also frightened her as they had terrified De Foulkes, and paid a visit to her residence.  They did not make a thorough search, but gave her to understand that if any further attempts were made to annoy the duchess they would institute a strict perquisition—­a threat which had so great an effect upon the ambassadress that she immediately burnt her copy of the “Memoirs,” her credentials, and even the portrait of her illustrious master and prince, and returned to the power from which she was accredited, shamefacedly to confess that she had been equally unfortunate with the gallant Norman colonel.

It was evident that the hard heart of the duchess could not easily be moved, and it was necessary to have recourse to other tactics.  At this time misery and famine were prevalent in the land, and many persons were discontented with the rule of Louis XVIII., who was in extremely ill health.  The Abbe Matouillet saw his opportunity, and taking advantage of the prevalent disaffection, issued a proclamation intimating that if the people of France would place their captive king upon the throne now occupied by a dying usurper, the liberated and grateful sovereign would, in return, immediately fix the price of bread at three sous per pound.  Meantime, the generous offerer was regaling himself on the fat of the land, and holding his petty court within the walls of Rouen jail.  But this last move led to energetic action on the part of the authorities.  The attempted rising was crushed, the careless jailers were dismissed, the prisoner was placed in solitary and comfortless confinement, and the keeper of the seals commenced serious proceedings in order to bring him to trial.

The chief object to be accomplished was to prove his birth, for there were many who jumped to the conclusion that he must be the son of Louis XVI., since he was not the son of the Widow Phillipeaux.  Seeing that his time had come, and that the government was determined to punish him with severity, Bruneau became alarmed, and offered his new jailers ten thousand francs to set him at liberty.  The offer was refused and reported, the prisoner was more narrowly guarded, and his preliminary examinations were hastened.  The stories which he told were so absurd and so wildly contradictory, as to leave no doubt of the hollowness of his pretensions; but still the difficulty remained of proving who he really was.

When affairs were in this stage the Viscountess Turpin, Bruneau’s first benefactress, arrived in Rouen.  M. de Pomeliere, the officer of the king’s guard who had suspected him from the first, had communicated his suspicions to the viscountess, and she had come to see him, and, if she could, to expose him.  When Bruneau was confronted with his former patroness, he at once admitted that he had enjoyed the lady’s hospitality, but declared that that fact did not render him the less the Dauphin of France.  The viscountess reproached him, and endeavoured to ashame him; but