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Exhibitions

The strange death of Louis XIV

The rituals that followed the death of a French king included the complete dismembering of the body, as this new exhibition at Versailles shows

21 November 2015

9:00 AM

21 November 2015

9:00 AM

The King is Dead

Palace of Versailles, until 21 February 2016

At the beginning of the summer of 1715 Louis XIV complained of a pain in the leg. In mid-August gangrene set in and by 1 September he was dead. He’d been on the throne for 72 of his 77 years. A new exhibition at Versailles looks at the elaborate rituals that followed.

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