Presumed Royal Heart Given Funeral Rites
From Times Wire Reports
French royalists staged a funeral in Saint-Denis for a tiny, rock-hard relic hailed as the heart of Louis XVII, who died in prison in 1795 at age 10.
A crystal vase containing the heart was taken to the Saint- Denis Basilica. There it was placed in a royal crypt containing the remains of Louis XVII’s parents, Marie-Antoinette and Louis XVI, who were beheaded during the French Revolution.
DNA tests convinced many historians that the relic was truly the royal heart.
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