740 C0XE*S TRAVELS IN RUSSIA .

mifed fecrecy, and procured a commiffion for her hufband in the Ifle of Bourbon.Having loft her hufband and child, Ihe, in 1754, returned to Paris with a negro woman.The bills upon the Eaft India Company, which Ihe brought in her hufband’s name,being refufed becaufe Ihe could not prove herfelf to be his wife ; a gentleman, whomfhe had known in the Ifle of Bourbon, offered his affiftance, which Ihe declined. Sheconfefl'ed to this gentleman her real character; and from him the author of the account■ pretends to have received thefe anecdotes; adding, fhe foon afterwards difappeared,and retired to the court of her nephew the Duke of Brunfwick. In this wonderfulnarrative, the King of France , it is faid, privately acknowledged her, and even enjoinedthe governor of the Ifle of Bourbon to pay her the honours due to her rank. It isadded, that the fame Monarch, in a letter written with his own hand, communicatedthis difcovery to the Emprefsof Germany, (then Queen of Hungary, ) who thanked theKing for his intelligence, and immediately wrote to the fuppofed Princefs as to her aunt,advifed her to quit her hufband and child, whom the King of France had promifed toprovide for, and invited her to Vienna .

Although I had little reafon to give credit to an anonymous author; and the wholeftory bears the air of fi£tion, I made it the fubjeft of my refearches. I found, on in-quiry, that the circumftances of her death could not be doubted, and accorded with theaccounts which I have before related; I was, moreover, informed by a Ruflian noble-man, that his mother attended the Princefs in her illnefs ; that fhe was a witnefs to herlaft moments, and faw the corpfe laid in ftate, when perfons of all ranks were adrhittedto kifs the hand of the deceafed *.

It is certain, from a paffage in a letter from the King of Pruflia to d’Alembert , that awoman appeared at Brunfwic, pretending to be the deceafed wife of the Tzarovitch rand it is no lefs certain that Ihe was an impoftor.

* In L’Evefque’s Hiftory of Ruffia, there is an ample detail of the rife and progrefs of this anecdote ofthe Princefs’s efcape and adventures. It firlt made its appearance in Richer’s Continuation of the AbbeMarcy’s Hilloirc Moderne, afterwards in Boflu’s Nouveaux Voyage dans l’Amerique Septentrionale ; andwas lately revived in “ Pieces intereffantes et peu connues, pour fervir a PHiftoire in which, as an ad-ditional authority, it is qualified as an extraft found among the papers of the late Duclos, fecretary of theRoyal Academy, and Hiftoriographer of France . The anecdote, like all other ftories which are improvedin their progrefs, Is dreffed in fomewhat different fhapes: in one the name of the huiband is d’Auban, inthe other Moldack; in one fhe marries a third time, and again becomes a widow : the circumftances of herefcape are alfo varioufly related, and in all with the mofl evident marks of falfehood. and abfolute contra-di&ion to the mofl undoubted fa£ls; fuch as that fhe was affifted in her efcape by the Countefs of Koningf-mark, although there was no lady of that name about her perfon, or at Peterfburgh; that the body of thePrincefs was interred almoft at the inftant of her deceafe, and without any funeral honours ; that Peter I.was not at Peterfburgh when fhe died ; that fhe was brought to bed before her time of a Princefs, with manyfimilar affertions, which fcarcely deferve any ferious refutation. The reader, who is defirous of further in-formation on the fubjedt, is referred to L’Evefque Hifloire de Ruffle, Tom. iv. p. 384 —389; and to thelatter part of Muller’s account, Von dej- PrincefTen von Wolfenbuttel, in Buf. Hill. Mag. xv. p. 239 to241. An extract alfo of the principal circumftances of this ftory is given in the Gentleman’s Magazine,and from thence inferted in the Annual Regifter for 776.

“ Je puis vous repondre avec plus de precifion fur le fujet de cette dame qui pretendoit pafler pour l’epoufedu czarowitz ; fon impofture a ete decouverte a Brunfwic, ou elle a paffe peu de mois apres la mort de celledont elle emprunta le nom ; elle y re£ut quelques charites, avec ordre de quitter le pays, et de ne jamais*prendre un nom,dont fa naiffance l’ecartoit fi fort.” Correfp. du Roi de PrufTe a d’Alembert , ii. p. 138.

APPENDIX.