Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 30.djvu/764

740 was the Count of Vermandois, a natural son of Louis XIV, who died, to the knowledge of the public, in the army, of small-pox, in 1683, and that they buried a stake to personate him, over which Louis XIV had a solemn service performed. It is easier to believe in this stake than to contemn a grandmother.

An improbable story will not make its way in the world unless it is patronized by some grand personage, who has an interest in accrediting it. No one contributed more to propagate the legend of Caspar Hauser than King Louis I of Bavaria, who bore little good-will to his neighbors in the west. His father, Maximilian Joseph, had promised himself to annex the Badenese palatinate to his states, and had concluded for that purpose a secret treaty with Austria in 1815. Men always dislike those whom they have not succeeded in despoiling. King Louis would have been very ready to discredit the descendants of the second marriage, who had mounted the throne in 1830, in the person of the Grand-duke Leopold I. The occasion seemed a good one for him to question the validity of their rights, and to insinuate to Europe that they had come to power through an abominable conspiracy, and that the legitimate heir was the stout boy whom he had harbored in his good city of Nuremberg. To please him, it was necessary to swallow the story with the eyes shut and the mouth wide open. Skeptics and cavilers evidently disobliged him.

Whether by compliance or for love of the marvelous, some persons in high circles were inclined to believe in Caspar. The painter Greil painted his portrait in pastel; he represented him as he saw him—that is, as an unprepossessing rustic of low physiognomy. The portrait was engraved, and the engraver transformed the rustic into a Prince Charming. The Princess Royal of Prussia, who was only acquainted with the engraving, wrote, in 1832, to Queen Caroline of Bavaria, sister of the Grand-duke Charles: "The portrait of this young man has vividly interested me. . . . I do not know whether it may not be the effect of my smitten imagination, but it seems that I find some resemblance between Hauser's features and those of your poor brother. . . . This face troubles me like a specter." But it was, above all, important to persuade the mother, the Grand-duchess Stephanie, and win her over to the good cause. Suffering greatly from the effects of a severe labor, she had seen little of her child; she had not witnessed his death; and it is very tempting to a mother to believe that her son is not dead. Caspar Hauser was frequently spoken of to her, and she was persuaded to have him brought to her, in the hope that her heart might tell her something. She shook her head, and continued incredulous. The celebrated jurist, Mittermaier, Professor of Law at Heidelberg, had a conversation with her on the subject. She declared to him that the abduction of her son and the substitution of another child was "a pure impossibility." "My mother," wrote the Duchess of Hamilton, "never believed a word of that story. That King Louis