r wonder is, that when the unknown captive was sent to
the Iles Sainte-Marguerite no personage of note disappeared from the
European stage."

The story of the Comte de Vermandois and the blow was treated as an
absurd and romantic invention, which does not even attempt to keep within
the bounds of the possible, by Baron C. (according to P. Marchand, Baron
Crunyngen) in a letter inserted in the 'Bibliotheque raisonnee des
Ouvrages des Savants de d'Europe', June 1745. The discussion was revived
somewhat later, however, and a few Dutch scholars were supposed to be
responsible for a new theory founded on history; the foundations proving
somewhat shaky, however,--a quality which it shares, we must say, with
all the other theories which have ever been advanced.

According to this new theory, the masked prisoner was a young foreign
nobleman, groom of the chambers to Anne of Austria, and the real father
of Louis XIV. This anecdote appears first in a duodecimo volume printed
by Pierre Marteau at Cologne in 1692, and which bears the title, 'The
Loves of Anne of Austria, Consort of Louis XIII, with M. le C. D. R., the
Real Father of Louis XIV, King of France; being a Minute Account of the
Measures taken to give an Heir to the Throne of France, the Influences at
Work to bring this to pass, and the Denoument of the Comedy'.

This libel ran through five editions, bearing date successively, 1692,
1693, 1696, 1722, and 1738. In the title of the edition of 1696 the
words "Cardinal de Richelieu" are inserted in place of the initials "C.
D. R.," but that this is only a printer's error everyone who reads the
work will perceive. Some have thought the three letters stood for Comte
de Riviere, others for Comte de Rochefort, whose 'Memoires' compiled by
Sandras de Courtilz supply these initials. The author of the book was an
Orange writer in the pay of William III, and its object was, he says, "to
unveil the great mystery of iniquity which hid the true origin of Louis
XIV." He goes on to remark that "the knowledge of this fraud, although
comparatively rare outside France, was widely spread within her borders.
The well-known coldness of Louis XIII; the extraordinary birth of
Louis-Dieudonne, so called because he was born in the twenty-third year
of a childless marriage, and several other remarkable circumstances
connected with the birth, all point clearly to a father other than the
prince, who with great effrontery is passed off by his ad