Scientists have found the dried squash rind containing the blood of Louis XVI, the last king of France and executed more than 200 years ago.
On January 21, 1793, the revolutionary forces behead King Louis XVI of France and his wife, Queen Marie-Antoinette. Legend has it that those who witnessed the execution dipped their handkerchiefs in the blood of the 39-year-old king. Then one of them stuffed a bloodstained towel into a dry gourd pod.
Today, a wealthy Italian family owns a dried gourd shell with the inscription: “On January 21, Maximilien Bourdaloue dipped his handkerchief in the blood of Louis XVI after being beheaded.” In addition, portraits of heroes of the French Revolution are also painted on gourd pods. Recently, Carles Lalueza-Fox, a researcher at Pompeu Fabra University in Spain, and his colleagues confirmed that it was King Louis XVI’s bloody squash shell. Livescience reports.
Last year, the Lalueza-Fox team analyzed the genetic material of the blood contained in the gourd shell and concluded that it belonged to a European man with blue eyes. But without further DNA to compare, they could not confirm that it was the blood of the last king of France.
Then, earlier this year, a scientist who studied the head of King Henry, a seven-year ancestor of Louis XVI, sent DNA from the head to Lalueza-Fox. King Henry IV was assassinated in 1610. He was mummified and buried in the northern city of Paris. But after the French Revolution of 1789, looters dug up the tomb of King Henry IV and beheaded him. Later, the head fell into the hands of a collector.
The results of comparing two DNA samples showed that the blood in the gourd shell really belonged to King Louis XVI.
“Thanks to this discovery, in the near future, we will be sequencing the genome of the last French king,” said Lalueza-Fox.
