A shriveled, 200-year-old heart gets funeral fit for a king

By: Associated Press | Tuesday, June 8, 2004 9:54 PM PDT ∞

SAINT-DENIS, France ---- French royalists staged a pageant-filled funeral Tuesday for a tiny, rock-hard relic they hailed as the heart cut from Louis XVII, who died at age 10 in a filthy revolutionary prison.

A hearse brimming with lilies ---- the symbol of the French crown ---- delivered a crystal vase containing the heart to the Saint-Denis Basilica. There, it was placed in a royal crypt containing the remains of Louis XVII's parents, Marie-Antoinette and Louis XVI.

After two centuries of mystery surrounding the boy's fate, DNA tests have convinced many historians that the relic passed secretly from person to person was truly the royal heart.

A faction of royalists ---- who want to turn back the clock and restore the monarchy ---- seized on the DNA tests to press the government to allow the funeral at the Gothic basilica north of Paris, the resting place of France's kings.

Trumpets sounded and incense wafted in the air as a small boy marched up the aisle with the vase draped by a purple veil. Outside, a crowd of royal-watchers followed the Roman Catholic Mass on a huge screen.

Afterward, cries of "Long live the king!" greeted the Duke of Anjou, Louis-Alphonse de Bourbon, one of several pretenders to the French throne. To this day, the Bourbons dispute the rights of succession with the Orleans dynasty that followed.

The Mass recognizing the royal heart attempted to end 209 years of legend and uncertainty about Louis XVII's death. Yet some skeptics insist the mystery remains unsolved.

Historian Philippe Delorme, who wrote a book about Louis XVII and organized the genetic tests, lists the facts of the boy's brief but grim life as follows:

Louis XVII lost his parents to the guillotine in 1793. He was locked in Paris' Temple prison for three years. The boy was brainwashed, with captors forcing him to sing revolutionary songs and curse his mother's memory. He also spent months alone in a dark tower, with nobody to wash him or clean his cell.

At Tuesday's requiem Mass, Cardinal Jean Honore compared the boy to today's abused children.

"The fragility of a child ... imposes absolute respect in our world today," he said.

When Louis XVII died of tuberculosis in 1795, rumors circulated that the royal heir had been smuggled to safety, and a commoner had died in his place.

The small body was dumped in a common grave -- but first, a doctor secretly carved out the heart, in keeping with a royal tradition. He spirited it away in a handkerchief and kept it as a souvenir, Delorme said. The heart passed from person to person until it was returned to France in 1975.

The DNA tests were carried out in 2000, establishing a genetic link with a strand of Marie-Antoinette's hair saved during her girlhood in Austria.

But still, some people continue to insist the true heir was one of the many people who came forward in the 19th century -- in places as far-flung as the Seychelles and Wisconsin -- claiming to be the lost boy.

One was Charles-Guillaume Naundorff, a man with German papers who turned up in the early 19th century. One of his descendants is among those who challenged the Saint-Denis funeral.

Some mourners Tuesday said they understood why some people preferred the happier ending to Louis XVII's story.

"But DNA is sufficient proof that this heart is truly that of the right child," said Elisabeth Bramwell, a descendent of a noble French family who wore black lace and a large cross around her neck.

While Louis XVII's story reached its epilogue Tuesday, one scientist who probed the heart for DNA spoke of plans to investigate another historical figure.

Jean-Jacques Cassiman of Belgium's Louvain University told VRT television about his new task: Testing the DNA of Napoleon Bonaparte to make sure the body entombed in Paris is the real thing.

Owner of Chicken Ranch brothel in Nevada says it's time to sell

Associated Press

LAS VEGAS -- The Chicken Ranch, one of the best-known brothels in the business, is for sale for just under $7 million.

"I'm going to be 63 this summer," said Ken Green, who has run the business for 22 years. "I'm just working a little more at it than I want to."

Green said he bought the brothel in 1982 for $1.25 million from Walter Plankinton, who named it after the Texas establishment that closed in the 1970s and was made famous on stage and screen as "The Best Little Whorehouse in Texas."

Green said he developed the property from two doublewide trailers into a 40-acre spread with a bar, parlor, swimming pool and three bungalows with Wild West, jungle and Victorian themes. The brothel is about 60 miles west of Las Vegas.

"You mention the name `Chicken Ranch' everyone gets a little smile on their face and knows what you're talking about," Green said Monday. "We're not raising poultry out there."

Japan's crown prince softens accusations against imperial staff over wife's illness

Associated Press

TOKYO ---- Japan's crown prince said Tuesday he hadn't meant to blame individual palace officials for his wife's illness, but stressed he would fight to make the palace a more livable place for the princess.

Naruhito caused a furor in May by suggesting that unidentified palace officials caused Crown Princess Masako's troubles. In unusually pointed remarks, the prince said his wife's activities had been restricted, contributing to her stress-induced exhaustion.

On Tuesday, Naruhito said he hadn't been trying to single anyone out.

"I didn't intend to criticize the actions of individuals. I wanted the public to understand the current situation," he said in a statement, after discussing the matter with Imperial Household Agency chief Toshio Yuasa. "It breaks my heart that I have brought worry to so many, including the emperor and empress."

But Naruhito said he wanted changes at the Imperial Household Agency -- an institution that manages palace affairs and has a reputation for being secretive and extremely conservative.

"For the sake of Masako's recovery ... I will talk with the agency, including about the way (the princess and I) conduct our official duties," said the 44-year-old prince. "I want our activities to reflect a new era."

Masako, a former diplomat who was educated at Harvard and Oxford, married the prince in 1993 amid expectations that she would modernize the royal family. Instead, she assumed a low profile, and often alluded to the pressures at the palace. She had a miscarriage before having her first child, a daughter, in 2001.

Since being diagnosed with shingles in December, the 40-year-old princess has not appeared in public. The skin rash is often triggered by stress and fatigue.

At a news conference last month before heading to Europe, the prince said his wife wouldn't join him because she hadn't recovered.

"Masako has tried her best these 10 years to try to adjust to palace life, but it has exhausted her," Naruhito said. "It is true that there have been movements to deny Masako's career and her character."

On Tuesday, Naruhito reiterated that Masako hasn't had an easy time adapting to the imperial lifestyle. Pressure to produce a male heir and a lack of foreign trips had taken a heavy toll, the crown prince said. No male has been born into the imperial family since the 1960s.

However, those weren't the only factors, he said.

"It has required a great deal of effort for Masako to adjust to the traditions, media and environment of the palace," Naruhito said. "There is nothing to gain from specifying a target, so I will refrain from discussing details."

Asked for a response, Imperial Household Agency spokesman Mitsuhiro Saito declined to comment.