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Bloody Rag May Not Have Touched Louis XVI's Severed Head

Posted by Unknown on from the brains-delicious-brains dept.

sciencehabit writes "It seemed like the perfect forensic tale. Earlier this year, a geneticist concluded that the remains of a blood-soaked cloth stored for centuries in an 18th century gourd likely belonged to the severed head of the last French king, Louis XVI — a conclusion supported by the fact that the DNA matched that taken from a mummified head belonging to his direct ancestor, King Henry IV. So confident were some people about the findings that a company now offers a blood test for anyone who wants to see if they, too, are descendants of this royal family. But new research released today calls into question the identities of both the blood and the head, arguing that the DNA in those samples does not match the DNA in living relatives of these kings."

17 of 87 comments (clear)

  1. Obvious solution. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Your great great great great great great great grandmommy was a whore.

    1. Re:Obvious solution. by MightyYar · · Score: 5, Insightful

      I know it is a first post, and I know it is an AC using crude language. But his point stands. It is an entirely plausible explanation.

      --
      W..w..W - Willy Waterloo washes Warren Wiggins who is washing Waldo Woo.
    2. Re:Obvious solution. by SJHillman · · Score: 4, Interesting

      What I find interesting is that the AC gave a plausible number of "greats" to match Louis XVI's generation.

    3. Re:Obvious solution. by TheCarp · · Score: 2

      the living relatives all trace back to Philippe I, who was homosexual and thus perhaps unlikely to have actually fathered the next generation

      More like great great great great grandaddy was A queen who had an understanding with THE queen.

      I mean its one thing to have someone else sire the children in a hetero marriage, anything short of being on the magnitude of "black kid to white parents" can generally be glossed over. However, if the couple isn't having sex at all, any kid at all is a bit of a dead giveaway.

      So if that is the allegation, then he clearly knew; and she knew he knew; Calling her a whore seems a bit extreme, more like.... its complicated :)

      --
      "I opened my eyes, and everything went dark again"
    4. Re:Obvious solution. by K.+S.+Kyosuke · · Score: 3, Funny

      I'd expect no less from an Anonymous Chronologist.

      --
      Ezekiel 23:20
    5. Re:Obvious solution. by cold+fjord · · Score: 4, Funny

      Your great great great great great great great grandmommy was a whore.

      Calling the bloodline of the king into question? You bastards!

      --
      much of left-wing thought is a kind of playing with fire by people who don't even know that fire is hot - George Orwell
    6. Re:Obvious solution. by Big+Hairy+Ian · · Score: 3, Funny

      One word "Bastard!"

      --

      Build a Man a Fire, and He'll Be Warm for a Day. Set a Man on Fire, and He'll Be Warm for the Rest of His Life.

    7. Re:Obvious solution. by Garridan · · Score: 3, Interesting

      GP was quoting TFA, which was quoting a historian who knew more than what you gleaned from Wikipedia in 30 seconds. Check your own ignorance, friend. Nobody's questioning the existence of those children, merely the true identity of the father.

    8. Re:Obvious solution. by girlintraining · · Score: 5, Insightful

      What I find interesting is that the AC gave a plausible number of "greats" to match Louis XVI's generation.

      What I find interesting is the massively huge assumption staring everyone in the face but nobody sees it: The idea that the living relatives might be an invented fairy tale. It wouldn't be the first time a royal lineage met its end and the "secret sauce" was switched and records altered to maintain the appearance of an unbroken line.

      This 'forensic evidence' is based on records that are hundreds of years old; Altering birth and death records was a time-honored tradition back then. It was the Photoshop of the Dark Ages, and churches had just as much reason to perpetuate a fraud as anyone -- their power was often derived from royal mandate. You don't think, at a time when chopping heads off and torturing people was called 'Tuesday', that a little re-inking of a few geneology documents would be beyond the morality of these people, do you?

      --
      #fuckbeta #iamslashdot #dicemustdie
    9. Re:Obvious solution. by CdBee · · Score: 2

      Also, a word for your personal safety, using phrases like 'check your ignorance' will get you bitchslapped in polite society

      --
      I have been a user for about 10 years. This ends Feb 2014. The site's been ruined. I'm off. Dice, FU
    10. Re:Obvious solution. by azcoyote · · Score: 2

      It's easy to point broad fingers at multiple centuries of people without any real evidence. To accuse the church of a coverup is just wild hearsay because the church makes an easy villain. In the first place, your premise is faulty: the medieval church did not obtain its power from royal mandate. I recommend reading Eamon Duffy's Saints and Sinners for a better understanding of the complexities of the relationship between church and state in the middle ages.

      --
      Incipiamus, fratres, servire Domino Deo, quia hucusque vix vel parum in nullo profecimus.
  2. So What? by DexterIsADog · · Score: 3, Insightful

    This isn't a story about the science, it's about the provenance of some old rag, and a reminder that the chain of evidence matters.

    The only people who should care are the posers and jerkoffs who like to trade on some accidental genetic connection to a dead king from an obsolete form of government. Isn't France on a republic or two beyond that one by now?

    1. Re:So What? by TWX · · Score: 3, Interesting

      PEDIGREE, n. The known part of the route from an arboreal ancestor with a swim bladder to an urban descendant with a cigarette.

      --Ambrose Bierce, The Devil's Dictionary

      --
      Do not look into laser with remaining eye.
    2. Re:So What? by K.+S.+Kyosuke · · Score: 3, Insightful

      You're fooling yourself! They're living in a dictatorship! A self-perpetuating autocracy in which the working classes--

      Working classes? In France? Preposterous! They'd never allow that.

      --
      Ezekiel 23:20
  3. Louis XVI wasn't the last French King by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Informative

    Louis XVI wasn't the last French king. He had several successors after the fall of Napoleon. Getting that detail wrong makes me question the accuracy of the rest of the article.

  4. The French will have to change their flag by rossdee · · Score: 3, Funny

    The French will have to change their flag back to include the Fleur de Lys

    (But it could be in white on a background of white so it will still look like their usual flag

    Viva La France

  5. Re:If the head doesn't fit... by gstoddart · · Score: 2

    So, if the DNA doesn't match the royalty... Maybe they're not REALLY Royalty?!

    Nobody is 'really' royalty ... a family conquers and sets themselves up as a dynasty by asserting themselves to be kings and queens.

    To some of us, anybody who professes to be royalty is an in-bred idiot with a sense of entitlement who should STFU and go away.

    To quote Monty Python ... Listen. Strange women lying in ponds distributing swords is no basis for a system of government. Supreme executive power derives from a mandate from the masses, not from some farcical aquatic ceremony.

    --
    Lost at C:>. Found at C.