At the interview it was agreed that he should introduce the lad, whom he had brought, into the Temple, and should place him under the care of Simon, the shoemaker, till a good opportunity occurred to extricate Louis XVII.  The arrangement was no sooner made than it was carried out.  Madame Simon, who was a party to the plot, found the “good opportunity.”  The dauphin was removed in the convenient basket of a laundress—­perhaps the same basket which had held Nauendorff, and the unfortunate bastard of Mr. Meves was left in his stead.  On reaching the hotel at which Mr. Meves was staying the rescued prince was respectably attired, and, having been placed in a carriage by his new guardian, was escorted by the Marquis of Bonneval as far as the coast of Normandy.  It is not said whether, during the long ride, Mr. Meves felt a twinge of remorse for his heartless conduct towards the harmless and delicate child whom he had left in the clutches of Simon; but, at all events, he is represented as reaching England in safety with his new charge.  The liberated king took up his abode in Bloomsbury Square, and was adopted as the son of Mr. Meves, who had better reasons for abiding by the laws of adoption than those of parentage.  At this time he was only eight years and seven months old.

But Mrs. Meves was not so thoroughly satisfied with the result of her husband’s mission as that astute individual was himself disposed to be; and having learnt that the boy who had passed as her son was a prisoner in the Temple Tower, hurried off to her friend Mrs. Carpenter to tell her doleful tale, and to concoct measures for his release.  A renewed search was instituted for a deaf and dumb boy, and one was found—­“the son of a poor woman”—­and in the month of January, 1794, Mrs. Meves procured passports, and proceeded with this boy and a German gentleman to Holland to the Abbe Morlet.  From Holland the Abbe, the boy, and Mrs. Meves went to Paris, “and the deaf and dumb boy was placed in certain hands to accomplish her son’s liberation at the most convenient time, but at what precise date such was carried into effect remains to be ascertained.”

It is, however, more than suggested that the worn-out child seen by Lasne and Gomin, who was so abnormally reticent, was the deaf and dumb boy; and there is a wild attempt to prove either that he never spoke at all, or that, if the captive under their care did speak, it must have been a fourth child who had been substituted for the mute.  The whole tale is unintelligible and incoherent; assertions are freely made without an iota of proof from its beginning to its end.  If we are to credit the sons of the pretender, the dauphin was educated by Mr. Meves as a musician, and knew nothing of his origin till the year 1818, when Mrs. Meves declared it to him.  In the years 1830 and 1831 he addressed letters (which were not answered) to the Duchess of Angouleme, stating the circumstances in which he had been conveyed to England, but making