The Lost King of France, Deborah Cadbury
The Lost King of France, Deborah Cadbury
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The Lost King of France
How DNA Solved the Mystery of the Murdered Son of Louis XVI and Marie Antoinette

Author: Deborah Cadbury

Narrator: Jennifer M. Dixon

Unabridged: 12 hr 56 min

Format: Digital Audiobook Download

Publisher: Tantor Media

Published: 12/03/2019


Synopsis

Louis-Charles, Duc de Normandie, enjoyed a charmed early childhood in the gilded palace of Versailles. At the age of four, he became the dauphin, heir to the most powerful throne in Europe. Yet within five years he was to lose everything. Drawn into the horror of the French Revolution, his family was incarcerated and their fate thrust into the hands of the revolutionaries who wished to destroy the monarchy.

In 1793, when Marie Antoinette was beheaded at the guillotine, she left her adored eight-year-old son imprisoned in the Temple Tower. Far from inheriting a throne, the orphaned boy-king had to endure the hostility and abuse of a nation. Two years later, the revolutionary leaders declared Louis XVII dead. No grave was dug, no monument built to mark his passing.

Immediately, rumors spread that the prince had, in fact, escaped from prison and was still alive. Others believed that he had been murdered, his heart cut out and preserved as a relic. As with the tragedies of England's princes in the Tower and the Romanov archduchess Anastasia, countless "brothers" soon approached Louis-Charles's older sister, Marie-Therese, who survived the revolution. They claimed not only the dauphin's name, but also his inheritance. Several "princes" were plausible, but which, if any, was the real heir to the French throne?

About Deborah Cadbury

Deborah Cadbury is an award-winning TV producer for the BBC, including Horizon for which she won an Emmy. She is also the author of numerous acclaimed books, including The Seven Wonders of the Industrial World, for which the accompanying series received a BAFTA nomination for Best Series, The Dinosaur Hunters: A True Story of Scientific Rivalry and the Discovery of the Prehistoric World, The Lost King of France: Revolution, Revenge and the Search for Louis XVII, Chocolate Wars: The 150-Year Rivalry Between the World's Greatest Chocolate Makers, and Space Race: The Epic Battle Between America and the Soviet Union for Dominion of Space. Deborah lives in London.


Reviews

Goodreads review by Grumpus on September 23, 2007

Outstanding!. . . A real-page turner. . . Full of intrigue. All of the positive cliché book review words apply to this one. The book’s title is a bit of a misnomer. I thought the majority of the book was going to be dedicated to DNA testing and how it was employed to settle the mystery of what happen......more

Goodreads review by Yosra on June 08, 2023

I bought this book at a charity shop because I was interested in the French Revolution and I hadn't seen much written on Marie Antoinette and Louis XVI's youngest child. I expected it to be a standard piece of historical non-fiction, but I was pleasantly surprised as it was so much more than that. A......more

Goodreads review by Aurélien on November 05, 2019

In 2000 was solved one of the greatest and controversial mystery in modern history: it was finally proven that Louis-Charles, the son of Louis XVI and Marie-Antoinette, the heir who would have inherited the throne of France had the country remained a monarchy, DID died in 1795, in the Temple prison,......more

Goodreads review by Jenett on September 21, 2007

Just finished this this morning. The book is basically answering the question "What happened to Louis-Charles Capet, son of Louis XVI of France". The answer is well worth a book-length discussion: the introduction sets up the fact that they're going to look at what new technology (specifically DNA th......more

Goodreads review by Heather on November 23, 2016

Delving into the history of the imprisonment of the royal family during the French Revolution, this book exposed me to many details I was not familiar with. While full of details, it is written with more of an engaging, story feel that reads almost like fiction. Be prepared that most of the book is......more