Sir, on 4 May 1897, a terrible fire broke out in Paris at the Bazar de la Charité, causing numerous victims among the European female aristocracy who were holding a charity sale there. The extent of the injuries prevented the direct identification of many victims. Dentists were therefore summoned to see if they could recognise their patients among the bodies, by comparing the teeth of the corpses with the files of their clients. The experiment was a success: several cadavers were identified and returned to their families, including the Duchess of Alençon (Sissi's sister).1,2 Forensic odontology was then proposed as a new scientific branch, with Oscar Amoedo Y Valdes (1863-1945) subsequently setting up dental experts to intervene alongside forensic doctors when necessary.2 This tragic news item is commonly considered to be the birth of forensic odontological identification. But it seems that this is a mistake.
Indeed, on 18 January 1815, some 82 years earlier, the exhumation of the remains of Louis XVI and Marie-Antoinette took place in the Madeleine cemetery, on the current location of the Expiation chapel (Paris), where their bodies had been deposited after their execution in 1793: Louis XVIII wanted them transferred to the Basilica of Saint Denis to be buried in the royal necropolis. The writer and diplomat François-René de Chateaubriand attended the exhumation, and formally identified the remains of Marie-Antoinette: ‘Among the bones, I recognised the head of the queen by the smile that she had addressed to me at Versailles.'3 It is notorious that Marie-Antoinette had to undergo, before her marriage to Louis XVI, several dental extractions, in order to correct a smile made unsightly by a somewhat anarchic dental implantation.4 Laveran, dentist at the Austrian court, was elsewhere subsequently accused of having ‘spoiled the queen's mouth, by pulling out too many teeth' - at which he took umbrage.5 Marie Antoinette's smile, marked by this odontological liability, became recognisable among all, beginning with Chateaubriand who would indeed be the first expert in forensic odontology in the West.
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Amoëdo O. Observations. In L'art dentaire en médecine légale. pp 449-455. Paris: Masson et Compagnie, 1898. Available at: https://gallica.bnf.fr/ark:/12148/bpt6k9602849w (accessed November 2023).
La catastrophe de la rue Jean-Goujon. Le Petit Journal. 6 May 1897. 1-3 Available at https://gallica.bnf.fr/ark:/12148/bpt6k6142442 (accessed November 2023).
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Perez S. 13. Le « corps public » de Marie-Antoinette. In: Le corps de la reine. Engendrer le Prince, d'Isabelle de Hainaut à Marie-Amélie de Bourbon-Sicile. Paris: Perrin «Tempus», 2022. pp 351-394. Available at: https://www.cairn.info/le-corps-de-la-reine--9782262099961-p-351.htm (accessed November 2023).
Correspondance secrète entre Marie-Thérèse et le Comte de Mercy-Argenteau. Tome III. Paris: Didot, 1874. pp 111. Available at: https://gallica.bnf.fr/ark:/12148/bpt6k200373v (accessed November 2023).
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Charlier, P., Jacquot Barreau, S. Forensic identification by Chateaubriand?. Br Dent J 236, 11–12 (2024). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41415-024-6725-0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/s41415-024-6725-0