Some time before the day of my
supposed death, a royalist committee was formed for the purpose of
saving me. One of these was M. Frotte, who, as the pupil of my
physician Dessault, was allowed free ingress and egress to the
Temple. One day he entered my cell, motioned me to be silent, seized
me, and dragged me to a cabinet under the spire of the tower. A sick
child who had been given over by the faculty was substituted in my
place, and he, dying two days after (8th June 1795), was buried as
Louis XVII. At my supposed death, there being no more prisoners in
the Temple, all the keepers and guards were withdrawn, and I was
conducted outside the walls without meeting a single official. The
ruse, however, got wind, and the decree of the 14th of June was the
consequence. To frustrate this, the royalist committee caused several
children to personate me, imparting to the impostors several
circumstances connected with my family. One they sent to Bordeaux,
another to La Vendee, a third to Germany, and so on.
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