Baron de Richemont
To complicate matters, at one point during his trial a letter was read out from Karl Wilhelm Naundorff, arguably the best known Louis XVII claimant.
He died at Gleizé, the name of Louis Charles de France being inscribed on his tomb until the government ordered its removal.
The Baron de Richemont was one of many “false dauphins,” along with Jean-Marie Hervagault,[3] Mathurin Bruneau, Jean-François Dufresne (also called “Charles of Navarre”), Victor Persat, Fontolive, Karl Naundorff, and Eleazar Williams.
On his return to France, he was arrested on the orders of Louis XVIII, who had decided to send his own nephew to an Austrian prison in Italy, so he could usurp the throne more easily.
Pellico’s story, published in Italy in 1832, then translated into French in 1833, came after De Richemont's autobiography in 1831; this eyewitness account could thus prove the impostor’s presence in Lombard prisons in the 1820s.
Carefully ascribing important roles to deceased people (the Prince de Condé, for example, died in 1830 in unclear circumstances), he developed a conspiracy theory and amalgamated several famous mysteries into his claims (Joseph-Bernardin Fualdès, whose murder was widely discussed, was killed because he knew too much), as well as parts of the accounts of other false dauphins and even people such as the “visionary” peasant Thomas Martin (who, however, supported Naundorff, the Baron de Richemont’s famous rival).
[6] Henri Hébert’s existence was recorded for the first time in 1826, when he moved to Rouen, where he made a living as a temporary employee of the Seine-Inférieure Prefecture, then as the owner and shopkeeper of a glassworks.
He took advantage of the turmoil of the three “glorious days” of the July 1830 Revolution, during which he wrote manifests explaining his ambitions to several people, including the Duc de Choiseul.
He changed his name and place of residence several times, giving himself the title “Baron de Richemont,” all the while mingling with republican agitators and abusing many people’s trust.
He was arrested in August 1833 on the order of the prefect of police, Henri Gisquet,[8] who at that time confiscated a clumsily-coded planner, several political pamphlets, and a secret printing press used for several publications, including the autobiography of the so-called Louis XVII (possibly edited by the mysterious “Saint-Edme”[9]).
The inquest, the confrontations, and the simple cryptological analysis of the planner allowed the authorities to retrace Henri Hébert's movements and actions since his arrival in Rouen in 1826.
For many years, the Baron de Richemont fought in vain to obtain the official recognition of the Duchess of Angoulême, his supposed sister.
She told the emissary, “My brother, sir, died in the Temple, I’m certain of it, and the man of whom you’re speaking to me is nothing but one more impostor to add to those who’ve already appeared.” Hébert then contacted the Duke of Bordeaux, without much more success.
Again profiting from the revolutionary fervor of 1848, he tried to get recognition from the provisionary government, gave a speech at the Barrière du Maine club, and even declared himself a candidate in the April elections.
[10][11] The following year, during which he claimed to have met Pope Pius IX in Gaeta, Italy, he tried to summon the Duchess of Angoulême to court in hopes of obtaining her recognition (and later, a part of her inheritance).
[15] Richemont had no known masculine descendants, so his partisans (including the sculptor Foyatier, the nun Elisabeth Eppinger, and even the former bishop of Strasbourg, Monseigneur Tharin), consigned him to history and to his mysteries.
