Louis XVII

Louis XVII died, not much older than he was in this painting, in a prison cell, abandoned, ill and abused. His entire brief "reign," if it can be called that, was spent in prison. After he was wrenched from the arms of his mother, sister, and aunt, and moved to a different part of the prison; after his weeping and calling for them ceased; after the guards plied him with alcohol, taught him lewd and Revolutionary songs, and mistreated him, they coerced him into stating that Marie Antoinette and Princess Elisabeth had sexually abused him. In her last letter, written the night before she was executed, to her sister-in-law, Elisabeth, Marie Antoinette, wrote:

"I have to speak to you of one thing that that is very painful to my heart. I know how much pain the child has caused you. Forgive him, my dear sister. Think of his age and how easy it is to make a child say whatever one wishes, especially when he does not understand it." To read the full text of the letter, which was never delivered to Princess Elisabeth, see June 2009 post.