The body of Henry IV when the Saint-Denis crypts were opened during the Revolution

There is one more detail in this story that I have not mentioned before.

When the crypts of the French kings at Saint-Denis were opened during the Revolution, beginning with Clovis, who lived in the fifth century, the body of Henry IV was found in an extraordinarily good state of preservation. Unlike many in the neighbouring burials, he had been embalmed: the body, skin, face and hair had all survived well, and even the beard was soft, as though it had just been brushed and set in order. Still, the king was hauled out of his coffin all the same and put on display to be jeered at. Afterwards he would be thrown into a common grave with the remains of other monarchs. Nevertheless, someone in the exhumation party took a death mask of Henry, which survives to this day. Specialists who are trying to establish the identity of the well-known mummified head attributed to the first king of the Bourbon dynasty appeal to this mask.

The opening of the crypts of Saint-Denis is thoroughly documented, and we know exactly when the burials of the royal personages of France were plundered and in what state the remains appeared before the face of the Revolution.