The Lost King of France: The Tragic Story of Marie-Antoinette's Favourite Son

The Lost King of France: The Tragic Story of Marie-Antoinette's Favourite Son
Deborah Cadbury

‘This is history as it should be. It is stunningly written, I could not put it down. This is the best account of the French Revolution I have ever read.’ Alison Weir, author of ‘Henry VIII, King and Court’The fascinating, moving story of the brief life and many possible deaths of Louis XVII, son of Marie-Antoinette.Louis-Charles Bourbon 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. Two years later, following the brutal execution of both his parents, the Revolutionary leaders declared Louis XVII was dead. No grave was dug, no monument built to mark his passing.Immediately, rumours 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. In time, his older sister, Marie-Therese, who survived the Revolution, was approached by countless 'brothers' who claimed not only his name, but also his inheritance. Several 'Princes' were plausible, but which, if any, was the real Louis-Charles?Deborah Cadbury’s ‘The Lost King of France’ is a moving and dramatic story which conclusively reveals the identity of the young prince who was lost in the tower.Note that it has not been possible to include the same picture content that appeared in the original print version.

THE

LOST KING

OF FRANCE

THE TRAGIC STORY OFMARIE-ANTOINETTE’S FAVOURITE SON

Deborah Cadbury

Contents

Cover (#u202e9383-6474-5632-a0a4-0ea5458095c4)

Title Page (#u7ee6f301-7c11-5eb6-9b9f-42f473e15b86)

Introduction (#u32049b0b-0436-528f-bc76-c8f9b8668e6b)

PART ONE (#u6063ffca-9f5a-52bd-88c0-42c3d8947ca4)

1 ‘The Finest Kingdom in Europe’ (#u0e9485f2-f09b-5c21-9b3a-e5a02a449c2f)

2 ‘Grâce pour Maman’ (#u0d0b40dc-a2bd-5ba2-af2b-de463a48a057)

3 The Tuileries (#u1bb66c71-4960-5f12-88d4-d4d3330a7ae6)

4 ‘God Himself has Forsaken Me’ (#litres_trial_promo)

5 The Young Sans Culotte (#litres_trial_promo)

6 The Orphan of the Temple (#litres_trial_promo)

PART TWO (#litres_trial_promo)

7 Farce and Fraud (#litres_trial_promo)

8 Return of the Lilies (#litres_trial_promo)

9 The Shadow King (#litres_trial_promo)

10 The Royal Charade (#litres_trial_promo)

11 Resolution (#litres_trial_promo)

Acknowledgements (#litres_trial_promo)

Notes on Sources (#litres_trial_promo)

Bibliography (#litres_trial_promo)

Index (#litres_trial_promo)

About the Author (#litres_trial_promo)

Praise (#litres_trial_promo)

Copyright (#litres_trial_promo)

About the Publisher (#litres_trial_promo)

INTRODUCTION: THE HEART OF STONE (#ulink_529c5def-254d-577f-b76a-52e42b0eb979)

At certain revolutions all the

Damned are brought and feel

By turns the bitter change

Of fierce extremes

John Milton, Paradise Lost (1667)

From the portrait by Alexandre Kucharski, Louis-Charles, Duc de Normandie looks out confidently on the world with large blue eyes in a sensitive face framed by fair hair; the perfect storybook prince. His life had begun in 1785, four years before the French revolution, and his early years had been spent safely cocooned in the gilded palace of Versailles near Paris. At the age of four, on the death of his older brother, he had become the royal heir, the Dauphin, in whose small frame was centred all the hopes of the continuing Bourbon dynasty that had sat on the French throne since the sixteenth century. With his good looks and sunny nature he was a much-loved child, Marie-Antoinette’s treasured little chou d’amour.

However, this charmed childhood, played out in the elegantly ornamental but closeted walkways of Versailles, led only to a life of mounting terror as he was, all too soon, encompassed by the fierce extremes of the revolution. When his father, Louis XVI, and then his mother, Marie-Antoinette, were taken from him and executed at the guillotine in 1793, the ‘orphan of the Temple prison’ inherited not only a throne but also the hostility and hatred of a nation. Confused and terrified by events, the ‘wolf-cub’ or ‘son of a tyrant’ – as he was now known – was isolated in solitary confinement, taught to forget his royal past and punished for the errors and extravagances of his ancestors. Forbidden to see his older sister, Marie-Thérèse, the only other surviving member of his immediate family, the boy-king became the victim of brutal physical and emotional abuse in his filthy, rat-infested cell. He was thought to have died in the Temple prison in Paris at the age of ten, unrecognisable as the royal prince, his body covered with scabies and ulcers.

In 1795, when leaders of the French revolution announced his death, rumours immediately began to circulate that he was still alive. Many were convinced that he had been spirited out of the prison by royalist supporters and had escaped to safety abroad, ready to reclaim the throne. After all, there was no tomb to mark his official burial site; his death certificate, drawn up by revolutionary officials, was widely believed to be a forgery; one official’s wife even admitted that she had helped to smuggle him from the prison in a laundry basket, leaving a dying substitute child in his place.

In 1816, after the restoration of the royal line to the throne, when the bodies of his parents, Marie-Antoinette and Louis XVI, were found and reburied in the royal crypt at Saint Denis in Paris, plans were also made to honour the supposedly dead child-king. A tomb was designed; the inscription for it was even composed:

TO THE MEMORY

OF

LOUIS XVII

WHO,

AFTER HAVING SEEN HIS BELOVED PARENTS

REMOVED BY A DEATH

WHICH SORROW SHRINKS FROM RECALLING,

AND HAVING DRAINED TO THE DREGS