Celebrated Claimants from Perkin Warbeck to Arthur Orton eBook

This eBook from the Gutenberg Project consists of approximately 391 pages of information about Celebrated Claimants from Perkin Warbeck to Arthur Orton.

Celebrated Claimants from Perkin Warbeck to Arthur Orton eBook

This eBook from the Gutenberg Project consists of approximately 391 pages of information about Celebrated Claimants from Perkin Warbeck to Arthur Orton.

Richemont listened to his sentence unmoved, and as the officers were about to take him away, said in a low voice to those near him, “The man who does not know how to suffer is unworthy of persecution!”

THE REV.  ELEAZAR WILLIAMS—­SOI-DISANT LOUIS XVII.  OF FRANCE.

America also has had her sham dauphin, in the person of an Indian missionary, whose claims have been repeatedly presented to the public both in magazine articles and in book form.  His adventures, as recorded by his biographers, are quite as singular as those of his competitors for royal honours.  We are told that in the year 1795, a French family, calling themselves De Jardin, or De Jourdan, arrived in Albany, direct from France.  At that time French refugees were thronging to America; and in the influx of strangers this party might have escaped notice, but peculiar circumstances directed attention to them.  The family consisted of a lady, a gentleman, and two children; and although the two former bore the same name, they did not seem to be man and wife, Madame de Jourdan dressed expensively and elegantly, while Monsieur de Jourdan was very plainly attired, and appeared to be the lady’s servant rather than her husband.  Great mystery was observed with respect to their children, who were carefully concealed from the public gaze.  The eldest was a girl, and was called Louise; while the youngest, a boy of nine or ten years of age, was invariably addressed as Monsieur Louis.  He was very rarely seen, even by the few ladies and children who were admitted into a sort of semi-friendship by the new-comers, and when he did appear seemed to be dull, and paid no attention to the persons present or the conversation.  Madame de Jardin, who had in her possession many relics of Louis XVI. and Marie-Antoinette, made no secret that she had been a maid of honour to the queen, and was separated from her on the terrace of the Tuileries, prior to her imprisonment in the Temple.  She had not yet recovered from the dreadful events of the revolution, and had a theatrical habit of relieving her highly-strung feelings by rushing to the harpsichord, wildly playing the Marseillaise, and then bursting into tears.  Those who had free admittance into the family of the De Jourdans had no difficulty in tracing a resemblance between the children and the portraits of the royal family of France; but delicacy forbade questions, and even the most confident could only surmise that this retired maid of honour had escaped from her native land in charge of the children of the Temple.  After remaining for a short time in Albany, without any apparent purpose, the De Jardins sold most of their effects, and disappeared as mysteriously as they had come.

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Celebrated Claimants from Perkin Warbeck to Arthur Orton from Project Gutenberg. Public domain.