Louis XVII

Louis-Charles was born in 1785 in the Palace of Versailles he would die in rather different surroundings in 1795.  When he was born he was not the heir apparent as he had an elder brother Louis-Joseph.  Louis-Joseph however did not live beyond his brother’s childhood dying in 1789 of tuberculous just at the first stirrings of the Revolution.

Louis-Charles would move with the rest of his immediate family to Paris on the 6th October 1789.  He would also be part of the failed escape from Paris in the Flight to Varennes of June 1791. After the insurrection of 10th August the royal family was imprisoned in the Temple in 1792.  Louis-Charles became the Dauphin and when his father was executed in January 1793 to the royalists he became Louis XVII.  

There were rumours of conspiracies to break out the potential king.  The Committee of General Security deemed it necessary to remove the boy from the remnants of the royal family and place him with a cobbler called Antoine Simon. There have been tales from various writers of the horrendous treatment he received at the hands of the shoe maker.  The young boy was convinced to sign a statement to the effect that his mother the Queen (Marie Antoinette) had sexually molested him.

In January 1794 the Simons left the Temple.  It would seem that Louis was then kept in solitary confinement.  Barras would visit six months later and described seeing the child suffering from neglect.  Barras saw that the child’s conditions were improved.  He was given a new attendant Jean Jacques Christophe Laurent would then be replaced by Étienne Lasne.

On June 8th 1795 Louis died apparently having been ill for a month.  The official coroner's report claimed it was a scrofulous infection.