Editing Louis XVII (section)

==Lost Dauphin claimants==
{{wide image|Marie Antoinette and her Children by Élisabeth Vigée-Lebrun.jpg|300px|{{center|'''The Royal Family of France, 1787'''}} Queen [[Marie Antoinette]] with her children, 1787 at Versailles; (L-R); [[Marie-Thérèse Charlotte de France|Marie-Thérèse Charlotte]], known as ''Madame Royale'' at court; the Queen with the Duke of Normandy on her lap; the [[Louis-Joseph, Dauphin of France|Dauphin]] is on the right pointing into an empty cradle; the cradle used to show [[Sophie Hélène Béatrice de France|Madame Sophie]]; she died later in the year and had to be painted out; by [[Élisabeth Louise Vigée Le Brun]]; the [[Fleur-de-lis]] of France and the Bourbons can be seen behind on the cabinet||right}}
As rumors quickly spread that the body buried was not that of Louis-Charles and that he had been spirited away alive by sympathizers, the legend of the "Lost Dauphin" was born. When the [[Bourbon Restoration in France|Bourbon monarchy was restored]] in 1814, some one hundred claimants came forward. Would-be royal heirs continued to appear across Europe for decades afterward.

===Naundorff===
[[Karl Wilhelm Naundorff]] was a German clockmaker whose story rested on a series of complicated intrigues. According to him, [[Paul Barras]] determined to save the Dauphin in order to please [[Joséphine de Beauharnais]], the future empress, having conceived the idea of using the Dauphin's existence as a means of dominating the [[Louis XVIII|comte de Provence]] in the event of a restoration. The Dauphin was concealed in the fourth storey of the Tower, a wooden figure being substituted for him. Laurent, to protect himself from the consequences of the substitution, replaced the wooden figure with a deaf mute, who was presently exchanged for the scrofulous child of the death certificate. The deaf mute was also concealed in the Temple. It was not the dead child, but the Dauphin who left the prison in the coffin, to be retrieved by friends before it reached the cemetery.

Naundorff arrived in Berlin in 1810, with papers giving the name Karl Wilhelm Naundorff. He said he was escaping persecution and settled at [[Spandau]] in 1812 as a clockmaker, marrying Johanna Einert in 1818. In 1822 he removed to [[Brandenburg an der Havel]], and in 1828 to [[Krosno Odrzańskie|Crossen]], near [[Frankfurt (Oder)]]. He was imprisoned from 1825 to 1828 for coining, though apparently on insufficient evidence, and in 1833 came to push his claims in Paris, where he was recognized as the Dauphin by many persons formerly connected with the court of [[Louis XVI]]. Expelled from France in 1836, the day after bringing a suit against [[Marie Thérèse, Duchess of Angoulême]] for the restitution of the Dauphin's private property, he lived in exile until his death at [[Delft]] on 10 August 1845, and his tomb was inscribed "Louis XVII., roi de France et de Navarre (Charles Louis, duc de Normandie)". The Dutch authorities who had inscribed on his death certificate the name of Charles Louis de Bourbon, duc de Normandie (Louis XVII) permitted his son to bear the name de Bourbon, and when the family appealed in 1850–51, and again in 1874, for the restitution of their civil rights as heirs of Louis XVI, no less an advocate than [[Jules Favre]] pled their cause.

However, DNA testing conducted in 1993 proved that Naundorff was not the Dauphin.<ref>{{cite book |last1=Fraser |first1=Antonia |author-link = Antonia Fraser | title=Marie Antoinette: The Journey |date=2001 |publisher=Doubleday |isbn=978-0385489485}}</ref>

===Richemont===
[[Baron de Richemont]]'s tale that Jeanne Simon, who was genuinely attached to him, smuggled him out in a basket, is simple and more credible, and does not necessarily invalidate the story of the subsequent operations with the deaf mute and the scrofulous patient, Laurent in that case being deceived from the beginning, but it renders them extremely unlikely. Richemont, alias ''Henri Éthelbert-Louis-Hector Hébert'', began to put forward his claims in Paris in 1828. He died in 1853.

===Williams===
Reverend [[Eleazer Williams]] was a Protestant missionary from [[Wisconsin]] of [[Mohawk nation|Mohawk]] [[Native Americans in the United States|Native American]] descent.<ref name="E.Williams">{{cite journal|year=1897|first=L'abbé M.|last=Mainville|title=Louis XVII est-il venu au Canada?|journal=Le Bulletin des Recherches Historiques|pages=66–70|volume=3|issue=5|url=https://www.canadiana.ca/view/oocihm.8_06617_29/2?r=0&s=1}}</ref> While at the house Francis Vinton, William began shaking and trembling upon seeing a portrait of [[Antoine Simon]], a member of the [[sans-culottes]], saying of the portrait that it had "haunted me, day, and night, as long as I can remember." Simon was rumored to have physically abused the Dauphin while he was imprisoned at the Temple. Francis Vinton was convinced by Eleazar William's reaction that Williams was Louis-Charles. Williams claimed he had no recollection of how he escaped his imprisonment at the Temple, or of his early years in France.

Williams was a missionary to Native Americans when, according to him, the [[prince de Joinville]], son of [[Louis Philippe I|Louis-Philippe]], met him, and after some conversation asked him to sign a document abdicating his rights in favor of Louis-Philippe, in return for which he, the Dauphin (alias Eleazar Williams), was to receive the private inheritance which was his. This Eleazar Williams refused. Williams's story is generally regarded as false. However, other elements published in 1897 provide some grounds for doubt.<ref name="E.Williams"/>