Found the dried blood of the King beheaded by the French people

Two centuries after the people of France decapitated Louis XVI and dabbed their handkerchiefs into his blood to "revolutionize" the revolution, scientists believed they had one of the blood samples. of the king.

Scientists for many years sought to confirm that a dried gourd is believed to contain the blood of the French king executed by a guillotine in Paris on January 21, 1793. The gourd has dried, hollow, there are some portraits of revolutionary heroes in the outer shell with the words: "On January 21, Maximilien Bourdaloue dipped his handkerchief into Louis XVI's blood after he I was decapitated. "

Bourdaloue is said to have placed the scarf in the gourd and for the gourd.

According to a research team of experts from France and Spain, with the results just published in the Forensic Science International weekly report, this memorial fell into the hands of a family. Italy for over a decade.

Two years ago, DNA analyzes from blood samples in the gourd showed that it coincided with some of the description of Louis, including blue eyes. But since there was no DNA sample of the king's relative to compare, people could not prove it belonged to him. But this has changed.

King Louis XVI

Using genetic material, the new team created a link from blood in the gourd with another equally horrible artifact, a marinated chieftain, belonging to a predecessor of Louis in The 16th century was King Henry IV.

Through comparative activity, both specimens have been validated, because they have a rare genetic signature shared by the two men, even though they are separated by seven generations.

The revolution in which Louis and the French Queen Marie-Antoinette was beheaded in public, also witnessed the raid of a royal cathedral in Saint-Denis, north of Paris. The public had cremated the princes like Henry and carried out the chopping on their bodies. A Frenchman saved King Henry's head from the chaos at the time.

The head of King Henry, who was assassinated in 1610 at the age of 57, fell into many hands within two centuries. It is traded at auctions, or kept in secret library collections.

In 2010, scientists found evidence that the head was Henry's, using identities that were consistent with the portraits of the king in the 16th century, in addition to dating. carbon, 3-dimensional scanning and X-rays.

However, the study in 2010 had no trace of DNA and the results of its study were reacted by some people.

According to Carles Lalueza Fox, co-author of the new study and expert at Institut de Biologia Evolutiva in Barcelona, ​​the evidence that the team gathered is like "increasing the ability of the head of the human head to 250 times and the owner of blood in the dry gourd is related to blood. "

He added that summarizing forensic evidence, historical data and folk legends, would be "surprisingly" if these objects did not belong to the two kings who were killed.

Data obtained from Louis XVI can now be used to decipher the genome of the last prince of France and help find his living relatives.