The Mystery of the Lost Dauphin Louis XVII

The Project Gutenberg eBook, The Mystery of the Lost Dauphin, by Emilia Pardo Bazán, Translated by Annabel Hord Seeger, Illustrated by Raphael Bodé

This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org

Title: The Mystery of the Lost Dauphin

Louis XVII

Author: Emilia Pardo Bazán

Release Date: November 29, 2012 [eBook #41509]

Language: English

Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1

***START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE MYSTERY OF THE LOST DAUPHIN***

E-text prepared by Andrea Ball & Marc D'Hooghe

(http://www.freeliterature.org)

from page images generously made available by the

Google Books Library Project

(http://books.google.com)

THE MYSTERY OF THE LOST DAUPHIN

(Louis XVII)

By

EMILIA PARDO BAZÁN

TRANSLATED FROM THE SPANISH

By

ANNABEL HORD SEEGER

FRONTISPIECE ILLUSTRATION

By

RAPHAEL BODÉ

FUNK & WAGNALLS COMPANY

NEW YORK and LONDON

1906

When the world salutes me King, I will admit I am your brother.

Contents

EMILIA PARDO BAZÁN

While Provençal literature blossomed in chivalric splendor along the northern shore of the Mediterranean and rare pastoral music in madrigals and roundelays rang through France and Italy, there sounded from the sea-girt province of Galicia wonderful songs which rivalled the sweetest strains of the troubadours, making kings to weep and warriors to smile, thrilling, by their wit and pathos and lyrical beauty, the brilliant courts of Castile and Leon.

It is an ethnographical phenomenon that, in Great Britain, France and Spain, the Celt has been pushed to the northwest. Galicia corresponds in position to Brittany and her people are characterized by the powerful imagination, infinite delicacy, concentration of feeling and devotion to nature which are the salient attributes of Gaelic and Cymric genius.

The Modern Literary Renaissance of Galicia, a superb outburst of Gallegan exuberance, has a noble and eloquent exponent in Emilia Pardo Bazán, gifted child of this poetic soil.

Senora Pardo Bazán has been called the creator and protagonist of Spanish Realism. It has been claimed that she bears to Spain such a relation as Turgénieff to Russia and Zola to France. She herself says somewhere that she is skeptical regarding the existence of Realistic, Idealistic and Romantic writers, averring, in her trenchant style, that authors constitute but two classes, good and poor. Certain critics would affirm, she remarks, that, as simple as the cleaving in twain of an orange is the operation of separating writers into Realistic and Idealistic camps.

One biographer claims that our author sacrifices sex to art and that the result warrants the sacrifice. I would insist that 'tis a lady's hand wielding the mailed gauntlet and that reading Pardo Bazán helps one to understand why Great Brahm is described as partaking of the feminine principle.

Castelar has remarked that: In Belles Lettres we have the illustrious Celt, Emilia Pardo Bazán, whom, living, we count among the immortals, and whose works, though of yesterday, are already denominated Spanish classics. Garcia, in his History of Spanish Literature, calls her the Spanish de Staël. Rollo Ogden writes: No masculine pen promises more than that of Pardo Bazán. Her equipment is admirable; it is based on exhaustive historical and philosophical studies, from which she passed on to the novel. In this transition does she resemble George Eliot, whom, however, she surpasses in many respects.

G. Cunninghame Graham remarks: We have not in England, no, nor in Europe, so illustrious a woman in letters as Pardo Bazán. Goran Bjorkman declares that Among Spanish writers, Pardo Bazán most resemble Turgénieff, excelling him, however, in the sane gayety of her temperament.

Senora Pardo Bazán is descended from a noble and illustrious family, in whose genealogy Victor Hugo sought the characters of his Ruy Blas. An only daughter, her childhood was passed amid her father's extensive library. When scarcely sixteen she was married to the scholarly gentleman, Don José Quiroga. Several subsequent years were occupied in European travels and study, at the conclusion of which she consecrated herself to the literary labors which have yielded so rich a harvest. To enumerate these masterpieces of contemporaneous Spanish letters would be superfluous. They have been translated into every European tongue.

Doña Emilia, as she is affectionately called by the Spanish people, passes her winters in Madrid, her salon being the rendezvous of the literary, political and diplomatic world. The author smacks not of the bas bleu; she is a simple woman in the truest sense of the word, and a regal grande dame as well.

Annabel Hord Seeger.

A GREAT GRANDSON OF LOUIS XVI

Over one hundred and thirteen years ago, in Paris, at ten in the morning of the twenty-first day of January, seventeen hundred and ninety-three, Louis Seize bowed his head beneath the guillotine's blade, as the Abbé Edgeworth called aloud, Son of Saint Louis, ascend into heaven! and as the surging multitude sent up the wild shout, Vive la République!

A few months ago, in Paris, at ten in the morning of the twenty-first day of January, nineteen hundred and six, two automobiles drew up before the parish church, Saint-Denis de la Chapelle, whose historic walls, fifteen centuries since, enclosed during life the intrepid and holy patroness of France, Geneviève de Nanterre; before whose shrine, five centuries since, the glorious virgin Savior of the realm, Jeanne d'Arc, passed an entire day in prayer; whose sacred aisles were ever the avenues for the royal feet in ancient times, on the termination of the coronation ceremony.

From these automobiles alights a party headed by a slender grave-looking young man of simple charming manners whose light grey eyes smile often. He is accompanied by a graceful young matron leading by the hand a handsome little fellow of some six years who wears a Louis Dix-Sept coiffure and long auburn curls on his shoulders.

An elderly lady of patrician countenance stands near me. I turn inquiring eyes into hers. With the grace and courtesy of a salon dame, she beckons me closer, whispering in my ear:

His Majesty Jean III, Her Majesty Marie Madelaine and His Royal Highness the Dauphin, Henri-Charles-Louis.

My companion reverently and profoundly inclines her body, as the procession rushes past us. I do likewise, albeit with an unpleasant consciousness of an absence of the grace which envelops this member of the Survivance at my side.

As we raise our heads, a man of distinguished appearance and of a pronounced Bourbon type hurries past us, to join the advancing party.

'Tis Monsieur, observes the lady. 'Tis the Prince Charles-Louis. He is the soul of the cause.

We follow his elegant person past the kneeling congregation which fills the central nave. The royal family approach the chancel until reaching the group of crimson prie-Dieus and velvet cushions. The sanctuary is crimson-draped; the white-haired venerable prelate is crimson-robed; the altar blazes with the crimson tongues of wax tapers: for 'tis a Messe Rouge that is to be celebrated today, in honor of the royal victim of one hundred and thirteen years ago.

Explain to me the genealogy, I say to my guide, when we have taken seats.

The slender dark-haired gentleman and Monsieur are the great grandsons of Louis Seize.

In what manner are they descended?

Their father was Charles-Edmond Naundorff, fifth child of Charles William Naundorff, the Prussian watch-maker, who claimed the French crown during the reign of his uncle, known in history as Louis XVIII.

Tell me more of these gentlemen.

Jean III, whose entire name is Auguste-Jean-Charles-Emmanuel de Bourbon, was born in Maestricht, Holland, in 1872. He and Monsieur were adopted in early childhood by their father's sister, Amélie, the wife of Monsieur Laprade of Poictiers—the beautiful, imperious Amélie whose face was the reincarnation in feature and expression of the ill-fated martyr queen, Marie Antoinette.

Was not that resemblance accepted as corroborating evidence of her father's integrity?

Madame, said my aristocratic companion, turning upon me wonderful glowing eyes that seemed to reflect a throne transformed into a scaffold, Madame, the face of Amélie Naundorff convulsed the government of the Restoration to such an extent that even the palsied limbs of the man called Louis XVIII, grew rigid in terror. During one crucial moment the usurper summoned the strength to stand upon his bandaged feet and shatter with one blow the ascendancy of his nephew, Charles William Naundorff.

What arm did he employ?

That arm which the iniquitous ever use against the upright; the rectitude and tenderness of a noble nature.

Explain.

Naundorff's despoilers turned upon him the only effectual weapon at their disposal: they turned, rather they bade him turn upon himself, the greatness and simplicity of his own heart.

I cast my eyes upon the group before the altar, upon the dark grave man, all simplicity, candor and earnestness; upon the gentle comely lady beside him, and the little fellow in the Louis Dix-Sept coiffure.... Just then Monsieur turned his superb head and the fine Bourbon features irradiated the old charm which history and tradition have sought to transmit, but which only the blood of Henri de Navarre can make glowing with life.

The lady placed her elegantly gloved hand upon my arm.

From their earliest years, the boys were cautioned not to reveal their real name. Under the appellation of Lisbois they were successively placed in several schools. Their identity was more than once discovered, whereupon they were removed. On leaving college, they spent several years in Brittany and Paris, completing their education. Jean III lived on the estate of Monsieur Gabaudan from 1893 to 1898. Monsieur Gabaudan manages an extensive wine business. Jean III, with the shrewd common sense of his grandfather and with the mechanical instinct of his great-grandfather, mastered the details of this business. Only one road seemed to lie before him. He resolutely followed it. In 1900 he removed to Paris. Under the name of De Lisbois, he was connected with a petroleum house. During the last two years, he has, under his true name, been the director of a drilling and sounding company in the interest of which he has made several voyages to Algeria.

What are Monseigneur's ideas with regards to royal pretensions and claims?

Jean III has declared that he will never conspire to be placed upon a throne. 'Circumstances,' says he, 'will decide my destiny.'

Has he adherents among the nobility?

His following is from all classes. The grandfathers of the present nobility well knew that Jean de Bourbon's grandfather was the rightful King of France.

What of men of letters?

Many eloquent pens are consecrated to his cause. Eloquence, however, is no requisite in the presentations of his claim. The Naundorffists demand only to tell the plain truth.

What is the official organ of the party?

La Légitimité, edited in Bordeaux, now in its twenty-third year.

I have never seen a copy.

C'est bien facile, Madame. You tell me you are leaving for New York. The Salmagundi Club contains on file numbers of interesting books and magazines having reference to Louis XVII. But, if you have the time today, I will gladly accompany you to the official headquarters of the party, namely, the office of Monsieur Daragon, the accomplished editor of Le Revue Historique de la Question Louis XVII.

Monsieur Daragon is a true Frenchman, amiable, courteous, charming. His office is the rendezvous of notable personages pertaining to the cause and his bookshelves are laden with volumes of Louis XVII literature. I purchased the scholarly memoirs of Otto Freidrichs entitled Correspondance de Louis XVII and Osmond's Fleur de Lys, a most interesting and convincing work.

In the February number of the Critic of New York, Mr. J. Sanford Saltus asks:

"The next King of France—who will he be? A question often put by the adherents of the Due d'Orleans, Don Carlos, Victor Napoleon and Jean de Bourbon.

"Jean de Bourbon is the youngest of the 'Pretenders' and his claim is based upon the assumption that his grandfather, Charles William Naundorff was the Dauphin, the son of Louis XVI, who according to popular rumor, died in prison June 8, 1795, and was buried at night in an unmarked grave by the church yard of Sainte-Marguerite, in an obscure Paris quarter. That the Dauphin did not die in prison, but that, with the assistance of friends, he escaped therefrom,—a sick child being left in his stead,—is now the almost universally accepted belief of historians. It is thought that his escape was known to Fouché and Josephine Beaubarnais and that, beside the sick child, several other children, whose names were respectively, Tardif Leminger, de Jarjages, and Gornhaut, were used as blinds, while the real Louis XVII was being helped out of the country by the Royalists."

Mr. Saltus continues further on:

"At Delft, Holland, August 10, 1845, ended the adventurous life of the exile Charles William Naundorff. His grave, by official permission, bore his true name. On June 8, 1904, the remains were exhumed and re-interred in the new cemetery at Delft and once more, by official permission, the same inscription appears.

King William II, King William III and Queen Wilhelmina have allowed this inscription to remain unmolested. Why? On the coming of age of the Naundorffs, the Dutch government gives them permission to assume their real name.

Annabel Hord Seeger.

Book I

MARTIN, THE SEER

The Lost Dauphin

Chapter I

THE LOVERS

In a London quarter near the Thames, little frequented by day and almost deserted by night, there is a house with a small garden facing an extensive park from whose centre majestically rise groups of trees that have stood for a century or more, those trees of the old English soil which constant moisture nourishes and develops into colossal proportions. The memories attaching to this modest structure would be well worth exploitation by the historian, but Clio has chosen to avert her face from this, the scene of the most dismal historical drama whose narration was ever stifled into silence.

The tragedy which for a while was bounded by the walls of that pygmy house will forever remain in shadow, for such has been the decree of Destiny,—rather, such has been the will of certain powerful men in high places.

On the evening when this narrative opens, the prolonged spring twilight had lost every trace of the sunset afterglow when an aristocratic, stalwart young man enveloped in a gray cloak which did not conceal the symmetry of his form, approached the grating at the rear of the house and knocked on the iron bars with his cane four times at regular intervals. A moment later a white skirt gleamed amid the shrubbery and the face of its young possessor shone back of the grating. A dainty hand glided through the bars and the visitor clasped it ardently. Affectionate greetings followed and anxious questionings, too, for these plighted hearts could but claim Love's arrears after their long separation.

Did you arrive today?

I have but just come, not even taking time to change my clothes. The letter which I sent preceded me but half an hour.

"Do they know you are here?"

No. They think I am hunting on my Picmort estate.

A brief silence followed. The woman—the girl, rather, for she was scarcely more than sixteen—contracted the arch of her perfect brow.

I do not understand the reason for the deception, René. Why should you be ashamed of loving me?

He seemed at a loss for an answer and then with an effort, said:

Amélie, my own, I have taken this journey for the sole purpose of giving you the reason. It is eight months since we were separated, and during that time I have written you seldom because you warned me that letters directed to your family either arrive unsealed or else fail to arrive. Besides, Amélie, there is something I ought to say to you, but I—give me both your adored hands, for only so can I speak. Courage, courage, Amélie. Trust me; I shall be constant. Oh, my love, he suddenly broke off, do not ask me to speak, but believe that whatever I should now attempt toward the realization of our union would fail utterly—

Would fail utterly, she repeated scornfully. You, a man, speak such words! What, then, did your vows signify?

Her beautiful face gleamed like a cameo against the darkness.

In God's name, Amélie, listen and be not so harsh. I came from France to ask you to believe in me and not force me to speak. May I not be silent for the present?

No. I demand the truth, be that what it may.

René's attitude revealed the struggle through which he was passing, and when his words came, it was as if they were hammered out of him.

Amélie, since we were together at the mill of Adhemar, I have thought only of you. I had been a madcap; I became serious and high-minded. I had cared only for Parisian follies and wild hunts in the forests; these I renounced, for they ceased to charm me. My mother had arranged for me a brilliant marriage. You know of Germaine de Marigny whose lineage includes crusader knights. Well, I broke the troth, regardless of consequences. I asked you not whence you came nor whither you went. You had said that your father was a mechanic in London and that your life had been passed almost in indigence. When I thought of my rank and estates, 'twas to reflect with pride that I should surround my wife with every luxury. I knew that my mother would execrate and my uncle disinherit me. Nevertheless, I was determined to overleap all barriers and disregard almost everything that claimed my allegiance.

But having had time for reflection, Amélie remarked coldly, you have concluded that you had almost committed a signal folly. I admit that you have decided wisely, and bid you now consider yourself free.

She half turned from the grating, but he seized one of her hands, then her soft white wrist and passionately kissed it.

No, no! You are unjust, Amélie. You force me now to say what I would withhold. Listen. When my mother vehemently declared that a de Brezé should never give his name to a woman of humble origin, I replied that the most illustrious ladies of France could not outrival you, and that beauty and goodness are entitled to the very highest social distinction.

But your mother has at length convinced you that you uttered but the enthusiastic hyperboles of a too ardent lover.

She felt him tremble as he grasped her hands tightly and continued:

I know not what deity established the code of honor. We hold honor to be even more sacredly binding than religion. A gentleman may sin a hundred times daily, but not once does he violate the obligations bequeathed him by his fathers. Life and happiness are worth much less than honor, Amélie.

Well? she asked, trying to speak calmly, but in vain.

O my Love, cried the man, forgive me, forgive me, for I am about to wound you cruelly. My mother, who had of late refrained from opposing my attachment to you, called me to her yesterday and shut the door upon us. Then she said: 'René, after vainly striving for months to change your purpose, I withdrew my opposition, fearing that I was unduly imposing my maternal authority. You were free, in possession of your patrimony and twenty-seven years of age. So I resigned myself to the mésalliance and began to interest myself in the antecedents of your idol. I wrote to Spandau, the sometime residence of her people, with the result—

He could not continue, but Amélie haughtily commanded:

Go on!

Hurriedly, almost despairingly, he concluded: With the result that I have received the information, corroborated by these documents, that the girl's father has served a twenty months' sentence at hard labor in Alstadt, Silesia, having been convicted as a counterfeiter and incendiary.

What more? demanded the girl.

O Amélie, is not that enough?

Enough, indeed, she answered, wrenching away her hands. Farewell, Monsieur Marquis de Brezé. We have exchanged our last words. And she sped into the house before he could detain her.

Chapter II

MEMORIES

The Marquis remained at the grating, hoping that Amélie would return. When night closed in and she showed no signs of relenting, he wandered aimlessly through the streets, walking slowly, abstractedly, his mind absorbed with the beautiful imperious girl he so loved and between whom and himself had been thrust the proofs of her father's felony. He became oblivious of even the need of food, though he had eaten nothing since reaching England and putting up at the Hotel Douglas, a fourth-class tavern selected with the object of concealment from chance compatriots.

His wanderings conducted him back to the Thames, from whose turbid surface towered the masts of many vessels as they rocked at their moorings, His eyes rested vacantly on the waters, spangled with reflections of the stars overhead, as he recalled the history of his passion for this unknown woman and his first meeting with her in the home of Elois Adhemar, the miller on the de Brezé estate.

René had been in the habit of stopping for a glass of beer or warm milk at the mill, on returning from hunts on his fertile and extensive domains, and sundry pretty gallantries did he whisper into the ear of his host's winsome daughter, Geneviève—village beauty and rustic coquette—with a deep bosom and gleaming teeth.

When during the Revolution the de Brezé castle was fired, a