ROYAL ROMANCE.

Taranaki Daily News, Volume LIII, Issue 261, 25 March 1911, Page 9

ROYAL ROMANCE.

NEW "PRETENDER" TO THRONE OF FRANCE. Paris, February 3. . After further consideration of the reports presented to it by Senator Boissy d'Anglas on the petition of the three brothers Naundorff. a special commission of the Senate has come to the conclusion that it is the duty of the French Government to recognise the petitioners as of French nationality and as the descendants of Naundorff, the man who claimed to be Louis XVl.'s lawful son, the illfated Dauphin, who is generally supposed to have died a prisoner in Paris. "Prince Charles of Bourbon," as the eldest petitioned insists on being styled, declared that as soon as the Government confirmed the decision of the Senate Commission he will become the rightful heir to the throne of France, "thus disposing of the claims of the Pretender, the Duke of Orleans, and also of the Bonapartists." When I called upon "Prince Charles of Bourbon" this afternoon, nearly eighty guests were assembled in his luxurious apartments in the Gare St. Lazare quarter. I was immediately struck by the remarkable resemblance which his features bore to the well-known portraits of the Bourbon line. In a low, deliberate voice, with every care for the choice of words, the "Prince" gave me a short history of his ancestors.

•'First of all," he said, "I claim to lie the direct descendant of the Dauphin, Louis XVII., who we know did not die in the Temple, in Paris, as supposed. He escaped in a coffin. "The Dauphin led a life of adventure in many countries. He came to Paris in 1833 without a penny in his pocket. He was so destitute that for three nights he slept in the cemetery of Pere Laehaiae. Finally lie and his wife settled in London at Camberwell, where a child, 'Prince Adelberth,' was horn." The "Prince" then handed me the photograph of the British birth certificate of Prince Adelberth, known to the public as Xaumdorff. Another son was bom to the couple, and it is important to note that the Government of Queen Victoria recognised the two sons as Princes of the Royal Family of France. "Prince Adelberth, my father, went to Holland, where ill-fortune compelled him to enlist. I was born on March 4, 1575, at Maestrieht, in Holland, but I am not a Dutchman, for the civil court of Maestrieht passed a ratification in--1801 to the effect that Carl Edward XaundorfT was not a Dutch subject, and was therefore no longer to be known by the name, but of Carl de Bourbon."