NAUNDORFF (or NAUNDORFF), KARL WILHELM (d. 1845), French pretender, claimed to be the dauphin, Louis Charles, son of Louis XVI. and Marie Antoinette, who was an nounced as having died in the Temple in 1795.
Naundorff, who had arrived from nowhere in Berlin in 1810, with papers giving the name Karl Wilhelm Naundorff, in order to escape the persecutions of which he declared himself the object, settled at Spandau in 1812 as a clockmaker, and married in 1818 Johanna Einert. In 1822 he removed to Brandenburg, and in 1828 to Crossen, near Frankfurt. He was imprisoned from 1825 to 1828 for coining, though apparently on insufficient evi dence, and in 1833 came to push his claims in Paris, where he was recognized as the dauphin by many persons formerly con nected with the court of Louis XVI. Expelled from France in 1836, the day after bringing a suit against the duchess of An gouleme for the restitution of the dauphin's private property, he lived in exile until his death at Delft on Aug. Io, 1845, and his tomb was inscribed "Louis XVII., roi de France et de Navarre
(Charles Louis, duc de Normandie)." the case of Nalindorff see his own narrative, Abrege de l'histoire des infortunes du Dauphin (1836 ; Eng. trans., 5838) ; also Modeste Gruau de l'Barre, Intrigues devoilees on Louis XVII . . . (3 vols., Rotterdam, 1846-48) ; 0. Friedrichs, Correspond ence intime et inedite de Louis XVII. (Naundorff) 5834-38 (2 vols., 1904) ; Plaidoirie de Jules Favre devant la cour d'appel de Paris pour les heritiers de feu Charles-Guillaume Naundorff (1874) ; H. Provins, Le Dernier roi legitime de France (2 vols.; the first of which consists of destructive criticism of Beauchesne and his followers, 188q) ; A. Lanne, "Louis XVII., et le secret de la Revolution," Bulletin Mensuel (1893, et seq.) of the Societe des etudes sur la question Louis XVII., also La Legitimite (Bordeaux, Toulouse, 1883-98). See further, the article "Naundorff" in M. Tourneux, Bibl. de la ville de Paris pendant la Revolution, vol. iv. (Iwo).