One of the most intriguing mysteries in French history will be put to rest today when the heart of Louis XVII, child heir to the throne, is buried 209 years after his death in the royal crypt outside Paris.
European royals are expected to attend the funeral at the Saint-Denis basilica north of Paris, when the tiny organ kept in a crystal vase will be laid to rest near the remains of his parents, Louis XVI and Marie-Antoinette.
Louis-Charles, the so-called "lost dauphin" who would have reigned as Louis XVII, died at the age of 10 on June 8, 1795, in the French capital's Temple prison, with tuberculosis the official cause.
But his death has been the source of rumors and speculation for more than two centuries, with historians musing about the would-be king's fate until DNA tests proved the heart belonged to a Hapsburg, like Marie-Antoinette.
It's no small wonder that the death led to controversy: Louis XVII's heart was cut from his body, preserved, stolen, recovered and passed around for centuries before finding its way back to France.
Louis XVII was imprisoned with his parents and his sister in 1792 during the French Revolution. Once his parents were sent to the guillotine, Louis and his sister were separated, with the heir confined to a cramped, windowless cell.
Upon his death, the body of the child was ditched in a mass grave, but the doctor who performed the autopsy first cut out his heart and kept it in an alcohol-filled vase on his bookshelves.
He boasted of his possession to one of his students, who swiped the prize. Years later, after the thief died of tuberculosis himself, his widow returned the heart to the doctor.
The physician tried for many years to return the heart to members of the Bourbon family but was thwarted by royal squabbles. Louis XVII's remains finally found their way to the Spanish Bourbons, and eventually back to France.
Some historians and conspiracy theorists have seized on the amazing journey of the heart to argue that maybe it did not belong to Louis XVII after all, suggesting that instead of dying in prison, he had escaped or been spirited out of France to safety, and that the heart belonged to another child.
In the 19th century, several pretenders to the throne surfaced, including a German clockmaker named Karl Wilhelm Naundorff. Although he never claimed it himself, many thought US naturalist John James Audubon was the long-lost heir.
In 2000, scientists conducted DNA tests to put the rumors to rest. Result: the heart indeed belonged to a descendant of Marie-Antoinette.
Those who wanted to keep the "lost dauphin" myth alive argued that the heart could belong to Louis-Xavier-Joseph, Louis XVII's older brother who died in 1789.
But the heart of the older brother had been properly embalmed according to royal custom, while the one that had been examined -- that of Louis XVII -- had not. For historians, the debate was over.
"This is a way to give this child-martyr, who passed away in tragic circumstances and around whom mystery swirled for more than 200 years, a proper death," said Charles-Emmanuel de Bourbon-Parme, one of Louis XVII's relatives.
On Monday, the urn containing the heart -- which has been on display for 20 years at the Saint-Denis basilica -- will be transported to the Saint Germain l'Auxerrois church near the Louvre, once the royal parish, for a requiem mass.
Some 500 VIPs are expected to attend today's funeral mass at Saint-Denis, followed by the burial. Avid royal watchers not on the guest list can watch the ceremonies on two big-screen televisions outside the basilica.
Indonesia was to sign an agreement to repatriate two British nationals, including a grandmother languishing on death row for drug-related crimes, an Indonesian government source said yesterday. “The practical arrangement will be signed today. The transfer will be done immediately after the technical side of the transfer is agreed,” the source said, identifying Lindsay Sandiford and 35-year-old Shahab Shahabadi as the people being transferred. Sandiford, a grandmother, was sentenced to death on the island of Bali in 2013 after she was convicted of trafficking drugs. Customs officers found cocaine worth an estimated US$2.14 million hidden in a false bottom in Sandiford’s suitcase when
‘MOTHER’ OF THAILAND: In her glamorous heyday in the 1960s, former Thai queen Sirikit mingled with US presidents and superstars such as Elvis Presley The year-long funeral ceremony of former Thai queen Sirikit started yesterday, with grieving royalists set to salute the procession bringing her body to lie in state at Bangkok’s Grand Palace. Members of the royal family are venerated in Thailand, treated by many as semi-divine figures, and lavished with glowing media coverage and gold-adorned portraits hanging in public spaces and private homes nationwide. Sirikit, the mother of Thai King Vajiralongkorn and widow of the nation’s longest-reigning monarch, died late on Friday at the age of 93. Black-and-white tributes to the royal matriarch are being beamed onto towering digital advertizing billboards, on
CAUSE UNKNOWN: Weather and runway conditions were suitable for flight operations at the time of the accident, and no distress signal was sent, authorities said A cargo aircraft skidded off the runway into the sea at Hong Kong International Airport early yesterday, killing two ground crew in a patrol car, in one of the worst accidents in the airport’s 27-year history. The incident occurred at about 3:50am, when the plane is suspected to have lost control upon landing, veering off the runway and crashing through a fence, the Airport Authority Hong Kong said. The jet hit a security patrol car on the perimeter road outside the runway zone, which then fell into the water, it said in a statement. The four crew members on the plane, which
POWER ABUSE WORRY: Some people warned that the broad language of the treaty could lead to overreach by authorities and enable the repression of government critics Countries signed their first UN treaty targeting cybercrime in Hanoi yesterday, despite opposition from an unlikely band of tech companies and rights groups warning of expanded state surveillance. The new global legal framework aims to bolster international cooperation to fight digital crimes, from child pornography to transnational cyberscams and money laundering. More than 60 countries signed the declaration, which means it would go into force once ratified by those states. UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres described the signing as an “important milestone,” and that it was “only the beginning.” “Every day, sophisticated scams destroy families, steal migrants and drain billions of dollars from our economy...
RSS