But although M. de la Pomeliere, from his previous knowledge, had a hazy idea of the truth, the uninformed public continued devoted to the cause of the pretender; and the convict secretaries, if they failed to stir up the educated classes, at least succeeded in entrapping the ignorant.  The prison cell of Bruneau was converted into a scene of uninterrupted revelling.  Persons of all classes sent their gifts—­the ladies supplying unlimited creature comforts for their king, while their husbands strove to compensate for their incapacity to manufacture dainties by filling the purse of the pretender.  Nothing was forgotten:  fine clothes and fine furniture were supplied in abundance; and the adoring public were so anxious to consider the comfort of the illustrious prisoner, that they even subscribed to purchase a breakfast service of Sevres, so that the heir to the throne might drink his chocolate out of a porcelain cup.

Meantime Madame Jacquieres had not been idle, and was ready to fulfil her promise to send a messenger to the Duchess d’Angouleme.  Her chosen emissary was a Norman gentleman named Jacques Charles de Foulques, an ardent Bourbonist and a lieutenant-colonel in the army.  This officer was both brave and suave, and seemed in every respect a fitting person to act as an ambassador to the Tuileries.  He was deeply religious, very conscientious, and extremely simple.  His mental capacity had been accurately gauged by Bruneau and his associates, and care was taken to excite his religious enthusiasm.  The Abbe Matouillet plainly told him that Heaven smiled upon the cause, and introduced him to the prince, who administered the oath of allegiance, which the credulous Norman is said to have signed with the seal of his lips on a volume that looked like a book of gaillard songs, but which the simple soldier mistook for the Gospels.  After several audiences, his mission was pointed out, and Colonel de Foulques, without hesitation, agreed to proceed to Paris, and there to place in the hands of the daughter of Louis XVI. a copy of the “Memoirs of Charles of Navarre,” and a letter from her reputed brother.

The latter document was produced in the court at Rouen when Bruneau was afterwards placed at the bar, and is a very curious production.  In it the maker of clogs thus addresses “Madame Royale:”—­

“I am aware, my dear sister, a secret presentiment has long possessed you that the finger of God was about to point out to you your brother, that innocent partaker of your sorrows, the one alone worthy to repair them, as he was fated to share them.

“I know, also, that you were surrounded by snares, and that they who extend them for you are men of wicked ways.  They believe they have destroyed the germs of some virtues, as they succeeded in arresting the progress of my education; but there remain to me uprightness of principle, courage, a tendency to good, and the desire of preserving the glory of my nation.  Louis XIV. could boast of no more.