Claimants to Royalty

The History of Popular Delusions might well have contained another chapter, and that one not calculated to have been the least interesting, devoted to a record of aspirants to the names and titles of deceased persons. The list of claimants to the thrones of defunct monarchs is a lengthy one, the chronicles of nearly every civilized country affording more or less numerous instances of the appearance of these pretenders to royalty. Human credulity has afforded a tempting bait for such impostors: le public, as Petrus Borel says, qui veut etre dupe a tous prix, en etait fort satisfait, for the discontented and ambitious have always...