The New Student's Reference Work/Louis XVII

Louis XVII, second son of Louis XVI, was left in prison at the death of his father. There he was rudely separated from his mother and placed in the charge of a brutal Jacobin, who treated him with great cruelty. He became a wreck in body and mind, and died on June 8, 1795. Louis XVIII, in 1815, made many attempts to find the remains of this hapless boy, but failed. This fact gave rise to the appearance of false dauphins, whose claims deluded many honest royalists in France. Even in 1874 the children of one of these claimants raised fruitless actions before Paris law-courts against the Count of Chambord. See Louis XVII the Lost Dauphin by Stevens.