Karl Wilhelm Naundorff (27 March 1785 (alleged) – 10 August 1845) was a German

clockmaker A clockmaker is an artisan who makes and/or repairs clocks. Since almost all clocks are now factory-made, most modern clockmakers only repair clocks. Modern clockmakers may be employed by jewellers, antique shops, and places devoted strictly to ...

and

watchmaker A watchmaker is an artisan who makes and repairs watches. Since a majority of watches are now factory-made, most modern watchmakers only repair watches. However, originally they were master craftsmen who built watches, including all their part ...

who until his death claimed to be Prince Louis-Charles, or Louis XVII of France, son of

Louis XVI Louis XVI (''Louis-Auguste''; ; 23 August 175421 January 1793) was the last King of France before the fall of the monarchy during the French Revolution. He was referred to as ''Citizen Louis Capet'' during the four months just before he was ...

, King of France and

Marie Antoinette of Austria Marie Antoinette Josèphe Jeanne (; ; née Maria Antonia Josepha Johanna; 2 November 1755 – 16 October 1793) was the last queen of France before the French Revolution. She was born an archduchess of Austria, and was the penultimate child an ...

. Naundorff was one of the more stubborn of more than thirty men who claimed to be

Louis XVII Louis XVII (born Louis Charles, Duke of Normandy; 27 March 1785 – 8 June 1795) was the younger son of King Louis XVI of France and Queen Marie Antoinette. His older brother, Louis Joseph, Dauphin of France, died in June 1789, a little over a m ...

Biography

Prince Louis-Charles, the son of

and Marie Antoinette, was imprisoned during the

French Revolution The French Revolution ( ) was a period of radical political and societal change in France that began with the Estates General of 1789 and ended with the formation of the French Consulate in coup of 18 Brumaire, November 1799. Many of its ...

and believed to have died in prison. However, there were various rumors that monarchist sympathizers had spirited the young dauphin away from the

Temple prison The Square du Temple is a garden in Paris, France in the 3rd arrondissement, established in 1857. It is one of 24 city squares planned and created by Georges-Eugène Haussmann and Jean-Charles Adolphe Alphand. The Square occupies the site o ...

and that he was living elsewhere in secret. Among those said to be involved in his escape are

Paul Barras Paul François Jean Nicolas, vicomte de Barras (, 30 June 1755 – 29 January 1829), commonly known as Paul Barras, was a French politician of the French Revolution, and the main executive leader of the Directory regime of 1795–1799. Early ...

and

Josephine Beauharnais Josephine may refer to: People * Josephine (given name), a given name (including a list of people with the name) * Josephine (singer), a Greek pop singer Places *Josephine, Texas, United States *Mount Josephine (disambiguation) * Josephine Coun ...

. The first records of Karl Wilhelm Naundorff are from 1810 in

Spandau Spandau () is the westernmost of the 12 boroughs () of Berlin, situated at the confluence of the Havel and Spree rivers and extending along the western bank of the Havel. It is the smallest borough by population, but the fourth largest by land ...

Berlin Berlin ( , ) is the capital and List of cities in Germany by population, largest city of Germany by both area and population. Its 3.7 million inhabitants make it the European Union's List of cities in the European Union by population within ci ...

, where he received the citizenship of

Prussia Prussia, , Old Prussian: ''Prūsa'' or ''Prūsija'' was a German state on the southeast coast of the Baltic Sea. It formed the German Empire under Prussian rule when it united the German states in 1871. It was ''de facto'' dissolved by an ...

. By 1822 he had moved to live with a family in Brandenburg-on-the-Havel where he was later accused of arson. In 1824, Naundorff was jailed for three years for counterfeiting.

Impersonation

When he was released in 1827, he moved to Crossen and wrote the first of two books of would-be-memoirs. The second he wrote in England many years later and was translated to English by Charles G. Perceval, Rector of Calverton, Buckinghamshire, and nephew of

Spencer Perceval Spencer Perceval (1 November 1762 – 11 May 1812) was a British statesman and barrister who served as Prime Minister of the United Kingdom from October 1809 until his assassination in May 1812. Perceval is the only British prime minister to ...

. He claimed that he had been substituted with a deaf and mute orphan who died soon afterward and that he had been hidden in a secret area of the Tower of the Temple until his escape. He also claimed that he was later recaptured by

Napoleon Napoleon Bonaparte ; it, Napoleone Bonaparte, ; co, Napulione Buonaparte. (born Napoleone Buonaparte; 15 August 1769 – 5 May 1821), later known by his regnal name Napoleon I, was a French military commander and political leader who ...

's forces and secretly kept in several dungeons throughout Europe until finally escaping in his mid-twenties. He could present no proof of any of this. Treaty of Frankfurt

In 1833, Naundorff travelled to Paris where another claimant to the French throne, the

Baron de Richemont Baron de Richemont (c. 1785;10 August 1853) was one of several claimants to be Louis XVII Louis XVII (born Louis Charles, Duke of Normandy; 27 March 1785 – 8 June 1795) was the younger son of King Louis XVI of France and Queen Marie Antoinet ...

, was on trial. One of the witnesses for the prosecution read out his letter as a counterclaim. Despite the fact that Naundorff did not speak French very well, he managed to convince various former members of Louis XVI's court that he was the Dauphin. He seemed to know everything about the private life of the royal court, gave right answers to most questions and spoke to courtiers as if he had known them as a child. One of them was

Agathe de Rambaud Agathe de Rambaud was born in Versailles as Agathe-Rosalie Mottet and was baptized in the future cathedral Saint-Louis of Versailles, on 10 December 1764. She died in Aramon, in the ''département'' of Gard, on 19 October 1853. She was the offic ...

, Louis' childhood nurse who accepted him. Others who claimed to have recognized him as the prince include Étienne de Joly, King Louis XVI's Minister of Justice, and Jean Bremond, the king's personal secretary. However,

Princess Marie-Thérèse-Charlotte Princess is a regal rank and the feminine equivalent of prince (from Latin ''princeps'', meaning principal citizen). Most often, the term has been used for the consort of a prince, or for the daughter of a king or prince. Princess as a subst ...

, the sister of Prince Louis, did not acknowledge him. She had seen pictures of him, but claimed that she did not see any resemblance to her brother. She refused even to see him, despite having seen other claimants who were not represented by former members of the royal court. On one occasion Agathe de Rambaud travelled to

Prague Prague ( ; cs, Praha ; german: Prag, ; la, Praga) is the capital and List of cities in the Czech Republic, largest city in the Czech Republic, and the historical capital of Bohemia. On the Vltava river, Prague is home to about 1.3 milli ...

by carriage to persuade her but to no avail. The princess refused to see her as well. In 1836, Naundorff sued Marie Thérèse for property that supposedly belonged to him. Instead, the police force of king

Louis-Philippe Louis Philippe (6 October 1773 – 26 August 1850) was King of the French from 1830 to 1848, and the penultimate monarch of France. As Louis Philippe, Duke of Chartres, he distinguished himself commanding troops during the Revolutionary Wa ...

arrested him, seized all his papers and deported him to

England England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Wales to its west and Scotland to its north. The Irish Sea lies northwest and the Celtic Sea to the southwest. It is separated from continental Europe b ...

. There he worked to develop several military inventions, including an early grenade, and a recoilless rifle which he eventually sold to the Dutch Military. He declared that he would be restored to the throne on 1 January 1840. When that date passed, he lost the majority of his supporters.

Legacy and continued controversy

Naundorff died on 10 August 1845 in Delft, the Netherlands, possibly of poisoning. He had been living there with his family after being made Director of Pyrotechnics for the Dutch Military. He still had some supporters because the epitaph on his grave reads "Here lies Louis XVII, King of France" and in his death certificate he is named as "Charles-Louis de Bourbon, Duke of Normandy (Louis XVII), who was known under the name of Charles-Guillaume Naundorff, ..son of His Majesty the late Louis XVI, King of France and of Her Imperial and Royal Highness Marie Antoinette, Archduchess of Austria, Queen of France, who both died in Paris". Naundorff's descendants did not give up. Some of them insisted on using the surname "de Bourbon" and they petitioned for recognition to French courts and senates all through the 19th and 20th centuries. Circus director René Charles de Bourbon, an illegitimate son of one of Naundorff's grandchildren, lost his claim in a French court in 1954. However, some of the descendants still press the claim. A handful of French historians insist that DNA testing finally resolved the issue of Naundorff's claim; mitochondrial DNA sequences of remains that researchers have claimed to have belonged to Naundorff were compared with sequences obtained from the remains of Marie-Antoinette and two of her sisters and two living maternal relatives. They argue that differences in the

nucleotide Nucleotides are organic molecules consisting of a nucleoside and a phosphate. They serve as monomeric units of the nucleic acid polymers – deoxyribonucleic acid (DNA) and ribonucleic acid (RNA), both of which are essential biomolecule ...

sequences make it very unlikely that Naundorff was the son of Marie-Antoinette. A group of his descendants disagree that the remains are those of Naundorff and are independently continuing the investigation.

References

External links

Website for The Fondation de Bourbon
(English)
Website for Naundorff, whose family is still trying to press through his claim
(French) {{DEFAULTSORT:Naundorff, Karl Wilhelm 1780s births 1845 deaths 18th-century German people 19th-century German artists 19th-century German criminals 19th-century German writers 19th-century German male writers 19th-century Prussian people 19th-century German inventors Louis XVII impostors German clockmakers German watchmakers (people) German counterfeiters German prisoners and detainees Prisoners and detainees of Germany German memoirists People deported from France German expatriates in France German expatriates in England German expatriates in the Netherlands Firearm designers