by Susan Flantzer © Unofficial Royalty 2019

Louis-Charles of France, given the title Duke of Normandy at birth, later became the Dauphin of France, and sometimes called King Louis XVII of France, was the younger of the two sons and the third of the four children of Louis XVI, King of France and Maria Antonia of Austria, better known as Marie Antoinette. He was born at the Palace of Versailles in France on March 27, 1785.

Louis-Charles had three siblings:

• Marie-Thérèse of France, Madame Royale (1778 – 1851), married her first cousin Louis-Antoine, Duke of Angoulême, no children
• Louis-Joseph-Xavier-François, Dauphin of France (1781 – 1789), died in childhood from tuberculosis
• Sophie-Hélène-Béatrix of France (1786 – 1787), died in infancy

Louis-Charles’ original governess was Yolande de Polastron, Duchess of Polignac but at the urging of King Louis XVI, she left France in July 1789, at the start of the French Revolution. Marquise Louise Élisabeth de Tourzel was her replacement, Agathe de Rambaud was Louis-Charles’ nurse and Jean-Baptiste Cléry was his valet. Louis-Charles was too young to have tutors appointed before the events of the French Revolution affected his family.  On June 4, 1789, Louis-Charles’ elder brother Louis-Joseph died from tuberculosis at age seven. Louis-Charles was then the heir to the throne and Dauphin of France.

Louis-Charles was four years old when the French Revolution started in 1789. Soon, his father King Louis XVI had lost much of his absolute power to the National Constituent Assembly. The majority of the French people saw no benefit in retaining the monarchy. A failed attempt to escape Paris in 1791 ended what little support was left for the monarchy and the royal family was held under house arrest at the Tuileries Palace in Paris. On June 20, 1792, a mob broke into the Tuileries Palace, threatening the royal family. Spared this time, their luck would run out two months later when another mob stormed the palace on August 10, 1792.

This time, the family sought refuge at the Legislative Assembly but were arrested several days later and imprisoned at the Temple, the remains of a medieval fortress in Paris. On September 21, 1792, France officially abolished the monarchy and became a republic. Marie Antoinette, her husband, and their family were stripped of their titles and honors, becoming known as Monsieur and Madame Capet. Louis XVI was soon separated from his family and charged with undermining the French Republic. He was tried, found guilty, and sentenced to death. The former King Louis XVI was executed by guillotine on January 21, 1793. Royalists recognized Louis XVI’s imprisoned son Louis-Charles as King Louis XVII of France.

On July 3, 1793, guards entered the royal family’s lodgings in the Temple and forcibly took away eight-year-old Louis-Charles. Remaining with his sister Marie-Thérèse were her mother Marie Antoinette and Élisabeth, Louis XVI’s youngest sister. When Marie Antoinette was taken to the Conciergerie for trial one month later, Marie-Thérèse was left in the care of her aunt Élisabeth. On October 16, 1793, Marie Antoinette was executed by the guillotine. Élisabeth was taken away on May 9, 1794, and executed the following day. Of all the royal prisoners in the Temple, Louis-Charles’ sister Marie-Thérèse was the only one to survive.

After being separated from his family, Louis-Charles was moved to a different floor in the Temple and placed in the care of shoemaker Antoine Simon and his wife. By order of the Committee of Public Safety, the de facto government during the Reign of Terror, the goal of the Simons was to transform Louis-Charles into an ordinary citizen and make him forget his royal status. Before his mother’s trial, Louis-Charles was forced to sign a statement that his mother had committed incest with him. On January 19, 1794, Simon and his wife were removed from their position and left the Temple. Later in the year, Simon was sent to the guillotine.

After the departure of the Simons, Louis-Charles was locked in a dark room, without any hygiene or help, for six months. His food was served through the bars of the door and few people even talked to him. These living conditions led to the rapid deterioration of his health. Finally, on July 27, 1794, Louis-Charles received a visitor, Paul Barras, a politician of the French Revolution and the main executive leader of the Directory regime of 1795–1799. Barras ordered that Louis-Charles be cleaned and clothed. His room was cleaned and he was given an attendant.

Although Louis-Charles’ living conditions improved, he was already ill with tuberculosis and died on June 8, 1795, at the age of ten. He was buried at the Cimetière Sainte-Marguerite in Paris in an unmarked grave. In 1846, a skull was found at the cemetery and it was thought to be that of Louis-Charles. However, an examination of the skull in 1894 revealed that it was the skull of an older teenager and Louis-Charles died aged only ten.

After Louis-Charles’ death, an autopsy was held. Following the tradition of preserving royal hearts, Louis-Charles’s heart was removed and smuggled out during the autopsy by Dr. Philippe-Jean Pelletan, a royalist, who then preserved the heart in alcohol.  After the Bourbon Restoration in 1815, Dr. Pellatan offered the heart to Louis-Charles’ paternal uncle King Louis XVIII but he refused because he could not bring himself to believe that it was the heart of his nephew. Following the July Revolution in 1830, Dr. Pelletan’s son found the heart in the remnants of a looted palace and placed it in the crystal urn where it still resides. After the death of Dr. Pelletan’s son in 1879, Eduard Dumont, a relative of Dr. Pelletan’s wife, took possession of the heart.

In 1895, Carlos, Duke of Madrid, the Legitimist claimant to the French throne under the name Charles XI, accepted the heart from Eduard Dumont. The heart was kept at Schloss Frohsdorf near Vienna, Austria. Upon the death of his father Carlos, Duke of Madrid in 1909, Jaime, Duke of Madrid, the next Legitimist claimant to the French throne, inherited the heart and gave it to his sister Beatriz.

During World War II, Schloss Frohsdorf suffered damage. The heart was rescued by descendants of Carlos, Duke of Madrid, and ultimately came into the possession of his granddaughter Princess Marie des Neiges Massimo. In 1975, the princess offered the heart to the Memorial of Saint-Denis in Paris, the organization that oversees the royal graves at the Basilica of St. Denis, the traditional burial site of the Kings of France and the French royal family. The heart was placed in an underground chapel at the basilica where the remains of French royals that were desecrated during the French Revolution were subsequently interred.

In 2004, DNA tests using mitochondrial DNA proved the heart really did belong to Louis-Charles. Comparison samples were taken from descendants of Marie Antoinette’s sisters, members of the Bourbon-Parma family including Queen Anne of Romania who was born a Princess of Bourbon-Parma, and a strand of Marie-Antoinette’s hair. With the approval of the French government, the Legitimists organized a ceremony at the Basilica of St. Denis on June 8, 2004, the 209th anniversary of Louis-Charles’ death. His heart was placed in a niche near the graves of his parents Louis XVI and Marie Antoinette whose remains were transferred to the basilica in 1815.

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Works Cited

• En.wikipedia.org. (2018). Louis XVII of France. [online] Available at: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Louis_XVII_of_France [Accessed 3 Nov. 2018].
• Fr.wikipedia.org. (2018). Louis XVII. [online] Available at: https://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Louis_XVII [Accessed 3 Nov. 2018].
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• Mehl, S. (2016). Maria Antonia of Austria, Queen of France (Marie Antoinette). [online] Unofficial Royalty. Available at: https://www.unofficialroyalty.com/maria-antonia-of-austria-queen-of-france-marie-antoinette/ [Accessed 2 Nov. 2018].
• The Lost King of France. (2002). New York: St. Martin’s Press.