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Their advocates pleaded on their behalf that they were dupes and not confederates, and the plea served to exculpate the Abbé, Madame Dumont, and Tourly. The impostor himself was condemned to five years' imprisonment, three thousand francs fine, and a further imprisonment of two years for his offences against the dignity of justice and the public morality committed in open court.
Larcher and Tourly must have been kept very busy, for the pretended dauphin was never tired of sending appeals for assistance to the foreign powers, of addressing proclamations to the people, and even went so far as formally to petition the parliament that he might be taken to Paris, in order there to establish his identity as the son of Louis XVI. The whole of the papers issued from the prison, and they were enormous in quantity, were signed by his secretaries with his name.
One was Larcher, a revolutionary priest, and a man of detestable life; while the other was a forger named Tourly. These worthies acted as his secretaries. On the 3d of March 1816, the priest wrote a letter to "Madame de France" in these terms: "MY SISTER, You are doubtless not ignorant of my being held in the saddest captivity, and reduced to a condition of appalling misery.
The imposture was plain; and Bruneau, his forger-secretary Tourly, Branzon the author of the "Memoirs," the Abbé Matouillet, and Madame Dumont, were committed for trial as swindlers, as the government did not deem them of sufficient importance to charge them with high treason.
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