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# In one of the tales in Alexandre Dumas's "A Thousand and One Ghosts" we meet a certain Monsieur Ledru, keeper of an entire collection of royal relics, which he acquired by attending the despoiling of the burial vaults in the Basilica of Saint-Denis and ta
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- Published: 2018-09-04T13:48:44.000Z
- Updated: 2026-10-01T05:44:24.000Z
- Author: Alexandr Radayev
- Tags: Books, Monarchies, Museums, Heritage, Paris

[​​](https://telegra.ph/file/d5c188670a0771762aecf.jpg?ref=theparnassian.com)In one of the tales in Alexandre Dumas's "A Thousand and One Ghosts" we meet a certain Monsieur Ledru, keeper of an entire collection of royal relics, which he acquired by attending the despoiling of the burial vaults in the Basilica of Saint-Denis and taking from each opened grave whatever took his fancy. The collection described by Dumas père contained the kneecap of Charles IX, the thumb of Francis I, a piece of the skull of Louis XIV, a rib of Henry II, a vertebra of Louis XV, the beard of Henry IV and the hair of Louis XVI. "There was a bone from every king. From all the bones one could have assembled the skeleton of the French monarchy, which has long been lacking its principal framework. Besides these, there was a tooth of Abelard and a tooth of Heloise, two white incisors."

Such collections were, undoubtedly, entirely real. In all, 150 bodies were thrown out of Saint-Denis: the remains of 43 kings, 32 queens, 63 princes of the blood, 10 servants of the kingdom and many abbots of Saint-Denis. It is known that almost everyone who was present at the desecration of the royal tombs helped himself to something, and personal attendance at the carrying of the monarchs out of their crypts was not even required: the skeletons were tipped into a ditch in the monastery cemetery to the north of the basilica, where they lay for 23 years, so that any passer-by, the first who happened along, might break off a souvenir from Pepin or Louis.

Many influential people, or simply the rich, wished to partake of the great bones and assembled in their houses repositories of such "relics". In time these relics made their way into museums, and some returned to the places of their former rest. The Musée Tavet-Delacour in Pontoise managed to acquire a piece of the skull of Saint Louis, the hair of Philip Augustus, the hair of Henry IV, the legs of Catherine de' Medici, the thumb of the left hand of Henry IV, a fragment of the jaw of Dagobert with two teeth, two upper teeth of Saint Louis, the teeth of Henry III, the teeth of the Grand Dauphin, a molar of Henry IV, two teeth of Louis XIV and, in all likelihood, a number of other precious remains.

A similar collection was assembled by the founder of the Museum of French Monuments, Alexandre Lenoir, who saved a multitude of priceless sculptures and carvings. Invested with the authority of head of the Commission on Monuments, he selected objects from the plundered places of worship for the collection of the national museum. Along the way Lenoir also picked up fragments of regal bones, so as to preserve them for posterity. Among other things Alexandre Lenoir came into possession of two teeth, those of Pierre Abelard and of his beloved Heloise. Who knows, perhaps the very ones of which Dumas wrote. Both teeth, with fragments of bone, were placed by their keeper in a fine reliquary and for many years remained in the sculptor's collection; quite recently they were bought out of private hands and transferred to the collection of the Musée des Beaux-Arts of Paris.