Today in History, Happy Birthday King Louis XVII

Happy Birthday King Louis XVII of France! More well known as the "Lost Dauphin". Son of Marie Antoinette & Louis XVI born in the year of 1785. Who would have known the horrifying fate that lay before the royal family. During the families captivity by the french revolution government, he was taken from his mother by the french revolutionist. They taught him to curse and later used him to trump up charges against his mother for sexual abuse. As a part of his republican re-education, Louis-Charles was set to work as an assistant to a drunkard cobbler in the prison temple. At ten years old it is said that he died from infection but many had believed he escaped. As French customs go, His heart is now kept in a crystal vase at the royal crypt in the Saint Denis Basilica. Since the rumors of his escape, in 2000 two independent DNA test were performed on the heart comparing it to a hair from Marie Antoinette. They only tested was mitochondrial DNA which is inherited only from the mother. The test proved the heart had the same direct maternal ancestry but could not prove it belonged to a particular individual. Louis in 1792, portrait by Alexander Kucharsky