y might
have escaped notice, but peculiar circumstances directed attention to
them. The family consisted of a lady, a gentleman, and two children;
and although the two former bore the same name, they did not seem to
be man and wife, Madame de Jourdan dressed expensively and elegantly,
while Monsieur de Jourdan was very plainly attired, and appeared to be
the lady's servant rather than her husband. Great mystery was observed
with respect to their children, who were carefully concealed from the
public gaze. The eldest was a girl, and was called Louise; while the
youngest, a boy of nine or ten years of age, was invariably addressed
as Monsieur Louis. He was very rarely seen, even by the few ladies and
children who were admitted into a sort of semi-friendship by the
new-comers, and when he did appear seemed to be dull, and paid no
attention to the persons present or the conversation. Madame de
Jardin, who had in her possession many relics of Louis XVI. and
Marie-Antoinette, made no secret that she had been a maid of honour to
the queen, and was separated from her on the terrace of the Tuileries,
prior to her imprisonment in the Temple. She had not yet recovered
from the dreadful events of the revolution, and had a theatrical habit
of relieving her highly-strung feelings by rushing to the harpsichord,
wildly playing the Marseillaise, and then bursting into tears. Those
who had free admittance into the family of the De Jourdans had no
difficulty in tracing a resemblance between the children and the
portraits of the royal family of France; but delicacy forbade
questions, and even the most confident could only surmise that this
retired maid of honour had escaped from her native land in charge of
the children of the Temple. After remaining for a short time in
Albany, without any apparent purpose, the De Jardins sold most of
their effects, and disappeared as mysteriously as they had come.

Later in the same year (1795) two Frenchmen, one of them having the
appearance of a Romish priest, arrived at the Indian settlement of
Ticonderoga, in the vicinity of Lake George, bringing with them a
sickly boy, in a state of mental imbecility, whom they left with the
Indians. The child is said to have been adopted by an Iroquis chief,
called Thomas Williams, _alias_ Tehorakwaneken, whose wife was
Konwatewenteta, and although no proof is offered that he was the boy
called Monsieur Louis by Madame de Jardin, and still less that he was
the daup