I'm just ready to return a book to the library by Edward Rowe Snow. Evidently the French used embalming. I don't know if Bernadette's body was embalmed or not. They say not. There is a picture of the exhumed body of Adm. John Paul Jones in the book. He had been buried for more than a century. He died in France on July 18, 1792. He was buried by a benefactor in Paris and was embalmed. His features are still surprisingly recognizable. They exhumed the body, after difficulty in locating it, to be transported and reburied in the US.
His body, however, doesn't look like anything you would want to put on public display, however, unless significant reconstruction was done on it.
From "Tales of Terror and Tragedy" by Edward Rowe Snow.
eastsider: I've got a copy of the "Incorruptales" somewhere.
"Incorruptales" s/b "Incorruptibles".