Part 10

During this period of almost absolute power, the prince had written home to his family, whilst the Marquis de Caylus sent a special messenger to Europe to detail what had happened, and to ask for instructions. Meanwhile peace was proclaimed, the blockade raised, and prices returned to their normal condition. By this time the youthful visitor, having contrived to spend fifty thousand crowns of the Penthievre funds, and strained the hospitality of the islanders to its extreme limits, deemed it time to depart. Accordingly, attended by all his household and the royal physician, he hoisted an admiral's flag on board a merchant vessel, and, under a royal salute from the fort, set sail for Portugal. Scarcely had their expensive guest departed before a courier arrived with an order for the stranger's arrest, whilst the agent of the Penthievre family learnt, to his dismay, that he would be expected, for his want of caution, to make good half of what he had allowed the _soi disant_ prince to cheat him out of.

Meanwhile, the young adventurer arrived at Faro, in Portugal, and landed amid an artillery salute. He requested a courier should be sent at once to Madrid, as also conveyance for himself and suite to Seville. Everything was placed at his disposal, and, on his arrival at the latter city, which he entered in triumphant-like style, he began a life of festivity similar to that he had carried on in the West Indies. Still provided with funds, he entertained right royally all those who feted him in return, and speedily won the admiration of the women and the envy of the men. In the midst of all this festivity, an order arrived for the prince's arrest! He was lodging with the Dominicans, who, after a time, despite the indignation of the populace, agreed to give him up, provided no blood were shed. At first the officers found it difficult to execute this agreement, the youth, who was a good swordsman, making it a dangerous task to approach him; but ultimately he was secured by stratagem, and thrown into a dungeon. The following day, for some inexplicable reason, he was released from his fetters, and placed in the best apartment the prison afforded. The "prince," who haughtily refused to answer any questions, was finally condemned to the galleys; and his retinue, upon a charge of a supposititious nature, were expelled the Spanish dominions.

Upon the prisoner's removal to Cadiz, great military precautions were taken, as it was feared a riot on his behalf might be made. On arrival at Cadiz, he was consigned to Fort de la Caragna, and the commandant was instructed to treat him, the convict, with politeness! Being allowed liberties not often granted to prisoners, he availed himself of an opportunity to escape, and got on board an English vessel. On arrival at Gibraltar, the captain reported to the governor that he had on board a personage claiming to be the Prince of Modena. "Let him beware of landing," responded the governor, "for I shall have him apprehended immediately!" The bewildered captain informed his "highness" of the reply, and his passenger, warned by the past, remained on board. The vessel departed with this claimant to royalty, of whose further proceedings history makes no mention.

CHARLOTTE, PRINCESS OF RUSSIA.

A.D. 1752.

The Czarovitch Alexis, son of Peter the Great of Russia, was married in October 1711, at Torgau, to the Princess Charlotte of Brunswick. In July of the following year, being then only eighteen years of age, the young bride made her public entry into St. Petersburg. She is always described as an amiable and beautiful girl, and was, so it is averred, the choice of Alexis himself. Be this as it may, there can be no doubt that the Czarovitch treated his youthful consort with neglect, even if he did not brutally ill-use her; some authorities, indeed, asserting that he frequently struck her, although, as she was liked and protected by the Czar, his father, of whom he stood in considerable dread, this scarcely seems probable. Alexis gave up his time to the society of a favourite girl of the lowest extraction, and amid various kinds of debauchery forgot or ignored the existence of his wife, and the two children she bore him, one of whom, a daughter, died in childhood; whilst the other, a son, ultimately became Peter the Second. Some ascribe the intense antipathy Alexis appeared to entertain for his unfortunate wife to a belief he entertained that she complained of him to the Czar, who frequently, and in no very measured terms, took occasion to expostulate with him on his conduct to his wife.

Soon after the birth of her second child the Princess grew dangerously ill, and her malady was heightened by the deep melancholia which had for some time past preyed upon her. It was soon seen that her case was hopeless; and every one, save the Princess herself, and her abandoned husband, appeared to be deeply affected. Alexis never came near his dying wife, whilst the poor Princess herself appeared to be only too willing to escape from the miseries of life. She seemed to anticipate death as a merciful release from her troubles, and implored the physicians not to torment her any longer, as she was resolved to die.

On the day before her death she dictated a document addressed to the Czar, in which she left all the funeral arrangements to him, and recommended both her children to his care and affection, so that they "might be educated according to their birth and position." Her jewels and valuables she left to her children; her dresses to her cousin and dear companion, the Princess of Courland; requested that her debts might be discharged, and the expenses of those who had accompanied her to Russia defrayed home. She thanked the Czar and his wife Catherine for their kindness to her, and, in fact, left arrangements for all her worldly matters. On the following day, November 1st, 1715, she died, and, despite the fact that she died in the Lutheran faith, although she had been strongly solicited to abjure it for the Greek Church, out of respect for her memory the Czar had her remains interred with regal pomp in the Cathedral Church of St. Peter and St. Paul at St. Petersburg.

The foregoing particulars have been thus minutely given in order that the great improbability of the story told by the adventuress who subsequently assumed her name and rank might be rendered the more manifest. According to the story told by a woman who appeared in France about the middle of the last century, and claimed to be the deceased Princess Charlotte, the Princess, soon after the birth of her son, taking advantage of the Czar's absence from his capital, caused a report of her death to be circulated. The Czarovitch, who not having paid any attention to her when alive, was scarcely likely to give himself much trouble about her dead, was averred to have ordered the body to be buried without delay; whereupon, according to the claimant's statement, a piece of wood was substituted for the supposed corpse, and was interred within the Cathedral, whilst the Princess made good her escape into France.

A woman who had resigned her home and infant children in order to avoid the worry of a husband's neglect or brutality, would be expected to return to her father's home; but this princess, it is alleged, first made good her retreat to France, and then, still apprehensive of discovery, notwithstanding the fact of the burial of her supposed remains, embarked for the United States, and settled in Louisiana. There she met a French sergeant who had formerly been in St. Petersburg, and all unregardful of her royal birth, married him, and bore him a daughter. In 1752, this _ci devant_ princess, accompanied by her French husband, visited Paris, and as she was walking in the Tuileries was seen and recognized, after all those years of change, by Marshal Saxe, who, however, gallantly promised not to betray her secret, and kindly procured a commission for her husband in the Isle of Bourbon, whither the strangely assorted couple went. Having lost her second husband and her child, the doubly bereaved princess returned to Paris in 1754, in the company of a negress. Getting into difficulties, in consequence of the East India Company refusing the bills she had brought with her in her husband's name, through her inability to prove herself to have been his wife, she took the opportunity of revealing her real rank to a gentleman who had known her in the Isle of Bourbon and, consequently, was induced to offer her his assistance. Soon after this wonderful revelation the _soi disant_ princess disappeared, but it was supposed that she had retired to the court of her nephew, the Duke of Brunswick. The King of France, it was averred, had long known the whole circumstances, and had even enjoined the Governor of the Isle of Bourbon to pay her the honours due to her rank. He also, it is said, sent an account of the discovery in his own handwriting to Maria Theresa, the Empress, who immediately wrote to the supposed princess, her aunt, and, doubtless, thinking a woman who had abandoned one husband and family would not be more particular over the next, advised her to quit her present husband and child, whom the King of France promised to provide for, and come and reside in Vienna. This female claimant seems to have utterly disappeared after the bill transaction in Paris, but her story, told in a dozen different ways, may be read in the histories and memoirs of the last century.

THE FALSE PETER THE THIRD OF RUSSIA.

A.D. 1773.

The history of Russia has already furnished our records with some remarkable cases of pseudo royalty in the tragic stories of the Demetriuses and others, the suspicious circumstances so frequently attendant upon the death of members of the royal family of the Romanoffs having, doubtless, been the means of engendering such impostures as herein detailed. Yet the mystery surrounding the death of Peter the Third was not very dense, scarcely any one doubting that he was murdered at the instigation of his consort, Catherine the Second.

Well acquainted with the use schemers made of hasty and private interments, the Empress determined that the body of her deceased husband, upon whose vacated throne she was installed, should be publicly exposed in accordance with ancient observances, notwithstanding the circumstances of his death. The corpse was conveyed to the capital, and bedecked with his well-known Holstein uniform, Peter the Third's remains were placed in the Church of St. Alexander Newsky, and for three days the people were permitted to take their last view of their murdered monarch. The appearance of the exhibited body is said to have confirmed the spectators in their idea that the unfortunate Czar had been assassinated, whilst the forethought of the Empress was quite ineffectual in preventing impostors personating the deceased sovereign. Soon after Peter's death rumours were circulated to the effect that he had escaped from the hands of his intended assassins, and was living in an obscure part of the country in close concealment. In consequence of these reports six several false Peters, with stories more or less plausible, arose to excite insurrections amongst the discontented people. Five of these impostors were easily disposed of, and without any great loss of life; but the rebellions excited by the sixth shook the Empire to its foundations, and caused a frightful effusion of blood and treasure. Pugatchef, this sixth and last claimant, was the son of a poor Cossack, and as a private soldier had served some years in the Russian army. At the siege of Bender, in 1769, his extraordinary likeness to Peter the Third had been much noticed, one officer observing, "If the Emperor, my master, were not dead, I should believe that I saw him once more." He was of larger make and far greater vigour than Peter, but otherwise the resemblance was great, as may be seen by comparing the portraits in the British Museum of the Czar and the rebel. Having deserted from the army, and taken refuge amongst some religious sectaries of the Cossacks of the Ural, Pugatchef, acquiring the support of these discontented fanatics, boldly announced that he was Peter the Third himself, that he had escaped from the daggers of the assassins, and that the story of his death was an invention of his enemies. In September 1773, he raised the standard of revolt, and having some military skill and experience, combined with personal activity and courage, and a perfect knowledge of the country, he was enabled to entirely defeat the small force sent against him. This success swelled his band into an army, and brought many skilled soldiers, especially discontented Poles, to his aid. Combining religious impositions with his regal one, he tricked the populace into receiving him as their benefactor, and as the supporter of the Church, as well as their Czar. Force after force that was sent against him was defeated, until even Moscow trembled before his approach; and had he boldly marched upon the capital, the probability is that it must have succumbed, and the imperial power would have been completely overthrown.

He established a court, adopted the insignia of the empire, conferred patents of nobility, and issued gold, silver, and copper coins, bearing his image, and the inscription: "Peter the Third, Emperor of all the Russias." But as the adventurer became powerful, he cast off the mask, and dissipated the confidence of his followers by his debauchery and contempt for religious observances. His natural ferocity, no longer under curb, was exercised upon his opponents, whom he mercilessly massacred without respect to sex or age.

Catherine and her advisers, no longer able to treat this rebellion as the marauding expedition of a gang of robbers, were compelled to make the most strenuous efforts to meet the impostor's forces. An army of veterans, chiefly recalled from the Turkish campaign (then being prosecuted), and numbering forty-five thousand men, aided by a formidable train of artillery, took the field under the command of an experienced general. Proclamations were issued, offering a pardon to all who returned to their allegiance, and proffering a reward of one hundred thousand silver roubles for the person of Pugatchef, alive or dead. The pretender, in return, circulated manifestoes, in which he abolished servitude, freed unconditionally all the serfs, and created them proprietors of the soil which they tilled. This was an attack upon the empire's weakest point; and had the insurgent leader been as prudent as he was daring, he might easily have overturned the existing government.

During the spring of 1774, victory, followed by the most terrible excesses, hovered between the two opposing powers, until at last Palitzin, the imperial general, completely routed Pugatchef, and drove him into the fastnesses of the Ural mountains. Just as the Empress and her courtiers were congratulating themselves upon the supposed annihilation of the rebellion, however, the claimant reappeared with recruited strength, and again obtained many successes. Again was he routed and driven back, and again did he return with fresh armies to renewed victories. Once more repulsed, he was still enabled, for the fourth time, to gather together fresh legions of insurgents, who seemed to spring into being at his call. But his strength was nearly spent; his experienced men had been destroyed; his new recruits were ill-armed and untrained serfs, whilst peace with Turkey enabled the Empress to concentrate all her strength for a crushing blow. Pugatchef advanced along the banks of the Volga towards Moscow, committing the most terrible atrocities at the various places he captured. Aware that the late Czar, whom he still personified, spoke German, he carefully executed any of his prisoners who owned to a knowledge of that language. Finally, surprised by the Imperial troops, his hordes were routed with great slaughter, and he himself narrowly escaped by swimming across the Volga, and gaining the almost inaccessible steppes of the Ural. Attended by three followers only, he lurked about for some time, until at last betrayed and handed over to a Russian general. Sent to Moscow, he was tried with all possible formality, condemned, and executed on January 21st, 1775, having previously, according to official report, confessed his real name, and been recognized by his relatives. Thus ended one of the most daring impostures on record, after having cost the empire upwards of a year's panic and confusion, an enormous loss of property, and, worse than all, the sacrifice of at least three hundred and fifty thousand lives.

CASPAR HAUSER, "THE HEREDITARY PRINCE OF BADEN."

A.D. 1828-33.

No more innocent claimant to royalty, nor more undeserved a victim, than was Caspar Hauser, is told of in history. His birth, his death, and his real parentage, are all enveloped in a mystery no amount of research has, as yet, been able to pierce. The world first heard of him on Whit-Monday, the 26th of May, 1828. On the afternoon of that day a citizen of Nuremberg was interested in the appearance of a youth in a peasant's dress, who seemed endeavouring to walk into the town, but with unsteady gait and tottering step. When approached and accosted, he replied in the Bavarian idiom, "I want to be a trooper as my father was," and held out a letter addressed to the captain of the fourth squadron of the sixth regiment of Bavarian Light Horse. As this officer was quartered near the citizen's own house, he assisted the crippled lad to the place indicated. The captain was from home, and as the bearer of the letter to him appeared to be little better than an idiot, and incapable of giving other account of himself than that he wanted to be a trooper as his father had been, he was conducted to the stable and given some straw, upon which he laid himself down and fell asleep. When the captain came home the lad was sought for, but it required no little exertion to awaken him. He could not give any account of himself, and recourse was had to the letter for an explanation. It was written in German, in an unknown hand, and expressed a wish that the youth should be admitted into the captain's troop of Light Horse. A memorandum in Latin was enclosed, and was stated by the writer of the letter to have been received by him on the 7th of October, 1812, when the present bearer, then a baby, had been left at his house. It proceeded to declare that the writer was a poor labourer, and the father of ten children; but that he had complied with the unknown mother's request by bringing up the little foundling secretly, and by giving him instructions in reading, writing, and Christianity. This communication contained neither the writer's name nor address, nor did the memorandum enclosed throw much light on the subject.

It ran thus:--"The child is already baptized; you must give him a surname yourself; you must educate the child. His father was one of the Light Horse. When he is seventeen years old, send him to Nuremberg to the sixth regiment of the Light Horse, for there his father was. He was born on the 30th April, 1812. I am a poor girl, and cannot support him. His father is dead."

This unsatisfactory communication, and the utter inability of the youth to furnish any account of himself, determined the captain to have nothing to do in the matter; so he immediately handed his charge over to the police. Taken to the guardroom, a close examination was made of the strange arrival. His attire consisted of a coarse shirt, pantaloons, and a peasant's jacket, in which was a white handkerchief marked "K.H." (Kaspar Hauser). He was of medium height, broad-shouldered, and well built; his skin was white and fine, his limbs delicately moulded, and his hands small and beautifully formed. The soles of his feet were as soft as the palms of his hands, and were covered with blisters, which seemed to account for his difficulty in walking. But subsequent investigation offered further elucidation upon this point; it showed that his feet had never before been compressed by shoes, and that owing to the confined position in which the unfortunate boy had been retained, the joint at the knees, instead of being a protuberance when the leg was straightened, formed a hole or depression. Whilst under examination he manifested neither dread nor astonishment, but continued to cry and point to his feet. His behaviour excited the compassion of the officials, and one of them offered him some meat and beer; but he rejected them with disgust, partaking, however, of bread and water with apparent relish.

The usual interrogations were put to him, as to his name, whence he came, and his travelling pass; but all in vain. Beyond his frequently repeated expression, "I want to be a trooper as my father was," little could be got out of him. Some of the spectators began to fancy the lad was playing a part, and their suspicions were increased when, upon writing materials being offered to him, he took a pen, and slowly and clearly wrote "Kaspar Hauser." Unable to make out whether he was an idiot or an impostor, he was removed to a tower near the guard-house, where rogues and vagabonds were confined. Given a straw bed, he lay down and slept soundly.

Although at first utterly unable to furnish any account of himself, Caspar, under the kind and judicious treatment of his keepers, gradually learnt to speak, and gather some idea of the world and its ways. As soon as ever he was really enabled to communicate with those around him, the Burgermeister, Herr Binder, went to visit him, and take down his deposition. From what the poor lad then or subsequently stated, the following extraordinary particulars were recorded, and are, or were some few years ago, still preserved in the Nuremberg Police Court. Caspar's account was to the effect that he did not know who he was, or whence he came; that as far back as he could recollect he had always lived in a hole or cage, and always sat upon the ground, with his back supported in an erect position,--a statement which the condition of his knees fully corroborated. He had been kept in a state of semi-darkness in this subterranean place, clad only in shirt and trousers, and fed only upon bread and water. At times he had been overpowered with heavy sleep, and on awakening from this state would find his nails trimmed, his clothes changed, and his dungeon cleaned out. Every day a man, whose face he had never seen, would come and bring him a loaf of bread and a pitcher of water. Some time before Caspar's removal into the outer world, "the man" was accustomed to come every day with a small table or board, which he put over the lad's feet, and putting a sheet of paper upon it, guided his hand, in which he had placed a pencil, so that he gradually learnt to write. By constant imitation of the marks or lines "the man" guided him into making, Caspar Hauser had learnt to make the letters composing his own name, or rather the name he went by. This writing appears to have greatly delighted the poor captive and, beyond two wooden horses, would seem to be all that he had to amuse himself with. At last "the man" came one night, lifted Caspar on to his shoulders, and taking him out of the dungeon, carried him towards Nuremberg. He made the lad try to walk, but the unusual exercise caused him such pain that he fainted; and when he recovered his senses he found himself alone by the city gates, where he was discovered.