The Brutal Fate of the Princess of Lamballe During the French Revolutio

According to all accounts Madame de Lamballe's head was almost immediately hacked off.  The official minutes of the Quinze-Vingts section  recording the later deposition of her possessions, is cited by Antoine De Baecque (p.65) as evidence that her remains were otherwise left intact.



The text is given in full below. Unfortunately I am not so sure that this evidence establishes beyond doubt that the body was fully-clothed and unmolested. The men involved were noted by the Section clerk as "bearers of the former princesse de Lamballe, who had just been killed at the Hôtel de La Force".


It is not at all clear from the wording (in English or French) that the men had the body with them at all; maybe they had been its "bearers" in the crowd? The possessions listed were merely "among her clothes", not necessarily on her person. Possibly they were the same set of valuables later deposited with the Assembly as "in her pockets" (in the 18th century substantial cloth bags which could be sewn into clothing) (see Lenotre, Last Days of Marie-Antoinette, p.48nt.).



Commissioner Daujon, an eye-witness, recalls a naked body, slashed down the front.....with the crowd waving on pikes a blooded chemise and an unspeakable piece of offal, presumed to be the Princess's heart.



However, Daujon dismissed the more exaggerated tales of eaten hearts and mutilated genitals relayed to him by his colleague Bazire, a member of the Committee of Surveillance of the Assembly which later formally received the Revolutionaries and their spoils.  Unlikely too are the claims that her breasts were torn off (which seems to originate with the comte de Fersen - see letter below); on the whole Revolutionary accounts lack the element of sexual aggression suggested by later - by and large royalist - sources.

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