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    The Lost King of France: How DNA Solved the Mystery of the Murdered Son of Louis XVI and Marie Antoinette
    The Lost King of France: How DNA Solved the Mystery of the Murdered Son of Louis XVI and Marie Antoinette
    The Lost King of France: How DNA Solved the Mystery of the Murdered Son of Louis XVI and Marie Antoinette
    Audiobook12 hours

    The Lost King of France: How DNA Solved the Mystery of the Murdered Son of Louis XVI and Marie Antoinette

    Written by Deborah Cadbury

    Narrated by Jennifer M. Dixon

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    About this audiobook

    Louis-Charles, Duc de Normandie, enjoyed a charmed early childhood in the gilded palace of Versailles. At the age of four, he became the dauphin, heir to the most powerful throne in Europe. Yet within five years he was to lose everything. Drawn into the horror of the French Revolution, his family was incarcerated and their fate thrust into the hands of the revolutionaries who wished to destroy the monarchy.

    In 1793, when Marie Antoinette was beheaded at the guillotine, she left her adored eight-year-old son imprisoned in the Temple Tower. Far from inheriting a throne, the orphaned boy-king had to endure the hostility and abuse of a nation. Two years later, the revolutionary leaders declared Louis XVII dead. No grave was dug, no monument built to mark his passing.

    Immediately, rumors spread that the prince had, in fact, escaped from prison and was still alive. Others believed that he had been murdered, his heart cut out and preserved as a relic. As with the tragedies of England's princes in the Tower and the Romanov archduchess Anastasia, countless "brothers" soon approached Louis-Charles's older sister, Marie-Therese, who survived the revolution. They claimed not only the dauphin's name, but also his inheritance. Several "princes" were plausible, but which, if any, was the real heir to the French throne?
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherTantor Media, Inc
    Release dateDec 3, 2019
    ISBN9781515947578
    Author

    Deborah Cadbury

    Deborah Cadbury is the award-winning TV science producer for the BBC, including Horizon for which she won an Emmy . She is also the highly-acclaimed author of ‘The Seven Wonders of the Industrial World’, ‘The Feminisation of Nature’, ‘The Dinosaur Hunters’, ‘The Lost King of France’ and ‘Space Race’.

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    Reviews for The Lost King of France

    4/5

    83 ratings8 reviews

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    • 5/5
      Before starting this, I suspected to read the usual history of Louis XVI and Marie Antoinette, with the odd reference to their son, the uncrowned Louis XVII. Yet once we pass Louis XVI and Marie Antoinette’s executions – or murders, as I consider them – we have much more focus on their unfortunate son.The treatment this little boy endured during Revolutionary France was the stuff nightmares are made of. Imagine being nine or ten years old, locked in a small room with no toys, books, or any form of occupation; with no visitors, except for rats attracted to the smell of human waste; imagine living in that room among that human waste for eight months and you have an idea of that little boy’s never-ending horror.The narrative continues after poor Louis XVII’s death. His sister did survive the Reign of Terror, but for the rest of her life she endured the mental torture of men claiming to be her brother – claiming they escaped and that the boy who died was an imposter. Over 100 pretender came forward as Louis, some of whom were convincing, one in particular. I won’t delve any further here to avoid spoilers, but it makes for fascinating reading.The DNA angle comes in towards the end of the book. I’m not a lover of forensic science, but the material here is fascinating and easy to follow. The results were revealed to the public several years ago, but I knew nothing of this, so reading about it was highly intriguing. I’ve read a lot about Louis XVI and Marie Antoinette, and a couple of books on their daughter, but knew virtually nothing about Louis XVII, which made this an engrossing read for me.
    • 4/5
      Author Deborah Cadbury is a science journalist, but The Lost King of France doesn’t have any of the flaws I usually associate with science journalism; no interviews, no attempts to “tell both sides of the story”, no obligatory references to global warming. Instead this is a nice, well-told, straightforward history of the short life and long postmortem adventures of Louis-Charles, second son and third child of Marie Antoinette and Louis XVI. Louis-Charles was seven years old when he and his family were rounded up and imprisoned by the Revolution; eight when his father and mother were guillotined and he became Louis XVII; and ten when he died in a prison cell, mute, verminous, and terrified. Doctor Pellatan, performing the autopsy, did something a little odd; while the guards weren’t looking, he extracted the heart, wrapped it in a handkerchief, and put it in his pocket. The body was sewed up and buried in an unmarked grave.
      That was in 1795. The first impostor showed up in 1797. However the bumper crop didn’t really come in until after the Napoleonic Wars. Over 100 people eventually claimed to be Louis XVII. There stories were usually similar; they had been smuggled out of captivity by Royalists; either the Royalists smuggled in a sickly deaf-mute to replace them or the Revolutionaries, embarrassed at having lost their prize chess piece, substituted one. They then went into hiding – often in America – until ready to return and claim the throne, or at least the wealth that went with it. Some were quite convincing, supposedly knowing things about Versailles that only a genuine Dauphin would know. The authorities generally let them be; now and then when one became too obstreperous they were put on trial for fraud; in one case a Dauphin in the dock was interrupted by a man who marched into the courtroom and announced “You’re not the Dauphin! I’m the Dauphin!” Not having seen Spartacus, the rest of the courtroom missed the opportunity to jump up and shout “No! I am the Dauphin!”. Mark Twain was amused enough to include “The Duke and the Dauphin” chapter in Huckleberry Finn; some time later Baroness Orczy had the Scarlett Pimpernel rescue the Dauphin and smuggle him off to Holland. One of the strangest Dauphin candidates was Karl Wilhelm Naundorff, a Leipzig clockmaker who couldn’t even speak French. Despite this, he was convincing enough that several members of the nobility who had known the actual Dauphin believed in him (although none of the remaining royal family did). He made his way to France, then England (where he was imprisoned for debt), then Holland, where he became ill and died in 1845. For some unknown reason the Dutch authorities had bought his story – Cadbury suspects they wanted to ruffle French feathers - thus his death certificate read “Charles-Louis de Bourbon, born Versailles 1785”. This allowed Naundorff’s descendants to argue for years that their claim was officially recognized.
      The Dauphin’s heart has an equally strange story. As mentioned, it was last seen in the pocket of Dr. Pellatan. He brought it home and put it in a jar of alcohol on a shelf. The alcohol eventually evaporated and the heart dried up; Pellatan kept it in his desk drawer. A student stole it; when he died some years later he made a deathbed confession and the heart was returned to Pellatan. He tried to present it to King Louis XVIII, who turned it down; then to the Dauphin’s sister, who also turned it down (Cadbury doesn’t speculate why; I assume she was getting so tired of fraudulent brothers showing up she didn’t want any part of one). Pellatan took the heart back home; when he was old and ill he persuaded the Archbishop of Paris to accept it – just in time for the Archbishop’s palace to be ransacked in the 1830 Revolution. Dr. Pellatan’s son searched the palace ruins, found the heart, and stashed it away. When he died in 1879 his executor once again attempted to return it to the Bourbon family, who once again declined it. It went through the hands of several Pellatan relatives until Don Carlos de Bourbon, Duke of Madrid, finally agreed to take it off their hands in 1895. It was deposited amidst other family relics in the Chateau de Frohsdorf in Austria, where it rested in peace until 1945 – when it encountered the Red Army and was thought to be lost again. However, it turned out it had been rescued from the advancing Reds at the last minute by Princess Marie-de-Neiges Massimo, from the Spanish Bourbons, who eventually returned it to France in 1975, and it ended up with other French royal remains at St. Denis.
      In 2000, it was decided the heart would be a suitable target for DNA testing. Various locks of hair and other bits and pieces from the Hapsburgs and Karl Wilhelm Naundorff were available (since they were doing mitochondrial DNA, only Marie-Antoinette’s side of the family was relevant). The testing was done by two independent labs – neither in France, to avoid charges of bias – and it turned out that yes, within the limits of probability, this was the heart of a son of Marie Antoinette – and Karl Wilhelm Naundorff was not. The Naundorff family hasn’t given up yet, of course, but everybody else is convinced.
      A good story, well told. Could maybe use some illustrations, and the index was sparse.
    • 5/5
      A gift from a fellow LTer this book was sent to me as she knew I was, and remain, a francophile. I am not an avid historian nor am I especially knowledgeable with regards to 18th century France. However this book captivated me and was hard to put down. At times reading rather like a detective story whilst at others social history this was a fascinating account of the life and troubled times of Louis XVI and his family. From the 18th century the reader is led on a journey to the present day when the mystery of the Dauphin or the prince in the tower is to some extent resolved through scientific avenues. Deborah Cadbury has thoroughly researched this whole story and has compiled copious notes on her sources for each chapter. Yet she writes without pretence or academic superiority and so the story is accessible and the reader is drawn into the life and times of the ill fated son of Louis XVI. Once again the reader is witness to man's inhumanity to man as he lays claim to wealth and power - this time that inhumanity is directed at a young boy and his sister amongst others yet the author does not dwell ghoulishly upon these aspects of the period. Rather the reader is left to ponder the violence of the period and reflect upon the motivation that drove men to such barbarous acts. Overall an excellent and highly recommended read.
    • 5/5
      I read The Lost King of France: A True Story of Revolution, Revenge, and DNA when it first came out and to this day, I'm still haunted by details of Louis-Charles, Duc de Normandie's tragic life. Never have I read a more compelling, and heart wrenching part of history. It's one of those books you never forget. I had a hard time putting this engrossing account of Louis-Charles mysterious life and death, down. Even though I knew the results of the findings of the DNA in advance, Deborah Cadbury's absorbing investigated work and well documented historical account kept me on the edge of my seat until the very end. This tragic tale of Louis-Charles will stay with me for a long, long time.
    • 2/5
      This book wasn't what I expected, really. I guess I was focused on the subtitle - "How DNA solved the mystery of the murdered son of Louis XVI and Marie Antoinette." However, that was only about the last 1/4 of the book. The first part was all about the French Revolution and Marie Antoinette and Louis XVI.Wow, some of this was tough to read. The details of what the Royal family endured were horrific. Just reading about the crazy mobs and their bloodlust was disgusting. A very sad insight into human nature - just as the king was trying to make things more just and fair for the masses, they arrest him.I had no idea of what the little prince suffered and as a mother, I found it completely despicable that anyone would treat a child, any child, in just a cruel and inhuman way. I know that abuse happens, of course, but to know that so many people knew what was going on and none of them did anything, that is really disturbing.The last part was interesting though. I can recommend it, but it really is only in part about science. Most of it is history, and very sad history at that.
    • 5/5
      I read this book several years ago, but I had to add it because I couldn't put it down! The book was a great combination of a story of history and then a current-day detective novel.
    • 5/5
      As a follow-up to The Black Tower (see below) Deborah Cadbury's excellent history of the dauphin, Louis Charles, is perfect. As mentioned below, there was a great deal of mystery surrounding the fate of Louis Charles (King Louis XVII), the son of Louis XVI and Marie Antoinette. This led to literally dozens of pretenders over the years and only in 2000 was there a definitive answer regarding the child's death.The major portion of the book recounts the history of the royal family up to their final incarceration and deaths during The Terror. After Louis XVI was beheaded, his son was taken from his mother and sister, never to see them again. He was imprisoned separately and mistreated horrifically. Charles was beaten, given much to drink, taught to swear and otherwise act in a way totally foreign to his upbringing. The desire was to blot out every vestige of royalty from his behavior. At one point the eight or nine year old was forced to attest to deviant sexual behavior on the part of his mother and aunt. This testimony was instrumental in a conviction and death sentence for both of them. They were probably doomed anyway but it was a further torture to both of them to imagine what must have been done to cause the child to accuse them.The balance of the book recounts events surrounding Charles' death, the many cases of pretenders and their wild stories, and, finally, the scientific research which led to a satisfactory answer regarding the death of the child.There was much secrecy surrounding Charles' death and he had been seen by very few people after his separation from his family. There was no grave, no marker and conflicting reports of how he died. There was an autopsy, however, and one of the doctors came away with the child's heart. It was this organ which ultimately provided the proof that there had been no escape for the poor child as many had supposed. The heart itself had many adventures before coming to its final resting place. The last stop but one was to be used for DNA testing. It was this test which proved beyond a doubt that Charles had died in misery and filth in 1795. The story is told so well that it reads like fiction, but is not. If you find yourself interested in this subject Cadbury's book is an excellent starting point.
    • 4/5
      Cadbury blends modern science and forensics with narrative history in this exploration of the progeny of Louis XVI and Marie Antoinette. Mondern day descendants of claimants to royal lineage are subjected to DNA testing in order to determine the physical veracity of the claims.