THE HISTORY OF A DELUSION. 739 



the 1st of May, 1816, to the 8th of May, 1817. By the death of these 

 two princes the succession passed to Louis I, uncle of the Grand-duke 

 Charles, and after him to the descendants of the second marriage — to 

 the morganatic line which now reigns in Carlsruhe. Those were found 

 who could imagine and affirm that the prince born in 1812 was not 

 dead, but that persons interested in his disappearance had caused him 

 to be abducted, and had substituted for him another child who had 

 shortly died, and that the stout boy who, on the 26th of May, 1828, 

 presented himself, letter in hand, before Major Friedrich von Wesse- 

 nig, was the real grand-ducal heir of Baden, who had been shut up 

 for sixteen years. 



This legend, revamped from the history of Cyrus, Romulus, and 

 other great heroes, was hard to digest. Substitutions of children are 

 attended by difficulties, especially when the child in question is a royal 

 or nearly royal scion, an heir that has been ardently expected and 

 impatiently waited for, and whose features have been fondly looked 

 upon. On the 4th of October, 1812, the grandmother of the little 

 prince, the Margravine Amelia of Baden wrote in French to her 

 daughter, the Empress Elizabeth of Russia : " The wife of Charles 

 was brought to bed on the 29th of September, with a son of enor- 

 mous size in proportion to his mother's ; it cost much trouble and 

 suffering, too, to get him into the world. The event has caused 

 much joy here." The grandmother examined the child closely, for 

 on the 11th of October she wrote again to her daughter : " Every- 

 thing is in joy here over the birth of an heir ; what gives me the 

 most pleasure about it is, that I find in him a resemblance to his 

 father when he was a baby." But this rejoicing was of short dura- 

 tion. On the 18th of October, at eleven o'clock in the morning, the 

 margravine took up the pen again, " to announce the death of the poor 

 little one. . . . He only lived for seventeen days, with a vigor and 

 healthfulness which made us hope for his preservation ; but he was 

 all at once seized with suffocation and convulsions in the head. . . . 

 Charles is very much affected by it ; I never saw him so much afflicted. 

 I am grieved, because the child was so like the house of Baden. I was 

 obliged to announce it yesterday morning to his mother, who was not 

 anticipating anything of the kind. No one else would take it upon 

 himself." She added, on the 25th of October, " The death of that 

 child, who interested me because of the resemblance I found in him to 

 the house of Baden, and whom I saw expire, . . . and the extreme 

 grief of Charles — all that has overthrown me." 



The grandmother saw the child born and saw him die ; the father 

 was there, too, and the nurse. The corpse was examined and opened 

 in the presence of the state minister, Berckheim, and nine doctors. 

 No one suspected substitution. Shall we believe that everybody was 

 in the plot, including even the grandmother ? No one has ventured 

 to maintain this. It was once pretended that the man in the iron mask 



