(photo, left) skull of Henry IV, taken in 1933. Scientists identify head of France’s King Henry IV (Associated Press, 12/14/2010). [http://www.nbcnews.] London -After nine months of tests, researchers in France have identified the head of France’s King Henry IV, who was assassinated in 1610 at the age of 57. The scientific tests helped identify the late monarch’s embalmed head, which was shuffled between private collections since it disappeared during the French Revolution in 1793. The results of the research identifying Henry IV’s head were published online Wednesday in the medical journal BMJ.
Henry IV was buried in the Basilica of Saint Denis near Paris, but during the frenzy of the French Revolution, the royal graves were dug up and revolutionaries chopped off Henry’s head, which was then snatched.
(Philippe Charlier, a forensic medical examiner of University Hospital R Poincare in Garches, France, led the team) tan a battery of forensic tests on King Henry IV’s head… they found features often seen in the king’s portraits, including a dark lesion above his right nostril. They also found a healed bone fracture above his upper left jaw, which matched a stab wound the king suffered during an assassination attempt in 1594. Radiocarbon testing confirmed the head dated from the 17th century…
(researchers) also created a digital facial reconstruction and ran computer tomography scans which showed the skull was consistent with all known portraits of Henry IV and the plaster mold made of his face just after his death… “without DNA proof it is had to say absolutely who it is”... Next year, France will hold a national Mass and funeral for Henry IV. His head will then be reburied alongside the rest of the country’s former kings and queens, in the Basilica of Saint Denis.
*
*Basilica of St. Denis [https://en.wikipedia.], Paris, France -”royal necropolis of France” (where the kings of France were buried for centuries)
In 2004 the mummified heart of the Dauphin, the boy who would have been Louis XVII, was sealed into the wall of the crypt.
Louis XVII [https://en.wikipedia.], was imprisoned from Aug. 1792 until his death 6/8/1795 (age 10). He was buried in the Sainte Marguerite cemetery, no stone was erected to mark the spot. Following a tradition of preserving royal hearts, Louis-Charles’s heart was removed and smuggled out during the autopsy by the overseeing physician, Philippe-Jean Pelletan. Thus, his heart was not interred with the rest of the body. Dr. Pelletan stored the smuggled heart in distilled wine in order to preserve it. However, after 8 to 10 years the distilled wine had evaporated, and the heart was further kept dry. After the Restoration in 1815, Dr. Pelletan donated the heart to the Archbishop of Paris, Hyacinthe-Louis de Quelen.
Following the Revolution of 1830, and the plundering of the palace, the son of Pelletan found the relic in the remnants of the palace and placed it in the crystal urn, in which it still resides today. After his death in 1879, Eduard Dumont received the heart. In 1895, the nephew of the Archduchess Maria Theresa of Austria-Este, Don Carlos de Bourbon, a pretender to the throne of Spain accepted the relic from a friend of Eduard Dumont, Paul Cottin. The relic was held near Vienna, Austria at the castle of Frohsdorf. The son of Carlos, Jaime, Duke of Madrid, in 1909 inherited the heart, and gave it to his sister, Beatriz. Finally two granddaughters of Don Carlos offered the heart to the president of the Memorial of Saint-Denis in Paris, Duc de Bauffremont, where he put the heart and its crystal urn in the necropolis of the Kings of France, the burial place of Louis-Charles’s parents and other members of the French royal family.
In Dec. 1999, public notaries witnessed a section of the heart muscle of the aorta removed from the rest of the heart, and the transfer of the samples into a sealed envelope, and then the opening of the sealed envelop in the laboratory to be tested. Scientists using DNA samples from Queen Anna of Romania, and her brother Andre de Bourbon-Parme maternal relatives of Louis XVII. French Legitimists organized the heart’s burial in the Basilica 6/8/2004, next to the remains of his parents.
*
Louis XVI [https://en.wikipedia.] was the last King of France before the French Revolution; he was guillotined 1/21/1793. The first part of his reign was marked by attempts to reform France in accordance with Enlightenment ideas, i.e. abolish serfdom, remove the taille (direct land tax on the French peasantry and non-nobles), and increase tolerance toward non-Catholics. Burial, his severed head placed between his feet, was buried in an unmarked grave, with quicklime (to aid in the dissolving of the remains) spread over his body. Note: while Louis’s blood dripped to the ground, several onlookers ran forward to dip their handkerchiefs in it. This account was proven true in 2012, after DNA comparison linked blood thought to be from Louis XVI’s beheading to DNA taken from tissue samples originating from what was long thought to be the mummified head of Henry IV of France. The blood sample was taken from a squash gourd carved to commemorate the heroes of the French Revolution that had, according to legend, been used to house one of the handkerchiefs dipped in Louis’s blood.
*
Related Blog Posts
|
Related Blog Posts
*BP: Burial Customs in Ancient Times. http://historicalandmisc.
No comments:
Post a Comment
Note: Only a member of this blog may post a comment.