lxxxii AUDUBON THE NATURALIST 



done for you?" No answer to these questions was ever re- 

 ceived, and it is safe to say that not one of the numerous other 

 claimants to having been that little boy — no more than John 

 James Audubon, who at that very time, according to his own 

 written statement, was under the roof of his father and devoted 

 stepmother — could have met this test with any better success. 

 Jean Jacques Fougere Audubon was not Louis Charles ! 



So far as anyone now knows, Turgy never answered his own 

 query, but we may surmise that the mother and the aunt em- 

 braced the child, and said, perhaps, the traditional thing: 

 "Louis Charles, the King, your father, is dead ; long live the 

 new King, his son !" Very likely they tried to explain to him 

 the new position in which he and they were now placed. The 

 Dauphin was then not quite eight years old, having been born 

 on Easter Day, March 27, 1785. The boy Audubon was about 

 a month younger. 



I have stated a number of facts and circumstances which 

 weigh strongly against the idea that Jean Jacques Fougere 

 Audubon was Louis Charles, the Dauphin or Louis XVII, nom- 

 inal King of France, but there is another consideration, that 

 of physical marks upon the body, which, though seldom men- 

 tioned, is even more important and which ought definitely to 

 settle the question. Those closest to the Dauphin knew of 

 certain marks upon his body which, taken together, could iden- 

 tify him with absolute certainty. These were (1) vaccination 

 marks on both arms; (2) a scar over the left eye, and another 

 on the right side of the nose; and (3) a deformed right ear, 

 which had its lower lobe excessively enlarged. The first two 

 were unimportant, because they could be easily produced ; 

 Eleazar Williams or any other pretender might, and sometimes 

 did, point to some such scars in the right places. But the 

 deformed ear was another matter. That was a physical char- 

 acter which could not be imitated, and there was then no plastic 

 surgery in France, or anywhere else, that could either produce 

 or remove such a defect without trace. This deformity was 

 not generally known, and it was probably actually known to 



