The Wound That Proved the King

In 1774, French revolutionaries broke into the royal crypt at Saint-Denis to exhume the body of Henry IV, the beloved king who had been assassinated in 1610. For over a century and a half, rumors had swirled — some claimed Henry had survived, that a substitute had been buried in his place. But when they opened the coffin, they found the preserved wound: the exact stab mark between the ribs, precisely where the assassin Ravaillac had driven his blade on that Paris street.…