Feuerbach died before the case was resolved — before Hauser’s death, before the subsequent investigations, and long before any DNA analysis was conceivable. His conclusions were based on personal investigation, observation, and legal reasoning. The DNA study’s exclusion of the Baden prince theory does not directly engage with Feuerbach’s central argument about the nature of the crime; it engages only with the specific theory about Hauser’s identity that Feuerbach raised as a possible explanation.
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## The House of Baden’s Position
The refusal of the House of Baden to authorize testing of Stéphanie de Beauharnais’s remains has been a persistent feature of the DNA controversy since genetic testing of historical materials became possible.
The House of Baden’s position has been consistent: the theory that Kaspar Hauser was the hereditary prince has been rejected by historical scholarship, the documentary record does not support it, and the prince’s death in 1812 is well documented. There is no credible basis, in the House of Baden’s view, for treating the question as genuinely open, and participating in genetic investigations of dynastic remains for a theory that has already been historically discredited would be inappropriate.
This position is legally unassailable. The House of Baden has the right to refuse any such investigation. It is also, from the perspective of those who advocate the prince theory, deeply suspicious: if the theory were false, one might ask, what would there be to lose by allowing a test that would definitively refute it?
The question answers itself from both directions. If the House of Baden is confident the theory is false, there is still a reasonable institutional argument against participating in investigations of royal remains for theories that have been consistently rejected by scholars. If they were secretly uncertain — which is not a documented position, merely a speculative one — there would be reasons to refuse as well.