Part 8 (1/2)

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 circ.u.mstances 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 circ.u.mstances 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 a.s.sa.s.sinated, 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 a.s.sa.s.sins, 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 a.s.sa.s.sins, 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 succ.u.mbed, and the imperial power would have been completely overthrown.

He established a court, adopted the insignia of the empire, conferred patents of n.o.bility, 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 ma.s.sacred without respect to s.e.x 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 crus.h.i.+ng 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 a.s.sisted 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 coa.r.s.e s.h.i.+rt, 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 compa.s.sion 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 pa.s.s; 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 s.h.i.+rt 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.

Everything appeared to corroborate this most extraordinary circ.u.mstance; it was some time before he could walk without stumbling; he appeared to have no control over his limbs; the attempt to compress his feet into boots caused him great torture, whilst walking drew sighs and groans from him. His eyes, unaccustomed to the light, became inflamed; he had no idea of the relative distances of things, and when he first saw the flame of a candle was so delighted that he put his finger into it. When pretended thrusts were made at him he exhibited no alarm, and did not recoil, and altogether showed such intense ignorance of the operations of the senses that those about him were convinced that he was no impostor, as strangers imagined him to be.

The meanwhile, whilst the lad was gradually becoming reconciled to the wonders of the world around him, the strange story of his discovery was spreading rapidly all over Europe. The scientific and the curious flocked to Nuremberg in order to behold this human phenomenon, and presented him with toys and gifts. But he complained that his visitors teased him, and that he had headaches, which he never had when he was in his cell. At this time, the close scrutiny which his story underwent began to excite curious suspicions as to the facts of his parentage. It was argued that a mother desirous of getting her child adopted was not likely to have placed it at the door of a poor labourer already burdened with ten children of his own, and with the hope that he could support it for seventeen years; nor was it within the bounds of probability that a man so situated could have kept the boy all that period without putting him to work. Moreover, what reason could the labourer have had for keeping the boy concealed all that time? The mother might have wished concealment, but certainly not the adopting labourer. It was felt there was some deep mystery behind all this secrecy, and everything about it pointed to a n.o.ble origin for Caspar.

These ideas, and the rumours they generated, had tragic consequences for the poor lad. On the 17th October, feeling unwell, he was excused from a mathematical cla.s.s he attended, and was allowed to stay at home.

A little after noon, whilst a woman in the house was sweeping, she noticed blood spots and b.l.o.o.d.y footmarks, and following them to the cellar, there found Caspar, apparently dead, and with a dreadful wound across his forehead. Medical a.s.sistance was procured, and the lad removed to his bed. After a time he recovered from his insensibility, but for a long while was in a state of delirium, during which he frequently murmured, ”Man come--don't kill me--I love all men--do no one anything. Man, I love you too. Don't kill--why man kill?”

The poor innocent lad was carefully tended, and as soon as he had regained sufficient strength to be interrogated a judicial inquiry was made into the affair. According to the victim's account, ”the man” had entered the house, and as he was softly treading along a pa.s.sage Caspar noticed that he was masked, but before he could make any further observation he was felled to the ground by the wound in his forehead, and became insensible. He could not explain how he got into the cellar, but fancied he must have crawled there in a half-insensible condition. Nothing resulted from the judicial inquiry beyond the fact that the extraordinary case excited more comment than ever. Among others who became interested in the strange matter was Earl Stanhope, then in Germany. This English n.o.bleman was so pleased with the lad's amiable ways and his misfortunes, that he placed him in the care of an able tutor. After a time Caspar received the appointment of Clerk to the Registrar's Court of Appeal, and performed his duties so well that Lord Stanhope spoke of adopting him and taking him to England. This probably induced his powerful foes to put him out of the way at once.

On the evening of the 14th December, 1833, as Caspar was returning home from his official duties, a stranger accosted him, and by a promise of revealing his parentage inveigled him into the palace gardens, where he plunged a dagger into his side, and then instantly disappeared. Caspar just managed to get home and murmur a few words when he became insensible, and before the police arrived he expired.

The police appear to have made great efforts to discover the a.s.sa.s.sin, but without success. The King of Bavaria caused an inquiry into Caspar Hauser's case to be made, and the well-known jurist, Feuerbach, to whom the inquiry was deputed, reported significantly, ”_There are circles of human society into which the arm of justice dares not penetrate._”

Who then was Caspar Hauser, and why include him among pretenders to royal lineage? It was surmised, and still is believed by many, that he was elder son of the Grand Duke Karl of Baden and his much-admired consort, the Grand d.u.c.h.ess Stephanie Tascher, Napoleon's adopted daughter. Their son, born in September 1812, was alleged to have died when a few weeks old, but the popular idea in Baden was, and indeed still is, that this boy was carried off and a dead child subst.i.tuted in his stead, at the instigation of the Grand Duke Karl's uncle and successor, Ludwig, a man to whom the most disgraceful crimes and cruel outrages are imputed.

THE FALSE DAUPHINS IN FRANCE.

1793-1859.

Had not these pages already proved to what an extent human credulity could go, it would be almost useless to offer the following most extraordinary details as matters of fact. That a dead person might be personated by a living being is quite within the range of probability, but that thirty or more totally different individuals should in this nineteenth century not only deem it, but prove it, possible to dupe numbers of people into believing that they were a prince whose decease had been publicly certified and most zealously investigated into, scarcely seems to come within the range of the possible. In order to better comprehend the various marvellous stories detailed by the impostors about to be referred to, the true story of the little dauphin, styled by the French royalists Louis the Seventeenth, should be told.

On the 27th March, 1785, Louis Charles, the second son of Louis the Sixteenth of France, was born at the Chateau de Versailles. The birth of this second son caused great rejoicings in the royal circle, where his earliest years were environed with all the care and adulation bestowed upon princes. His father created the child Duke of Normandy, whilst the death of his elder brother in 1789 brought him next in succession to the throne, raised him to the rank of dauphin, and, if possible, made him a greater idol than before in the eyes of the Court.