Where is louis 16th buried?
Whether she be perceived as a foreign traitor, a martyr of the French revolution, a fashion icon or, more recently, a pop queen, Queen Marie Antoinette has always unleashed many passions. The Centre des Monuments Nationaux has created a Marie Antoinette Pass and invites the public to discover places closely associated with France’s famous queen such as the Château de Rambouillet, the Chapelle Expiatoire and the Basilique de Saint-Denis.
The famous Château de Rambouillet was in turn a royal, imperial and finally a presidential residence. At the end of the 18th century, King Louis XVI, a hunting enthusiast, moved with Marie-Antoinette into this newly acquired residence on the edge of the forest and commissioned several fashionable renovations to be made to the Queen's apartments. He also had a dairy built in secret in the middle of the 150 hectares of gardens so that Marie-Antoinette could spend time there with her friends and enjoy dairy products and other desserts in a delightful bucolic setting.
More info : Château de Rambouillet
An integral part of the former Palais de la Cité and a magnificent Gothic building on the banks of the Seine, the Conciergerie was the seat of power of Kings. It later became a sadly famous prison where Marie-Antoinette spent the last weeks of her life. The queen was judged just a few feet from her cell at the Revolutionary Court and it was there that she wrote her last letter.
Ironically, it is in the place where she spent the last moments of her life that she is celebrated today. This winter, the Conciergerie is staging the exhibition ‘Marie-Antoinette, metamorphoses of an Image’, in which the most famous queen of France is scrutinized from every angle. The opportunity to learn a little more about the daily life of the court in the 18th century and to discover objects from collections or historical archives. And that is not all! Centuries later, Marie-Antoinette continues to inspire artists, fashion designers and directors and has become a pop icon. She can be seen portrayed as a Japanese manga heroine or as the main character in Sofia Coppola's famous eponymous film, as well as in video games, advertisements, novels ... And her hair and wardrobe are copied ad infinitum in fashion shows and the work of contemporary artists. Three hundred years later, she is still at the forefront of fashion.
More info : La Conciergerie
Located close to the Saint-Lazare train station, this expiatory chapel was commissioned by Louis XVIII to pay tribute to his brother and sister-in-law who died 24 years earlier. It stands at the exact place where Louis XVI and Marie-Antoinette were buried in a mass grave during the French Revolution. This chapel in the neoclassical style features several rows of white roses and is a site of historical significance in terms of the Ancien Régime. Inside are two magnificent statues of the royal couple. A true haven of peace in the heart of Paris.
More info : Chapelle Expiatoire
Finally, it is in the Basilica of Saint-Denis that Louis XVI and Marie-Antoinette are buried for all eternity. This magnificent Gothic monument is the necropolis of the Kings of France and houses the tombs of 43 kings and 32 queens from the 7th to the 19th century. On 21 January 1815, a funeral ceremony was held to transfer the ashes of the royal couple, 23 years after their death. An area in the Saint-Louis chapel now houses two white marble statues of Louis XVI and Marie-Antoinette, where an extract from the Queen's last letter has been engraved. A few minutes from Paris, the Basilica of Saint-Denis is a major French historical site.
More info : Basilique Cathedrale de Saint-Denis
The Cathedral Basilica of Saint-Denis can also be discovered during a one-hour guided tour followed by an introductory workshop on stone sculpture. Participants leave with their own creation! Available on Saturdays and some Sundays at 2pm and 3.30pm, until 28 October 2023. In September and October 2023, during the Rugby World Cup, the visit and workshop is conducted in English at 3.30pm.
Historians have long believed that the remains of nearly 500 people guillotined during the French Revolution—including Maximilien Robespierre, engineer of the Reign of Terror—are buried in Paris’ catacombs.
But newly publicized research suggests these individuals may have been laid to rest elsewhere: namely, in the walls of Chapelle Expiatoire, a 19th-century chapel in the 8th arrondissement of Paris, reports Eric Le Mitouard for Le Parisien.
Many of the the deceased were aristocrats publicly beheaded between 1793 and 1794 in the Place de la Révolution, a huge public square now known as the Place de la Concorde. Madame du Barry, mistress of Louis XV, and Olympe de Gouges, an influential early feminist writer and social reformer, are among those thought to be interred at the mass burial site.
In 2018, Chapelle Expiatoire’s administrator, Aymeric Peniguet de Stoutz, noticed that the walls in the lower chapel’s columns were strangely uneven, as though there were extra spaces between them. When archaeologist Philippe Charlier investigated the discrepancy by inserting a tiny camera through the stones in the walls, he discovered four large chests containing bones, reports Kim Willsher for the Guardian.
Further research on the findings was delayed, in part due to the Yellow Vest protests that erupted in Paris that year. Now, however, Peniguet de Stoutz tells Le Parisien that he has asked the regional directorate of cultural affairs to conduct excavations at the site beginning in 2021.
“I cried when the forensic pathologist assured me he had seen human phalange [feet and hand] bones in the photographs,” the administrator says, per a translation by the Guardian.
In his report, Charlier noted that the lower chapel contained four wooden ossuaries, or containers used to hold human remains.
“There is earth mixed with fragments of bones,” he wrote, as quoted by the Guardian.
Chapelle Expiatoire is located around a ten-minute walk from the Place de la Révolution. It was constructed on top of the former Madeleine Cemetery, which served as one of four officially designated burial sites for guillotine victims through 1794.
When Louis XVIII became king in 1814, he ordered the remains of his brother Louis XVI and sister-in-law Marie Antoinette removed from the Madeleine Cemetery and interred in the Saint-Denis Basilica, according to David Chazan of the Telegraph. The French monarch commissioned the Chapelle Expiatoire’s construction atop of the burial site in memory of the couple.
Previously, historians thought that the remains of other notable victims of the French Revolution were moved from the Madeleine Cemetery to another site and, finally, to the catacombs of Paris, where a plaque commemorates their burial. If confirmed, the newly detailed discovery would refute that narrative.
Peniguet de Stoutz cites evidence that Louis XVIII did not want the aristocrats’ bodies to be moved out of the building. In a letter, the king reportedly ordered that “no earth saturated with victims [of the revolution] be moved from the place for the building of the work.”
Speaking with Le Parisien, the chapel administrator says, “Until now, the chapel was thought to be solely a monument in memory of the royal family. But we’ve just discovered that it is also a necropolis of the revolution.”
Description The Basilica of Saint-Denis is a large former medieval abbey church and present cathedral in the commune of Saint-Denis, a northern suburb of Paris. Wikipedia
Louis XVI, the last king of France, was publicly executed on 21 January 1793 during the French Revolution at the Place de la Révolution in Paris. At his trial four days prior, the National Convention had convicted the king of high treason in a near-unanimous vote; while no one voted "not guilty", several deputies abstained. Ultimately, they condemned him to death by a simple majority. The execution by guillotine was performed by Charles-Henri Sanson, then High Executioner of the French First Republic and previously royal executioner under Louis.
Often viewed as a turning point in both French and European history, this regicide inspired various reactions around the world. To some, his death at the hands of his former subjects symbolised the long-awaited end of an unbroken thousand-year period of absolute monarchy in France and the true beginning of democracy within the nation, although Louis would not be the last king of France. Others (even some who had supported major political reform) condemned the execution as an act of senseless bloodshed and saw it as a sign that France had devolved into a state of violent, amoral chaos (the Reign of Terror).
Louis' death emboldened revolutionaries throughout the country, who continued to alter French political and social structure radically over the next several years. Nine months after Louis' death, his wife Marie Antoinette, formerly queen of France, met her own death at the guillotine at the same location in Paris.
Louis XVI awoke early in the morning. After dressing with the aid of his valet Jean-Baptiste Cléry, he went to meet with the non-juring Irish priest Henry Essex Edgeworth to make his confession. He heard his last Mass, served by Cléry, and received Communion. The Mass requisites were provided by special direction of the authorities. On Edgeworth's advice, Louis avoided a last farewell scene with his family. At 7 o'clock he confided his last wishes to the priest. His royal seal was to go to the Dauphin and his wedding ring to the Queen. After receiving the priest's blessing, he went to meet Antoine Joseph Santerre, Commander of the Guard. A green carriage waited in the second court. He seated himself in it with the priest, with two militiamen sitting opposite them. The carriage left the Temple at approximately 9 o'clock. For more than an hour the carriage, preceded by drummers playing to drown out any support for the King and escorted by a cavalry troop with drawn sabres, made its way through Paris along a route lined with 80,000 men-at-arms (soldiers of the National Guard and sans-culottes).
In the neighbourhood of the present-day rue de Cléry, the Baron de Batz, a supporter of the Royal family who had financed the flight to Varennes, had summoned 300 Royalists to enable the King's escape. Louis was to be hidden in a house in the rue de Cléry belonging to the Count of Marsan. The Baron leaped forward calling "Follow me, my friends, let us save the King!", but his associates had been denounced and only a few had been able to turn up. Three of them were killed, but de Batz managed to escape.
At 10 o'clock, the carriage arrived at Place de la Révolution and proceeded to an area where a scaffold had been erected, in a space surrounded by guns and drums, and by a crowd carrying pikes and bayonets.
After initially refusing to permit Sanson and his assistants to bind his hands together, Louis XVI relented when Sanson proposed to use his handkerchief instead of rope.[citation needed] The executioner's men cut the king's hair, removed his shirt's collar, and followed him up the scaffold. Upon the platform, Louis proclaimed his innocence to the crowd and expressed his concern for the future of France.[citation needed] He tried to give an extensive speech, but a drum roll was ordered by Antoine Joseph Santerre and the resulting noise made his final words difficult to understand.[citation needed]
The executioners fastened him to the guillotine's bench (bascule), positioning his neck beneath the device's yoke (lunette) to hold it in place, and the blade swiftly decapitated him. Sanson grabbed his severed head out of the receptacle into which it fell and exhibited it to the cheering crowd. According to one witness report, the blade did not sever his neck but instead cut through the back of his skull and into his jaw.[1] Some accounts state that members of the crowd rushed towards the scaffold with handkerchiefs to dip them in his blood and keep as souvenirs.
Edgeworth, Louis' Irish confessor, wrote in his memoirs:
The 13 February issue of the Thermomètre du jour ('Daily Thermometer'), a moderate Republican newspaper, described the King as shouting "I am lost!", citing as its source the executioner, Charles-Henri Sanson.[citation needed]
The executioner Charles-Henri Sanson responded to the story by offering his own version of events in a letter dated 20 February 1793. The account of Sanson states:
In his letter, published along with its French mistakes in the Thermomètre of Thursday, 21 February 1793, Sanson emphasises that the King "bore all this with a composure and a firmness which has surprised us all. I remained strongly convinced that he derived this firmness from the principles of the religion by which he seemed penetrated and persuaded as no other man."
In his Causeries, Alexandre Dumas refers to a meeting circa 1830 with Henri Sanson, eldest son of Charles-Henri Sanson, who had also been present at the execution.
Henri Sanson was appointed Executioner of Paris from April 1793, and would later execute Marie Antoinette.[citation needed]
Speaking to Victor Hugo in 1840, a man called Leboucher, who had arrived in Paris from Bourges in December 1792 and was present at the execution of Louis XVI, recalled vividly:
In Le nouveau Paris, Mercier describes the execution of Louis XVI in these words:
A popular but apocryphal legend holds that as soon as the guillotine fell, an anonymous Freemason leaped on the scaffolding, plunged his hand into the blood, splashed drips of it onto the crown, and shouted, "Jacques de Molay, tu es vengé!" (usually translated as, "Jacques de Molay, thou art avenged"). De Molay (died 1314), the last Grand Master of the Knights Templar, had reportedly cursed Louis' ancestor Philip the Fair, after the latter had sentenced him to burn at the stake based on false confessions. The story spread widely and the phrase remains in use today to indicate the triumph of reason and logic over "religious superstition".[5]
The body of Louis XVI was immediately transported to the old Church of the Madeleine (demolished in 1799), since the legislation in force forbade burial of his remains beside those of his father, the Dauphin Louis de France, at Sens. Two curates who had sworn fealty to the Revolution held a short memorial service at the church. One of them, Damoureau, stated in evidence:
On 21 January 1815 Louis XVI and his wife's remains were re-buried in the Basilica of Saint-Denis where in 1816 his brother, King Louis XVIII, had a funerary monument erected by Edme Gaulle.
The area where Louis XVI and later (16 October 1793) Marie Antoinette were buried, in the churchyard of St. Mary Magdaleine's, is today the "Square Louis XVI" greenspace, containing the classically self-effacing Expiatory Chapel completed in 1826 during the reign of Louis' youngest brother Charles X. The crypt altar stands above the exact spot where the remains of the Royal couple were originally laid to rest. The chapel narrowly escaped destruction on politico-ideological grounds during the violently anti-clerical period at the beginning of the 20th century.
Paul and Pierrette Girault de Coursac have written a number of works on Louis XVI, including:
Media related to Execution of Louis XVI at Wikimedia Commons
Whether she be perceived as a foreign traitor, a martyr of the French revolution, a fashion icon or, more recently, a pop queen, Queen Marie Antoinette has always unleashed many passions. The Centre des Monuments Nationaux has created a Marie Antoinette Pass and invites the public to discover places closely associated with France’s famous queen such as the Château de Rambouillet, the Chapelle Expiatoire and the Basilique de Saint-Denis.
The famous Château de Rambouillet was in turn a royal, imperial and finally a presidential residence. At the end of the 18th century, King Louis XVI, a hunting enthusiast, moved with Marie-Antoinette into this newly acquired residence on the edge of the forest and commissioned several fashionable renovations to be made to the Queen's apartments. He also had a dairy built in secret in the middle of the 150 hectares of gardens so that Marie-Antoinette could spend time there with her friends and enjoy dairy products and other desserts in a delightful bucolic setting.
More info : Château de Rambouillet
An integral part of the former Palais de la Cité and a magnificent Gothic building on the banks of the Seine, the Conciergerie was the seat of power of Kings. It later became a sadly famous prison where Marie-Antoinette spent the last weeks of her life. The queen was judged just a few feet from her cell at the Revolutionary Court and it was there that she wrote her last letter.
Ironically, it is in the place where she spent the last moments of her life that she is celebrated today. This winter, the Conciergerie is staging the exhibition ‘Marie-Antoinette, metamorphoses of an Image’, in which the most famous queen of France is scrutinized from every angle. The opportunity to learn a little more about the daily life of the court in the 18th century and to discover objects from collections or historical archives. And that is not all! Centuries later, Marie-Antoinette continues to inspire artists, fashion designers and directors and has become a pop icon. She can be seen portrayed as a Japanese manga heroine or as the main character in Sofia Coppola's famous eponymous film, as well as in video games, advertisements, novels ... And her hair and wardrobe are copied ad infinitum in fashion shows and the work of contemporary artists. Three hundred years later, she is still at the forefront of fashion.
More info : La Conciergerie
Located close to the Saint-Lazare train station, this expiatory chapel was commissioned by Louis XVIII to pay tribute to his brother and sister-in-law who died 24 years earlier. It stands at the exact place where Louis XVI and Marie-Antoinette were buried in a mass grave during the French Revolution. This chapel in the neoclassical style features several rows of white roses and is a site of historical significance in terms of the Ancien Régime. Inside are two magnificent statues of the royal couple. A true haven of peace in the heart of Paris.
More info : Chapelle Expiatoire
Finally, it is in the Basilica of Saint-Denis that Louis XVI and Marie-Antoinette are buried for all eternity. This magnificent Gothic monument is the necropolis of the Kings of France and houses the tombs of 43 kings and 32 queens from the 7th to the 19th century. On 21 January 1815, a funeral ceremony was held to transfer the ashes of the royal couple, 23 years after their death. An area in the Saint-Louis chapel now houses two white marble statues of Louis XVI and Marie-Antoinette, where an extract from the Queen's last letter has been engraved. A few minutes from Paris, the Basilica of Saint-Denis is a major French historical site.
More info : Basilique Cathedrale de Saint-Denis
The Cathedral Basilica of Saint-Denis can also be discovered during a one-hour guided tour followed by an introductory workshop on stone sculpture. Participants leave with their own creation! Available on Saturdays and some Sundays at 2pm and 3.30pm, until 28 October 2023. In September and October 2023, during the Rugby World Cup, the visit and workshop is conducted in English at 3.30pm.
Finally, it is in the Basilica of Saint-Denis that Louis XVI and Marie-Antoinette are buried for all eternity. This magnificent Gothic monument is the necropolis of the Kings of France and houses the tombs of 43 kings and 32 queens from the 7th to the 19th century.
