“The following day poor harmless Marie Leczinska’s body was torn from its resting-place, as also were those of the ‘Grand Dauphin,’ the Duke of Burgundy and his wife, and several other princes and princesses of the same race, including three daughters of Louis XV. All these were in a state of terrible decomposition, and in spite of the use of gunpowder and vinegar, the stench was so great that many of the workmen were seized with fever, and others had to continue the grewsome work. By a strange chance, on the very morning that Marie Antoinette’s sufferings came to an end on the Place de la Revolution, the body of another unfortunate queen saw the light of day,—it was on the 16th of October that the body of our Queen Henrietta Maria, who had died in 1669, was taken from its coffin and added to the ghastly heap in the ‘Ditch of the Valois,’ as the pit into which these royal remains were hurled was called; that of her daughter the once ‘Belle Henriette’ came next, and then in quick succession the bodies of Philippe D’Orleans; that of his son, the notorious regent; of his daughter, the no less notorious Duchesse de Berri; of her husband; and half a dozen infants of the same family. On the same day a coffin was cautiously opened. This was found at the entrance of the royal vault (the customary position for that containing the latest deceased king), and contained the remains of Louis ‘le bien aimé.’ No wonder that the body-snatchers hesitated before withdrawing the corpse from its enclosure, for it was remembered that Louis had perished of a most terrible illness, and that an undertaker had died in consequence of placing the already pestilent corpse in its coffin. Consequently it was only on the brink of the ditch that the body was removed and hastily rolled over the edge, but not without the precaution of discharging guns and burning much powder, and even then the air was terribly tainted far and near.