Cecil’s column on the lost Dauphin should have been updated. A heart long said to have belonged to Louis-Charles – stolen by the doctor who performed the 1795 autopsy – was identified as sharing DNA with Marie Antoinette in 2000. (The history of the heart for the last two centuries is decidedly lurid, with plenty of opportunities for a switch, but since it apparently is authentic, no switch seems to have been performed.)
The heart was officially interred in the royal crypt at the Saint Denis Basilica on June 8 of this year.
Yes, I remember seeing a Discovery channel special regarding this case. DNA was obtained from a hair from Marie Antoinette’s hairbrush, and compared to DNA taken from the Dauphin’s heart. The test proved that the heart had belonged to a relative of Marie Antoinette, and who else could this be but little Louis-Charles?
An article on the Dauphin’s funeral: here.
Argh, you’re right.
I’ll pass this up the pipeline and see if we can get an update.
As we work through the backlog of classics and republish them on the site, this sort of thing is bound to happen from time to time.
Sorry about that.
your humble TubaDiva
Administrator
I’m surprised to be the first person to mention
The Lost King of France: How DNA Solved the Mystery of the Murdered Son of Louis XVI and Marie Antoinette by Deborah Cadbury.
This is an intriguing work of non-fiction that will give more information on the how the heart of the dauphin was identified and what happened to him during his captivity. It’s not for the faint-hearted, the treatment of the dauphin by his captors is rather stomach-turning.
Now when I think of France I think of their bloodthirsty Revolution & the horrific conditions under which the prince was jailed.
It’s hard to believe that anything of the dauphin’s survived for so long.
Congrats, John W, your post has made it to the Big Time and is featured in Cecil’s column for today" Is iceberg lettuce a drug? plus: An update on the “Lost Dauphin.”
. Well, OK, not precisely “featured,” it’s got second billing, but let’s not split hairs. Fame is fame. Congrats!
If you split hairs, can they still be used for DNA tests?
(Oh, yeah - Congrats as well, John W.. 
)
I was busy today at the Rutgers library collating the text of William Dunlap’s André (the first American tragedy on an American subject – well, actually, John André was a British subject, pa-dum-pum, thank you Dr. Johnson), so I didn’t get around to The Straight Dope until I got home, where my wife greeted me with the news.
Cool! Is this my promised 15 minutes?