The stolen infant, in this account, was the future Kaspar Hauser. He was raised in hiding — the conditions he described — and eventually deposited in Nuremberg as a teenager because, perhaps, the people responsible for concealing him either could no longer maintain the secret or chose at some point to release him.
The theory’s circumstantial supports were taken seriously for a long time. The timing aligned: Hauser appeared in 1828 at an estimated age of sixteen, which would place his birth in approximately 1812. His physical appearance was noted by some observers as resembling the Baden family’s features. The Grand Duchess Stéphanie herself reportedly expressed strong interest in Hauser and was said, by those who promoted the theory, to have privately believed he was her son.
The theory had weaknesses from the beginning. Official records of the infant prince’s baptism, autopsy, and burial existed and had been examined. A historian named Otto Mittelstädt published a detailed refutation of the Baden prince theory in 1876, using those official records to demonstrate that the documented history of the infant’s death was not consistent with the substitution account. Letters published in 1951 added to the documentation against the theory. The House of Baden itself consistently rejected the theory and refused to participate in investigations that might require opening the remains of Stéphanie de Beauharnais for genetic testing.
None of these refutations fully resolved the question for those committed to the theory, partly because the most direct test — DNA from Stéphanie de Beauharnais’s remains — was never performed. That gap kept the debate technically open in a way that allowed it to persist long after the documentary case against the theory was substantial.