Louis 17 was sacrificed. Biography

On June 8, 2004, thousands of people gathered in the main square of the Parisian suburb of Saint-Denis to attend the burial ceremony of the heart of Louis XVII, the unrecognized king of France, who, according to the official version, died on June 8, 1795 in a gloomy cell in the Temple prison. The ceremony was attended by representatives of royal houses and ancient aristocratic families from all over Europe. Special places were reserved for them inside the temple.

The common public could watch what was happening on large screens, onto which twelve television cameras installed in the Basilica of Saint-Denis, which had served as the tomb of French kings since the early Middle Ages, transmitted images. A crystal vase with the heart of Louis XVII was placed in a niche of a specially prepared sarcophagus. Before this, a solemn mass was celebrated in the basilica, and the day before the relic was exhibited in Saint-Germain, in the parish church of the French kings, located near the Louvre.

Prince Charles-Emmanuel de Bourbon-Parma (one of the many offspring of the Capetian royal dynasty), who was present at the burial, said that what was happening was a way to “do justice to the child martyr,” the heir to the throne, who died at the age of ten. The story of this child is full of secrets; For more than 200 years, it has provided rich food for both serious historical research and the most incredible assumptions.

In 1831, a book by a certain Labrel de Fontaine, “Revelations on the Existence of Louis XVII, Duke of Normandy,” was published in Paris. It claimed that Louis XVII, the son of the beheaded King Louis XVI and Marie Antoinette, did not die in the prison of the Temple Castle, but was hiding somewhere in the Vendée, waiting for the opportunity to ascend to the throne. This statement by Labrel de Fontaine did not go unnoticed, and the Legitimite newspaper, albeit already in 1897, published an article that said the following.

Allegedly, Josephine de Beauharnais (the future wife of Napoleon Bonaparte and the Empress of France), together with an influential politician of the era of the Great French Revolution, a member of the Convention and the commander-in-chief of the internal troops, Paul Barras, freed the son of the executed King Louis XVI and Marie Antoinette from the Temple prison. And she did this allegedly with the help of her good friend, a native of Martinique like her, who was appointed to look after the child.

The article also said that Barras and Josephine exchanged the heir to the throne for a mute and very sick boy in order to avoid trouble with the revolutionary committees. Then the Dauphin was taken to the Vendee, hostile to the revolution, then spent a little time in Brittany, after which he returned to the Vendee and was hidden there.

Louis XVII, also known as the Dauphin Louis-Charles de Bourbon, Duke of Normandy, was the son of King Louis XVI, who reigned in France from 1774 to 1792. In 1792 the king was beheaded. Louis-Charles de Bourbon was heir to the throne, but never ruled his country, for the revolutionary Convention, having killed the king and queen, proclaimed France a republic.

Louis XVI and Marie Antoinette had no children for a long time. Now this fact is of purely academic interest, but in the 70s of the 18th century it was a problem that caused great concern at the French court. While the king did not have a son, his two younger brothers, the Count of Provence and the Count d'Artois, were considered heirs. Both of them simply dreamed of the throne, and both eventually received it: the first later became King Louis XVIII, and the second, immediately after Louis XVIII, King Charles X. In 1778, Louis XVI and Marie Antoinette finally had a daughter. , who was named Maria Teresa Charlotte. Three years later, in 1781, a son, Louis-Joseph-Xavier, was born.

After the birth of the boy - the heir to the throne - both of the king's brothers, who themselves dreamed of the crown, immediately became his enemies. In 1785, Louis-Charles was born, receiving the title of Duke of Normandy, and in 1786, Sophie. The poor thing died less than a year later. Literally on the eve of the revolution, the eldest son, Louis-Joseph-Xavier, also died of tuberculosis. Thus, Louis-Charles de Bourbon, who is in question, was declared the heir to the throne, that is, the Dauphin. This fact is of fundamental importance.

The fact is that after the fall of Napoleon Bonaparte in France, the question arose about who would rule the country after him. As you know, his place was taken by Louis XVIII, the brother of the executed king. But if we assume that the king’s son was alive at that time, it turns out that the French throne should have belonged to the son of Louis XVI (the direct heir), and not to his brother.

Did Josephine take part in the possible kidnapping of the Dauphin from the Temple? It looks pretty plausible. Especially if we bear in mind her then royalist sympathies and the fact that her lover Paul Barras negotiated with the royalists about the restoration of the Bourbon monarchy in the hope of receiving a large reward for betraying the Republic. An unprincipled politician and bribe-taker, Barras could well have tried to turn the Dauphin into an additional trump card in his complex game. After all, having the secret of where the boy was, Barras could, after the restoration, receive a powerful weapon of blackmail against Louis XVIII.

In this regard, it is hardly accidental that immediately after the Thermidor coup, Paul Barras hastened to visit the Dauphin in the Temple. This man never did anything by accident. The same newspaper “Legitimite” in its issue dated December 1, 1897 wrote that the Russian Emperor Alexander I, who was in Paris in 1814 with his victorious troops, had a conversation with the influential minister Charles-Maurice de Talleyrand on the topic of the legality of building throne of Louis XVIII. It is believed that Alexander learned about the possible existence of Louis XVII precisely from Josephine, with whom he was friends, and this, in turn, became the reason for her very “strange” death. Allegedly, Alexander, having learned about this sudden death, even said loudly: “This is the work of Talleyrand.”

Supporters of the version of Josephine’s murder base their reasoning on the fact that Josephine at one time actually participated in the liberation of the Dauphin, and then at the most inopportune moment she told about this to the Russian emperor, who was deciding the future fate of France. By doing this, she supposedly signed her own death sentence...

Labrely de Fontaine, who wrote the book Revelations of the Existence of Louis XVII, Duke of Normandy, was the librarian of the Duchess of Orleans. This source of information does not seem reliable. He was most likely an honest man, but in life one often encounters such witnesses: they did not see anything themselves, but sincerely believe the story of someone who either saw everything himself or also heard it from someone else. But is there anyone else who would confirm this version? Of course have. For example, in the memoirs of Princess Vorontsova, the daughter of Adjutant General Alexander I, Prince Trubetskoy, there are also hints that in 1814 Josephine told the Russian Tsar the secret of saving the Dauphin from the Temple prison.

In addition, the corresponding correspondence between Josephine and Pope Pius VII, who took an active part in the fate of the Dauphin, was found in the Vatican archives. Hortense de Beauharnais, Josephine's daughter from her first marriage, also subsequently conveyed the story of the abduction of the Dauphin from the Temple. Naturally, she did this according to the words of her mother...

There is no need to say once again that the Russian Tsar Alexander, after the capture of Paris, enjoyed enormous influence. Hence it is clear with what concern Louis XVIII and his supporters had to follow all such rumors. It is also clear that information about this quickly reached him, for Josephine revealed the secret to some other persons from Alexander’s retinue.

As for the Dauphin, the following happened to him. After the revolution of 1789, King Louis XVI was forced to approve a constitution, according to which executive power remained with him, and legislative power was transferred to the Legislative Assembly. In both October 1790 and June 1791, the royal family attempted to flee France, but both times they were stopped and forcibly returned to Paris.

On June 28, 1792, the Paris Commune, despite the fact that this was contrary to the constitution, began to prepare for the deposition of the king. On the night of August 10, a rebellion began; the rebels surrounded the royal palace and tried to break inside. A bloody battle ensued with the Swiss guards defending the palace. The palace was soon taken and the royal family, accompanied by the newly elected mayor of Paris, Jérôme Pétion de Villeneuve, was sent to the Temple prison. This happened on August 13, 1792, when Louis-Charles de Bourbon was only seven years old. September 20

The Legislative Assembly dissolved itself, giving way to a Convention endowed with unlimited powers, and on September 21 a law was passed to abolish royal power in France and establish a republic. A show trial was held, and by a majority vote of the members of the Convention the king was sentenced to death.

As a result, Louis XVI was beheaded on January 21, 1793, amid cries of “Long live the Republic!”, and Louis-Charles de Bourbon automatically became Louis XVII. Less than six months later, by decision of the Committee of Public Safety, the child was separated from his family and transferred to another floor of the prison.

After this, his mother Marie Antoinette was transferred to the Conciergerie prison, and she was executed only on October 16, 1793. Following her, the king's sister Elizabeth was executed. At this time, Louis-Charles de Bourbon and his sister Marie-Thérèse-Charlotte continued to remain in the Temple, and keeping the young Dauphin in prison was primarily a precautionary measure, and not revenge on an innocent child, because he did not play any political role.

Imprisonment was dictated by the need to protect the young heir of the king from falling into the hands of fanatics who wanted his death. In addition, the authorities considered the Dauphin and his sister as hostages who could be exchanged for captured Republicans in the hands of enemy powers. This, in fact, is what happened at the end of 1796 with the Dauphin’s sister, who was exchanged on the Swiss border for French prisoners - General Burnonville and ambassadors Marais and Semonville.

Louis-Charles de Bourbon was kept in the Temple in quite tolerable conditions. In any case, on August 4, 1793, a certain sans-culotte named Antoine Simon was assigned to him as a teacher. He and his wife settled in Temple, treated his ward kindly, bought him toys, flowers and birds (the corresponding invoices have been preserved). Simon was on the same good terms with the Dauphin's sister. The Temple, of course, was carefully guarded. Despite this, already in the summer of 1793, 194 attempts began to be made to organize the escape of the Dauphin. In particular, judging by the letters of a certain Brottier, active preparations for the kidnapping of the Dauphin from prison were led by one of the leaders of the so-called “Paris Agency” Sourda.

To strengthen security, the Committee of Public Safety ordered that the supervision of the maintenance of the Dauphin be entrusted to four members of the General Council, replaced every day. The premises on the second floor, where the Dauphin was kept, were refurbished. These works were completed at the end of January 1794, and the child was transferred to one of the isolated rooms. As we can see, with such protection, the possibility of kidnapping or replacing the Dauphin did not seem at all realistic. And yet there is a version that Louis-Charles de Bourbon managed to escape from prison.

This topic was studied in detail by Maurice Garson (1889-1967), a famous lawyer, historian and writer, member of the French Academy. He wrote many interesting books, including Louis XVII, or the False Riddle, first published in 1952. In this book, Maurice Garson refutes the idea that from January 31, 1794, the Dauphin was completely isolated in his room and no one was able to see him, calling it the “legend of the immurement.”

The room in which the Dauphin was kept, according to Maurice Garson, based on the analysis of a number of documents, had a door leading to the hallway. Through this door one could enter the Dauphin, which was what the commissioners on duty and Temple employees did every day. Under these conditions, theft or substitution, according to the conclusions of Maurice Garson, was impossible. But there are also arguments in favor of supporters of the substitution version. For example, the historian Louis Astier found in the National Archives a plan for the second floor of the large tower of the Temple.

It is clear from the plan that the door leading to the front room could not be opened, since in its place a stove was built, in the lower part of which a window was made for communication with the outside world. “Everything was ready for a possible substitution,” asserts on this basis the French historian Andre Castelot, who wrote a section on Louis XVII in the book “The Great Times of the French Revolution,” published in Paris in 1963.

Well, then the events of 9-10 Thermidor (that is, July 27-28) 1794 began. The brothers Robespierre, Louis-Antoine de Saint-Just, Georges Couthon and many of their followers were arrested and executed. The Jacobin revolutionary dictatorship was over. New people came to power in France and from the rostrum of the Convention began to decide the fate of the Republic. Among these new rulers of France, one of the most important was the already mentioned Paul Barras.

He played a decisive role in the Thermidor coup. And with him Jean-Lambert Tallien, Louis-Marie Freron, Leonard Bourdon and Joseph Fouché...

The very next day after the coup, Paul Barras, commander of the internal troops, accompanied by the deputy of the Convention, Jean-François Goupillot de Fontenay, personally came to the Temple to make sure how reliably the little heir to the throne was protected. Barras recounted this visit in his Memoirs, written many years later. Mention of this can also be found in the memoirs of the former prisoner of the Temple, Marie-Therese-Charlotte, the elder sister of the Dauphin, who became the Duchess of Angoulême. Barras and Goupillot de Fontenay arrived at the Temple at six o'clock in the morning. Their visit was very short-lived.

Barras subsequently claimed to have found the Dauphin's room "repulsively dirty, with refuse piled in the corners" and the young prisoner "with swollen knees and a puffy face" lying on a bed "too short for him to stretch out to his full height" " After this, Goupillot de Fontenay visited the Dauphin several more times. In any case, it is known for sure that he came on August 31, 1794, accompanied by a member of the Committee of Public Safety, Andre Dumont, and for this visit, the room where Louis-Charles de Bourbon was kept was tidied up, and the linen on the bed was changed.

It is absolutely possible that Josephine, who was at that time Barras’ mistress and distinguished by her royalist sentiments, also took part in the first visit to the Temple (we should not forget that her first husband, Viscount Alexandre de Beauharnais, was guillotined by the revolutionaries on July 23, 1793 ). The day after Paul Barras’s visit, the Dauphin’s tutor Antoine Simon was dismissed, and a certain Christophe Laurent, an acquaintance of Josephine, like her, a native of Martinique, was appointed in his place. And Simon, by the way, was executed on the same day, along with hundreds of other people, at the end of July 1794. It is obvious that at the time of Barras's visit a real Dauphin was being held in the Temple. This is confirmed by the fact that among the commissioners on duty who guarded the Temple on July 28, 1794, that is, 10 Thermidor, there was a certain Nicolas Laurine. This was the same doctor Lorine who had already been on duty in the Temple in the past.

If on July 28 he had seen a child other than the one he knew, he would certainly have reported it to Barras. Similarly, the fact that the real Dauphin was kept in the Temple was confirmed by some of the members of the Convention who had previously visited it on inspection visits, in particular Jacques Reverchon (1750-1828), a deputy from the Saône-et-Loire department. Thus, it is impossible to assume that the kidnapping of the Dauphin took place in the first half of 1794.

It’s hard to believe that this even happened in 1794. In any case, in 1795, the question of the fate of the Dauphin still figured in royalist plans and in negotiations between France and the powers of the enemy coalition. Surprisingly, the main hopes of the royalists were placed not on emigration and not on the brothers of the executed king, but on the young Louis XVII, who thereby, without realizing it, became for some time one of the decisive factors in European politics.

As British Foreign Secretary George Nugent-Grenville wrote on June 8, 1795, the Prussian negotiator for the Basel Peace of 1795, Karl-August von Hardenberg, told him that Convention member Antoine Merlin and French General Charles Pichegru had developed in May of that year plan for the proclamation of Louis XVII as king. According to the British minister, von Hardenberg himself allegedly went to Berlin to convince the Prussian king to support this project. During the negotiations, as testified by the French ambassador to Switzerland, later a member of the Directory, François Barthelemy, the Spanish commissioner Domingo de Iriarte stated that he was instructed to make proposals regarding Louis XVII. However, since Francois Barthelemy did not have the appropriate instructions and did not consider it possible to ask for them, the discussion of this issue did not take place...

According to the official version, Louis-Charles de Bourbon died on June 8, 1795 from tuberculosis, from which his older brother also died before the revolution. At the same time, in the reports on the circumstances of the death and burial of the Dauphin there are many contradictions, ambiguities, or even seemingly deliberate ambiguities. 199 Shortly before the death of the Dauphin, representatives of the Convention once again visited him.

Subsequently, one of them, Jean-Baptiste Armand (1751-1816), a deputy from the Meuse department, said that although the child obediently followed the orders given to him, it was impossible, despite all efforts, to extract a single word from him. The thought even arose that the boy was completely mute. Jean-Baptiste Armand graduated from the University of Reims, was a lawyer, then was elected a justice of the peace and a deputy of the Convention, in which he oversaw the Parisian police. Thus, you can be sure that this was not a random person and that he knew what he was talking about.

Jean-Baptiste Armand shared his memoirs, entitled “Entertaining stories concerning certain characters and many notable events of the times of the revolution,” with readers in 1811. Then, when the Bourbons returned to power in France, Louis XVIII, who clearly did not like what was written, removed him from his position as prefect. As a result, Jean-Baptiste Armand fell into complete poverty and died on February 16, 1816 at the age of 64.

It is also curious that a certain Jean Ecard (“Metoev historiques sur Louis XVII”), who published the first book about the Dauphin in 1817, concealed a note in his possession from Gabriel-Jerome Senard, a lawyer from Tours and an agent of the Committee of Public Safety. This note, written shortly after the medical autopsy of the body, directly stated that the deceased child was not a Dauphin. Gabriel-Jerome Senard, by the way, died unexpectedly a few months after the autopsy, namely in March 1796. He was only 36 years old. But that's not all. On June 1, 1795, that is, a week before the death of the Dauphin, the doctor who looked after him, the famous Parisian surgeon Pierre-Joseph Desault, suddenly died.

His testimony about his first meeting with the Dauphin has been preserved. Dr. Deso wrote: “I found an idiot child dying, a victim of the most vile pain, the most complete oblivion, a creature worn out by the most cruel treatment that cannot be reconciled with human existence.” The doctor prescribed treatment for exhaustion for the young prisoner of the Temple, and in the second half of May he sent a report to the Convention, which mysteriously disappeared. Dr. Deso knew his patient well, and if he had been alive, he would, in any case, have accurately determined whether the deceased child was a Dauphin or not. It is unknown how many times Dr. Deso visited Temple Prison (there were clearly several visits). On May 30, 1795, Commissioner Breuil, who knew Desaux, met him on the stairs and asked: -

It's all over with the baby, isn't it? “I’m afraid so,” answered the doctor, “but there are probably people who want it.” And then Pierre-Joseph Desaux suddenly died, as it was said, “from serious apoplexy.” 201 Madame Thouvenin testified under oath in 1845 that her aunt, the widow of Dr. Desaux, informed her of the following circumstances of her husband's death. Allegedly, Pierre-Joseph Desaux visited the Temple and became convinced that the Dauphin, whom he was treating, had been replaced by another child. When he reported this, several members of the Convention invited him to a dinner party. After returning home, Deso felt sick, had a fever, acute stomach cramps, and soon died.

He was 57 years old. An autopsy performed by Dr. Jean Corvisart (1775-1821) showed only “small effusions of serous fluid at the base of the skull and in the spine.” No one doubts the competence of the famous doctor, who later became the founder of the French scientific school of therapists, but one should also not forget under what conditions he worked and what he risked. As a result, many contemporaries began to talk about possible poisoning. Note that the last time Pierre-Joseph Desaux was in the Temple was at the very end of May 1795, and he died on June 1, 1795. Two of his students, Doctors Choppard and Doublet, also suddenly died on June 4 and 5, 1795, respectively, and the third student, Doctor Abeye, remained alive only because he fled from France to America in time, where he stated that he was sure that in all three cases there was poisoning.

After the death of Doctor Desaux, on June 6, 1795, that is, two days before the official date of the death of the Dauphin, a new doctor appeared in 202 Temple. It was Philippe Pelletan. They said about him that he was “a bad doctor, but a frantic revolutionary.” Moreover, he had never seen a real Dauphin before. The conclusion here suggests itself. If we assume that the Dauphin was really taken away and replaced by another child, then many might have a desire to remove unwanted witnesses. Who?

Firstly, those who organized the substitution and could fear punishment from the republican authorities; secondly, from the agents of the brother of the executed king, who hastened to declare himself Louis XVIII; thirdly, even among the official authorities, who, having become convinced of the Dauphin’s flight, might consider it more advantageous for themselves to declare him dead and discredit him as an impostor if he appeared abroad and became a center of attraction for the royalists. Oddly enough, in the actions of the authorities there was no particular desire to understand in detail who actually died in the Temple on June 8, 1795.

In particular, the law required the presence of close relatives of the deceased or his neighbors when drawing up documents about the death. It is known that the Dauphin’s elder sister, his closest relative, was kept in the same Temple, but they did not even consider it necessary to invite her to identify the corpse. Moreover, many former servants of the royal family lived in Paris, in particular the governess of the Dauphine, Madame de Tourcelles. Their addresses were well known, and yet no real identification was made. 203 And how was the official autopsy done! The protocol of this, if I may say so, “autopsy” is very interesting. The doctors, and these were the already mentioned Philippe Pelletan, as well as Pierre Lassus, Nicolas Jeanrois and Jean-Baptiste Demangin, “forgot” to note at least one characteristic feature on the boy’s body, which, as a rule, was done at that time. In addition, they “managed” not to write in any place that the autopsy was performed on Louis-Charles de Bourbon.

The protocol only states: “We found in the bed the body of a child who, it seemed to us, was about ten years old, about whom the commissioners told us that he was the son of the late Louis Capet, and in whom two of us recognized a child who had been treated for several days." Meanwhile, Dr. Nicolas Jeanrois, who supervised the autopsy, was a consultant to Louis XVI for a long time and could not help but know his son. It was officially stated that the child died of scrofula.

Scrofula is an out-of-use term that corresponds to the modern concept of diathesis, as well as some, mainly external, forms of tuberculosis. On June 10, Police Commissioner Pierre Dusset arrived in Temple and filled out the death certificate. It is impossible not to note the following facts: Dr. Nicolas Jeanrois, who supervised the autopsy of the child’s corpse, died under unclear circumstances immediately after the Restoration of the radio, and four people who carried the child’s coffin and participated in his burial died during the second half of 1795. 204 As for the exact burial place of the Dauphin, it seems to be known.

This is Saint Margaret's Cemetery in Paris. There, then twice, in 1846 and 1894, searches for the Dauphin’s grave were carried out and even the exhumation of the corpse was carried out. However, the length of the discovered skeleton was almost 1.65 meters, while the height of the Dauphin, according to many witnesses, did not exceed 1.20 meters. In addition, it was established that the child found at the site where the Temple prisoner was allegedly buried was between fifteen and eighteen years old, while the real Dauphin was only ten years old.

Christophe Laurent, an acquaintance of Josephine, acted as tutor to the Dauphin at the Temple from July 29, 1794 to March 31, 1795. After 31 March he resigned from this position and was replaced by Etienne Lan. The question arises: why? An interesting picture emerges: the teacher, and in fact the personal guard of the Dauphin, is first changed after visiting the Temple personally by Paul Barras, and then the new teacher-guard leaves “for personal reasons” three months before the death of his charge.

Christophe Laurent himself justified this by the need to urgently return to Martinique to resolve the issue of the inheritance left after the death of his mother. This reason seems strange, to say the least. The poor woman died twenty years ago and was buried on December 24, 1774. This is definitely established. 205 What kind of inheritance can we talk about twenty years after the death of the mother? What kind of urgent departure could we be talking about?

One of the possible answers to these questions is the assumption that Christophe Laurent’s departure from the Temple was associated with the replacement of the Dauphin. This man was born in 1770 in Martinique, the same place where Josephine de Beauharnais was born seven years earlier. Very soon he became an orphan and, like his brother and sister, was raised by his aunts. In 1789 he was nineteen years old, and he plunged headlong into the revolutionary movement. He very quickly realized that there was absolutely nothing to do on the distant island, and on August 11, 1792 he was already in Paris. There he met a certain Boto, who soon became the secretary of Paul Barras.

He officially took up his post in the Temple on the evening of 11 Thermidor, that is, July 29, 1794. He left this position, as we already know, on March 31, 1795. After this, traces of him are found in Italy, and in 1799 he left for French Guiana. Twice, in 1801 and 1804, he appeared briefly in France. Christophe Laurent died in Cayenne on August 22, 1807. He was only 37 years old.

Supporters of the version of the substitution of the Dauphin like to refer to the letters of Christophe Laurent. In a letter dated November 7, 1794, he reports that he hid the Dauphin in “a secret place where God himself would not find him,” and in return a mute boy was left in Louis-Charles’s room. A letter dated February 5, 1795 stated 206 that it was easy to move the Dauphin to the top floor (previously the Dauphin was kept on the second floor), but it would be much more difficult to remove him from the Temple. This letter also noted that the Committee of Public Safety would soon send members of the Convention, including Jacques Reverchon and Jean-Baptiste Armand, to the Temple for inspection. Finally, from a letter dated March 3, 1795, it followed that the Dauphin had already been taken away from the Temple.

These letters from Christophe Laurent still appear in some of the newest works of supporters of the version of the substitution of the non-Dauphine. Meanwhile, it should be noted that these letters became known only in the summer of 1833, and most importantly, their originals were never presented, but it is only unknown when, where and by whom the copies taken from them were made. Unfortunately, this source of information is very dubious. Evidence that these letters from Christophe Laurent are dubious can be gleaned from an analysis of their contents.

The first of the letters is dated November 7, 1794, meanwhile, at that time only the revolutionary calendar was used. If it were genuine, it would almost certainly be marked “17 Brumaire of the Year III.” The letter dated February 5, 1795 speaks of the upcoming visit of Deputy Armand.

The Memoirs of Jean-Baptiste Armand himself, published in 1811, actually say that he visited the Temple in early February 1795. But this is a mistake, since official documents established beyond doubt that the visit took place on December 19, 1794. If the letter is a fake, then the forger, having no idea about these documents, which were unknown in the 30s of the 207th century, when the fake was fabricated, simply took the date - the beginning of February 1795 - from the memoirs of Deputy Arman.

The evidence presented for the forgery of Christophe Laurent’s letters acquires additional weight because it comes from one of the most famous lawyers and historians of France, Maurice Garson (1889-1967), whose high professional competence in this kind of forensic analysis cannot be doubted.

And yet, trying to provide the maximum amount of evidence in favor of his thesis, he sometimes uses very unconvincing arguments. In particular, Maurice Garson considers one of the proofs of the forgery of Christophe Laurent’s letters that he, explaining how he managed to replace the Dauphin and his release, adds, addressing the addressee: “Only thanks to you, Monsieur General, this triumph was achieved.”

It is believed that the letters were addressed to one of the leaders of the rebel Chouans, Count Louis de Frottet, who was shot in 1800. But from de Frottet’s own letter it is clear that his efforts came to nothing. This letter became known only at the end of the 19th century, and in 1835 the forger was influenced by the legend that Louis de Frottet had succeeded in carrying out his plan. In addition, the count remained in London until January 6, 1795, therefore Christophe Laurent could not write to him in Paris on November 7, 1794. But these arguments do not prove anything if we consider that the letters were addressed not to Louis de Frottet, but to Paul Barras, who in 1795 was often called a general.

The fact of the rescue of the Dauphin from the Temple is confirmed by the wife of the Venetian envoy Marquis de Brolio-Solari, who before the revolution was received at the French court and saw Louis-Charles de Bourbon many times. She allegedly recognized him when she met him in London in 1810. Her memoirs, published in 1826, also contain the following fact: in the winter of 1803, she met her good friend Barras in Brussels, and this deposed member of the Directory angrily reviled the “Corsican rogue” and added that Napoleon’s ambitious plans would not come true, so how the son of Louis XVI is alive.

After the death of Paul Barras (he died on January 29, 1829), his papers were confiscated by order of Louis XVIII, but there could have been quite enough reasons for this even without the Dauphin: the former member of the Directory knew too much. There is other evidence in favor of the version of the Dauphin's escape. Firstly, the testimony of Antoine Simon's widow, who lived for a long time in an invalid's home. For a number of years, during the Napoleonic Empire and during the Restoration, in conversations with various persons, she expressed the conviction that Louis-Charles de Bourbon was replaced by another child. 209 In particular, there is evidence of a certain Mademoiselle Marie Gros, who cared for the widow of Antoine Simon in an asylum for the terminally ill from 1810 to 1815. Maria Gro states: “In 1810-1815, I knew Simon’s wife well: from her I often heard that the Dauphin was not dead, that she participated in his salvation, that she was sure that he was alive and that he would still be seen on the throne . She told everyone around about this.”

In 1816, the police began to seriously investigate Antoine Simon's widow. Under threat of severe punishment, she was ordered to stop chattering about the Dauphine, and she chose to remain silent. The same Maria Gro testifies that once a poor woman was taken somewhere in a black carriage, and when she returned, she began to answer all questions about the Dauphine: “Don’t talk about it, I can’t tell you anything.” The further fate of Antoine Simon's widow is unknown.

Or maybe it was not the real Dauphin who was in the Temple from the very beginning? This is also possible. In any case, rumors about a possible substitution of the Dauphin began to circulate much earlier, at least immediately after the unsuccessful flight of the royal family to Varennes in June 1791. There was even a version that the Dauphin was transported to Canada back in 1790, and in his place another child, a certain Laroche, a native of Toulouse, was placed in the Tuileries. Similar rumors were reproduced in the pages of the press in the months leading up to the fall of the monarchy on August 10, 1792.

Plan
Introduction
1 Birth and early childhood
2 The Little Prisoner of the Temple. Mother's trial
3 "Revolutionary education"
4 Chance to get a crown
5 Mysterious death. Impostors
6 Genetic examination and funeral of the heart

Introduction

Louis Charles (Louis-Charles), Dauphin of France Louis-Charles, Dauphin de France(March 27, 1785, Paris - June 8, 1795, Paris) - young heir to the French throne (1789 - 1792). After the execution of Louis XVI in January 1793, he was recognized by French monarchists, as well as by almost all European powers and the United States, as King Louis XVII of France (Fr. Louis XVII). Under this name he went down in history, although he never actually reigned.

1. Birth and early childhood

Louis-Charles, who bore the title of Duke of Normandy from birth, was the second son in the family of Louis XVI and Marie Antoinette. The title given to him was very rare; the last time it was awarded to the royal family was in the 15th century. Judging by the king's diary entry - “The Queen's Birth. Birth of the Duke of Normandy. Everything went the same way as with my son” - Louis XVI did not consider him (unlike his first-born, Dauphin Louis-Joseph, who died at the age of eight on June 4, 1789, shortly before the start of the revolution) his child. Of course, he could have been wrong, he could have missed the word “first.” Various hypotheses have been put forward as to who Marie Antoinette's lover and the Dauphin's father might have been; in particular, suspicion fell on the Swedish nobleman Hans Axel von Fersen, a close friend of the royal family, who wrote in his diary after the death of Louis XVII: “This is the last and only interest that I had left in France. Currently, he is gone and everything I was attached to no longer exists.” However, many modern researchers resolutely deny his paternity, primarily for chronological reasons. It is also known that the Dauphin is physically similar to Louis XVI’s younger brother, Count d’Artois (the future Charles X), which may indicate the king’s paternity.

After the death of his older brother in 1789, four-year-old Louis-Charles became heir to the throne and received the title of Dauphin. In 1791, when Louis XVI became the constitutional "King of the French", his son's title was changed to "Prince Royal of France" of France. Prince Royal de France. On August 10, 1792, the monarchy in France was abolished, and the entire royal family - who became, after the name of their ancestor Hugo Capet, simply "Citizens Capet" - was imprisoned in the Temple.

2. The Little Prisoner of the Temple. Mother's trial

The Dauphin at the age of four. Portrait by Elisabeth Vigée-Lebrun.

Upon learning of the execution of Louis XVI on January 22, 1793, Marie Antoinette knelt before her son and swore allegiance to him as her king. A week later, on January 28, 1793, the boy’s uncle, the Count of Provence, who was in exile in Germany, issued a declaration in which he proclaimed his nephew King Louis XVII. This declaration was joined by most of the royal houses of Europe, as well as the Republican government of the United States, which did not recognize the French Revolution. Emigrants minted coins and medals with his image, issued documents in his name and issued passports with his signature. Monarchist conspiracies emerged to free the rightful king. The royalist government acted on behalf of Louis XVII during the siege of Toulon (May-December 1793).

Not daring to kill the child physically dangerous to them, the Jacobins, who headed the revolutionary government at that time, wanted to raise him as a true sans-culotte and use him for their own purposes. They sought to get Louis-Charles Capet to testify against his own mother - among the many accusations brought against Marie Antoinette was incestuous cohabitation with her own son. Having taken his son away from his mother, sister and aunt, the leaders of the Revolutionary Tribunal were easily able to suppress his will and get him to sign the necessary “testimonies”. Several confused stories preserved in Marie Antoinette's file about how his mother allegedly took him to her bed in the Temple bear the signature of an inept child's hand: Louis Charles Capet. On October 16, 1793, Marie Antoinette - the "widow Capet" - was executed.

Most researchers of the French Revolution consider this story one of its most shameful pages.

3. “Revolutionary education”

After the execution of his mother, the Convention entrusted the “revolutionary education” of the Dauphin to the shoemaker Simon and his wife, who settled in the Temple. Their task was to force Louis to renounce the memory of his parents (in particular, to teach him to insult their memory) and to accept revolutionary ideals, as well as to accustom him to physical labor. In addition, the child, who was raised as a royal son until he was eight years old, began to be treated as an ordinary son of a craftsman: Simon and his wife often beat the boy for various offenses.

As part of revolutionary re-education, Louis Charles was made assistant to the drunken shoemaker Simon, in Temple prison. Alternating between severe beatings and torture, Simon forced an 8-year-old boy to drink large quantities of alcohol, to which Louis Charles eventually became accustomed. The boy was forced to sing the Marseillaise and dress like a sans-culotte. In addition, Simon taught the boy to curse his parents and aristocrats, as well as to blaspheme.

The 8-year-old boy was often threatened with death by the guillotine, causing him to faint due to nervousness.

In January 1794, the Simons left Temple, and the child was left to his own devices; until the Ninth Thermidor and the overthrow of Robespierre, Louis XVII lived in the Temple under the supervision of guards who only fed him; No one cared about his treatment, mental development, communication, or even physical cleanliness.

4. Chance to get a crown

Louis XVII in the Temple (in the clothes of a craftsman boy). Sculpture of Anne Chardonnay.

After the overthrow of Robespierre (July 1794), the boy’s living conditions improved, and from time to time they began to work with him again, no longer setting the task of re-education. By this time, the Dauphin was already a very sick and psychologically degraded child; Members of the Thermidorian Convention who repeatedly visited him noted his lethargy, silence on the verge of muteness, and extreme physical exhaustion.

During this period, Louis - which, apparently, he himself did not suspect - suddenly had a chance to actually take the throne, and at the behest of not the external enemies of the young French Republic, but its leaders. After the liquidation of the Jacobin dictatorship, the leaders of the Thermidorian regime - Barras, Tallien and others - sought to establish civil peace in the country and revise the radical constitution of 1793. In addition, it was necessary to make peace with neighboring countries united in a counter-revolutionary coalition; some of them, for example Spain, made the release of the Dauphin a condition for a ceasefire.

To achieve this goal, the option of restoring a constitutional monarchy headed by a nine-year-old Dauphin was seriously considered. In this case, the gains of the revolution would not be canceled, and the political system would remain democratic; “would return” not to the pre-revolutionary year 1788, but to 1792. The first steps in this direction began to be taken: Louis’s sister Maria Teresa of France was released from the Temple; The leadership of the republic began secret negotiations with the monarchists to provide Louis XVII with tolerable living conditions and education. The main difficulty remained the problem of the regency; a sole regent could concentrate unlimited power in such conditions and be influenced by emigrants.

5. Mysterious death. Impostors

Dauphin Louis-Charles at the age of five. (1790).

These plans were not destined to come true due to the death of Louis-Charles Capet, who had already unofficially begun to be called the “king”. According to the official version, Louis XVII died in the Temple on June 8, 1795. He was ten years and two months old. An autopsy was performed, which established the cause of death as tuberculosis (Luis's grandfather, grandmother, uncle and older brother died from the same disease). It is reported that tumors were found on the boy's body, as well as traces of scabies. He was reportedly extremely emaciated and bony from malnutrition when he was examined after death. An autopsy was performed at the prison; Following the tradition of preserving royal hearts, the surgeon, Philippe-Jean Peletan, stole the prince's heart and kept it for further study. His body was secretly buried in a common grave.

Dr. Peletan, who examined the corpse of the young prince, was shocked to find many scars indicating abuse of the child: marks of beatings (flogging) were visible all over the torso, arms and legs.

The Count of Provence, having learned abroad about the death of his nephew, proclaimed himself King Louis XVIII. Under this name he took the French throne in 1814 de facto, but counted the beginning of his reign from 1795; The Constitutional Charter of 1814, which he signed, ended with the date: “the year of the Lord 1814, our reign in the nineteenth.” Thus, the unfortunate boy from Temple took his symbolic place in the line of French kings.

Louis's sister, Marie Antoinette's daughter Marie Teresa, Duchess of Angouleme, until the end of her days was not sure that her brother had died. Her will began: “My soul will unite with the souls of my parents and my aunt...” Not a word about her brother.

Rumors that the body of a child, opened in the Temple in 1795, did not belong to the Dauphin, began to circulate around Paris at the same time. Several dozen impostors appeared, posing as Louis XVII (especially in 1814, after the Bourbon restoration). The most active of them was the so-called “Count Naundorf” - a German watchmaker who was active in the 1820-1830s and sued the princes of the royal house. Unlike most impostors known to history, Naundorff passed on his claims to his descendants, who made loud statements in 1919 (at the height of the peace conference at Versailles) and are active in our time (see also Brunot, Mathurin). Several False People appeared in America; Mark Twain satirized them in the image of the King, a character in the novel The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn.

6. Genetic examination and funeral of the heart

Vessel with the heart of Louis XVII. Abbey of Saint Denis.

Tombstone of Louis XVII and a vessel with his heart. Abbey of Saint Denis.

Attempts to establish the exact location of the Dauphin's burial and identify his remains, made in the 19th and 20th centuries, were unsuccessful. In 2000, DNA analysis was carried out on the heart, which is generally believed to have been removed during the supposed autopsy of Louis XVII and preserved in alcohol by the doctor's descendants, then passed from one European aristocrat to another. The experts concluded that the relevant genetic signatures matched DNA extracted from Marie Antoinette's hair and the hair of Louis' sister; thus, this fact is considered proof that the Dauphin actually died at the Temple in 1795. However, this point of view also found its opponents.

After an examination, the heart was buried on June 8, 2004 in the Basilica of Saint-Denis near Paris, the tomb of French monarchs. The vessel with the heart was placed in a coffin covered with a blue banner with a gold image of the royal lilies. Representatives of all the royal houses of Europe attended the funeral.

Louis XVII went down in history as an innocent victim of the French Revolution.

Marina Tsvetaeva. Evening album. Poetry.
Childhood. - Love. - Only shadows. MOSCOW, - 1910.

LOUIS XVII.

Tsvetaeva M.I. Poems and poems: In 5 volumes. T. 1. N.–Y., 1980. P. 15.
Tsvetaeva M.I. Collected works: In 7 volumes. T. 1. M., 1994. P. 37.

A COMMENT

Tsvetaeva M.I. Poems and poems: In 5 volumes. T. 1. Poems 1908-1916 / Comp. and preparation text by A. Sumerkin. Preface I. Brodsky. Comment. A. Sumerkina and V. Schweitzer. N.–Y., 1980–1990.

Louis XVII. The son of Louis XVI, who was executed during the French Revolution, Louis XVII (1785-1795) was given to be raised by the shoemaker Simon, by whom he was disfigured mentally and physically.

A. Sumerkin, p. 281

Tsvetaeva M.I. Collected works: In 7 volumes. T. 1 / Comp., prepared. text and comment. A. A. Sahakyants and L. A. Mnukhina. M., 1994–1995.

Louis XVII. – The Dauphine hit the shoemaker with his fist... The son of Louis XVI, executed during the French Revolution, heir to the French throne, Louis XVII Charles (1785-1795) at the age of eight was imprisoned in the Temple Castle and placed under the supervision of a rude Jacobin, the shoemaker Simon.

A. A. Sahakyants, L. A. Mnukhin, p. 592

Tsvetaeva M.I. Books of poetry / Comp., commentary, article by T.A. Gorkova. M., 2004.

P. 22. Louis XVII. Louis XVII- son of King Louis XVI of France (1774–1792) from the Bourbon dynasty, convicted by the Convention and executed. His son, the Dauphin, i.e. the heir to the royal throne of France, Louis XVII Charles (1785-1795) at the age of eight was imprisoned in the Temple Castle, and two years later he died from beatings and cruel treatment of the shoemaker Simon, a Jacobin assigned keep an eye on him. Crown of thorns...– A crown of thorns is a punishment and a sign of shame. The crown of thorns was placed on Christ by Roman soldiers to mock him. Evening sacrifice.- The expression goes back to the church hymn: “Let my prayer be corrected, like incense before You, the lifting of my hand is an evening sacrifice” (Ps. 140: 2).

Bibliography: Marina Tsvetaeva. =Bibliographie des œuvres de Marina Tsvétaeva / Comp. T. Gladkova, L. Mnukhin; entry V. Losskoy. M.; Paris, 1993.

Page 634

1 - EVENING ALBUM. Poetry. Childhood - Love - Only shadows. – Moscow, Tov. type. A.I. Mamontova, 1910, 225 rubles.
Id. - Paris, LEV, 1980, 238 p.
Id. - Moscow, Book, 1988, 232 rubles. (Réimpr.)

Page 21

30 - POEMS AND POEMS: In 5 volumes. - New York, Russian Publishers Inc., 1980-1983, t. 1-4.

Page 87

55 - COLLECTION OF POEMS, POEMES AND DRAMATIC WORKS IN 3 VOLUMES. Introductory article
A. A. Sahakyants. Compilation and preparation of the text by A. A. Saakyants and L. A. Mnukhina. Volume I. Poems and poems 1910-1920. - Moscow, Prometheus, 1990, 655 rub.

Page 250

“LOUIS XVII” is the seventeenth poem in the “Childhood” section of the “Evening Album”. The serial number of the poem (XVII) coincides with the serial number in the title. This is another epitaph for the child and the prisoner. This time a boy with a truly tragic fate is chosen as the hero.
Louis-Charles (Louis-Charles) Bourbon, Duke of Normandy, son of Louis XVI and Marie Antoinette, was born in 1785. After the death of his elder brother (1789), he became heir to the throne (Dauphine). On August 10, 1792, the monarchy was abolished in France, and the royal family, who became “citizens Capet,” was imprisoned in the Temple. On January 22, 1793, upon learning of the execution of Louis XVI, Marie Antoinette swore allegiance to her eight-year-old son. On January 28, 1793, the boy's uncle, the Count of Provence, issued a declaration in Germany in which he proclaimed his nephew King Louis XVII. Most of the royal houses of Europe and the US government joined her. Emigrants minted coins and medals with his image, issued documents in his name and issued passports with his signature.
The Jacobins got Louis-Charles to sign a testimony against his own mother. On October 16, 1793, the “widow Capet” was executed. After the execution, the Convention entrusted the “revolutionary education” of the Dauphin to the shoemaker Simon and his wife, who settled in the Temple. Their task was to force Louis to renounce the memory of his parents, accept revolutionary ideals and accustom him to physical labor. Simon and his wife often beat the boy for misbehavior, although they were not overly cruel people. Three months later (January 1794), Simon was recalled from the Temple, and no one else cared about the boy’s health and development.
After the overthrow of Robespierre (July 1794), the leaders of the Convention thought about the possibility of restoring the constitutional monarchy of the 1792 model to establish civil harmony and end wars. Louis's sister Maria Theresa was released. They began to engage with Louis from time to time and were already informally called “king.” By this time he was already hopelessly ill, extremely exhausted and silent almost all the time. On June 8, 1795, at the age of ten years and two months, he died of tuberculosis and was secretly buried in a common grave.
The Count of Provence proclaimed himself King Louis XVIII and under this name took the French throne in 1814, securing for his uncrowned nephew his symbolic place in the line of French kings. After this, several dozen impostors appeared (they name numbers from forty to one hundred), posing as Louis XVII. Several false Louis appeared in America. Mark Twain satirized them in The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn as the Dauphin.

See: Bovykin D. Yu. Louis XVII: Life after Death. Published: 07/11/2002.
[http://www.lafrance.ru/sanitarium/1/18_1.htm ]
Louis XVII / Wikipedia. Last modified: 03/14/2006.
[http://ru.wikipedia.org ].

The poem consists of three parts of two stanzas. The first is crying for an innocent child. The second is a description of the ordeals he went through. The third is the death and release of the little prisoner. As in “Seryozha,” in this poem death is presented almost as a conscious choice of the hero. Redeemer sins kind of, their own fathers, he is compared to Christ. Hence the images crown of thorns And evening sacrifices(comm. 3). Wine And roses- allegorical signs of worldly sinful joys. Decanter- a realistic detail, apparently introduced for the sake of rhyme and stylistic contrast. At dawn.– An indication of the young age of the deceased and the time of death. Death for Tsvetaeva at dawn preferable to any other.
The beginning of the second stanza is an extended metaphor for the death of a child ( fragile flower), destroyed by popular revolt ( national thunderstorm). The result is a metaphorical catachresis: storm trampled into the mud flower. Semantic precision is sacrificed to alliterative-paronymic effects. Wed: Dirt – Storm; STILL-FRESH. Metaphor of monarchy - rotten fruit- a tribute to the allegorical language of the era (cf. “the fruit is ripe before its time” in “The Duma” by M. Yu. Lermontov).
In the second half of the stanza, Tsvetaeva reproaches the French Revolution, which proclaimed the ideals of Liberty, Equality and Fraternity, for not extending its principles to the royal children: All children have the same eyes.
The prince's eyes can be judged from the portrait by Elisabeth Vigée-Lebrun (1789). Here one hears an echo of the favorite maxim of the poet’s father, I. V. Tsvetaev: “There is enough space for everyone under the sky” (M. Yu. Lermontov, “Valerik”; in the original it is not “enough”, but “a lot”). Wed. also in the elegy “To the Sea” by Pushkin: “The fate of people is the same everywhere.” Pushkin equates “Enlightenment” and “tyrant”. Inexpressibly tender eyes!- Wed: “And the eyes were fiery!” (“In memory of Nina Javakha”).
The third stanza describes the abuse of the young Dauphin by the shoemaker Simon and, apparently, by the guards (see above). The sources of the details have not yet been established, but Tsvetaeva is unlikely to have invented them; she knew the literature on the history of France of this period very well. The fourth stanza is a rhetorical summary, taking us back to the first stanza. The motif of the “perishability” of worldly greatness, popular for the literature of the described era, is introduced in the spirit: “Sic transit gloria mundi” (this is how the glory of the world passes). Girl in curls– Maria Theresa, sister of Louis .
The last two stanzas describe the death of the hero. Life on earth for him is life in separation with Mother. According to historical evidence, his mother loved him very much, and Louis XVI did too, but it is believed that he did not consider him his son. Chu– an extremely rare interjection for Tsvetaeva that encourages you to listen. Someone's song turns out native, a lullaby to which it is sweet to fall asleep. This is how the angels sing.– The mother is now one of the angels, but this also refers to the memory of the “angelic” singing of the mother on earth. The mother came for her son, just as in the story “The Institute” Nina Dzhavakha’s mother came for her daughter. Heaven is named a haven for wanderers, since there is an idea that the soul wanders on earth.
The second line of the final stanza sounds like a dark place, a kind of riddle: You understand, prince, why we shed tears... The obvious answer (we feel sorry for the deceased) is not suitable; there is nothing to guess or understand here. The author probably wants to say that these are tears of joy over the boy’s release and tears of envy for his happy lot in heaven, where is he will wake up as a king. Wed. in “Seryozha”: “The brightest of all, you woke up in paradise.” Seryozha, like the prince, also “understood” that “life is either laughter or nonsense.” Accordingly, the little prince, driven to the point of idiocy by his revolutionary upbringing (a fact attested by a physician), displays at the moment of death “wisdom” comparable to Serezhina.
The poem is written in iambic 5-meter zhmzhm, one of the popular meters of Pushkin’s era (in particular, this is the size of “Boris Godunov”).

Spelling assumptions. Letters that are not in the modern alphabet (ѣ, ѳ, i, ъ in the corresponding positions) are not reproduced; outdated norms for writing case endings (small, weakening) are not observed.

R. Voitekhovich

For more than two centuries, many researchers have been haunted by the fate of the heir to the French throne, the failed King Louis XVII. One of the most detailed answers to this question is provided by the book by Vladimir Serebrenikov, a full member of the Imperial Russian Military Historical Society, the Imperial Society of History Lovers and the Petrograd Archival Scientific Commission, first published in 1917.

The author tries to answer two questions at once: whether the son of King Louis XVI, who was executed during the French Revolution, managed to leave the Temple prison, where he and his family were placed after 1792, and whether the watchmaker from Prussia, Karl-Wilhelm Naundorff, miraculously escaped the heir to the throne . And although Serebrenikov gives a positive answer to both questions, he himself notes that “the dispute on this historical issue is far from settled.”

As a result of the uprising in August 1792, the French monarchy fell. The day after the execution of King Louis XVI, which occurred on January 21, 1793, close relatives proclaimed the young Duke of Normandy Louis-Charles, the second son of the murdered crown-bearer, heir to the throne under the name Louis XVII. Before his nephew came of age, the Count of Provence declared himself regent. The new king was recognized as such by the monarchs of Europe.

After the execution of Marie Antoinette's mother on October 16, 1793, the shoemaker Simon became the mentor of the future king by decision of the Committee of Public Safety. Then the Dauphin was left without teachers at all, only under the watchful supervision of guards. After the coup of 9 Thermidor (June 27, 1794), on the orders of one of the initiators of the overthrow of the Robespierre regime, citizen Paul Barras, a compatriot of Barras's mistress, Creole Jean Laurent, was appointed as a new guard in the Temple, where the Dauphin was kept. The future French empress, Napoleon's wife Josephine Beauharnais, was a beautiful Creole. At the beginning of May 1795, Louis' health deteriorated, and he soon died of scrofula and tuberculosis, just like his older brother.

The heir to the throne died under strange circumstances: his jailers were unexpectedly changed, some witnesses passed away under unclear circumstances, and in the autopsy report there is a mysterious phrase from the doctors - “we were told (!) that this is the body of the deceased Capet.” (Remember that after the abdication of his father, Louis XVI, they began to call him “Citizen Capet”). All these and other facts pointed to a conspiracy to kidnap the Dauphin.

Women could well have been involved in the kidnapping: Therese Tallien and Josephine Beauharnais, who, according to Serebrenikov, “took advantage of their influence on the leaders of Thermidor.” There is no reason to dwell on the detective details of the kidnapping of the young king. There is a double child replacement and adventures in the spirit of Dumas' novels.

Why and who benefited from this? According to the Soviet historian Efim Chernyak, “possessing the secret of where Charles Louis was, Barras could, after the Restoration, obtain a powerful weapon of blackmail against Louis XVIII.”

The mysterious circumstances of the death (or salvation) of the monarch became, according to another Russian historian A.V. Stulov, the reason for the emergence of many contenders for the throne. Their number, according to various sources, ranges from 30 to 60 people. According to various sources, the number of people per layer ranges from 30 to 60. Restoration receive strong digging th seniorol Jean Laurent. Afterwards, the figure of the counterfeiter Karl-Wilhelm Naundorff, who served time, is of greatest interest.

At the end of the last century, the Belgian scientist J-J. Cassiman and the German E. Brinkman carried out a DNA analysis of the Dauphin's heart, comparing its results with the analysis of hair samples from his mother Marie Antoinette and his two sisters, as well as living descendants of the Habsburg dynasty. According to the results of the examination, it turned out that the boy who died in the Temple was indeed related to the ruling dynasty. An earlier study of hair and tissue samples from Naundorf's body, buried in the Netherlands, on the contrary, revealed that he was not Bourbon.

Despite the authoritative conclusion of pundits, doubts have not disappeared not only among the descendants of the applicant, who united around the retired aircraft designer Charles-Edmond de Bourbon Naundorff, and formed the “Association of Louis XV II”, but also among skeptic historians. Since the Dauphin's body was recovered by Dutch police in 1950, there is no guarantee that it or the tissue samples were not tampered with. The operation to remove the boy’s heart, which was performed by the revolutionary and atheist Pelletin, also raised doubts.

The question is, for what purpose?

In addition, as noted by E.B. Chernyak, excavations in the Saint-Marguerite cemetery, where the Dauphin was buried, and which allegedly led to the discovery of his grave, are not yet a reason to claim that it was his remains that were found. “The emphasized indifference of Louis XVIII to the memory of his nephew remains incomprehensible,” writes the historian.

The historical essay by V. Serebrenikov details the previously unexplored time of Naundorff’s stay in Germany (1810-1833). He then dwells on the most interesting period in the life of the mysterious gentleman during his stay in France (1833-1836). After unsuccessful attempts to get official authorities to recognize that he and his children were related to the executed royal couple, Naundorff died. Let us note that Naundorf did not claim any rights to the throne, but only sought to restore his family name. The author cites a large number of documents, memoirs and correspondence, from which it follows that Karl-Wilhelm Naundorff could well turn out to be the real one, and not the imaginary Louis XVII.

D. Bovykin
Louis XVII: Life After Death

Louis-Charles Bourbon, Duke of Normandy, was born at Versailles in 1785. Perhaps this is one of the few facts that is not disputed by the authors of dozens of monographs dedicated to the life of this French prince. Having become heir to the throne (Dauphin) in 1789, he was actually made king in 1793 after the execution of his father, Louis XVI, and not only was he never crowned, but also never ruled the country for a single day, since 4 months earlier France was proclaimed a republic. His death was officially announced in June 1795, and since then Louis XVII has faded from the radar of traditional history.

However, it is not the given factual outline that attracts attention to this king without a kingdom. The overwhelming majority of his biographers are confident that in fact the Dauphin remained alive, and a completely different boy was buried in the Parisian cemetery of St. Margaret (1).

The convincingness of a considerable number of arguments in favor of the miraculous salvation of Louis XVII is greatly hampered by the fact that researchers constantly contradict each other, trying to find out with whose help the Dauphin escaped from the Temple (where the royal family was kept in custody at that time), when and who he was replaced, and whether any of the major political figures of the French Revolution (Robespierre is often appointed to this role), interested in such an important hostage, was behind this. The emergence of versions that in fact there were not one, but two or even three substitutions (2) committed during 1794-1795 finally compromised this plot, turning it into a problem from the category of historical oddities or “if-history” ", and thereby closing it for "serious" historians.

At the same time, if you do not get carried away by the difficult to prove, although undoubtedly romantic, ups and downs of substitutions and escapes, there are a number of questions that can be answered precisely from the position of a historian dealing with the problems of the French Revolution.

Question one: Cui prodest?

In order for anyone (other than royalist fanatics) to be interested in the disappearance of Louis XVII from prison, it is necessary that the political conditions of France at that time allowed the possibility of restoring the monarchy.

Historians are by no means unanimous here. While some are confident that “even if from 1795 to 1800 the royalists raised their heads, they were absolutely unable to seriously threaten the republic” (3), others, on the contrary, emphasize that since 1795 “the problem is not why the monarchy fell and why it was not restored" (4). However, both of them, as a rule, do not provide any arguments other than personal conviction to support their points of view.

At the same time, numerous documents dating back to 1795 - letters and petitions to the highest legislative and executive body of the country (Convention) (5), the press (6) and pamphlets (7) - clearly indicate the highest danger (or, if you like, the possibility ) royalist restoration. Monarchism became all the more popular because royal power, after so many years of revolution, began to be associated with stability and order. The desire for change was replaced by a desire for calm.

How was this restoration conceived? A study of sources and literature leads to the fact that here the main hopes were placed not on emigration and not on the Count of Provence (the future Louis XVIII), but on the young Louis XVII, imprisoned in the Temple. “Still just a child, but a legitimate king of France,” continues A. Cobban, “with his presence on the throne he would reconcile the nation with its government, and on his behalf, and with the help of the updated Constitution of 1791, the new rulers of France could be in power , without fear of counter-revolution and, therefore, without resorting to terror" (8).

On the other hand, there is numerous (albeit imperfect) evidence that such a possibility did not remain purely hypothetical: the deputies of the Convention negotiated about it both with the royalists in exile (9) and with the leaders of the Vendée rebellion (10).

One cannot discount the fact that it was in the spring of 1795 that the Convention decided to create a new Constitution for France, for which a corresponding commission was elected, which went down in history as the Commission of Eleven (11). A number of historians are confident that its members also participated in the above-mentioned negotiations with the royalists (12); and among contemporaries there are even hints that the Commission initially wanted to propose a draft that was by no means a republican constitution(13) or to advocate the creation of a strong individual government (for example, by establishing the post of president)(14), capable of evolving into a monarchical form of government.

In a word, despite the fact that by 1795 Louis XVII was only 10 years old and in prison, in the political scenario he was still taken into account as a figure capable of changing the fate of the country.

Question two: what changed in the summer of 1795?

Defenders of the version of the Dauphin’s salvation are usually divided into two parts: “Evasionists” (15) and supporters of specific pretenders to the throne who pretended to be Louis XVII (and there were about six dozen of them in the history of France). If the latter defend the authenticity of the heroes they loved, then the former “only” claim that the young king somehow managed to escape.

However, in this case, it remains unclear why those forces that were able to kidnap the boy from the Temple did not announce his existence after the Convention announced the death of the prisoner.

Sources offer answers to this question as well. Firstly, immediately after the death of the Dauphin became known, the Count of Provence hastened to issue a declaration declaring himself Louis XVIII and his readiness to lead the royalist movement (16). The leaders of the Vendée rebellion also announced the death of Louis XVII in a special manifesto dated June 26, 1795. Under these conditions, the appearance of a living Louis-Charles could only cause a split in the ranks of the monarchists. Secondly, there is a huge amount of evidence that the royalists planned to win elections to the new authorities (17), which opened up a theoretical, but nevertheless quite real possibility for restoration by peaceful means, and in the form of not absolute, but constitutional monarchy. Thus, it is quite possible to explain why Louis XVII, if he escaped death, was not brought into the game, and it is obvious that the ten-year-old boy himself could hardly have risked declaring his claims to the throne on his own at that time. However, such a disappearance would be difficult, if not impossible, to hide: the heir to the throne was too well known by sight to be easily replaced by another child.

Question three: rumors or facts?

In this article there is no point in dwelling on the mysterious circumstances repeatedly described in the literature(18) that directly accompanied the death of the Dauphin. Let us only mention the rumors that began to actively circulate in the country: the king is alive and will soon be ready to lead the troops loyal to him.

Supporters of the version of the king’s flight also ask many pressing questions that need to be answered one way or another: why during the Restoration the Dauphin was not exhumed and no memorial services were held for him (unlike other dead members of the royal family)(19), why the sister of Maximillian Robespierre Charlotte received a pension under Louis XVIII, Charles X, Louis Philippe (according to the author of the question, she knew from her brother that the rightful King was alive), why the Dauphin does not look at all like the portraits of 1793 and 1795, why Louis XVIII refused to accept the anointing, why did he for a long time was not recognized by either England or other states (20); there were a lot of difficulties even with the royalist army?

However, there are other issues that are supported by sources. For example, why did Fouche, the famous minister of police under Napoleon, show the closest attention to the impostors who appeared in France during the Empire? Or why did one of the secret articles of the Treaty of Paris of May 30, 1815 say that “the high contracting parties are not sure of the death of the son of Louis XVI” and in fact agree to temporarily recognize Louis XVIII only as a regent (21)?

And even if one objects that this article was not included in the official publications of the treaty, how can one explain that in the agreement with the allies in the spring of 1814, Louis XVIII is referred to as “His Royal Highness Monsieur, son of France, brother of the King, Viceroy of the Kingdom of France” (22)? Why "brother of the King" and not "uncle of the King"? Because Louis-Charles was not crowned? But then the Count of Provence would have to be Louis XVII, and not XVIII!

Thus, logical constructions based on historical facts lead to the conclusion that although the death of the Dauphin was not directly denied by the French government either during the Empire or during the Restoration, there are a number of unanswered questions that, it seems to us, lead to certain thoughts.

Question four: “Where is he, the brother of the orphan from Temple?” (23)

Perhaps the most convincing of the contenders was Karl-Wilhelm Naundorff, who appeared in Berlin in 1810. It appeared precisely because the entire previous life of this person remained a mystery to historians (24). He himself subsequently declared that he was the son of Louis XVI and Marie Antoinette and even wrote down the story of his adventures, which might seem incredible even to Dumas. It seemed that the claims of this watchmaker from Weimar (as he himself introduced himself at the beginning (25)) who did not even know French (26) were simply ridiculous. Moreover, when he appeared in Paris in May 1833, the news that another contender had appeared did not strike the imagination for a long time.

However, further developments showed that Naundorff knew and remembered facts that could only have been known to Louis XVII. He is recognized by many people who knew the Dauphin well: former servants of the royal family, de Joly, the last minister of justice of Louis XVI, de Bremont, the former secretary of the monarch, de Rambaud, the prince’s former teacher. Even the Dauphin’s sister, the Duchess of Angoulême, sent her representative to him with a whole questionnaire (27).

Having unsuccessfully tried to defend his rights to the throne, Naundorff was forced to emigrate to England and then to Holland, where he died in 1845. On his grave in Delft it is written: “Here lies Louis XVII.”

However, this story did not end with Naundorff's death. Even more surprising may seem the behavior of his descendants, who, despite the fact that they officially bear the surname de Bourbon, with enviable regularity to this day appeal to various courts demanding recognition of their origin and declaring the act of Louis’s death invalid XVII. Moreover, quite recently, Charles Louis Edmond de Bourbon made a new proposal: to conduct a DNA examination with the involvement of independent experts (28). There was no answer. Then one of his supporters made a truly royal gift - a medallion with a lock of Marie Antoinette's hair, which was examined along with Naundorff's remains. To date, the examination has not yet been completed (29). In addition, during a personal meeting with Monseigneur (as his supporters call him), I could not help but be struck by his amazing resemblance to... Henry IV. A detail that, of course, cannot serve as proof of anything, but also cannot but give another trump card to the “Nundorfists”. In a word, this “historical detective story” has no end yet. The “Case of Louis XVII” still cannot be considered closed...

NOTES

1. Fortunately, numerous surveys and even the exhumation of the corpse in 1846 actually did not find the remains of a ten-year-old child in the indicated place.

2. See, for example: Romain J.P. Les trois Louis XVII évades du Temple. Paris, 1956.

3. Tulard J. Fayard J.-F. Fierro A. Histoire et dictionnaire de la Révolution française. Paris, 1987, p.1078.

4. Cobban A. A History of Modern France. Vol.1. Harmondswordth, 1963, p.248.

5. See, for example: A.N. (National Archives of France), C 228, d.183 bis * 4/2, doc.49, 69.

6. See, for example: Journal des hommes libres, N 83, 8 fructidor (25.08.95), p.327.

7. See, for example: Quelques réflexions sur l "acceptation de la Constitution de 1795, adressées a la Nation française. Nemours, 6 fructidor, an 3e, p.13.

8. Cobban A. Op.cit., p.249.

9. Thureau-Dangin P. Royalistes & Républicains. Essais historiques sur des questions de politique contemporaine. Paris, 1888, p.31; Fuoc R. La reaction thermidorienne - Lyon (1795). Lyon, 1989, p.56. Or in his memoirs: Larevelliere-Lépeaux L. Mémoires de Larevelliere-Lépeaux, membre du Directoire exécutif de la République française et de l"Institut national publiés par son fils, vol.1. Paris, 1895, p.256.

10. Historical Manuscripts commission. Report of the Manuscripts of J.B.Fortescue, Esq., preserved at Dropmore. Vol.III. London, 1899, p. 117.

11. Initially, the commission was created only to supplement the adopted, but never put into effect, Constitution of 1793 with so-called “organic laws” and only a little later it decided to propose for discussion a fundamentally different text of the basic law.

12. Fryer W.R. Republic or Restoration in France? 1794-7. Manchester, 1965, p.4; Louigot A. Baudot et St-Just ou les secrets de la force des choses. Paris, 1976, p.245.

13. See, for example: Peltier J.-G. Paris pendant l"année 1795. Londres, vol.2., N 9, 1.VIII.95., p.48.

14. Mallet du Pan. Mémoires et correspondence. Paris, 1851, vol.2, p.147.

15. From fr. "évasion" - disappearance.

16. Louis XVIII. Declaration de Louis XVIII, Roi de France et de Navarre a ses sujets. S.l., s.d.

17. See, for example: Castries. A.N., 306 AP 29 (326 mi 18), doc.24.

18. For more details, see: D. Bovykin. Louis XVII: life and legend. // "New and Contemporary History". N 4. 1995. P. 172-174.

19. Quesne J.S. Confessions de J.S.Quesné depuis 1778 jusqu" a 1826. Vol.1. P., 1828, p.173

20. The fact that Louis XVIII had great difficulties with his recognition by foreign powers was even written under Thermidor in newspapers. See, for example: Annales de la République française, N 316, 20 thermidor (7.08.95.), p.2

21. Blanc L. History of the French Revolution of 1789. T.XII. St. Petersburg, 1909, p. 249. Quoted from: "Le cercle Louis XVII", 1935, p.8.

23. This is the question asked in Parliament in 1816 by Chateaubriand. The “orphan of the Temple” refers to the surviving daughter of Louis XVI, Marie-Thérèse-Charlotte (1778-1851), Duchess of Angoulême.

24. However, such “failures” are typical for the biographies of most applicants, and their supporters try in vain to find a reasonable explanation for this. Best of all, from my point of view, the Marquis de Castellane succeeded in this, writing that nothing is reliably known about Jesus from his birth to the age of 30, which, however, does not prevent him from being the son of God.

25. An investigation undertaken in 1824 showed that no one named Naundorf lived in Weimar in those years.

26. This is perhaps one of the strongest arguments against recognizing him as Dauphin. However, the “Nundorfists” (as his supporters call themselves) are not discouraged and cite historical examples proving that a child, once in a foreign land, may well forget his native language, like, say, the children of Francis I, who were prisoners in Spain for three years. Samson Ch. Louis XVII et sa descendance. Paris, 1906, p.19.

27. The question involuntarily arises whether she would have done this if she had been sure of the Dauphin’s death. By the way, earlier both she and Louis XVIII refused to accept the heart of a boy who died in the Temple in 1795, removed by one of the doctors who performed the autopsy.

28. Bulletin de l'Institut Louis XVII. N 21. 1995.

29. Bulletin de l "Institut Louis XVII. Annexe Spécial. December 1996. Dossier ADN.