Famous imposters

The world's most famous imposters

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After this his life became one of adventure. When he was fifteen he made a tour through France.

2. Sarah Edmonds: A woman who posed as a man to serve in the Civil War

In he was put in the House of Correction at St. In he re-appeared with an American passport bearing the name of Charles de Navarre. His more ambitious attempt at per- sonation in , was not in the long run success- ful. Malo, and confined at Bicetre. He got round him a gang of persons of evil life, as shown by their vari- ous records. One was a false priest, another a prisoner for embezzlement, another an ex-bailiff who was also a forger, another a deserter; with the usual criminal concomitant of women, dishonoured clergy and such like.

At Rouen he was sentenced to pay a fine of three thousand francs in addition to imprisonment for seven years. He died in prison. The imposture regarding the Dauphin was like a torch-race — so soon as the lighted torch fell from the hand of one runner it was lifted by him who followed. Brunneau, having disappeared into the prison at Rouen, was succeeded by Henri Herbert who made a dramatic appearance in Austria in His account of himself, given in his book published in , and republished — with enlargements, by Chevalier del Corso in , is without any respect at all for the credulity of his readers.

The wife of the gaoler Simon, helped in the plot, the carrying out of which was attempted early in An- other child about the Dauphin's size, dying or marked for death by fatal disease, was drugged and hidden in the interior.

When the toy horse was placed in the Dauphin's cell the children were exchanged, the little king having also been drugged for the purpose. It would almost seem that the narrator here either lost his head or was seized with a violent cacoethes scrihendi, for he most unnecessarily again lugs in the episode adapted from Trojan history. The worthy doctor of the double name had another horse manufactured, this time of life size.

Into the alleged entrails of this animal, which was harnessed with three real horses as one of a team of four, the Dauphin, once more drugged, was concealed. He was borne to refuge in Belgium, where he was placed under the protection of the Prince de Conde. By this protector he was, according to his story, sent to General Kleber who took him to Egypt as his nephew under the name of Monsieur Louis. In still according to his story , he embarked for America and got away to the banks of the Amazon, where amid the burning deserts as he put it he had adventures capable of consuming lesser romancists with envy.

Some of these ad- ventures were amongst a tribe called "the Mame- lucks" — which name was at least reminiscent of his alleged Egyptian experiences. From the burning deserts on the banks of the Amazon he found his way to Brazil, where a certain "Don Juan," late of Portugal and at that time Regent of Brazil, gave him asylum.

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Leaving the hospitable home of Don Juan, he returned to Paris in Here Conde introduced him to the Duchesse d'Angouleme his sister! Having been repulsed by his alleged sister, the alleged king made a little excursion, embracing in its erratic course Rhodes, England, Africa, Egypt, Asia Minor, Greece, and Italy. When in Austria he met Silvio Pellico in prison. Having spent some years himself in prison in the same countiy, he went to Switzerland.

Leaving Geneva in , he entered France, under the name of Her- bert. To this appeal he appears to have received no direct reply; but apropos of it, Baron Mounier made a proposition to the Chamber that in future no such application should be received unless properly signed and attested and presented by a member of the Chamber.

He gathered round him some dupes who believed in him. To these he told a number of strange lies based on some form of perverted truth, but always taking care that those of whom he spoke were already dead. Amongst them was the wife of Simon, who had died in In the course of his citation of the above names, he plays havoc with generally accepted history — Desault according to him did not die naturally but was poisoned. Jose- phine died simply because she knew the secret of the young King's escape.

Pichegru died from a similar cause and not by suicide. Fualdes was as- sassinated, but it was because he knew the fatal secret. With regard to one of his dead witnesses whose name was Thomas-Ignace-Martin de Gal- lardon, there is a rigmarole which would not be accepted in the nursery of an idiot asylum. In one passage he talks of see- ing suddenly before him — he could not tell natur- ally enough whence he came — a sort of angel who had wings, a long coat and a high hat.

This super- natural person ordered the narrator to tell the King that he was in danger, and the only way to avoid it was to have a good police and to keep the Sab- bath. Having given his message the visitant rose in the air and disappeared. Later on the sug- gested angel told him to communicate with the Due Decazes. The Duke naturally, and wisely enough, handed the credulous peasant over to the care of a doctor.

Martin himself died, presumably by as- sassination, in The Revolution of awoke the pretensions of Herbert, who now appeared as the Baron de Riche- mont, and wrote to the Duchesse d'Angouleme, his supposed sister, putting on her the blame of all his troubles. But the consequences of this effort were disastrous to him. He was arrested in August, After hearing many witnesses the Court condemned him to imprisonment for twelve years.

He returned to France after the amnesty of In he appealed — unheeded — to the National Assembly. He died in at Gleyze. The sixth "Late Dauphin" was a Polish Jew called Naundorf — an impudent impostor not even seeming suitably prepared by time for the part which he had thus voluntarily undertaken, having been born in , and thus having been as old at the birth of the Dauphin as the latter was when he died.

This individual had appeared in Berlin in , and was married in Spandau eight years later. He had been punished for incendiarism in , and later got three years' imprisonment at Brandenburg for coining. He may be considered as a fairly good all-round — if unsuccessful — crim- inal. In England he was imprisoned for debt. He died in Delft in The last attempt at impersonating Louis XVII, the seventh, afforded what might in theatrical par- lance be called the "comic relief" of the whole series, both as regards means and results.

This time the claimant to the Kingship of France was none other than a half-bred Iroquois, one called Eleazar, who appeared to be the ninth son of Thomas Williams, otherwise Thorakwaneken, and an Indian woman, Mary Ann Konwatewentala. This lady, who spoke only Iroquois, said at the opportune time she was not the mother of Lazar Iroquois for Elea- zar. She made her mark as she could not write. He said he remembered sitting on the knees of a beautiful lady who wore a rich dress with a train.

He also remembered seeing in his childhood a terrible per- son; shewn the picture of Simon he recognised him with terror. He learned English but imperfectly, became a Protestant and a missionary and married. His profile was something like that of the typical Bourbon.

The seal used was the seal of France, the one used by the old Mon- archy. The "poor Indian with untutored mind" made with charming diffidence the saving clause regarding the seal, — "if I am not mis- taken. Louis Philippe, who was always anxious to lessen the danger to his tottering throne, made a settlement on him from his Civil List, and the ''subsequent proceedings in- terested him no more. Olive Serres, as nature made it, was one thing; it was quite an- other as she made it for herself. The re- sult, before the story was completely told, was a third; and, compared with the other, one of tran- scendent importance.

Altogether her efforts, whatsoever they were and crowned never so ef- fectively, showed a triumph in its way of the thaumaturgic art of lying; but like all structures built on sand it collapsed eventually. In the plain version — nature's — the facts were simply as fol- lows.

She, and a brother of no importance, were the children of a house painter living in Warwick, one Robert Wilmot, and of Anna Maria his wife. Having been born in she was under age when in she was married, the ceremony there- fore requiring licence supported by bond and affi- davit. Serres were separated in after the birth of two daughters, the elder of whom, born in , became in the wife of Antony Thomas Ryves a portrait painter — whom she divorced in The case was heard in , Mrs.

Ryves conducting it in person. Having produced sufficient evidence of the mar- riage and the birth, and there being no opposition, the Court almost as a matter of course pronounced the decree asked for. In this case no complications in the way of birth or marriage of Mrs. Serres were touched on. Robert Wilmot, the house-painter, had an elder brother James who became a Fellow of Trinity College, Oxford, and went into the Church, taking his degree of Doctor of Divinity.

Through his College he was presented in to the living of Barton-on-the-heath, Warwickshire. The Stat- utes of his College contained a prohibition against marriage whilst a Fellow. James and Robert Wilmot had a sister Olive, who was born in and married in to William Payne with issue one daughter, Olivia, born in Robert Wilmot died in Out of these rough materials Mrs.

Madhura Nagendra

Olive Serres set herself in due course to construct and carry out, as time and opportunity allowed, and as occasions presented themselves and developed, a fraudulent romance in real life and action. Her ability was shown not only by what she could do and did at this time of her life, but by the manner in which she developed her natural gifts as time went on. In the sum of her working life, in which the perspective of days becomes merged in that of years, she touched on many subjects, not always of an ordinary kind, which shewed often that she was of conspicuous ability, having become accomplished in several branches of art.

She was a painter of sufficient merit to have exhibited her work in the Royal Academy in and to be appointed land- scape-painter to the Prince of Wales in She was a novelist, a press writer, an occasional poet and in many ways of a ready pen. She was skilled in some forms of occultism, and could cast horo- scopes ; she wrote, in addition to a pamphlet on the same subject, a book on the writings of Junius, claiming to have discovered the identity of the author — none other than James Wilmot D.

She wrote learnedly on disguised handwriting. In fact she touched on the many phases of literary effort which come within the scope of those who live by the work of their brains. Perhaps, indeed, it was her facility as a writer that helped to lead her astray; for in her practical draughtsmanship and in her brain teeming with romantic ideas she 52 FAMOUS IMPOSTORS found a means of availing herself of opportunities suggested by her reckless ambition.

Doubtless the cramped and unpoetic life of her humble condition in the house-painter's home in Warwick made her fret and chafe under its natural restraint. But when she saw her way to an effective scheme of en- larging her self-importance she acted with extraor- dinary daring and resource. As is usual with such natures, when moral restraints have been aban- doned, the pendulum swung to its opposite. As she had been lowly she determined to be proud ; and having fixed on her objective began to elaborate a consistent scheme, utilising the facts of her own surroundings as the foundation of her imposture.

She probably realised early that there must be a base somewhere, and so proceeded to manufacture or arrange for herself a new identity into which the demonstrable facts of her actual life could be wrought. At the same time she manifestly real- ised that in a similar way fact and intention must be interwoven throughout the whole of her con- templated creation. Accordingly she created for herself a new milieu which she supported by forged documents of so clever a conceit and such excellent workmanship, that they misled all who investigated them, until they came within the purview of the great lawyers of the day whose knowledge, logical power, skill and determination were arrayed against her.

By a sort of intellectual metabolism she changed the identities and conditions of her PRINCESS OLIVE 53 own relations whom I have mentioned, always tak- ing care that her story held together in essential possibilities, and making use of the abnormalities of those whose prototypes she introduced into fic- tional life. The changes made in her world of new condi- tions were mainly as follows: Her uncle, the Reverend James, who as a man of learning and dignity was accustomed to high-class society, and as a preacher of eminence occasionally in touch with Crown and Court, became her father; and she her- self the child of a secret marriage with a great lady whose personal rank and condition would reflect importance on her daughter.

But proof, or alleged proof, of some kind would be necessary and there were too many persons at present living whose testimony would be available for her undoing. So her uncle James shifted his place and became her grandfather. To this the circumstances of his earlier life gave credibility in two ways; firstly be- cause they allowed of his having made a secret marriage, since he was forbidden to marry by the statutes of his college, and secondly because they gave a reasonable excuse for concealing his mar- riage and the birth of a child, publicity regarding which would have cost him his livelihood.

At this point the story began to grow logically, and the whole scheme to expand cohesively. She began to look higher; and the seeds of imagination took root in her vanity till the madness latent in her nature turned wishes into beliefs and beliefs into facts. As she was imagining on her own behoof, why not imagine beneficially? This all took time, so that when she was well prepared for her venture things had moved on in the nation and the world as well as in her fictitious romance. Manifestly she could not make a start on her venture until the possibility vanished of witnesses from the inner circle of her own family being brought against her; so that she could not safely begin machinations for some time.

She determined however to be ready when occasion should serve. In the meantime she had to lead two lives. Outwardly she was Olive Serres, daughter of Robert Wilmot born in and married in , and mother of two daughters. Inwardly she was the same woman with the same birth, mar- riage and motherhood, but of different descent be- ing imaginatively grand-daughter of her real uncle the Rev.

The gaps in the imaginary descent having been thus filled up as made and provided in her own mind, she felt more safe.

6 Infamous Impostors

Her uncle — so ran her fiction — had early in his college life met and become friends with Count Stanislaus Poniatowski who later became by election King of Poland. To them was born, in , a daughter Olive, the marriage being kept secret for family reasons, and the child for the same reason being passed off as the offspring of Robert the housepainter.

They fell in love with each other and were privately married — by the Rev. They had issue one daughter, Olive, born at Warwick 3 April After living with her for four years the Duke of Cumberland deserted his wife, who was then pregnant, and in married — biga- mously, it was alleged — Lady Anne Horton, sister of Colonel Luttrell, daughter of Lord Irnliam, and widow of Andrew Horton of Catton, Derbyshire. The alleged Royal Duchess died in France in , and the Duke in Thus fact and fiction were arrayed together in a very cumiing way.

The birth of Olive Wilmot afterwards Serres in was proved by a gen- uine registry. Likewise that of her daughter Mrs. For all the rest the certificates were forged. In case of necessity the real date of the birth of Olive Wilmot sister of the Rev. James could easily be altered to the fictitious date of the birth of "Princess" Olive born It was only in that Mrs. Serres began to take active measures for carrying her imposture into action ; and in the process she made some tenta- tive efforts which afterwards made difficulty for her.

This she amended later in the same year by alleg- ing that she was a natural daughter of the Duke by the sister of Doctor Wilmot, whom he had se- duced under promise of marriage. It was not till after the deaths of George III and the Duke of Kent in , that the story took its third and final form. It should be noticed that care was taken not to clash with laws already in existence or to run counter to generally received facts. Up to such marriages could take place legally. Indeed there was actually a case in existence — the Duke of Gloucester another brother of the King having married the dowager Countess of Waldegrave.

It was ef common re- pute that this marriage was the motive of the King's resolve to have the Royal Marriage Act added to the Statute book. At the main trial it was alleged by Counsel, in making the petitioner's claim, that the King George III was aware of the Duke of Cumberland's marriage with Olive Wilmot, although it was not known to the public, and that when he heard of his marriage with Lady Anne Horton he was very angry and would not al- low them to come to Court.

The various allegations of Mrs. Serres as to her mother's marriage were not treated seriously for a long time but they were so persisted in that it be- came necessary to have some denial in evidence. Accordingly a law-case was entered. One which became a cause celebre. It began in — just about a hundred years from the time of the alleged marriage. With such a long gap the difficulties of disproving Mrs.

Serres' allegations were much increased. But there was no help for it; reasons of State forbade the acceptance or even the doubt of such a claim. The really important point was that if by any chance the claimant should win, the Succession would be endangered.

There was a special jury. Ryves, daughter of Mrs. Serres, was the pe- titioner. Associated with her in the claim was her son, who, however, is of no interest in the matter and need not be considered. The petition stated that Mrs. Ryves was the legitimate daughter of one John Thomas Serres and Olive his wife, the said Olive being, whilst living, a natural-born subject and the legitimate daughter of Henry Frederick, Duke of Cumberland and Oiive Wilmot, his wife.

That a child, Olive, was born to them on 3 April , who in was married to John Thomas Serres. And so on in accordance with the alleged facts above given. For granting that the al- leged Olive Serres should have been legally mar- ried to the Duke of Cumberland, the Royal Mar- riage Act, passed five years later, forbade the union of the child of such a marriage, except with the sanction of the reigning monarch. In the making of the claim of Mrs.

Ryves a grave matter appeared — one which rendered it ab- solutely necessary that the case should be heard in the most formal and adequate way and settled once for all. The matter was one affecting the legality of the marriage of George III, and so touching the legitimacy of his son afterwards George IV, his son afterwards William IV and his son the Duke of Kent, father of Queen Victoria — and so debar- ring them and all their descendants from the Crown of England. The points of contact were in docu- ments insidiously though not overtly produced and the preparation of which showed much constructive skill in the world of fiction.

Amongst the many documents put in evidence by the Counsel for Mrs. Ryves were two certificates of the alleged mar- riage between Olive Wilmot and the Duke of Cum- berland. On the back of each of these alleged cer- tificates was written what purported to be a certifi- cate of the marriage of George III to Hannah Lightfoot performed in by J. The wording of the documents varied slightly.

Ryves and her son became linked up with the present and future destinies of England. These alleged documents too, brought the Attorney General upon the scene. There were two reasons for this.

Firstly the action had to be taken against the Crown in the matter of form ; secondly in such a case with the possibility of such vast issues it was absolutely necessary that every position should be carefully guarded, every allegation jealously examined. In each case the Attorney General was the proper official to act. The Case of the Petitioners was prepared with extraordinary care.

There were amongst the doc- uments produced, numbering over seventy, some containing amongst them forty-three signatures of Dr. Wilmot, sixteen of Lord Chatham, twelve of Mr. Their coun- sel stated that although these documents had been repeatedly brought to the notice of the successive Ministers of the Crown, it had never been sug- gested until that day that they were forgeries.

The 10 best impostors | Culture | The Guardian

This latter statement was traversed in Court by the Lord Chief Baron, who called attention to a debate on the subject in the House of Commons in which they were denounced as forgeries. In addition to those documents already quoted were the following certificates: April 17, "This is to Certify that the marriage o these parties George, Prince of Wales, to Hannah Lightfoot was duly solem- nized this day, according to the rites and ceremonies of the Church of England, at their residence at Peckham, by myself. Witness Torn The case for the Crown was strongly supported.

The At- torney-General made the defence himself. At the outset it was difficult to know where to begin, for everywhere undoubted and unchallenged facts were interwoven with the structure of the case ; and of all the weaknesses and foibles of the important persons mentioned, full advantage was taken. The mar- riage of the Duke of Gloucester to Lady Walde- grave had made him unpopular in every way, and he was at the time a persona ingrata at Court.

The anonymity of the author of the celebrated "Letters of Junius," which at- tacked the King so unmercifully, lent plausibility to any story which might account for it. The case of Mrs. Ryves herself was in the box for nearly the whole of three days, during which she bore herself firmly, refusing even to sit down when the presid- ing judge courteously extended that privilege to her. She was then, by her own statement, over seventy years of age.

Serres, in which the word offspring was spelled "orf spring"; in com- menting on which the Attorney-General produced a congratulatory Ode to the Prince Regent on his birthday in , by the same author, in which oc- curred the line: The Attorney-General, in opposing the claim, alleged that the whole story of the Duke of Cum- berland's marriage to Olive Wilmot was a concoc- tion from beginning to end, and said that the mere statement of the Petitioner's case was sufficient to stamp its true character.

That its folly and ab- surdity were equal to its audacity; in every stage it exposed itself to conviction by the simplest tests. He added that the Petitioner might have dwelt so long upon documents produced and fabricated by others, that, with her memory impaired by old age, 64 FAMOUS IMPOSTORS the principle of veracity might have been poisoned, and the offices of imagination and memory con- founded to such an extent that she really believed that things had been done and said in her presence which were in fact entirely imaginary.

No part of her story was corroborated by a single authentic document, or by a single extrinsic fact. The forgery, falsehood and fraud of the case were proved in many ways. The explanations were as false and feeble as the story itself. That is the conclusion which the Court is asked to come to upon these two rubbishy pieces of paper, one signed 'George P.

The Court has no difficulty in coming to the conclusion, even assuming that the signatures had that character of genuineness which they have not, that what is asserted in these documents has not the slightest foundation in fact.

List of impostors

I think that these documents, which the Lord Chief Justice has treated with all the respect which properly belongs to them, are not genuine. On this the Lord Chief Justice said: Towards the conclusion of his summing-up he said, in speaking of the various conflicting stories put forth by Mrs. What was the irresistible inference? Why, that documents were from time to time prepared to meet the form which her claims from time to time assumed. Ryves, was the legitimate daughter of Henry Frederick Duke of Cumberland and Olive his wife ; and they were not satisfied that Henry Frederick, Duke of Cumberland, was lawfully married to Olive Wilmot on the 4th of March Serres is an instance of how a person, otherwise comparatively harmless but af- flicted with vanity and egotism, may be led away into evil courses, from which, had she realised their full iniquity, she might have shrunk.

The only thing outside the case we have been considering, was that she separated from her husband ; which in- deed was an affliction rather than a crime. She had been married for thirteen years and had borne two children, but so far as we know no impropriety was ever alleged against her. One of her daughters re- mained her constant companion till her twenty- second year and through her long life held her and her memory in filial devotion and respect.

The forethought, labour and invention which she de- voted to the fraud, if properly and honestly used, might have won for her a noteworthy place in the history of her time. But as it was, she frittered away in criminal work her good opportunities and great talents, and ended her life within the rules of the King's Bench. I do so because I wish to do what an unimportant man can after the lapse of centuries, to help a younger gen- eration to understand what such a man as I write of can do and did under circumstances not possi- ble in times of greater enlightenment.

The lesson which the story can tell to thinking youth cannot be told in vain. The greatest asset which worth has in this world is the irony of time. Contem- poraneous opinion, though often correct, is gener- ally on the meagre side of appreciation — prac- tically always so with regard to anything new. Such must in any case be encountered in matters of the sixteenth century which being on the further side of an age of discovery and reform had hard- ened almost to the stage of ossification the beliefs and methods of the outgoing order of things. Prejudice — especially when it is based on science and religion — dies hard: This is why any who, in this later and more open minded age, may investi- gate the intellectual discoveries of the past, owe a special debt in the way of justice to the memories of those to whom such fresh light is due.

The name and story of the individual known as Para- celsus — scholar, scientist, open minded thinker and teacher, earnest investigator and searcher for ele- mental truths — is a case in point. Anyone who contents himself with accepting the judgment of four centuries passed upon the great Swiss thinker, who had rendered famous in history his place of birth, his canton and his nation, would inevitably come to the conclusion that he was merely a char- latan a little more clever than others of his kind; an acceptor of all manner of eccentric beliefs in- cluding the efficacy of spirits and demons in path- ological cases , a drunkard, a wastrel, an evil liver, a practiser of necromancy, an astrologer, a ma- gician, an atheist, an alchemist — indeed an "ist" of all defamatory kinds within the terminology of the sixteenth century and of all disputatious church- men and scientists who have not agreed with his theories and conclusions ever since.

Let us begin with the facts of his life. His name was Theophrastus Bombast von Hohenheim, and he was the son of a doctor living in Einsiedeln in the canton of Schwyz, named Wilhelm Bom- bast von Hohenheim, natural son of a Grand Mas- ter of the Teutonic Order. He was born in In the light of his later achievements, we can well imagine that he had some definite pur- pose in mind, or at least some guiding principle of suggestiveness, in choosing such a compound word from the Greek as Paracelsus which is derived from "para," meaning before, in the sense of su- perior to, and Celsus, the name of an Epicurean philosopher of the second century.

Celsus ap- pears to have had views of great enlightenment ac- cording to the thought of his own time. Unhap- pily only fragments of his work remain, but as he was a follower of Epicurus after an interval of be- tween four and five centuries, it is possible to get some idea of his main propositions. Like Epi- curus he stood for nature. He did not believe in fatalism, but he did in a supreme power. He was a Platonist and held that there was no truth which was against nature. It is easy to see from his life and work that Theophrastus Bombast von Hohen- heim shared his views.

His intellectual attitude was that of a true scientist — denying nothing prima facie but investigating all. Theophrastus was a precocious boy; after youthful study with his father, he entered the University of Basel when he was about sixteen, after which he prosecuted chemical researches un- der the learned Trithemius Bishop of Sponheim who had written on the subject of the Great elixir — the common subject of the scientists of that day, — and at Wurzburg.

From thence he proceeded to the great mines in the Tyrol, then belonging to the Fugger family. Here he studied geology and its kindred branches of learning — especially those dealing with effects and so far as possible with causes — metallurgy, mineral waters, and the dis- eases of and accidents to mines and miners. The theory of knowledge which he deduced from these studies was that we must learn nature from nature. In , he returned to Basel, where he was ap- pointed town physician. It was a characteristic of his independence and of his mind, method and design, that he lectured in the language of the place, German, foregoing the Latin tongue, usual up to that time for such teaching.

He did not shrink from a bold criticism of the medical ideas and methods then current. The effect of this inde- pendence and teaching was that for a couple of years his reputation and his practice increased wonderfully. Reactionary forces are generally — if not always — self -protective, without regard to the right or wrong of the matter, and Paracelsus be- gan to find that the self-interest and ignorance of the many were too strong for him, and that their unscrupulous attacks began to injure his work seriously. He was called conjurer, necromancer, and many such terms of obloquy.

Then what we may call his "professional" enemies felt themselves strong enough to join in the attack. As he had kept a careful eye on the purity of medicines in use, the apothecaries, who, in those days worked in a smaller field than now, and who found their commerce more productive through guile than excellence, became almost declared opponents.

Eventually he had to leave Basel. He went to Esslingen, from which however he had to retire at no distant period from sheer want. Then began a period of wandering which really lasted for the last dozen years of his life. This time was mainly one of learning in many ways of many things. In Germany and Hungary he had a bad time, being driven to supply even the bare necessaries of life by odd — any — means, even to 76 FAMOUS IMPOSTORS availing himself of the credulity of others — cast- ing nativities, telling fortunes, prescribing remedies for animals of the farm such as cows and pigs, and recovering stolen property; such a life indeed as was the lot of a mediaeval "tramp.

When he got tired of his wandering life, he settled down in Salsburg, in , under the care and pro- tection of the Archbishop Ernst. But he did not long survive the prospect of rest; he died later in the same year. The cause of his death is not known with any certainty, but we can guess that he had clamorous enemies as well as strong uphold- ing from the conflicting causes given. Some said that he died from the effects of a protracted de- bauch, others that he was murdered by physicians and apothecaries, or their agents, who had thrown him over a cliff. Most impostors are after money or, in the case of Stanley Weyman, excitement.

For Ferdinand Demara, impersonation was about filling in gaps, picking up the pieces where a job was needed, whether he had the training for it or not. Not happy with where that was taking him, he decided to fake his own suicide in and assumed the name of Robert French, then began teaching college psychology at a Pennsylvania university.

Every now and then he would move to a different university position under a variety of names. Eventually, though, he was caught and given jail time—not for impersonating anyone, but for deserting the army years earlier. Out of jail and with the headlines of the Korean War plastered across newspapers, Demara decided to assume the name of an acquaintance, a surgeon named Joseph Cyr.

Unfortunately, he turned out to be the only surgeon on the ship, and ended up performing more than sixteen major surgeries—with no formal training. All of his patients recovered. George Dupre is an interesting case, in that his only real impersonation was of himself. However, the history he actually had and the history he claimed to have were so different that he inadvertently became one of the greatest Canadian war heroes in the years following WWII.

After the war ended, Dupre began traveling across Canada as a public speaker, describing his missions as a spy for the Special Operations Executive, a legendary espionage organization sometimes referred to as the Ministry of Ungentlemanly Warfare. Dupre wove intricate tales of life behind enemy lines in occupied Paris, working with the underground resistance to overthrow the Nazi Gestapo.

He described his harrowing experience as a prisoner of the Gestapo undergoing weeks of physical and psychological torture yet refusing to divulge any information. Except that none of it ever happened. With the fame from the book came testimonies from people who had actually served with Dupre in the war.

The truth was, Dupre spent the entire war behind a desk in London. It turned out that Dupre had just embellished a few stories for fun, and somehow the entire thing spiraled out of control. Aside from the fame though, Dupre never benefited from the book deal and the public talks—he donated all his proceeds to Scouts Canada. His biography was reclassified as fiction. Most of the impostors on this list got their start at a young age—few of them achieved notoriety before the age of twenty.

David Hampton is now considered one of the youngest successful con artists and impersonators, and his story has since been adapted into the play and film Six Degrees of Separation. In , at the age of nineteen, David Hampton tried to get into a Manhattan night club with a friend. Thus, an identity was born. Soon he began to target the wealthy citizens of Manhattan—including Calvin Klein and Gary Sinise, among others. Hampton would introduce himself as David Poitier , then make up a story about how he had been mugged and needed a place to stay until his father arrived the next day.

Christian Gerhartsreiter is a German who moved to the U. His plan worked—but not exactly in the normal sense. A mere eighteen years old with no money, no connections, and no legal visa to be in the States, he decided that the best thing to do would be to get married and obtain a green card through his wife. She agreed to marry him, but the day after the wedding Christian skipped out on the honeymoon and pointed his compass towards California, where his true calling lay.

The New York Times. Retrieved 22 April Retrieved October 13, Archived from the original on August 21, Der Spiegel in German. Civil War reality predates transgender debate". Retrieved 18 April Retrieved 18 December Archived from the original on Archived from the original on 1 February Retrieved 6 February Archived from the original on 6 June Retrieved 11 February Retrieved 4 April Retrieved August 15, Guardian News and Media Limited.

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