Louis XVII., as his father's lawful successor to the throne, and a
daughter older than the boy.

"These children remained in the hands of their cruel foes for some time
after the beheading of their royal parents. The girl was finally
restored to her mother's relatives, the royal family of Austria; but the
boy, who was most inhumanly treated by his jailer, was supposed to have
died in consequence of that brutal abuse, having first been reduced by
it to a state of extreme bodily and mental weakness.

"That story (of the death of the poor little dauphin, I mean, not
of the cruel treatment to which he was subjected) has, however, been
contradicted by another; and I suppose it will never be made certain in
this world which was the true account.

"The dauphin was born in 1785, his parents were beheaded in 1793; so
that he must have been about eight years old at the time of their death.

"In 1795 a French man and woman, directly from France, appeared in
Albany, New York, having in charge a girl and boy; the latter about
nine years old, and feeble in body and mind.

"The woman had also a number of articles of dress which she said had
belonged to Marie Antoinette, who had given them to her on the scaffold.

"That same year two Frenchmen came to Ticonderoga, visited the Indians
in that vicinity, and placed with them such a boy as the one seen at
Albany--of the same age, condition of mind and body, etc.

"He was adopted by an Iroquois chief named Williams, and given the name