no desire to sit upon the throne or to disturb the tranquillity of France, but would be content to accept a reasonable pension and hold his tongue—­to surrender all his claims, and retire into obscurity for ever, if he were well paid.  His letters remained unanswered, but he returned to the attack, and indulged the Duchess of Angouleme with a multitude of letters, in which he implored her good offices for a brother who needed only to be seen to be recognised.  But the duchess remained silent.  At length he announced to the French royal family his intention of marrying a young girl only fifteen years of age, the daughter of a Prussian corporal.  He could not, of course, expect that such a step would be agreeable to the other members of the House of Bourbon, but he valued his love more than his pride, and if his royal uncle would only grant such an allowance as would enable himself and his wife to live in a position of independence, he would trouble him no more, and the world need never know that the son of Louis XVI. was alive, and had perpetrated a mesalliance.  But Louis XVIII. was obdurate, and would not listen even to the seductive voice of Hymen.  The young couple were allowed to wed, but they had to look for their means of livelihood elsewhere.

For a time Nauendorff was equal to the occasion, and supported the corporal’s daughter and his rising brood by cleaning the watches and clocks of the Brandenburgers.  But trouble came upon him.  The house of his next door neighbour took fire, and the watchmaker was suspected of being the incendiary.  He was arrested and thrown into prison; his wife and children were turned into the street; and, although his innocence was unequivocally proved, his trade was ruined, and he had to flee from the midst of the distrustful and suspicious folks among whom he had laboured and loved and wedded.

By the exertions of one of the few friends who remained to him Nauendorff was appointed foreman in a watchmaking factory at Crossen, and thither he removed, carrying with him his wife and the half-dozen children who had blessed his union.  But the distance was long, the roads were bad, and the man was poor.  When Nauendorff reached Crossen on foot with his weary and half-famished band he found that the post which he had come to obtain had been given to another, and abandoned himself to despair.  Then the plebeian energy of the corporal’s daughter rose superior to the weakness of her royal husband.  She obtained a temporary shelter, procured needlework, and, by her unaided efforts, managed to keep the wolf from the door.  After a little delay work was obtained for Nauendorff also; and as his spirits revived his hopes and pretensions revived also.  Little by little he told his story to his fellow-workmen, who paid no heed to it at first, but nicknamed him in derision “the French prince.”  But the tale was improving as it got older, and by-and-by he could number among his followers the syndic of