sited many shrines, said
many prayers, and personally repaired to the old city in which he was
confined, where she caused a nine days' course of prayer to be said to
discover if the captive were really the person he pretended to be.
This last expedient answered admirably. The Abbe Matouillet, who
celebrated the required number of masses before the shrine of the
Virgin, was himself a firm believer in Bruneau, and he had no
hesitation in assuring the petitioner that loyalty and liberality
towards the prince would be no bad investment either in this world or
the next. The Abbe then led his credulous victim into the august
presence of the clogmaker, and the poor dupe prostrated herself before
him in semi-adoration. Nor would she leave the presence until his
Majesty condescended to accept a humble gift of a valuable gold watch
and two costly rings. His Majesty was graciously pleased to accede to
the request of his loyal subject.

Bruneau could neither read nor write, and perhaps it was as well for
himself that his education had been thus neglected, for if he had been
left to his own devices his imposture would have been very
short-lived. But he contrived to attach two clever rascals to himself,
who helped to prolong the fraud and to victimise the public. They were
both convicts, but convicts of a high intellectual type. One was
Larcher, a revolutionary priest, and a man of detestable life; while
the other was a forger named Tourly. These worthies acted as his
secretaries. On the 3d of March 1816, the priest wrote a letter to
"Madame de France" in these terms:--

"MY SISTER,--You are doubtless not ignorant of my being held in the
saddest captivity, and reduced to a condition of appalling misery. So
may I beg of you, if you should think me worthy of your especial
consideration, to visit me here in my imprisonment. Even should you
for an instant suspect me of being an impostor, still may I claim
consideration for the sake of your brother. The scandal and judgment
of which our family is daily the object throughout the entire kingdom
may well make you shudder. I am myself sunk in despair at the thought
of being so near the capital without being permitted to publicly
appear in it. If you determine upon coming down here you would do well
to preserve an incognito. In the meantime receive the embraces of your
unfortunate brother, THE KING OF FRANCE AND NAVARRE."

This precious epistle Madame Jacquieres undertook not