36. The Lost Dauphin

Badger Bizarre

In the summer months of 1789, during the public uprisings that would eventually turn into the French Revolution, the backlash against the French Royal family turned bloody as the family is captured and imprisoned in the medieval tower known as The Temple.

King Louis XVI, Queen Marie-Antoinette, and their adolescent children, daughter Marie-Therese and son (and heir to the throne, or "the dauphin") Louis-Charles were kept mostly separated and fearing for their lives.

Eventually, the King and Queen are executed by guillotine, leaving Louis-Charles the new king of France, at 8 years-old. Remaining held in captivity, beaten, raped, and tortured for years, the boy dies in captivity of "prison fever," ravaged by disease and mistreatment at only 10 years old.

But in time, rumors flew, floating the idea that the boy-king was actually secretly rescued and whisked away to the New World, a different dying boy kept in his stead.

After the rumors and innuendo had seemingly died off, 44 years later, an Indian Missionary in Green Bay, 50 year-old Eleazer Williams, claims that HE is the "Lost Dauphin" and rightful heir to the French Throne.

Williams becomes an international celebrity, vouched for by artists, doctors, and even several members of the former royal staff that swore Williams was actually the former boy-king, thought to have died in captivity decades before.

Hear this fantastical tale of Wisconsin's brush with European Royalty, and find out of we really did have a King among us.

In the opening banter, Scott and Mickey discuss a high-profile missing child case currently in Two Rivers, and discuss the Top 10 "Magical and Mystical" places in our state.

All on Episode 36 of Badger Bizarre, "The Lost Dauphin"

Facebook

Twitter

Website

Email us: [e-mail]

Opening Trailer:

Ed Gein Sound Byte : "Hard Copy" - Paramount Domestic/CBS Televsion

Frank Lloyd Wright and Jeffery Dahmer Sound Byte - WISN 12 News - Milwaukee, WI

Jeffery Dahmer Quotes: "Inside Edition" - King World/CBS Television/CBS Media

Attribution for Music:

Trailer: Composer: Adam Phillip Zwirchmayr https://www.pond5.com/

Intro: https://pixabay.com/

Outro: Composer: Viacheslav Sarancha https://www.pond5.com/

Attribution for logo design:

Red Claw Scratch Photo

Sources:

Bonaparte, Darren: Eleazer Williams "The Lost Mohawk"

Cadbury, Deborah; "The Lost King of France: How DNA Solved the Mystery of the Murdered Son of Louis XVI and Marie Antoinette "

Green Bay Press Gazette - Archives

Hanson, John H; The Lost Prince (1854)

History.net/Eleazer Williams

Legends from History

Oberg, Michael Leroy; "Professional Indian: The American Odyssey of Eleazer Williams"

Wisconsin Historical Society/Eleazer Williams

Opening Sources:

Elijah Vue

Rickey Jean Bryant

Up North News - Top 10