The transfer of the coffins of King Louis XVI of France and his wife, Queen Marie Antoinette, to the church St. Denis in Paris on 21 January 1815. Etching with engraving, 1815.

Louis XVI and Marie Antoinette were executed by the guillotine in 1793 and their bodies were buried first in the Cimetière de la Madeleine and subsequently in the Cimetière des Errancis, Paris. After the exile of Napoleon to Elba in 1814, Louis XVI's brother became King Louis XVIII, purchased the latter cemetery on 11 January 1815, and had the bodies of his brother and sister-in-law reburied in the Basilica of Saint-Denis, the resting place of the Kings of France, on 21 January 1815. The present print, published in February 1815, shows the catafalque turning from the Rue des Capucines into the Boulevard des Capucines, on its way from Paris to Saint-Denis

The procession passes a building which is conspicuously inscribed as the Hotel du Prince de Wagram: the prince was Louis-Alexandre Berthier (1753-1815), Napoleon's chief-of-staff, who occupied the property in 1807. Napoleon had previously occupied it. It filled the site of the later building numbered 22-24 Rue des Capucines and no. 43 Boulevard des Capucines: the junction was later renamed Place Henri Salvador. In 1814, after the defeat of Napoleon, Berthier joined the party of Louis XVIII, and the house still bore Wagram's name and coat of arms when the catafalque of Louis XVI and Marie Antoinette passed by (21 January 1815) and when this print was published (18 February 1815), showing the triumph of the monarchy. However, Napoleon escaped from Elba a few days later (26 February 1815), leaving Berthier compromised. Fearing revenge for his betrayal of Napoleon, Berthier fled to Ghent and then to Bamberg, where he met his death in mysterious circumstances: he fell from an upper window that was high above the floor, whether by suicide or by murder, on 1 June 1815. His fears subsequently proved unfounded, for on 18 June 1815 Napoleon was again defeated, at Waterloo, and Louis XVIII regained his throne on 8 July 1815

The building on the junction of Rue des Capucines and Boulevard des Capucines, shown on the right, was later (from 1820) occupied by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. On 22 March 1842, on leaving the building after a conversation with the minister François Guizot, the novelist Stendhal was struck by a fatal apoplexy at the front door of the building

Paris (Rue St. Jacques No. 64) : Basset, 1815.

1 print : etching, with engraving ; image 20.3 x 40.6 cm

Vue du char funèbre de la translation à St. Denis, des corps de Louis XVI et de la Reine Marie Antoinette. Prise sur le boulevard de la Madeleine, le 21 Janvier 1815

Bibliographie de la France, 18 février 1815, no. 160 ("Vue du char funèbre de la translation à Saint-Denis des corps de Louis XVI et de la reine Marie-Antoinette, prise sur le boulevart de la Madeleine, le 21 janvier 1815. [A Paris, chez Basset]")--Image of France database no. 4999

Wellcome Collection 44317i