Mystery of French Lady’s severed skull solved

LYON, France, May 18 (AFP) – The skull of Madame De Sevigne, a symbol of medieval epistolic art, has been discovered in south-eastern France, resolving a mystery dating back to the French revolution, the town’s mayor Bruno Durieux said on Wednesday.  

The severed skull was found among other human remains during restoration work on a collegiate church, he said.  

The discovery “confirms irrefutably” accounts that French revolutionaries, who prised open the coffins of aristocrats in 1793 when they were looking for lead for the army, had discovered remains and had sawed off the skull so that it could be examined by a top specialist, Durieux said.  

He said that according to that theory, the lower part of the skull had then been put back “with the greatest respect” in the coffin.  

Madame De Sevigne (1626-1696), a symbol of epistolic art, especially known for her letters to her daughter, the Countesse of Grignan, was buried on April 17, 1696 in the stately vaults in Grignan.  

Under another account, the skull had been saved from desecration of the revolutionaries by a rebel dissident priest who had put it out of harm’s way in a convent in the eastern town of Nancy. However, experts who examined the skull found there said it was not that of the writer.