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upon my throne. I cannot write more as I am in close and
cruel custody. S. HANES Sprancio.”
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The signature of this mysterious communication, as it stands
in the printed notice, has no meaning; but it is very likely that it
was incorrectly copied. A slight variation in the rendering would
make the signature Hares Sprauka, which, by a transposition of
the letters, gives the name
KaspPAR HAUSER,
a coincidence so remarkable as to have been necessarily inten-
sional. The writer of that message has never been discovered ;
although it was confidently asserted that the author was a monk
who lived in the neighbourhood of Hochsal, and who was soon
afterwards found dead upon the highway, murdered, but not
-obbed.
The account was published in several German newspapers, and
although but little notice was taken of the strange story at the
time, the incident served to alarm the conspirators and lead them
to find another and a safer asylum for the royal child.
Accordingly, on June 14, 1817, Major Hennenhofer, with one
of Margrave Ludwig's trusted servants, went from Salem to
Hochsal and took away the Prince, travelling into Bavaria by way
of Lake Constance and Lindau, and ending the journey at
Falkenhaus, a small hunting lodge standing in a lonely place near
the village of Triesdorf, about six miles from Ansbach,
Falkenhaus belonged originally to Prussia; the property
became neutral ground in 1795, and after a time was ceded to
Bavaria. It was occupied in 1796 by Countess Hochberg, whose
youngest son, Margrave Max, was born there.
In 1817, when the Prince was carried thither, the house was
uninhabited, excepting by a keeper named Kaspar Miiller
(formerly a soldier in a cavalry regiment in Hungary), into whose
hands the boy was delivered, with full instructions concerning
the treatment to be observed, and sufficient remuneration to make
it worth while to keep the secret.
\
