THE ALDINE MAGAZINE OF Biography, Bibliography, Criticism, and the Arts. VOL. I. No. 9. JANUARY 26, 1839. PRICE 3d. The Editors and Proprietors of the ALDINE MAGAZINE inform their Friends and the Public, that, at the suggestion of numerous Booksellers and Literary friends, they huve been induced to alter their mode of Publishing, from Weekly to MONTHLY PARTS ONLY. Consequently, on the FIRST of MARCH will appear PART III. printed on a fine Royal Paper, of superior quality, with New Letter, and various typographical improvements. Arrangements are in progress for a Series of interesting Illustrations; and, with an accession of Literary talent, the plan will be altogether on an enlarged scale, and more full and comprehensive in its details. We take the present early opportunity of expressing our obligation for the handsome notice taken of us by the Public Press, in the Metropolis as well as in the Provinces. THE FATE OF LOUIS THE "Is he alive!!!" formerly been occupied by Cléry, the faithful servant of the unfortunate monarch. His sister occupied the room immediately over-head; but there were guards in the ante-room, both above and below, to prevent any communication between the brother and sister. Simon, the cobler, one of the Municipal Commune, was his THE question whether Louis XVII. died in the Tower of the Temple has for several years past been much agitated in France, and in conse-keeper till the 19th of January, 1794, and the quence of the attempted assassination of the Duke of Normandy, has begun to attract the attention of the British public. It may not, therefore, be amiss to give some account of the state of the controversy, and to show on what grounds it is asserted that he did or did not die in the Prison of the Temple. Charles Louis Duc de Normandie was the last surviving son of Louis XVI. and Marie Antoinette, and was born 27th March, 1785. On the death of his elder brother, Louis Joseph, in June, 1789, be became Dauphin of France, and by desire of his parents was thenceforth to be called Louis Charles. On the 10th of August, 1792, he was taken into the Prison of the Temple with his father and mother, the Princess Elizabeth, aunt of the King, and his sister, who afterwards married her first cousin, the Duke of Angoulême, son of Charles X. then Comte D'Artois. barbarous treatment which he pursued towards the unhappy child is well known. From that period no one was actually with him in the same room, but he was left in a dreadful state of filth and wretchedness till he was attacked by disease. About the 30th of July, 1794, Laurenz was appointed Governor of the Temple. He had the child washed, and the vermin in the room and about his person destroyed, and more light was admitted into his prison, and thenceforward his health improved. In the succeding winter, according to the statements of those who suppose him to have died, he was attacked with fever at different times; in April, or the beginning of May, 1795, the child who was in his prison, and who is represented to have been the Dauphin, had two swellings, one on the right knee, the other on the left wrist. He was enfeebled, and physically imbecile, and dumb; in May he grew worse, and the Committee of Public Safety sent M. Dessault, an eminent physician, and one who was acquainted with the person of the Dauphin, to attend the child; and Choppard, an apothecary, also gave him his care and attention. Those gentlemen both died suddenly,* when in robust health, about the 4th After the death of his father, which took place on the 21st of January, 1793, he was confined with his mother, and sister, and aunt, in the third story of the Tower of the Temple; and by an order of the Committee of Public Safety, he was cruelly separated from his mother on the 3rd of July in that confined alone in an inner room on the second story of the Tower: it was the room which had LACRETELLE'S History of France. Vol. xii. p. 376. VOL. I. NO. IX. year, and London: Printed by J MASTERS, 33, Aldersgate Street. K of June; and the child was afterwards visited by Doctors Pellatan and Dumangin, who were appointed by the Committee of Public Safety, but who had never seen the Dauphin, and were unacquainted with his person. They visited the child four days, and on the 8th of June, about three o'clock in the afternoon, he died. On the 9th of June a post mortem examination was held by Doctors Pellatan, Dumangin, Jeanroy, and Lassus, from which the following are extracts : "Having all four arrived at eleven o'clock in the morning at the outer gate of the Temple, we were there received by the commissaries, who took us into the Tower. Upon reaching the apartment, on the second floor, in an inner room, we found the dead body of a child, who seemed to us to be about ten years old, which the commissaries told us was that of the son of Louis Capet, and which two of us recognised as the child we had attended for some days. The above-mentioned commissaries declared to us that the child had died the preceding day towards three o'clock in the afternoon.” On the 12th a certificate of his death is drawn up in the following form : "Certificate of the death of Louis Charles Capet on the 20th of this month, (Prairial, 8th June,) at three o'clock in the afternoon, aged ten years and two months, native of Versailles, department of the Seine and Oise, resident in the Tower of the Temple, of Marie Antoinette Joseph Jeanne, of Austria, upon "Son of Louis Capet, last king of the French, and the declaration made at the Town Hall by "Etienne Lasne, aged thirty-nine years, keeper of the Temple, dwelling in Paris, in the street and secneighbour, and by tion of the Rights of Man, No. 48, calling himself a Remi Bigot, workman, dwelling at Paris, Old Temple Street, No. 61, calling himself a friend, according to the certificate of Dusser, commissary of police for the said section of the 22nd of this month, (10th June). (Signed) LASNE, BIGOT, & ROBIN, Public Officer." As the physicians do not certify the death of the Dauphin of their own knowledge, it is obvious that the question whether this child were the Dauphin depends entirely upon the credit missaries to the physicians, and to the value of to be given to the statement made by the comthe testimony of Etienne Lasne and Remi Bigot, who signed the acte de décès. Now there were 248 commissaries, whose They then go on to state the nature of the disorder of which the child died, the symptoms of which they describe as thinness, marasmus, and a pale heart, arising from scrofula, (un vice scrofuleux,) to which they attributed his death. The same day the deputy Sévestre,* who was one of the Committee of Public Safety, duty it was to guard the young prisoner in who had formerly stated from the Tribunal of turn for the space of twenty-four hours, so that the Convention that that child (meaning the the same individual had not occasion to reapDauphin) should never become a man, went to pear in attendance at the prison till after a the Convention, and made to them the follow-lapse of some months; and those commissaries ing report: "Citizens,-For some time past the son of Capet was suffering from a swelling in the right knee and in the left wrist; on the 15th Florial (May 4) the pains increased, the patient lost his appetite, and fever succeeded. The celebrated Dessault, medical officer, was appointed to visit and prescribe for him. How ever, the disease assumed a very serious appearance. On the 16th of this month (4th June) Dessault died. To take his place the Committee appointed citizen Pellatan, a well-known medical officer, and with him was joined citizen Dumangin, first physician to the Hospital of Health. Their bulletin of eleven o'clock yesterday morning announced alarming symptoms in the patient, and at a quarter past two in the afternoon we received the news of the death of Capet's son. The Committee of General Safety have charged me to make this known to you: all is verified-here are the PROCES VERBAUX which will be deposited and remain in your archives." A funeral procession left the Temple in the course of the day; and it was declared to the world that the body of the Dauphin was buried in the cimetière of the parish of Saint Marguerite. who were present at the death of the child in the Temple might have been wholly ignorant whether it were or were not the same child who had been confined in that spot since July, 1793, and were very probably totally unacquainted with the person and features of the Dauphin. So that it is perfectly supposable that a substitution might have taken place, by a connivance with one of the chief authorities, without its being known to those commissaries who made this statement. This, coupled with the mysterious circumstance that both the physician and the apothecary who attended the child died violent deaths; and with the fact, that the organ of the communication to the Convention was Sévestre, who voted for the death of the King, and had said that his son should never live to become of age, has thrown a suspicion over the truth of the whole transaction. In order to invalidate the certificate, and to prove that the testimony of Lasne and Bigot cannot he depended on, it is asserted that by the law of France the acte de décès should be signed within forty-eight hours of the decease by the nearest relation, if possible; but this docu ment was not signed till four days after the death, and then not by Madame Royale, the sister of the supposed deceased, who was his nearest relative, and in the chamber above; nor did she see her supposed brother in his illness, nor when dead; for, in fact, they had not met for many months. Moreover, that on the face of it Lasne gives a false description of his residence, and of the quality in which he signed the document, when he states himself as dwelling out of the Temple, and calls himself a neighbour; and that Remi Bigot, who was a workman, and lived out of the prison, in Old Temple Street, and calls himself a friend of this unhappy child, could not have known that it was the Dauphin who died, nor have been his friend, but has been guilty of falsehood. Added to which, it is a fact that Lasne had only been a short time governor of the Temple, and had no personal knowledge of the son of Louis XVI. Then they remark that there is evidently a contradiction in the time of the death, Sévestre having stated that the committee received intelligence of it at a quarter past two, when they were sitting at the Tuileries, which was a very considerable distance from the Tower; whereas the hour of the death, according to the physicians, was three o'clock. And again he said to the Convention on the 9th, that it was all verified, and the documents drawn up; whereas, this appears to have been false, as the certificate of death is dated three days later, which shews that he and the committee, in whose name he spoke, were reckless of the truth. The next contradiction relates to the place of the burial. It appears that the cemetery of the parish of St. Marguerite was searched after the restoration by order of Louis XVIII., and no vestige of the coffin or body could be found; but that, on the taking down of the Tower of the Temple, the remains of a child, upon whom a post mortem examination had evidently been held, and which bore the marks of the transverse cut of the operating surgeon upon the skull, were discovered; a fact which clearly shows that a concealment of the body of the child that really died had been considered necessary, for some mysterious reason, and that a fraud had been practised on the inhabitants of Paris as regarded his funeral. Independent of these reasons for disbelieving the evidence adduced of his death,* the writers on the other side maintain that there is direct evidence, both documentary and oral, of the * M. Labréli de Fontaine, librarian of the Dowager Duchess of Orléans, M. Morin de Guérivière, M. Bourbon le Blanc, the author of Le Passé et l'Avenir explained, and others. prince's having escaped from the Tower of the Temple. 1st. That there was an order of the Convention to cause pursuit to be made for him throughout the provinces; and an order of the Committee of Public Safety, dated after his supposed decease, requiring the Police to stop all chil dren of from ten to twelve years of age whom they should have reason to suppose might be the Dauphin. And they bring forward several instances of such arrests after the date of the alleged decease. M. Morin de Guèrivière states that he himself was travelling in a postchaise under the protection of M. Jenais Ojardias, and was stopped at Thiers (Puys de dôme) on suspicion of being the Dauphin-that the charge was inquired into, and by an order from J. P. Chazal, Representative of the People, Delegated by the National Convention, dated 10th of July, 1795, the order which detained him as the child was rescinded, because the charge was false, and he sets forth a Copy of the Document. 2ndly. That the Moniteur, the Government Gazette, announced that terms had been offered to the Generals of La Vendée, that there should be a general amnesty on condition of their giving up the person of the Dauphin. 3rdly. M. Labréli de Fontaine states that General Charette, towards the close of the year 1795, addressed a Proclamation to his army in La Vendée, in which are the following passages ; "And are you about to lay down your arms? * * Go then, base and treacherous soldiers! Go, deserters of the noble cause which you dishonour. Abandon to the caprice of fortune, to the uncertainty of events, the royal orphan whom you swore to defend, or rather lead him captive in the midst of you, conduct him to the assassins of his Father. Have no pity for his tender age, for his engaging charms, for his helplessness, for his misfortunes,-and when you are in the presence of your new masters, in order to make yourselves more worthy of them, cast at their ject the head of your innocent King." 4thly. By a Proclamation which the same gentleman saw at Venice, dated from Verona, on the 14th of October, 1797, (more than two years after the supposed death) by the Count of Provence, as Regent of the Kingdom, who was in fact King, if the Dauphin were not then alive. 5thly. By a Secret Article of the Treaty of 1815, the substance of which he quotes to the effect that the allied sovereigns had no certain evidence of the death of Louis XVII.; but that the state of Europe required that they should place at the head of their Government the Count of Provence, with the title of King. 6thly. It is asserted that if he had been dead, the Duchess of Angoulême, or Louis XVIII., would have accepted the heart of the child which died in the Temple, which was offered to them at the restoration by Doctor Pellatan, and refused. 7thly. As negative evidence, that no funeral service of Grand Mass was ever ordered to be celebrated for the repose of Louis XVII., as was for his father, at the restoration. 8thly. By the positive Declarations of persons concerned in the escape. Madame Simon, the wife of Simon the cobler, who so ill treated the child, constantly affirmed it. Barras, one of the three Directors who were at the head of the Government at the time; Josephine Beauharnais, the intimate associate of Barras, afterwards Empress of France; General Pichegru, Count Louis de Frottè, Laurenz, the Governor of the Temple, and many others have declared it. Some of them were members of the Convention who knew the fact, and others more or less facilitated or connived at the substitution and escape, and others saw the Dauphin after his escape. On another occasion, we may probably think it right to give our readers an outline of the facts and statements which have been advanced under this general description; in the mean time it rests with them to determine on which side the evidence for the truth preponderates. or stores of George Robinson, son, and brothers, trading under the firm of George, George, John, and James Robinson, were issued the substantial quartos in abundance down to what was then termed the moderate-sized octavo; and No. 25 in the Row was perhaps considered the most extensive publishing and wholesale book establishment in Europe. I will, from bare recollection, endeavour to convey to you some idea of the extent of their connections, and the works they were engaged in, at a period of the most active employment of my life, of which I have promised you a detail. In periodical literature they were the publishers of the Critical Review and the Ladies' and Town and Country Magazine for nearly half a century. Of the last work, which consisted of matters of bon ton and the chit chat of the day, they at one period disposed of 14,000 monthly; and of the Ladies' Magazine little short of that number, although they were pirated in Ireland, as well as Baldwin's London Magazine, and exported to a great extent, notwithstanding Robinsons' unrivalled wholesale connection at home and abroad. In 1780 (the year of Lord George Gordon's riots,) the Robinsons commenced the New Annual Register, which they continued for upwards of thirty years. Although the work was published at the average price of one pound per volume, LETTERS TO MY SON AT ROME. they, in the zenith of its popularity, disposed of LETTER IX. NOTICE OF THE ROBINSONS. Aldine Chambers, Paternoster Row, London, Jan. 19, 1839. MY DEAR SON, Upwards of fifty-three years have passed away since I first beheld in all his pristine glory that king of booksellers, George Robinson the first, as he was sometimes designated from his noble appearance and manners, and in contradistinction from his only son George, who was somewhat below the middle stature. George Robinson, sen., might appropriately be considered the pride of Paternoster Row, from his hospitality and liberality to authors, artists, printers, booksellers, and even to the most distant of his English, Irish, and Scotch correspondents. As a bookseller, he may be said to have revived the days of the Tonsons, the Lintots, the Osborns, Millar, and all the most eminent booksellers of the times of Addison, Pope, Swift, and Steele. It is true the ponderous folio tomes and the American war were nearly forgotten together; yet, from the literary mine | 7,000 copies annually. They were also the principal shareholders of the Ancient and Modern Universal History in sixty octavo volumes; and the purchasers of all the copies and copyright of Gough's Camden's Britannica, in four volumes folio, which sold for sixteen guineas; and the principal proprietors of Kippis's Biogra phia Britannica, in five folio volumes; as well as in the Biographical Dictionary, and other works of that class. In chronological and historical works they were proprietors of Russell's Ancient and Modern Europe, his History of Aleppo, in most other standard historical works, as well as those of Belsham, Godwin, Grose, Mayo, Playfair, &c. &c. In voyages and travels they were proprietors and publishers of the originals or translations. of the most popular of their day, such as Bruce's Travels, in five volumes quarto; the Travels of Anacharsis, of Bourgoing, Benyowsky, Lady Craven, Chastelux, Cousett, Muriti, La Perrouse, Savary, Vaillant, Volney, and numerous others. In works of taste and illustrations, the productions of Alison, Dr. Burney, Bewick, Beau. mont, Fenn, Hogarth, Heath, Lavater, Lord Orford, &c. &c. In one work alone, the Eng lish Peerage, with splendid plates by Catton, they were said to have lost 3,000l. ; yet nothing appeared to damp the ardour of this enterprising firm. In books on medicine, surgery, and chemistry, they were the principal London publishers of the works of Bell, Cullen, Duncan, Sydenham, Vaughan, Motherley, Wallis, Fourcroy, Lavoisier, Nicholson, &c. &c. In works on agriculture and gardening, those of Anderson, Abercrombie, Mawe, Millar, &c. &c. In geography, navigation, the mathematics, and education, the popular works of Guthrie, Ferguson, Hutton, Moore, Vyse, Walker, &c. In law and jurisprudence, &c., Vattel's Law of Nations, De Lolme on the Constitution, The Political Justice, by Godwin; The History of Parliament, by Oldfield; The Political Index, by Beatson; Plowden's Jura Anglorum, or the Rights of Englishmen, &c.; and even in an Abridgment of the Law they published VINER, in only twenty-six volumes royal octavo, at nearly 201. per copy !!! The above are a few of the works which I recollect that came within my ken, and for the most part passed through my hands, with hundreds of others from that house alone (upwards of thirty years ago) and many of them furnish me with ample material for my future communications with you. I celebrated and immensely wealthy Luke White of Dublin. On one occasion it was said Mr. R. forfeited a large deposit on a contract, which White subsequently took up and realised a fortune by. Were I to relate to you Mr. Robinson's conviviality and connections with his Irish and Scotch friends, respecting the former it would fill a volume instead of a few pages of the Aldine Magazine. I knew most of the characters when I was in Dublin in 1794: among them were Jno. Archer, Alderman Exshaw, Luke White, the Joneses, the Moores, the Rices, &c., most of them boon companions. It is said George had been laid under the table, for it was reported he was a five or six bottle man. In 1793 the Robinsons were prosecuted, (although not the publishers,) as wholesale booksellers, and furnishing with others of that period copies of Paine's Rights of Man. On Nov. 26, in the above year, George Robinson the elder, George Robinson the younger, John Robinson, and James Robinson, who had been convicted at the Bridgwater Assizes of selling three copies of Paine's Rights of Man to Mr. Pyle, bookseller, at Norton Fitzwarren, near Taunton, in Somersetshire, were sentenced in the Court of King's Bench; John Robinson, who had seen the parcel before it was sent off, to pay a fine of 1007., and the three other defendants, 50%. each. Symonds and Ridgway received more severe sentences and long imprisonment about the same period for the same publication. Daniel Isaac Eaton was also tried and acquitted. More of this in its proper place, as well as of Jordan, the original publisher, and of Mr. Johnson, to whom the manuscript was originally offered. I saw Dr. Priestley and Paine a short time previously, and subsequently published Pindar's Odes for the latter gentleman. There is one branch of literature that I had nearly forgotten; and as some of the authors shone conspicuously in the dinner parties of the Robinsons, I must not omit them mean the authors of novels, romances, poetry, and the drama. Among these were ranged Macklin, Murphy, Holcroft, Godwin, Sophia Lee, Mrs. Inchbald, White, Radcliffe, Dr. Moore, Dr. Wolcot, (alias Peter Pindar,) &c. To Mrs. Radcliffe Mr. Robinson gave 500 This reminds me of an anecdote of Dr. Wolguineas for her Mysteries of Udolpho, the largest cot, (alias Peter Pindar,) which he humourously sum known at that time to have been given related to me at the time I became his pubfor a novel. This was years ago, and quite lisher. It appears that he made an immense enough to alarm the Minerva Press, and even sum from his writings, which commenced in the heads of the publishers of Bond Street. It 1783 with his Epistle to the Reviewers, (by the however turned out a fine speculation, as the bye, the only work of his that I do not find rework passed through several editions; and viewed in the Monthly, or any other review,) with all the calamities and complaints of au- published by the Egertons. His subsequent thors, how little is thought of such a sum for a publisher, however, was George Kearsley, who popular work in the present day. brought out his rapidly-produced poems in quarto, with spirited etchings, for several years, until Evans took them up, when they formed an immense quarto volume. The sale had been prodigious; and as Peter, like many other poets, had not been the most provident or prudent of that class, the purchase of his works became an object of speculation with Robinson and Walker, (his brother in law,) who entered into a treaty to grant an annuity for his pub The Robinsons were also considerably engaged in the politics of the times, and about the commencement of the French Revolution were concerned in the Courier, (a rival to the present one,) an evening paper; and subsequently in a newspaper called the Telegraph. George Robinson, sen., was also extensively connected in the English Lottery with the Wilkinses, and in the Irish Lottery with the late |