The Duchesse de Montpensier was the daughter of Louis XIII's younger brother, and thus first cousin to Louis XIV. As the oldest female of royal blood at court, she was called "Grande Mademoiselle." According to the custom of the time, when she died her heart was entombed in a chapel, while her entrails went into a sealed urn that was placed on a sideboard in the mourning room at Versailles, where pairs of noblewomen chosen by the king took turns watching over it round the clock. It was all done with exquisite taste; from the solemn major domo to the susurrating murmur of the nuns at prayer, the occasion exemplified punctilious court etiquette and stoic neoclassical grief.
Malheureusement, Grande Mademoiselle's badly embalmed entrails had fermented, producing enough gases to turn the sealed urn into a bomb. Suddenly there was a deafening explosion, followed by a hideous stench. Pandemonium erupted; ladies screamed, chevaliers fought each other to reach the doors, fleeing priests trampled doddering old marquises as, gasping for air, the mourners poured onto the lawns in abject panic.
When they found out what had happened they reverted to type. "All was perfumed and restored," writes Saint-Simon, "and the commotion was made light of."
The Duchesse de Montpensier was the daughter of Louis XIII
