The story of Louis XVII. of France

Clearly a charismatic figure, Vintras appealed to high society, but soon his movement was accused of Satanism, largely because his rites were highly sexual in nature. Worse, Vintras was embroiled in a massive political scandal centred on Charles Guillaume Naundorff (1785-1845), who claimed to be the `lost' King Louis XVII, believed by most to have died during or shortly after the French Revolution in the 1790s. Naundorff and Vintras publicly backed each other, the latter ending up in what was clearly a show trial accused of fraud. After five years in jail, Vintras fled to London, as France was rapidly becoming too hot to hold him. A former member of his Church of Carmel, one Father Gozzoli published a pamphlet accusing him of organizing the most debauched orgies imaginable - and Gozzoli seems to have possessed a particularly lurid imagination. In 1848 the sect was declared heretical by the Pope and all its members excommunicated, whereupon they established themselves as a totally independent entity, with both male and female priests, rather like the Cathars ...»