Posted on 12/07/2003 8:32:58 PM PST by blam
French historians end 200 years of debate on the heart pickled in a doctor's library
Jon Henley in Paris
Monday December 8, 2003
After years of painstaking research, French historians say they have solved one of the country's most enduring mysteries. They claim a pickled and shrunken heart that has roamed Europe for more than two centuries belonged to Louis XVII, the Boy King, son of Louis XVI and Marie-Antoinette. The culture minister, Jean-Jacques Aillagon, said yesterday the experts' verdict, based on historical analysis and DNA tests, meant the remains could be buried in France's royal crypt at Saint-Denis, north of Paris.
The announcement ended a long and often bitter debate about whether the heart was that of Louis XVII, who was thought to have died of tuberculosis on June 8 1795 after spending three years in a windowless room in Paris's Temple prison. He was10.
In a report to the minister, one leading historian, Jean Tulard, said: "This heart is undoubtedly that of a Hapsburg, and almost certainly that of Louis XVII. We can never be 100% sure, but this is about as sure as it gets."
Another expert, Philippe Delorme, went further, saying there was not "any doubt whatsoever" about the organ's origins.
"The burial must and will be a symbolic occasion," he said. "The long-overdue respect that the nation finally pays to this young boy, victim of such a tragic destiny, will represent our homage to all the innocent victims of adults' folly."
Louis, the youngest son of Louis XVI and Marie-Antoinette, was imprisoned with his parents in 1792 in the aftermath of the 1789 revolution. As the uncrowned king after his father's execution in January 1793, he endured three years of fear, humiliation, physical pain and revolutionary brainwashing.
When a child of his age died in the jail in 1795, a doctor who was at the post mortem smuggled the heart out in his hankie, plunged it into alcohol and stored it in an urn in his library.
The row over the pickled organ has raged ever since.
Two years ago DNA tests on a sliver of the heart and a lock of Marie-Antoinette's hair proved that the two were related - but nothing more.
Then historians traced the heart's every move around France and Spain over the past 200 years, and concluded that it was indeed that of the young boy who died in 1795, and that he was, beyond "any reasonable doubt", Louis XVII.
They say they have now settled the question - at least to the satisfaction of the culture ministry.
1 heart (cut into 4 pieces)
water to cover meat
1 tablespoon salt
2 cups dark vinegar
3/4 cup water
pepper
1 teaspoon salt (If you prefer, you can add more to taste)
1 Tablespoon pickling spice
Cook heart meat in salted water approximately 1 hour or until done.
Let it set overnight and eat. If you don't think you will eat it within a week, you can freeze it.
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