LOUIS XVII, titular king of France: b. Versailles, 27 March 1785; d. Paris. 8 June 1795. He was the second son of Louis XVI and Marie Antoinette; was at first styled Duc de Normandie; and after the death of his elder brother, in 1789, became heir to the throne. With his relatives, in 1792, he was imprisoned in the Temple; after his father's death in the following year was styled king by the Royal ists; but being given into the keeping of a shoemaker named Simon, in derision called his tutor, was subjected to brutal treatment, from which he died. The fact of his death was denied by certain impostors, whose claims to his name and to the throne found some sup porters, was discredited by many, and there was no lack of claimants to the title, there being in all some 40 persons who claimed to be the legitimist king. The chief among these was the so-called Comte de Richemont, whose real name was Francois Hebert, a native of the Rouen district, and who first claimed in 1828; and the Potsdam watchmaker, Karl Wilhelm Naundorff (d. 1845), who certainly bore a striking resemblance to the Bourbon family, resided in France for three years, and was banished in 1836, and whose children raised actions in 1851 and 1874 to vindicate their claims. About the middle of the 19th century,
Eleazar Williams (q.v.), a half-breed Indian missionary, born in the State of New York, was led to believe that he was the lost Dauphin, he and his friends declaring that he had been delivered from prison and while still very young brought to this country. He died in 1858. Although Williams made little attempt to enforce his own claim, others argued it, and a book was written in its support. But nothing in the nature of historical proof has been established to cast doubt on the actual death of the Dauphin as above related. Con sult Bourgeois, A., 'Etude historique sur Louis XVII' (Paris 1905) ; Bfilau, 'Geheime Ge schichten undratselhafte Menschen' (Vol. II, 2d ed., Leipzig 1863); Chantelauze, (Louis XVII, son enfance, saprison, et sa mort au Temple' (Paris 1895) ; Evans, 'The Story of Louis XVII' of France' (London 1893); Hanson, 'The Lost Prince) (New York 1854); and J. Sanford Saltus' 'Bibliography of Louis XVII) (New York 1908).