Louvre cast of Catherine de Medici's tomb brought to Blois, where she was first buried

A cast of Catherine de' Medici's tomb effigy from Saint-Denis has recently been brought to Blois from the Louvre. The queen was first buried in the Church of Saint-Sauveur within the walls of the Château de Blois, after a ceremonial effigy of her, fitted with a death mask of her face and dressed in the royal robes of Anne of Brittany, had lain in public view for four weeks. The coffin then stood in the church for a long time, awaiting removal to Saint-Denis, but the disturbances of the day prevented it. The queen herself was by then quite unfit to be looked upon, and Blois had not enough perfumes and embalming agents to preserve her. For twenty years the queen mother's grave remained in Blois, until her husband's illegitimate daughter had her reburied in the Valois Chapel at Saint-Denis; in 1719 she was moved again, into the basilica, and in 1793 the burial was desecrated along with the other royal tombs, when Catherine's shrivelled leg was torn off; it ended up in the museum at Pontoise.