On the other hand, the evidence against his pretensions was very strong.  Many persons in Toulouse who had been intimately acquainted with the youthful count declared that Joseph bore no resemblance to him; and the young countess repudiated him most emphatically, asserting that he was not her brother, and he failed to recognise her as his sister.  However, he persevered in asserting his rights, and claimed before the Cour du Chatelet, in Paris, the name and honours of Count Solar; and orders were given by the court for the arrest of Cazeaux as his abductor and exposer.  The unfortunate lawyer was seized and hurried to the Misericorde, a loathsome dungeon below the Hotel de Ville, at Toulouse.  Next day, heavily ironed, he was thrown into a cart, and thus set out on a journey of 500 miles to Paris.  While the cart was in motion he was chained to it; when they halted he was chained to the inn table; at night he was chained to his bed.  At length, after seventeen wearisome days, the capital was reached, and the prisoner was taken from his cart and cast into the vaults of the Chatelet.  After considerable and unnecessary delay, the supposed abductor was brought to trial; and not only were the charges against him easily disproved, but the whole of the Abbe’s grand hypothesis was destroyed beyond reconstruction.  A host of witnesses came forward to testify that the young count did not leave Toulouse under the guardianship of Cazeaux, until the 4th of September 1773, whereas Joseph was found at Peronne on the 1st of August.  Moreover, the contemporary history of the two youths was clearly traced, it being shown that in November 1773, the Count Solar was at Bagneres de Bigorre while Joseph was an inmate of the Bicetre; and finally it was conclusively proved that on the 28th of January 1774, the real Count Solar died at Charlas, near Bagneres, of small-pox, having outlived his father about a year.

The acquittal of Cazeaux followed as a matter of course, and he was dismissed from the bar of the Chatelet with unblemished reputation, but broken in health and ruined in fortune.  Happily for him, a M. Avril, a rich judge of the Chatelet, who had been active against him during his trial, repented of the evil he had done him, sought his acquaintance, and bequeathed him a large fortune.  Thus raised to wealth, and aided by the revolution, which levelled all social distinctions, he aspired to the hand of the widowed Countess Solar who had lost her estates.  Success crowned his suit, and his former patroness became his wife.  After their marriage the pair settled on an estate a few leagues from Paris, where Cazeaux died in 1831 and his wife in 1835.  Joseph, who was undoubtedly the son of a gentleman, soon ceased to interest the public, and, his pretensions having failed, retired into comparative obscurity, accepting service in the army, and meeting an untimely death early in the revolutionary war.

JOHN LINDSAY CRAWFURD—­CLAIMING TO BE EARL OF CRAWFURD.