Editing Louis XVII (section)

==== Heart of Louis-Charles ====
[[File:Coeur de Louis Charles de France (Louis XVII).jpg|thumb|Heart of Louis XVII inside a crystal urn, now buried at St Denis]]
Following a [[Heart-burial|tradition of preserving royal hearts]], Louis-Charles's heart was removed and smuggled out during the autopsy by the overseeing physician, [[Philippe-Jean Pelletan]]. Thus, Louis-Charles' heart was not interred with the rest of the body. Dr. Pelletan stored the smuggled heart in distilled wine in order to preserve it. However, after 8 to 10 years the distilled wine had evaporated, and the heart was from that time kept dry.

After the [[Bourbon Restoration in France|Restoration]] in 1815, Dr. Pelletan attempted to give the heart to Louis-Charles's uncle, [[Louis XVIII]]; the latter refused because he could not bring himself to believe that it was the heart of his nephew. Dr. Pelletan then donated the heart to the [[Archbishop of Paris]], [[Hyacinthe-Louis de Quélen]]. Following the [[July Revolution|Revolution of 1830]], and the plundering of the [[Archbishop's Palace of Paris]], Pelletan's son Philippe-Gabriel found the relic among the ruins and placed it in the crystal urn in which it is still kept today. After the younger Pelletan's death in 1879, it passed to Édouard Dumont.

It was later offered to [[Carlos, Duke of Madrid]] in 1895, a pretender to the throne of France and Spain, nephew (both biological and in-law) of the Archduchess [[Archduchess Maria Theresa of Austria-Este (1817–1886)|Maria Theresa of Austria-Este]]. The offer was accepted and the relic was held near [[Vienna]] at [[Schloss Frohsdorf]]. In 1909, Carlos's son, [[Jaime, Duke of Madrid]], inherited the heart, and gave it to his sister, Beatriz de Borbón (1874–1961),<ref name=":1" /><ref name=":2" /> wife of [[Massimo family|Prince Fabrizio Massimo (1868–1944)]], and in 1938, to their daughter Maria della Neve, wife of Charles Piercy.<ref>{{cite web|url=http://histoiredefranceactu.over-blog.fr/article-64400964.html|title=la science au secours de l'histoire|author=messire62|work=histoiredefancescience|date=6 January 2011 }}</ref><ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.memorialdefrance.org/page23a.html|title=Cottin|publisher=|access-date=19 May 2015|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20130625231743/http://www.memorialdefrance.org/page23a.html|archive-date=25 June 2013|url-status=dead}}</ref>

Finally Maria della Neve offered the heart to [[Jacques de Bauffremont]], president of the Memorial of the [[Basilica of St Denis]] in Paris. He in turn put the heart and its crystal urn in the basilica's necropolis of the Kings of France, the burial place of Louis-Charles's parents and other members of the [[Capetian dynasty|French royal family]].
There it rested undisturbed until December 1999, when public notaries witnessed the removal of a section of the muscle of the heart's aorta and its transfer into a sealed envelope, and subsequently the opening of the same sealed envelope in the laboratory for it to be tested.

It was in 2000 that the [[historian]] [[Philippe Delorme]] arranged for [[DNA testing]] of the heart as well as bone samples from one of the many historical claimants to Louis-Charles's identity, namely [[Karl Wilhelm Naundorff]], a German clockmaker. Ernst Brinkmann of [[Münster University]] and Belgian genetics professor Jean-Jacques Cassiman of the [[Katholieke Universiteit Leuven]], conducted [[mitochondrial DNA]] tests using a strand of the hair of the boy's mother, [[Marie Antoinette]], and other samples from her sisters [[Archduchess Maria Johanna Gabriela of Austria|Maria Johanna Gabriela]] and [[Archduchess Maria Josepha of Austria|Maria Josepha]], their mother, Empress [[Maria Theresa]], and two living direct descendants in the strict maternal line of Maria Theresa, namely [[Queen Anne of Romania]] and her brother, Prince André of Bourbon-Parma, maternal relatives of Louis XVII. The tests proved both that Naundorff was not the dauphin, and the heart was that of Louis-Charles.

Of these results, historian [[Jean Tulard]] wrote: "This [mummified] heart is ... almost certainly that of Louis XVII. We can never be 100 per cent sure but this is about as sure as it gets".<ref name=":6">{{Cite news|last=Broughton|first=Philip Delves|url=https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/1463951/Tragic-French-boy-kings-heart-finds-a-final-resting-place-after-209-years.html |archive-url=https://ghostarchive.org/archive/20220112/https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/1463951/Tragic-French-boy-kings-heart-finds-a-final-resting-place-after-209-years.html |archive-date=12 January 2022 |url-access=subscription |url-status=live|title=Tragic French boy king's heart finds a final resting place after 209 years|journal=Daily Telegraph|date=2004-06-07|access-date=2020-03-17|language=en-GB|issn=0307-1235}}{{cbignore}}</ref><ref>{{Cite web|url=https://www.upi.com/Defense-News/2004/06/03/France-buries-200-year-old-royal-mystery/70691086280595/|title=France buries 200-year-old royal mystery|last=Bryant|first=Elizabeth|date=3 June 2004|website=United Press International|access-date=17 March 2020}}</ref>

In the light of this conclusion, French [[Legitimists]] organized the heart's solemn burial in the [[Basilica of St Denis]] on 8 June 2004. The burial took place in connection with a mass and during the ceremony 12-year-old Prince Amaury of Bourbon-Parma carried the heart and placed it in a niche beside the tombs of Louis-Charles' parents, Louis XVI and Marie-Antoinette.<ref name=":6" />
It was the first time in over a century that a royal ceremony had taken place in France, complete with the [[fleur-de-lis]] standard and a royal crown.<ref name=":3">[http://www.genebase.com/blog/?p=44 "The mtDNA and its role in Ancestry: Part XIV (Descendents of Maria-Theresa)" Genebase] {{webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20090513073022/http://www.genebase.com/blog/?p=44 |date=13 May 2009 }} Retrieved 22 June 2009</ref><ref>[http://gallica.bnf.fr/ark:/12148/bpt6k203799w/f60.image Revue rétrospective], BNF</ref><ref name=":4">{{cite news|url=https://news.google.com/newspapers?id=9IFTAAAAIBAJ&pg=4943,2008214|title=French boy king's heart to be buried in crypt|date=7 June 2004|newspaper=Kingsport Daily News|location=Paris|agency=Reuters|page=1}}</ref>