The Lost King of France: Revolution, Revenge and the Search for Louis XVII (Hardcover)

Even casual French history readers will notice a discrepancy in the numbering of their kings--Louis XVI goes to the guillotine in the French Revolution; Louis XVIII returns after the defeat of Napoleon. What happened to Louis XVII? That's the subject of Deborah Cadbury's The Lost King of France. Louis-Charles, heir to Louis XVI, automatically became king, in the eyes of French royalists, when his father was guillotined in 1793. He was, however, an eight-year-old boy and at the mercy of the Revolutionary government. Cadbury's vivid and sympathetic account of his imprisonment and the appallingly abusive treatment he received makes for painful reading.

In 1795 the boy king died, still in prison. Or did he? For decades afterward pretender after pretender to the throne appeared, claiming that he was the real Louis. He had been rescued and a substitute child had died in the hands of the revolutionaries. Some claimants were ludicrous. (One was a mixed-race Native American from New York.) Others were so convincing that their descendants still have supporters today. "Karl Wilhelm Naundorff" persisted with his claim to his deathbed and beyond. His gravestone boldly states that he was the son of Louis XVI and Marie-Antoinette.

In the second half of her book, Cadbury turns from the sad narrative of Louis the Seventeenth's apparently short life to the mystery of his claimed survival. Finally her book becomes a scientific detective story as the tools of modern DNA testing are used to pinpoint the identity of the boy who died in prison and to investigate the genetic make-up of Naundorff. As both the story of a tragic and short life and a record of how science solved one of the greatest puzzles in French history, The Lost King of France works brilliantly. --Nick Rennison

Advance praise for THE LOST KING OF FRANCE: * 'Absolutely stupendous...This is history as it should be. I can't praise it highly enough. It is stunningly written, I could not put it down. This is the best account of the French Revolution I have ever read.' Alison Weir, author of Henry VIII, King and court * "Unputdownable. For sheer escapism and some fascinating insights into history, I cannot recommend this too highly." Maureen Waller, author of 1700: Scenes from London Life '* A fascinating story...extremely well told.' Ian Dunlop, author of Louis XIV * 'A first-class read -- informative, entertaining, and a great, grand adventure. Most noteworthy.' Margaret George, author of THE AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF HENRY VIII Praise for THE DINOSUAR HUNTERS: This is a tale of intrigue and deception, of burning ambition and failed dreams...exquisitely portrayed by Deborah Cadbury in this scholarly yet exhilarating book.' Independent 'Cadbury is a wonderful writer, weaving natural history, human history and science together in a smooth, flowing tapestry that keeps you turning the pages as if her book were a thriller.' The Times

Until he was four years old, Louis-Charles, Duc de Normandie, lived a charmed life. A pretty, intelligent child, he enjoyed the utmost luxury, his every wish granted. Then, in 1789, came the French Revolution. This was not likely to add to his comfort, since his parents were King Louis XVI, and his mother Marie Antoinette, and on the death of his elder brother, he had become the Dauphin, heir to the throne. After the executions of his parents (which were kept a secret from him) the 'wolf-cub', as he was called, was imprisoned in solitary confinement in the Temple prison, taught to revile his parents, and punished for the extravagance of his ancestors. Kept in a filthy, rat-ridden cell, he died in 1795, his body covered with ulcers. Or did he die? A body was certainly buried - but over the next 50 years rumours that he had escaped became common, and occasionally an individual would appear claiming to be King Louis XVIII. He was seen in Brittany, Alsace and the Auverne; he introduced himself as Charles de Navarre, Jean-Marie Hervagault, the Baron de Richemont... more than a hundred Dauphins claimed their inheritance, to the agony of Louis-Charles's surviving sister, Marie-Therese, who was convinced that her brother was dead. Two hundred years later, in a church in the Parisian suburb of Saint Denis, a small crystal urn was found to contain an ossified heart, hard as a rock - perhaps the heart which was said to have been stolen by the surgeon who examined the child's body. The author ends her book by revealing what DNA has to say about the story; and we will leave her to reveal it. This is a most readable account of a fascinating, two-centuries old detective story - as well as of the short and tragic life of an innocent child murdered in the cause of equality and brotherhood. (Kirkus UK)