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NOTES AND QUERIES. [11 s. vm. DEC. -27, ms.

daily press on Christmas Day. For the first time in its history The Times was not published on a weekday.

ROLAND AUSTIN.

THE LITTLE DAUPHIN. The following appeared in The Standard on Friday, the 28th of November, and should find a place ^mong the Notes in * N. & Q.' : Naundorff Claim upheld in French Law Courts.

Paris, Nov. 27.

The claim of the Naundorff family to be de- scended from the little Dauphin the royal child who was supposed to have died in the Temple Prison after his parents, Louis XVI. and Marie Antoinette, had been guillotined has been con- firmed in the law courts. The Naundorffs, it will be recalled, are the descendants of a clockmaker who maintained that he was the Dauphin, that he 'had been rescued from the Temple, another child being substituted for him, and that his identity had been kept secret until it was safe to allow it to be known. The Naundorffs now call themselves de Bourbon.

The new decision was given yesterday, when the Ninth Chamber gave judgment in a suit brought 3>y Louis Charles de Bourbon and his brothers ^against the Patrie for stating that they had no tright to call themselves Bourbons. M. Rochefort, the editor of the Patrie, pleaded, to begin with, that the summons was null and void, being made in a false name, and subsidiarily that, according to the judgment given in 1851 and confirmed in 1874, the recognition of the right of the Naundorffs to wse the name of Bourbon was contrary to the public interest. M. Rochefort also maintained that the judgments obtained by the Naundorffs in Holland, recognising them as descendants of Louis XVI., must be confirmed by a French exsequatur to render them valid and executory in France.

After hearing M. Moro Giafferi for the Patrie, the pleading of Me. M. Fernehem for the Naun- dorffs, and#a very learned juridical resume by the State Attorney, M. Grani<S, the court confirmed the Dutch judgments as being fully valid in France, admitted the right of the Naundorffs to plead in the name of Bourbon, and condemned the Patrie to pay 20Z. to each of the claimants for libel.

This judgment is extremely interesting his torically, if not of very great political importance to-day. It quashes the pathetic legend of the murder of the little King, which last year was the -subject of a play at the Od6on, and somewhat shakes the position of the late Count de Chambord -and the hitherto acknowledged representatives o the line of Bourbon kings, who must give way to the descendants of the clockmaker Naundorff.

It is significant that the Xaundorffs are descendants of a clockmaker, having regarc to the fondness of Louis XVI. for mending clocks.

The Dauphin was generally supposed t< have died in prison by poison on the 8th o .June, 1795, at the age of 10 years 2 months but, it is believed by some that he escapee to England and lived here some time as

Augustus Meves. At the trial in Paris in 1874 Jules Favre was counsel for the claimant, but the verdict given on the 27th of February of that year was strongly against him. WILLIAM R. ADAMS.

THE GREAT EASTERN, THE FIRST OF THE EVIATHANS. The death of David Ander- sons at Handsworth, in his 92nd year, recalls memories of the Great Eastern steamship, the child of Brunei and Scott Russell, both known to me. Andersons lad charge of the construction of the engines, made by James Watt & Co. of Birmingham. The Great Eastern was 692 ft. long and 83 ft. Droad. Thus she was 302 ft. longer than the then longest vessel, the Persia, which was 390 ft. in length and 45 ft. broad. The broadest vessel was the British Queen, which was 61 ft. in breadth, but was only 275 ft. in length. The speed of the Great Eastern never exceeded 14 knots. The launching of her commenced on the 3rd of November, 1857, and was not completed until the last day of January, 1858. The problem when she was completed was as to the use to which the Leviathan, as she was for a short time called, should be put.

I was at Albert Smith's entertainment in the Egyptian Hall, Piccadilly, on the night of the successful launch. It was his custom to close by singing a song introducing the news of the day, and having the refrain : Golignani's Messenger is the bravest of them all ; and he included the news just received, and humorously suggested that the ship might serve as a Tabernacle for the great Mr. Spurgeon.

On the 7th of September, 1859, the vessel left Deptford for Weymouth with a brilliant company, including Scott Russell. Wey- mouth was all bright with flags ready to give welcome. It was announced with great cheering, " She is in sight ! " As she approached nearer, her flag, to the consterna- tion of every one, was seen to be at half- mast ; and on her arrival it was found that off Hastings an explosion had taken place, owing to a defect in the casting of one of the chimneys, and that ten firemen had been killed, and many persons seriously injured. One of the correspondents of the daily press had made so sure of a successful voyage that he was put on shore before the explosion occurred, and his glowing account of the ship's arrival at Weymouth appeared in the paper he represented.

I went over her on the 16th of that same September, when her flag was again at half- mast. Her designer, Brunei, had died on