RICHEMONT--_SOI-DISANT_ LOUIS XVII. OF FRANCE.
On the 30th of October, 1834, a mysterious personage was placed at the bar of the Assize Court of the Seine, on a charge of conspiring to overthrow the government of Louis Philippe, and of assuming titles which did not belong to him, for the purpose of perpetrating fraud. This individual, who is described as a little man, of aristocratic appearance, was another of the many pretenders who have from time to time assumed the character of Louis XVII., and his story was so evidently false that it would scarcely be worth mention were it not for the fate which befell him. For several years he had been prowling throughout France in various disguises, and under a multitude of names, swindling the credulous public; and from being an assumed baron, he suddenly developed himself into the dauphin of the Temple, and laid claim to the throne. Like the other impostors, he made his assumption profitable, and found a peculiarly easy victim in the Marquise de Grigny, a lady aged eighty-two years, who not only gave him all her ready-money, but would have assigned her estates to him if the law had not interposed. So successful was he in victimizing the public, that he could afford to keep a private printing-press at work, and disburse large sums to stir up disturbances in various parts of the country; and so hopeful, that he bought a plumed hat, a sword, and a gorgeous uniform, to appear before his subjects in fitting guise on the day of his restoration.
The clothes-basket of the laundress was brought into requisition for his benefit also, and in it he lay ensconced while devoted friends were carrying him away from the Temple, and from the rascally Simon, who was still in authority. Like Meves, he asserted that Madame Simon aided the plot, and in the course of his trial placed a certain M. Remusat in the witness-box, who stated that while he was in the hospital at Parma a woman called Semas complained bitterly of the treatment to which she was subjected, and declared loudly that if her children knew it they would soon come to her relief. Remusat thereupon asked her if she had any children, when she responded, "My children, sir, are the children of France! I was their _gouvernante_!" There was no mistaking the allusion, and her astonished hearer replied, "But the dauphin is dead." "Not so," was the answer; "he lives; and, if I mistake not, was removed from the Temple in a basket of linen." "Then," added the witness, "I asked the woman who she was, and she told me that she was the wife of a man called Simon, the former guardian-keeper. Then I understood her assertion, 'I was their _gouvernante_!'"