Bruneau could neither read nor write, and perhaps it was as well for himself that his education had been thus neglected, for if he had been left to his own devices his imposture would have been very short-lived. But he contrived to attach two clever rascals to himself, who helped to prolong the fraud and to victimise the public. They were both convicts, but convicts of a high intellectual type. One was Larcher, a revolutionary priest, and a man of detestable life; while the other was a forger named Tourly. These worthies acted as his secretaries. On the 3d of March 1816, the priest wrote a letter to "Madame de France" in these terms:--
"MY SISTER,--You are doubtless not ignorant of my being held in the saddest captivity, and reduced to a condition of appalling misery. So may I beg of you, if you should think me worthy of your especial consideration, to visit me here in my imprisonment. Even should you for an instant suspect me of being an impostor, still may I claim consideration for the sake of your brother. The scandal and judgment of which our family is daily the object throughout the entire kingdom may well make you shudder. I am myself sunk in despair at the thought of being so near the capital without being permitted to publicly appear in it. If you determine upon coming down here you would do well to preserve an incognito. In the meantime receive the embraces of your unfortunate brother, THE KING OF FRANCE AND NAVARRE."
This precious epistle Madame Jacquières undertook not only to forward to the Duchess d'Angoulême, but also promised to procure the honour of a private interview for the bearer of the missive.
Larcher and Tourly must have been kept very busy, for the pretended dauphin was never tired of sending appeals for assistance to the foreign powers, of addressing proclamations to the people, and even went so far as formally to petition the parliament that he might be taken to Paris, in order there to establish his identity as the son of Louis XVI. The whole of the papers issued from the prison, and they were enormous in quantity, were signed by his secretaries with his name.
About the same time considerable interest was excited by a trashy novel, called the "Cemetery of the Madeleine," which pretended to give a circumstantial account of the life of the dauphin in the Temple. Out of this book the secretaries and their employer proceeded to construct "The Historical Memoirs of Charles of Navarre;" but after they had finished their work, they found that it was so ridiculously absurd that there was no probability that it would deceive the public for a moment. They accordingly handed the manuscript over to a more skilful rogue with whom they were acquainted, and this man, who was called Branzon, transformed their clumsy narrative into a well-written and plausible history. He did more, and "coached" the pretender in all the petty circumstances which he could find out respecting the Bourbon family. Manuscript copies of the "Memoirs" were assiduously distributed in influential quarters in Rouen, and particularly among the officers of the third regiment of the royal guard, then quartered in the town. A copy fell into the hands of a Vendéan officer named De la Pomelière, who recollected the story of the pretended son of Baron de Vezins, and half-suspected a similar imposture in this instance. With some difficulty he procured admission to the royal presence, and induced the sham dauphin to speak of La Vendée. During the conversation he remarked, that when the chateau of Angrie, the residence of the Viscountess de Turpin, was mentioned, the pretender slightly changed colour and became embarrassed. The acknowledgment that he was acquainted with the mansion, and the accurate description which he gave of it, gave the first clue whereby proof was obtained of his identity with Maturin Bruneau.