The Little Dauphin

The story of Louis Charles, second son of Louis XVI and Marie Antoinette, is one of the most pitiful in the history of royalty, and has an added interest because of the attempts of many romancers and some historical writers to raise doubts as to his fate. The brief space of the little Dauphin's life is measured by the awful period of the French Revolution and Reign of Terror. The author follows the ordinarily accepted version that the Dauphin was separated from the King and Queen and confined in the Temple, and that after their execution he was deliberately and cruelly allowed to waste away in body and become the victim of hopeless disease, remaining thus until death ended his sufferings and the inhuman barbarity of his keepers. In the course of his narrative the author touches upon the most striking events of the Revolution, that «dreadful remedy for a dreadful disease,» as it has been called, and brings out in strong relief the character of the well-meaning but weak King and imperious Queen, as well as that of the brutal cobbler Simon, the Dauphin's keeper; but the principal interest centers in the pathetic figure of the little prince. The historic doubts raised as to the Dauphin's fate also lend interest to the tale. One of these has to do with the identity of Naundorff, who passed himself off as the Duke of Normandy, the Dauphin's title, and the other with the Rev. Eleazar Williams of Green Bay, Wisconsin, missionary among the Indians. The claims put forth by friends of Williams attracted widespread attention and provoked much discussion in this country and France, half a century ago, because of the extraordinary coincidences attached to the alleged identity. It is the generally accepted verdict of history, however, that the Dauphin was the victim of the Revolution and died in the Temple in 1795, and as such he appears in these pages. The details of his fate can never be stated with accuracy, so involved and uncertain is the tragic mystery, but Hoffmann's narrative is undoubtedly correct in its general outlines. There are almost as many different versions as there are histories of that thrilling period.