Audubon'sfirst recollectivepowers placing him in the centralpart of the city of Nantes? If that statementwas literally true no one couldever contendthat Audubonwas the lost Dauphin. Moreover, one would think that a householdwith an active boy rising five years (in 1790),and a girl risingthree, couldkeep any two black servantson their toesfor a goodlong time. Audubondid not mentionhis little sisterRosa, but there is no reasonto supposethat he monopolizedall the attentionof those black servants. Vol.1937 541J HERRICK,Audubon and the Dauphin 485

In 1789,Jean Audubon had jumpedfrom the frying pan of SantoDomin- go into the revolutionaryfires that werethen sweepingFrance. At Nantes he becamean ardent revolutionistwhen his city was entering the most terribleyears of its history. It withstooda determinedsiege by the loyalists of La Vend•e under Charette, and a of terror under Jean Baptiste Cartier, whoserecall on February14, 1794,just twenty-onedays before the act of the adoptionof his childrenwas signed, had givenhim and his fellow citizensthe first respitethey had enjoyedin a considerabletime. At Nantes, Captain Audubonhad occupieda number of differenthouses during an interruptedresidence of many years; and he continuedto live there with hisfamily until hisretirement from the navy for disability,January 1, 1801, when he settled at his country villa, "La Gerbeti[re," at Courron, on the right bank of the Loire, nine milesdown the river. During this earlier time, up to his sixteenthyear, young Audubonhad receivedlittle regular schooling,but had enjoyeda gooddeal of desultory experiencein and drawing. Thereafter, from 1801 to 1803, whenhe first returnedto America, and for a part of a year, 1805-06,when he was at Courron, aside from slight digressions,he was roaming the countrysideand makinga collectionof his owndrawings of the native birds. Accordingto his ownaccount of theseformative years, he receiveda plenty of good advice, criticism and admonitionfrom his father, and it was at Courronthat Foug[refirst met Dr. Charlesd'Orbigny, who might be called hisfather in naturalhistory. For my part I do not seethe needof doubting the identity of the youth, whoselife we have briefly followedfrom 1789 to 1803. If this was Audubon,who up to his eighteenthyear had spentnearly five yearsin SantoDomingo, eleven years in Nantes, and parts of two years at Courron,where does the Bourbonprince enter the picture? Miss Rourke thinks that Lieutenant Audubon did not tell all of his reasonsfor sendinghis son to the United States, and that "whatever his reasonswere they persisted,and may have had to do with the boy'sparent- age." This may be true, but what the father did not tell, the sonapparently did. In writing to Miers Fisher in 1803, and to Francis Da Costa in the winter of 1804-05, Lieutenant Audubonexpressly said that the compelling reasonsfor sendinghis son to Amerlea at that time were to enable him to learn Englishand entertrade. "Remember,my dear ," the elderAudu- bon wrote, "I expectthat if your plan [with the lead mine]succeeds, my sonwill find a placein the works,which will enablehim to providefor him- self,in orderto spareme from expenseswhich I canwith difficultysupport." If youngAudubon had beenthe Dauphinor the legalking of France,is it at all probablethat LieutenantJean Audubon, but recentlyknown as suchan ardentrevolutionist, would have been selected to guardthis scionof royalty, and then out of his own slenderpurse be expectedto meet all the costsof sendinghim to Americaand of keepinghim there? 486 UE•cK, Audubonand the Dauphin [Auk

There was, to be sure,another reason why the retired sailorand soldier wantedto get his son,Foug[re, out of Franceat that time, thoughhe may not have wishedto write it. The youngman was eligiblefor conscription. The need for "cannon fodder" was soon to become acute all over France, for Napoleonbecame in 1804. Audubontold the secretat a much later time when on the , November26, 1820. "The conscrip- tion," he wrote, "determined my father on sendingme to America," and he added, "a youngman of seventeen[eighteen], sent to Americato make money,for suchwas my father'swish."

v In his journal of March 15, 1827, at Edinburgh, Audubon recordeda visit from the Countessof Selkirk, when he thought it strangethat she shouldcall uponhim. "Did sheknow, I wonder,who I am positively;or doesshe think that it is JohnJ. Audubon,of Louisiana,to whomshe spoke?" On October9, 1828, accordingto Mrs. Tyler, Audubonwrote: "How often I thoughtthat I might oncemore see Audubon of La Rochellewithout beingknown by him, and try to discoverif my father wasstill in his recol- lection,if he had entirelyforgotten Selkirk's Settlements." In my version of this entry there is no 's' at the end of the last word. The vagueness which the plural numberseems to impart, makesa differencein our inter- pretation, but not a whit with referenceto the Dauphin question. This entry concludes:"and if if I say a few wordsmore I must put an end to my existence,having forfeited my wordof honorand my oath." This referenceto Selkirk, who had been much in the public eye in Englandfor nearly ten yearsprior to his death, and for many yearsthere- after, is the tenuousthread on whichMrs. Tyler buildsan amazingsuper- structure. "It would appear,"she says, "that John JamesAudubon was, at sometime a member of Selkirk's Settlements in Canada." She writes: "The longsuspense is overt At last we know the reasonfor AdmiralJean Audubon's abnormal solicitude, which took the form of the constant at- tendanceof thoseblack servants,who guardedJohn JamesAudubon, the supposedlyillegitimate son of the roughsea captain of Nantes! That little nine year old boy, adoptedby Jean Audubonon March 7, 1794, was a personagewhose real identity might presumablybe recognizedby the wife of the of Selkirk. The wife of the Earl of Selkirk had apparently knownhim personallywhen he was a settlerin Selkirk'sSettlements. It is not hkelythat the Earl'swife habituallymet the roughcolonists sent out to the wildsof North America,unless by chanceone of thosecolonists was not a real settler,but wasa personageemigrating under this guisein order to hidehis identity,and to seekthe protectionof the Earl's remotecolony. If the Earl of Selkirkwere hiding a personof importancein his Settlements Vol.1937 541] t'/ERRIOr•,Audubon and the Dauphin 487 in the HudsonBay country,very probablythe Earl's wife met that person beforeembarkation; or perhapsshe gave him hospitalityin her home, as was common in those days when England was the first destination of terror strickenFrench refugees. "And that other Audubonof La Rochelle,who apparentlyhad beenwith him in Selkirk'sSettlements, was he the personwho had beenentrusted to conveyand guard that little boy of eleven years, on the long perilous journey to Hudson Bay?" Mrs. Tyler seemsto have confusedHudson Bay with the Hudson's Bay Company, which drew its furs from a vast region,but noneof Selkirk'sSettlements was anywherenear HudsonBay. Audubon's claim that he was bound under a solemn oath to his father not to reveal his own identity, Mrs. Tyler thinks,explains many things about the early historyof Audubonthe naturalist. "Does it not explain why the wily old seacaptain, Jean Audubon,adopted two children on the same day, to give a semblanceof paternity to both acts? And doesit not suggestwhy he registeredthe name of the mother of the girl, and omitted to registerthe name of the mother of the boy, whoserecorded age almost paralleled that of Marie Antoinette's son, who had vanished from The Templejust forty odddays before the date of this adoption?" It is my opinionthat JeanAudubon, who was only fifty yearsold in 1794, and was then just getting a breathingspell after periloustimes, knew what he wastalking about, that he wasno perjuror,and was perfectly honest in every statementsworn to and witnessedin this act of adoption. That he wasa few daysout in hismemory of birth datesis not important. Thereis positively no evidence that he failed to mention the mother of his son in orderto concealthe woman'sname. The surestway of doingthis would have been to use a fictitious one. Mrs. Tyler reproducesthe of a bookon the Red River ,which she says "servesto prove that Selkirk'sSettlements were preeminently suitedfor the purposeof hiding the little ]Kingof France far from a world on fire with his pursuit. And the by-productsof this place of concealmentwere to exceedin importanceto the world,even his physical survival. The germinatinggenius of this growingboy, which straight through life seemedto flower under adversity,was born of this forest life and intimacy with primeval nature. "It would be natural for Admiral Audubonto turn his eyes to those North Americanoutbounds of civilization,which he had so extensively traversed,were he castingabout to find asylumfor his adoptedson after Charette'sdeath. Somethinghad to be doneto get that little boy out of danger,and so completelyout of reachof Carrier'sfollowers that pursuitwould be absolutelyimpossible. Nor woulddistance alone provide sufficientprotection. Secrecymust againbe invoked,and masquerading Z•88 I-IE•I½•,A•d•bo• a•d the Da•ph• •Oct.[Auk under some impenetrableguise. Selkirk's Settlementsprovided both requirements." Mrs. Tyler even charts the coursewhich she thinks Louis XVII, mas- queradingas John JamesAudubon, had taken in travelling from Nantes to the wilds of Canada:to England "the first destinationof so many French refugees,Saint-Domingue, Admiral Audubon'sformer home; and probably from thereto New Orleans,and up the Mississippito the Settlements." "The nameLa For•t, [or La Forest,]which Audubon assumed, and which hasnever had any explanation,probably dates from thisperiod. It may be the name under which John James Audubon was known as a Selkirk Col- onist. This name was probablydear to her [Mrs. Audubon],be- causeshe was the only personin Audubon'slife, who knew about his Canadiansojourn. "This thesis,if true, providesthe explanationfor so many inexplicable elementsin the life of John James Audubon, that it is with a distinct sense of relief that I offerit as a workinghypothesis, in the light of theseletters. For, as I have said, no amount of wanderingaround the countrysideof Cou•ron could have fitted this adolescentboy, John James Audubon, for his futurelife, and transformedhim into oneof the mostpowerful, resource- ful woodsmenthe new world possessed. "And yet whenJohn JamesAudubon came to the United Statesin 1803, whenhe was barely eighteenyears of age,he couldtraverse the continent alone like an Indian, find his way through tracklessforests, swim swollen rivers,shoot with the marksmanshipof the wilderness,and he couldsur- vive with his naked fists in the primeval forest of North America. His contactswith the Indians had the suretouch of easyfamiliarity; his know- ledgeof wild life knew no bounds. "Where had John JamesAudubon acquiredthis forest training? It is my belief that John JamesAudubon acquired all his foresttraining in the Selkirk's Settlements,somewhere between 1796 and 1800." What an extraordinarypicture we have here of the boy ',' whose sisteronce said that if he had actually escapedfrom the Tower prison,he couldnot have lived long on accountof his weakenedcondition; hidden for a time in the heart of Nantes, under the roof of one who was, or had been, an ardentrevolutionist, adopted by this very man,Jean Audubon, in place of his own son,--aboutwhose fate no oneof thewriters quoted seems to have thought it necessaryto inquire,--taken secretlyto England, where Mrs. ThomasDouglas, later to becomethe Countessof Selkirk,opens her heart and hometo him. Then a mysteriousuncle takes him to SantoDomingo, thenceto New Orleans,and up the MississippiRiver to that vaguedestina- tion called "Selkirk's Settlements"where the boy 'king' first learnedhis Indian lore and woodcraft. It is sad to relate that this ingeniouspicture Vol.1937 54]J HERRICK,Audubon andthe Dauphin 489

bearsno resemblancewhatsoever to reality. As a "working hypothesis" it fails to work. There is not an essentialline or word of truth in it, not one! It cannotbe true in any particular,since in the periodof 1796 to 1800, which Mrs. Tyler is endeavoringto fill, there were no Selkirk's Settle- ments in existence,and none indeed before 1803, when young Audubon was leaving France and headingfor his father's "Mill Grove" farm in Pennsylvania. The Scottishnobleman, Thomas Douglas,the fifth Earl of Selkirk, did not come into his title and fortune until the death of his father in 1799. He was a patriot who gavehis fortune and himselffor the developmentof the BritishEmpire by laudablemeans, his greataim beingto turn the flow of Scottishcolonists from the Carolinasand New England to Canada. He sponsoredthree settlements,the first in 1803 on Prince Edward Island, which was eventuallyfairly successful.The second,named "Baldoon" after a village on his ancestralacres, was situatedin the westernpeninsula of western Canada, betweenLakes Huron and Erie, and never becamemore than a stragglingpioneer village beforeit was finally plunderedby Ameri- cans in the . "The Selkirk Settlement" of the Red River was undoubtedlythe one to which Audubonreferred, and about which every reader of newspapersin England must have heard in the seconddecade of the last century. Its notorietywas due to its vast area, the moneyat stake,and the numbersof peopleinvolved. The legalbattles fought over it in the courts,which lasted for upwardsof ten years, with their strain and worry, caused,as many believed,the prematuredeath of Lord Selkirk at forty-nine in 1820. The directorsof the Hudson's Bay Company had granted Selkirk an area of 116,000square miles, comprisingparts of what are now Manitoba, North Dakota and , and regardedas about the most fertile district in the whole North Americancontinent. By the deed of January 12, 1811, Selkirkbecame the ownerin fee simpleof a tract five timesthe sizeof his native . This brought Selkirk and the Hudson'sBay Company in deadlyconflict with the NorthwestFur Company,whose directors were more interestedin their fat dividendsthan in philanthropy. They gave Lord Selkirk no peacein the courtsuntil, on the vergeof financialruin, his health broke. In 1821,the year after Lord Selkirk'sdeath, the rival comp- anies combined and later made a financial settlement with the Selkirk heirs. In 1869 the purchaseof the territorial rights of the consolidated Company by the Dominion Governmentled to Riel's rebellion,which was dispersedby British regularsunder Colonel(later Lord) Wolsely. Lord Selkirkseems to have lived aboutfifty yearsahead of his time. Sir Walter Scott is reportedto have said of him: "I never knew in my life a man of 490 Audubonand the Dauphin I_Oct.[Auk more generousand disinteresteddisposition." A town and county in Manitoba bear his name. • Why did Audubonrefer to Lord Selkirkin 1828,and why was he curious to know if "Audubon of La Rochelle remembered Selkirk's Settlement?" For no better reason,apparently, than why he shouldwish to know if this sameAudubon of La Rochelle,whom we have supposedall alongwas the naturalist's uncle, rememberedhis own brother, Jean, with whom we are told that he had quarreled. Lord Selkirk's active colonialwork lasted seventeenyears, 1803 to 1820, duringwhich time Audubon,--withthe exceptionof abouta year, 1805-06, when he was at CouSron,--wasin the United States,mostly engagedin variousbusiness enterprises. On July 26, 1817,Audubon, as already no- ticed, executeda powerof attorneyin favorof hisbrother-in-law, Gabriel Loyendu Puigaudeau,a little morethan a year after their fatherhad drawn up his last will and but little over six monthsbefore his death. This will was at once contestedin the courtsof Nantes, on the groundthat Lieuten- ant Audubon'snatural children,J. J. F. Audubonand Rosedu Puigaudeau, couldnot inherit propertyunder French law. When this litigation became known,Audubon seemingly broke off relationswith his father'sfamily at CouSron,and in June, 1820, after the lawsuit had been settled by com- promise,we find his brotherdndawwriting him an appealingletter, saying that no word had comefrom him in two years,and that Audubon "doesnot ceaseto speakof you." Audubondid not ignorethis appeal, and as recordedin his journal,on January10, 1821, at New Orleans,he wrote letters to his brother-indaw and to his foster mother at CouSron,a longneglected duty as he acknowledged. Audubon,in his Europeanjournal, spoke of "my mother,the only one I cantruly remember;and no oneever had a better,nor a moreloving one. Let no onespeak of her as my stepmother.! wasever to her a sonof her own fleshand blood,and shewas to me a true mother." If suchapparently spontaneousstatements are taken to meanwhat they say, they wouldbe fatal to the theory that Audubonwas the sonof Louis XVI and Marie Antoinette. In spiteof suchprotestations, on the otherhand, on August 6, 1826,Audubon writes in his journal,of plansfor goingto "Nantes to seemy venerablestepmother," who had died on October18, 1821;again in 1828,he spokeof this estimablewoman as if shewere then alive, al- though she had been dead sevenyears! This seemsto show pretty con- clusivelythat Audubonhad for a long time beenout of touchwith his father'sfamily, althoughone must think that he had beennotified of his stepmother'sdeath since he wasa beneficiaryunder her will.

' For the facts concerning Lord Selkirk's life ! am mainly indebted to 'Lord Selkirk's Work in Canada,' Oxford Historical and Literary Studies, vol. 7. By Chester Martin, Oxford, 1916. Vol.1937 541J HERRICK,Audubon andthe Dauphin 491

Vl

For some time I have been in correspondencewith St4phaneAntoine Foug[re, at one time mayor, and now a judge in the civil courtsof Les Cayes,a city havingat the presenttime a populationof twenty thousand souls,and one of the most important seaportsof the of . By perpetuationof a eartographiealblunder it is still sometimesdesignated "Aux Cayes,"which meansliterally "at the keys" or Cays. In a recent letter Dr. D. F. Rafferty says: "At the beginningof the World War I was orderedto Haiti, and stationedat Les Cayes,in charge of a French hospital. A friend sent me your book on Audubon . . . , and after reading it I loaned the book to Mr. Uriah Cardozo, who returned it to me with the comment that the author had not mentioned the fact that Audubon was actually born aboard a schoonerin the road- stead of Les Cayes. Apparently the story had some foundation in fact as it wascommon knowledge among the intelligentsiaof Les Cayes." The followinginformation relating to MademoiselleRabin, Audubon's mother, to her parents, in whom were united the Rabin and Foug[re families, and to Belony Foug[re, the reputed brother of Jean Jacques Foug[re Audubon,I give on the authority of JudgeFoug[re, who consid- ershimself a great-grand-nephewof Audubon,in directdescent from Belony 1%ug[re. His knowledgeof his family historycomes from his grandfather, OxilusFoug[re, who died at Les Cayesin 1908,at the age of eighty-five, and who had often spokenof his famousuncle, who lived in the United States,referring of courseto J. J. F. Audubon. If the naturalistwere cor- rect in speakingof havinghad two (or three) olderbrothers, he was mis- taken in thinking that all of them had been"killed in the wars," for Belony survivedand his descendantsare livingin Les Cayestoday. Audubon'smother, according to this account,came from two well-known, land-owningfamilies, the Rabins and the Foug[res,who held estatesre- speetivelyin the northern and southernparts of what is now the Haitian Republic. Thesetracts still bear thesefamily names,in accordwith the Frenchcustom of namingsections of the public domainafter the principal land-owners,and are so markedon the mapstoday. JudgeFoug[re, who has kindly investigatedthis matter for me, found that in S. Rouzier's 'Geographicaland AdministrativeGuide Book of Haiti,' the Rabin division in the north is situated in the fourth rural section of the Commune of Port- de-Paix,and the Foug[resection in the districtof Miragoanein the southern part of the country. Her father, M. Rabin, is said to have objectedso strenuouslyto his daughter'sconsorting with Captain Jean Audubon,a married man, that she insisted on having her children by him bear the patronym,not of that irate parent, but of her mother,who waspresumably 492 I-•ERRICK,Audubon and the Dauphin LOct.[Auk morecomplacent. Perhaps Audubon's early dislikeof the Rabin namemay be tracedto the oppositionexpressed by hismother, but this is purelyspec- ulative. Mr. Arthur, in his careful biography, has reversedthe names of the parentsof Audubon'smother, giving Foug[re as the father's name. Since both of us have derived our information from the same source, I have recentlyappealed to JudgeFoug[re to settlethis questionif possible,and he has written me under date of May 22, 1937, as follows: "If I have written to Mr. Arthur that Mlle. Rabin wasprobably Rabin by her mother, and Foug[re by her father, it may have beendue to a lapsuscalami neverthelessthis false belief has been practicedby the Foug•re family for a goodlong time. I have beenlately positivelyconvinced of the fact that Mlle. Rabin wasFoug•re by her mother,through explanations received from a near relative. As to whether the Mademoisellewas Foug[re by her motheror her father is, in my opinion, a matter of no real importance. What is of the utmost consequenceto know is that the Foug[re of Audubon'sbaptismal name came from one of the grandparentson his mother's side." Belony Foug[re, Audubon'solder brother and Judge Foug[re's great- grandfather,according to the family recordswhich I am now following, marriedFrancine d'Obeent (or d'Opsant)Dumont, who was the ownerof the largerural sectionof 'Dumont' in the districtof Les Cayes. He worked as a planter, at one time taught school,and also set up as a shoemaker. Belony had two sons,Ozilus and Tib[re, and four daughters,B61omine, Teleila, Dulcinette and Elmirene. Louis JosephSimon, a son of Telcila, and now living at Les Cayes,was at one time General Haitien Consulat New York. Belony spenthis early life at Les Cayes,but later lived at J4r4mie where he died. OxilusFoug[re, nephewof Audubon,and grandfatherof JudgeFoug[re, to continuethis account,was a physicianand alsohad a pharmacyat Les Cayes. He had three sons,Antoine, father of Judge Foug[re, Fenimore and Marc, and a daughter,Marie. Antoinewas a pharmacistof the first classat the University of Paris, and a former housesurgeon in that city, with the degreeof lieentiatein medicine. Fenimorewas a physicianand assistantsurgeon in the Frencharmy in 1870. Both Antoineand Fenimore were in Paris seventeenyears. Somehave thought that the name of La Fortt, or La Forest, which Audubonadopted and usedfor a time in his early life was a fancifulone, but accordingto JudgeFoug[re, as noticedby Mr. Arthur, Mlle. d'Obeent-Dumont,who became the wife of Belony Foug[re, was a descendantof a family bearing that name, and having plantationsat Jtr4mie. The Laforestsliving there today all have colored blood. Vol.1937 54]J HERRICK,Audubon and the Dauphin 493

VII If Audubon had been the son of Louis XVI and Marie Antoinette, is it possibleto believethat he would have been sent to Paris, presumablyin 1802,when the worldhad been"on fire with hispursuit," to studyunder JaequesLouis David, famousartist and Conventionalregicide, who had voted to send his father to the guillotine, who had visited him when a prisonerin the Tower, presumablywith the intentionof paintingor draw- ing his portrait, and who had actually sketchedthe pathetiefigure of his own brave mother when on her way to the scaffold? This referenceto Marie Antoinettesuggests another critical seenein the life of this young queen, who had grown old while still in her thirties. On that desolate winter'smorning of , 1793, in Paris, in an upper room of the Templars'Tower, were gathereda striekenmother, the PrincessElizabeth, familiafly known as "aunt Babet," the two royal children,Marie Th6r[se Charlotte,and MonsieurCharles, the Dauphinof France,in the presence only of their two watehdogs,the eommissionerswho were daily detailed from the Convention,and their faithful pantry boy, Turgy. In a set of significantquestions which this sameyouth, in later yearswhen grownto manhood,had sent to the spuriouspretender, "Charles de Navarre," in 1817,was this: "What took plaeeon January21, whenthe cannonwere heardin that upperroom? What did your aunt say at that instant,and what unusualthing wasdone for you?" No answerto thesequestions was ever received,and it is safeto say that not one of the numerousclaimants to having beenthat little boy,--no morethan JohnJames Audubon, who at that very time, accordingto his own written statements,was living at Nantes, under the roof of his father and devotedstepmother,--eould have met this test with any better sueeess.Audubon was not LouisCharles ! As far as anyonenow knows,Turgy neveranswered his own query,but we may surmisethat the mother and aunt embracedthe ehild, and said perhapsthe traditionalthing: "Louis Charles,the King, your father, is dead:long live the new king, his sonl" Very likely they tried to explainto him the newposition in whichhe and they werenow placed. The Dauphin was then not quite eight years old, having been born on Easter Day, Mareh 27, 1785,and Audubonwas about a monthyounger. I have stated a numberof facts and eireumstaneeswhich weigh strongly againstthe idea that Jean JaequesFougbre Audubon was Louis Charles, the Dauphin, and later, by right of inheritance,Louis XVII, King of France; but there is anothereonsideration, that of physicalmarks uponthe body, that is evenmore important, and oughtdefinitely to settlethe question. Thoseclosest to the Dauphinknew of eertainmarks upon his body which taken togethereould identify him with absoluteeertainty. Thesewere (1) vaccinationmarks on both arms, (2) a searover the left eye, and another 494 •mcK, Audubonand the Dauphin [Aukrock. on the right sideof the nose,and (3) a deformedright ear, whichhad its lower lobe excessivelyenlarged. The first two wereunimportant because they couldbe easilyproduced. Eleazar Williams or any other spuriouspre- tender might, and sometimesdid, point to suchsears in the right places, but the deformedear wasa physicalcharacter which could not be imitated. There wasthen no plasticsurgery in Franceof that day whichcould either remove or producesuch a blemish without trace. This defect was never generallyknown, and probablyactually known to but very few, if any, outsidethe royal family; and no wondersince the boy Dauphin,as seenin life and in his portraits,had alwaysappeared with long locks,banged and hangingdown over his ears,which they completelyconcealed; and no doubt his fond parents were quite willing that his tressesshould hide such an abnormality. It wasa bodilymark that tripped many a brazenpretender in the eyesof the knowing. Did anyoneever noticethat John JamesAudubon had a deformedright ear? Not sofar as is known,and his numerousportraits give no suggestion of it. If Audubon'sright ear was normal, as he and other artists rep- resentedit to be, he wasnot LouisXVII. Had Audubonpossessed such a deformitywould he haveconsented to the sacrificeof his 'ambrosial'locks in Edinburgh,on March 19, 18277

VIII There is probablyno parallelin history to the Dauphin 'racket,' whleh beganin Franceshortly after the reputeddeath of Louis Charles,lasted for the betterpart of a century,and the reverberationsof it are felt evento this day. The causeswhich led to such an extraordinarysuccession of eventsdo not seemto haveever been duplicated in eitherancient or modern times, Within five years after the death of the Dauphin, as recordedin the Temple'sarchives, seven boys, all elMmingto have beenLouis XVII, had alreadycome to the attentionof the Frenchpolice. Soonthey kept bobbing up overnight, here, there, and everywhere,and sometimestwo were cir- culatingin the countryat the sametime. Three who madesuch fraudulent elMms,were living at one time or anotherin the United Statesor Canada. One of these, Eleazar Williams, I shall speakof later. The Dauphin's sister once remarked, when the number of those claiming to be her lost brother, had reachedtwenty-seven, that shebelieved every one of them to be false. Fifty yearsafter the reporteddeath of LouisCharles, the number of thoseelMming to be, or who believed,or who imaginedthemselves to be, that prince,had risen to forty, and somehave estimatedthat the roll of dishonestclaimants has by now touchedthe seventiethmark! They were an assortedcollection of near lunatics, unstablepersons with insistent ¾01.1937 54]J • HERRICK,Audubon andthe Dauphin 495 ideas such as delusionsof grandeur or plain monomaniacs,mendacious liars, cleverforgers, general swindlers or adventurers,and pioushypocrites. What did they expectto gain by suchfraudulent claims? Probablynot a diademor kingly crownin mosteases, but moneyand giftsof varioussorts from the credulous,a shareperhaps of the large private fortune of the sister of the Dauphin, and above all public acclaimand notoriety. The shrewdestforgers or the most consistentand accomplishedliars did often obtainsome of thesethings, such as jewels,coin of the ,and a chance to live for a time at leastin luxury. Severalwrote fietltious memoirs, and many figured in the law courts,when they often drew fines and prison sentences.Their claimswere usually thrown out of court,but if they were banishedfrom the countrythey werecertain to turn up againin the same rgle somewhere else. Probably no boy in the world's history, whoselife, or that part of it aboutwhich anything is definitelyknown, extended to only ten years,two monthsand two days,to followthe Tower recordagain, has had so many biographers,so many impersonators,or who has been pronounceddead and buried so many times, and in so many differentplaces. Under such circumstancesit is not surprisingthat the bibliography! of thisunfortunate princehas extendedto extraordinaryproportions. Over a hundredyears after the reporteddeath of the Dauphin a monthly publication,'Revue I-Iistoriquede la QuestionLouis XVII,' wasstarted in Paris, and its editor beganhis addressto his prospectivereaders with a quotationfrom Renan: "I fear," said Renan, "that the work of the twentieth century will but consistof retrievingfrom the waste basket a multitude of excellentideas which the nineteenthcentury had heedlesslythrown away. The survival of LouisXVII, after leavingthe prisonof the Temple,is oneof theseideas." This journal lasted until 1911 when six volumeshad been completed. Moreover,this was publishedto continuethe work of anotherperiodical, Bulletin de la 'Soci•t• d'Etudes sur la QuestionLouis XVII,' which had a life of twenty-threeyears. There wasa shrewdadventurer, who suddenly appeared in 1830,coming apparentlyfrom nowhere,and passingunder the German name of , in recent times identified,though not with complete certainty,as Carl BenjaminWerg. After a long and checkeredeareeL he was thrown out of France, and went to England, where he invented a bomb that was operatedby clockwork. Failing to interest the English in his invention,he startedfor Hollandin 1845with a passportbearing the name of "Charles Louis de Bourbon." Being detainedat Rotterdam, the questionof admittinghim soonbecame one of internationaldiplomacy

• William W. Wight, in his 'Louis X¾II: A Bibliography,' . 1915, lists 478 , and these were strictly limited to material found in his own library. 496 HERR•c•:,Audubon and the Dauphin tOct.[Auk

betweenFrance and Holland. The Dutch appearto have wantedhis bomb, and havinglittle likingfor CharlesX, the Frenchking, the matter dragged over five monthsand endedin a compromise.The Frenchwere willing to have the name "CharlesLouis" appearin the doeument,--theDauphin's name being "Louis Charles,"--and for all they cared the bomb could be called"the Bourbonbomb," but they would not go a step farther. This was held, but on insufiqeientgrounds, as a tacit admissionthat the Naun- dorff family was entitled to use the Bourbonname. The agreementwas signedon , 1845, and Naundorff,who had goneto Delft, was dead of typhoid fever lessthan two monthslater. In 1851, the Naundorff family tried to get from the French an acknowledgmentof their claim to the use of the Bourbon name, but without success,and they appealedagainst this verdictin 1874,but lost again. Finally in 1911, the Naundorff descendantsmade a third attempt at havingtheir claim of beingscions of Louis XVI acknowledgedin France, but were again denied,and there the matter now stands. Naundorff had neither the physiognomynor the physicalmarks of the Dauphin, but manybelieved that he wasrather better than the averagerun of . Minnigerode,x whom I have followedin this statement of the Naundorff ease,is undoubtedlyright in sayingthat the admission,wrung from France by the Dutch in 1845,was onewhich no French court for a momentwould have allowed. Nevertheless,Naundorff was buried with honorsof royalty at Delft, and his monument there bears this inscription: "Louis XVII, roi de Franceet de Navarre (CharlesLouis due de Normandie)."

IX A much more difficultsubject to understandthan the I-Iervagaults,the Riehemontsor the Naundorffs,is the psychologyof an Americanpretender to royalty, Eleazar Williams, one-timemissionary to the Indians. It is a pity that Gamaliel Bradford never psyehoanalyzedhim. He had no criminalrecord, but was a teacheramong the Indiansfor many years,and BishopHobart, of New York, ordainedhim to the ministryof the Protestant Episcopal Church, and baptisedhis Indian wife, giving her the name of Mary Hobart. Williams translated the Book of Common Prayer and numeroushymns into the Iroquoislanguage, and at GreenBay, , started a school for half-breed Indian children. This was maintained until 1823,when he marriedone of his pupils. In 1839,Williams is saidto have eordldedto a Buffalo editor that he was the real , and ten years later an article, supposedto have been written or inspired by Williams himself, appearedin the 'United States DemocraticReview' in

• See Meade Minnigerode: 'The Son of Marie Antoinette: the Mystery of the Temple Tower,' New York, 1934. Vol.1937 1541J I-IERRICK,Audubon and the Dauphin 497 which his definite claim to royalty was made public. Meantime Williams repeatedhis story to anyonewho would listen, but the widespreadnotoriety, after which he had evidently been striving, came with the publicationin 'Putnam's Monthly Magazine' for February, 1853, of an article entitled "Have we a Bourbonamong us?" by the Rev. John H. Hanson. Hanson correspondedwith Williams, visitedhim, travelledwith him, and became suchan enthusiasticsupporter of his causethat he wrote his biography,a volumeof nearly five hundredpages, published in 1854. Hanson was an idealist,without a particleof criticaljudgment, and believingin the unim- peachableintegrity of hishero, he acceptedwithout question all of hisyarns howeveramazing or impossible.I can relate but one of thesewhich came out in a conversationwith Hanson,who saidin effect:"Before you left the Temple, at the age of ten you must have storedup in your mind many vivid memorypictures of extraordinaryevents, some of which you will be able to recall. Now I wish you would describesome of them." "A most remarkablefact," replied the self-styledLouis XVII, "is that up to the ageof thirteenor fourteenmy mind is like a blank page;nothing is written on it. Consciousnessseems to havebeen imperfect or entirelylacking, and at that early periodI was practicallyan idiot. Then, this strangething happened:one summer'sday, when I wasbathing with a numberof Indian boys,my friends,in the watersof Lake George,in my foolishway I climbed a highrock over the waterand dived. The shockrendered me unconscious, but my boy friendsdragged me out, and when I was graduallyrestored to consciousness,I was a changedperson. My mind was given back to me, and the eventswhich had happenedin my earlier years in Paris were re- called. Picturesof soldiersand great personageswere there, and there was a hard, cruel face,which I seemedto recognizewith a start, as I suddenly came upon it when on a steamboat,or upon enteringa train. I think what startlesme must be the resemblanceto my evil guardianof an early day, Simon, the cobbler? Intelligent people probably knew as well then as they know now that a sharp blow upon the head is not conduciveto an improvementin mentality. The Rev. Mr. Hansonshould have remembered the Old Testamentproverb: "Though thou shouldestbray a fool in a mortar amongwheat with a pestle,yet will not his foolishnessdepart from him." Williams told Hanson that de Joinville, sonof Louis Philippe, cameto GreenBay and tried to get him to signan abdicationof his rights to the French throne. When this was denouncedin France as a pure fabrication,Williams said to Hanson:"I do not troublemyself much about the matter. My story is on the wingsof heaven,and will work its way without me. God in His providencemust have some mysteriousends to answer,or He wouldnever have broughtme so low from 498 H•aa•cK,Audubon and the Dauphin [AukLOct.

sucha height. I do not want a . I am convincedof my regal descent;so are my family. The idea of royalty is in our minds,and we will not relinquishit. You have beentalking to a king to-night." They were then on a steamboat,approaching Burlington, Vermont. In concludinghis article on "The BourbonQuestion," a sequelto the one to whichI have referred,Hanson said: "To thosewho have charitably attributed to me the originationof a moonhoax ! to sell a magazine,or the credulityof adoptingthe baselesstale of a monomaniacI reply that I am contentto leavethe easeto speakfor itself, quite satisfiedwith the approbationof those,neither few, nor stupid, nor credulous,who en- tertainwith me the strongestconviction of the highprobability that beneath the romanceof incidencethere is here the rocky substratumof indestructi- ble fact." Eleazar Williams said that his story would work its way without him. It has, but has taken a differentcourse from what he would have chosen, especiallysince the historiansof the Universityof Wisconsinmade it their businessto investigatehis life history. It has been definitely established that Eleazar Williams was a half-breed Indian, son of Thomas Williams and Mary Ann Kenewatsenri.Thomas was a grandsonof EuniceWilliams, who was a daughterof JohnWilliams, minister at Deerfield, Massachusetts. She was capturedin 1784 in a French and Indian raid, was married to an Indian chief of Caughnawaga,and her descendentsall bore the Williams name. In 1824 Eleazar gave Sault St. Louis (Caughnawaga,Canada), as his birthplace,but he publiclymaintained the fictionof beingLouis XVII up to his deathin 1858. Eleazar Williams standsin a classby himself amongthe better-known pretendersto royalty in relation to Louis Charles. Why did this minister and missionaryworker choose to lead a life of duplicity? His dishonesty broughthim no monetaryrewards. His greatestweakness seems to have been an inordinate vanity. His bold claims and those of his credulous friends,who did not knowhim any too well, madehim a markedman and whereverhe went interestin him wasaroused. If he preachedin a country church,that wasan eventto be remembered.In a recentlypublished work on 'Old Historic Churchesof America'there is pictureda churchat Long- meadow, Massachusetts,"with which," it was stated "is associatedthe romanticstory of EleazarWilliams, believed by many to have beenLouis XVII, of France."

x What shallbe saidof the conjecturesof Mrs. Tyler on this crudeWilliams hoax? "There is a persistentrumor in Canada," saysMrs. Tyler, "that • Referring to the story in 'The (New York) Sun,' of August 25, 1835, sometimes called the greatest scientific fraud ever perpetrated, purporting to have been written by Sir John Herschel, but now believed to be the work of a clever reporter, Richard Adams Locke. Vol.1937 541J HERRICK,Audubon and the Dauphin 499 the Dauphin lived there. When a legend of this kind lives through a century,it usuallyhas somebasis in fact, as is now seen[the basisbeing that Audubon was Louis XVII, and as such had lived in Canada]. And this may evenaccount for the storyof the 'mythicalWilliams boy,' whowas missionaryto the Indians,for Audubon'sreligious life wasdeeply spiritual, and he may have usedhis stay in Canada to this end; and the Williams boy's mother, Mrs. Williams, is reputedto be the indomitableand inde- fatigableLady Atkyns, who gave Marie Antoinetteher pledge that she wouldnever stop till shehad savedher son,Louis 17th. It may be that Lady Atkyns'spledge was thus fulfilled." What a strangedenouemont! Audubon,at the age of eleven, giving spiritual comfortto North AmericanIndians, whom he had never seen,in 'Selkirk's Settlements,'which did not then exist, and in a country which he had nevervisited! What, I wonder,would Lady Atkynshave thought, Walpole born, whosehusband had been a Norfolk , after all her moneyhad beenthrown to the windsin a vain, if worthy, cause,of being the reputedmother of a half-breedAmerican Indian, and a piousimposter at that? Would not the ardent biographerof that "Williams boy," who protestedthat he was not startinga moonhoax, be equally surprisedto knowhow much moonshine there was in his wholestory? Audubon'slife was romanticenough. He doesnot need any falsehalo of royalty. He can stand on his own feet. ArrEawoaD.--When we considerthe fietee partisanshipengendered during the Revolution,and the widebreach between what contemporaries spokeor wrote, and what they really thoughtor believed,the testimonyof eye-witnessesto eventsin or about the Templemust be consideredmost untrustworthy. Moreover, the failure after one hundred and forty years of hot debateto throw any dear light on the ultimate fate of the Dauphin tends more and more to convinceus that he was "lost" only in the sense that he had died. If this be the hard truth, what could be more vain than refuting the claimsof pretendersor their descendants? ClevelandHeights Ohio