CHAPTER VI.TWO COLONIAL ADVENTURESSES.

A “strange true story of Louisiana” so furnished with every attractive element of romance, so calculated to satisfy every exaction of literary art, that it seems marvellous it has not been eagerly seized upon and frequently utilized by dramatists and novelists, is that of a Louisiana princess—or pretender—whose death in a Parisian convent in 1771 furnished a fruitful topic of speculation and conversation in the courts of France, Austria, Russia, and Prussia. This Louisiana princess (were she no pretender) was the daughter-in-law of Peter the Great of Russia, wife of the Grand Duke Alexis, and mother of Peter II. of Russia. The story, as gathered from a few European authorities and some old French chronicles and histories of Louisiana, is this.

The Princess Christine, daughter of a German princeling and wife of the Grand DukeAlexis, is said by Russian official and historical records to have died in 1716 after a short and most unhappy married life with a brutal royal profligate, and to have been buried with proper court honors and attendance. But there is another statement, half-history, half-romance, which denies that she died at that time, and asserts that her death and burial were but a carefully planned deception, to permit her to escape her intolerable life in Russia, and only concealed her successful flight from St. Petersburg and the power of the Russian throne. Aided by the famous Countess Königsmark, the princess, after some delay and frightened hiding in France, sailed from the port of L’Orient, accompanied by an old devoted court retainer named Walter. Of course there must always be a lover to form a true romance, and a young officer named D’Aubant successfully fills that rôle. He had often seen Christine in the Russian court, and had rescued her from danger when she was hunting in the Hartz Mountains, and had cherished for her a deep though hopeless love. When the news of her death came to the knowledge of Chevalier D’Aubant, he sadly leftthe Czar’s service and went to France. Soon after he chanced to see at the cathedral in Poitiers a woman who raised her veil, glanced at him with a look of recognition, and apparently a face like that of his loved Christine. After long search for the unknown, he found her temporary home, only to learn that she, with her father Mons. De L’Ecluse (who was of course Walter), had just sailed for the New World. But the woman of the house gave him a slip of paper which the fair one had left for him in case he called and asked concerning her. On it was written this enigmatical lure:—

I have drunk of the waters of Lethe,Hope yet remains to me.

I have drunk of the waters of Lethe,

Hope yet remains to me.

Now, he would not have been an ideal court-lover, nor indeed but a sorry hero, if, after such a message, he had not promply sailed after the possible Christine. He learned that the vessel which bore her was to land at Biloxi, Louisiana. He sailed for the same port with his fortune in his pockets. But on arriving in Louisiana, Walter (or Mons. De L’Ecluse) had taken the disguising name of Walter Holden, and Christine posed as his daughter, Augustine Holden; so herknight-errant thus lost trace of her. Christine-Augustine and her father settled in the Colonie Roland on the Red River. D’Aubant, with sixty colonists, founded a settlement but fifty miles away, which he named the Valley of Christine. Of course in due time the lovers met, and disguise was impossible and futile, and Augustine confessed her identity with the Crown Princess. As her husband Alexis had by this time conveniently died in prison, in Moscow, where he had been tried and condemned to death (and probably been privately executed), there was no reason, save the memory of her past exalted position, why she should not become the wife of an honest planter. They were married by a Spanish priest, and lived for twenty happy years in the Valley of Christine.

But D’Aubant’s health failed, and he sought physicians in Paris. One day when Christine was walking in the garden of the Tuileries, with her two daughters, the children of D’Aubant, the German conversation of the mother attracted the attention of Marshal Saxe, who was the son of the very Countess Königsmark who had aided Christine’sescape. The marshal recognized the princess at once, in spite of the lapse of years, and through his influence with Louis XV. obtained for D’Aubant a commission as major of troops, and the office of governor of the Isle of Bourbon. The King also informed the Empress of Austria, who was a niece of Christine, that her aunt was alive; and an invitation was sent from the Empress for the D’Aubant family to become residents of the Austrian Court. They remained, however, at the Isle of Bourbon until the death of D’Aubant and the two daughters, when Christine came to Brunswick and was granted a pension for life by the Empress. Her death in a convent, and her burial, took place over half a century after her pretended legal demise.

This is the Christine of romance, of court gossip, of court credulity, but there is another aspect of her story. Judge Martin has written a standard history of Louisiana. In it he says:—

Two hundred German settlers of Law’s grant were landed in the month of March 1721 at Biloxi out of the twelve hundred who had been recruited. There came among the German new-comersa female adventurer. She had been attached to the wardrobe of the wife of the Czarowitz Alexis Petrovitz, the only son of Peter the Great. She imposed on the credulity of many persons, particularly on that of an officer of the garrison of Mobile (called by Bossu, the Chevalier D’Aubant, and by the King of Prussia, Waldeck), who, having seen the princess at St. Petersburg imagined he recognized her features in those of her former servant, and gave credit to the report that she was the Duke of Wolfenbuttel’s daughter, and the officer married her.

Grimm and Voltaire in their letters, Levesque in his History, all unite in pronouncing her an impostor. But you can choose your own estimate of this creature of high romance; if you elect to deem her a princess, you find yourself in the goodly company of the King of France, the Empress of Austria, Marshal Saxe, and a vast number of other folk of rank and intelligence.

In the year 1771 there was sent to this country from England a woman convict, who had in her enforced home a most extraordinary and romantic career of successful fraud.

The first account which I have seen ofher was printed in theGentleman’s Magazinein 1771, and told simply of her startling intrusion into the Queen’s apartments in London; but Dr. Doran’sLives of the Queens of England of the House of Hanovergives this account of this interesting bit of Anglo-American romance.

Sarah Wilson, yielding to a strong temptation in the year 1771, filched one or two of the Queen’s jewels, and was condemned to be executed. It was considered almost a violation of justice that the thief should be saved from the halter and be transported instead of hanged. She was sent to America, where she was allotted as slave, or servant, to a Mr. Dwale, Bud Creek, Frederick County. Queen Charlotte would have thought nothing more of her, had her majesty not heard with some surprise, that her sister Susannah Caroline Matilda was keeping her court in the plantations. Never was surprise more genuine than the Queen’s; it was exceeded only by her hilarity when it was discovered that the Princess Susannah was simply Sarah Wilson, at large. That somewhat clever girl having stolen a Queen’s jewels, thought nothing, after escaping from the penal service to which she was condemned, of passing herself off as a Queen’s sister. The Americans were not soacute as their descendants; so in love were some of them with the greatness they affected to despise, that they paid royal honors to the clever impostor. She passed the most joyous of seasons before she was consigned again to increase of penalty for daring to pretend relationship with the consort of King George. The story of the presuming girl, whose escapades, however, were not fully known in England at that time, served, as far as knowledge of them had reached the court, to amuse the gossips who had assembled about the cradle of the young Elizabeth.

In this account of Dr. Doran’s there are some errors. The real story of the crime of Sarah Wilson and her subsequent career was this. In August, 1770, a strange woman found her way by means of a private staircase to the apartments of Queen Charlotte. She entered a room where the Queen and the Duchess of Ancaster were sitting, to their alarm. While she was taking a leisurely survey of the contents of the room, a page was summoned, who expelled the intruder, but did not succeed in arresting her. Shortly after, the Queen’s apartments were broken into by a thief, who stole valuable jewels and a miniature of the Queen. Thethief proved to be a woman named Sarah Wilson, who had been maid of the Honorable Miss Vernon, and this thief was asserted to be the inquisitive intruder whose visit had so alarmed the Queen.

Sarah Wilson was arrested, tried as a felon, and sentenced to death; but by the exertions and influence of her former mistress the sentence was commuted to transportation to the American colonies for a seven years’ term of servitude. This leniency caused considerable stir in London and some dissatisfaction.

In 1771, after passage in a convict ship, Sarah Wilson was sold to a Mr. William Duvall, of Bush Creek, Frederick County, Maryland, for seven years’ servitude. After a short time, in which she apparently developed her plans of fraud, she escaped from her master, and went to Virginia and the Carolinas, where she assumed the title of Princess Susannah Caroline Matilda, and asserted she was the sister of the Queen of England. She still owned the miniature of the Queen, and some rich jewels, which gave apparent proof of her assertion, and it is said some rich clothing. It is indeed mysteriousthat a transported convict could retain in her possession, through all her reverses, the very jewels for whose theft she was punished; yet the story can scarcely be doubted.

She travelled through the South from plantation to plantation, with plentiful promises of future English offices and court favors to all who assisted her progress; and liberal sums of money were placed at her disposal, to be repaid by Queen Charlotte; and she seems to have been universally welcomed and feasted.

But the fame of the royal visitor spread afar and found its way to Bush Creek, to the ears of Mr. Duvall, and he promptly suspected that he had found trace of his ingenious runaway servant. As was the custom of the day, he advertised for her and a reward for her capture. The notice reads thus:—

Bush Creek, Frederick County, Maryland, October 11, 1771. Ran away from the subscriber a convict servant namedSarah Wilson, but has changed her name to Lady Susannah Caroline Matilda, which made the public believe that she was her Majesty’s sister. She has a blemish in her right eye, black roll’d hair, stoops in theshoulders, and makes a common practice of writing and marking her clothes with a crown and a B. Whoever secures the said servant woman or will take her home, shall receive five pistoles, besides all cost of charges. William Duvall.I entitle Michael Dalton to search the city of Philadelphia, and from there to Charleston, for the said woman.

I entitle Michael Dalton to search the city of Philadelphia, and from there to Charleston, for the said woman.

Beauty readily inspires confidence, and dignity commands it. But a woman with such scant personal charms, with a blemish in her eye and stooping shoulders, must have been most persuasive in conversation to have surmounted such obstacles. It is said that she was most gracious, yet commanding.

To elude Michael Dalton’s authorized search from Philadelphia to Charleston, Sarah Wilson fled from her scenes of success, but also of too familiar and extensive acquaintance, to New York. But New York proved still too near to Maryland, so she took passage for Newport. Here her fame preceded her, for in theNewport Mercuryof November 29, 1773, is this notice:—

Last Tuesday arrived here from New York the lady who has passed through several of the southern colonies under the name and characterofCaroline Matilda, Marchioness de Waldgrave, etc., etc.

I do not know the steps that led to her capture and removal, but at the end of the year the Marchioness was back on William Duvall’s plantation, and bound to serve a redoubled term of years. It seems to be probable that she also suffered more ignoble punishment, for Judge Martin says in hisHistory of Louisiana:—

A female driven for her misconduct from the service of a maid of honor of Princess Matilda, sister of George III., was convicted at the Old Bailey and transported to Maryland. She effected her escape before the expiration of her time, and travelled through Virginia and both the Carolinas personating the Princess, and levying contributions on the credulity of the planters and merchants and even some of the king’s officers. She was at last arrested in Charleston, prosecuted and whipped.

I often wonder what became of the Brummagem princess, with her jewels and her personal blemishes; and I often fancy that I find traces of her career, still masquerading, still imposing on simple folk. For instance,Rev. Manasseh Cutler wrote, at his home in Ipswich Hamlet, Mass., on January 25, 1775:

A lady came to our house who had made a great noise in the country, and has been made the occasion of various conjectures. She calls herself Caroline Augusta Harriet, Duchess of Brownstonburges. Says she has resided in the Court of England for several years, that she eloped from the palace of St. James. She appears to be a person of an extraordinary education, and well acquainted with things at Court, but she is generally supposed to be an impostor.

Three days later he writes that he “conveyed the extraordinary visitor to town in a chaise.” With this glimpse of Sarah—if Sarah she were—visiting in a little New England town in a sober Puritan family, and riding off to Boston in a chaise with the pious Puritan preacher, she vanishes from our ken, to be obscured in the smoke of battle and the din of war, and forced to learn that to American patriots it was no endearing trait to pose as an English princess.

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