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740 COXE’s TRAVELS IN RUSSIA,
mifed fecrecy, and procured a commiffion for her hufband in the Ifle of Bourbon.
Having loft her hufband and child, fhe, in 1754, returned to Paris with a negro woman.
The bills upon the Eaft India Company, which fhe brought in her hufband’s name,
being refufed becaufe fhe could not prove herfelf to be his wife; a gentleman, whom
fhe had known in the Ifle of Bourbon, offered his affiftance, which fhe declined. She
confeffed 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 wonderful
narrative, the King of France, it is faid, privately acknowledged her, and even enjoined
the governor of the Ifle of Bourbon to pay her the honours due to her rank. It is
added, that the fame Monarch, in a letter written with his own hand, communicated
this difcovery to the Emprefs of Germany, (then Queen of Hungary,) who thanked the
King 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 to
provide for, and invited her to Vienna.
Although I had little reafon to give credit to an anonymous author; and the whole
ftory bears the air of fi€tion, I made it the fubje€t of my refearches. I found, on in-
quiry, that the circumftances of her death could not be doubted, and accorded with the
accounts which I have before related ; I was, moreover, informed by a Ruffian noble-
man, that his mother attended the Princefs in her illnefs ; that fhe was a witnefs to her
laft moments, and faw the corpfe laid in ftate, when perfons of all ranks were admitted
to kifs the hand of the deceafed *.
It is certain, from a paflage ina letter from the King of Pruffia to d’Alembert, that’a
woman appeared at Brunfwic, pretending to be the deceafed wife of the Tzarovitch :
and it is no lefs certain that fhe was an impoftor.
* In L’Evefque’s Hiftory of Ruffia, there is an ample detail of the rife and progrefs of this anecdote of
the Princefs’s efcape and adventures. It firft made its appearance in Richer’s Continuation of the Abbé
Marcy’s Hiftoire Moderne, afterwards in Boflu’s Nouveaux Voyage dans l’Amérique Septentrionale ; and
was lately revived in Pieces intereffantes et peu connues, pour fervir 4 l’Hiftoire ;” in which, as an ad-
ditional authority, it is qualified as an extraét found among the papers of the late Duclos, fecretary of the
Royal Academy, and Hiftoriographer of France. The anecdote, like all other {tories which are improved
in their progrefs, is drefled in fomewhat different fhapes: in one the name of the hufband is d’Auban, in
the other Moldack ; in one fhe marries a third time, and again becomes a widow: the circumftances of her
efcape are alfo varioufly related, and in all with the moft evident marks of falfehood, and abfolute contra-
dition to the moft undoubted faéts; 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 the
Princefs 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 many
fimilar affertions, which fearcely deferve any ferious refutation, The reader, who is defirous of further in-
formation on the fubjeét, is referred to L’Evefque Hiftoire de Ruffie, Tom. iv. p, 384—3%9; and to the
fatter part of Muller’s account, Von der Princeffen von Wolfenbuttel, in Buf. Hilt. Mag. xv. p. 239 to
241. 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 1776.
«* Je puis vous répondre avec plus de précifion fur le fujet de cette dame qui prétendoit paffer pour l’époufe
du czarowitz ; fon impolture a été découverte 2 Brunfwic, ou elle a paflé peu de mois aprés la mort de celle
dont elle emprunta le nom ; elle y regut quelques charités, avec ordre de quitter le pays, et de ne jamais.
prendre un nom dont fa naiflance l’écartoit fi fort.”? Correfp. du Roi de Pruffe 4 d’Alembert, ii. p. 138.
APPENDIX.
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