from LIFE The Greatest Unsolved Mysteries of All Time by Editors of LIFE Magazine.
Reading level: Young Adult
Language: English
Product Dimensions: 10.9 x 8.8 x 0.8 inches

The Dauphin died at sixteen from an ear infection. Mary was young as well, and it is not known if she nursed him, watching him die. A couple that young and going through agony and death should know each other. We are terrible and weak, full of fluid.

The Lord was a man of violent passion—oh take your supper beside me. After, we’ll take turns stabbing each other fifty-six times. When we say such things we mean that he was a handsome rapist. The ladies loved a long lad—C’mon, I’ll blow up the cottage, and you’ll be strangled in the garden alongside your “friend.” The syphilis advanced, galloped, and his cruelty became the subject of paintings and sketches. Debauch. Spit. Disease as career.

Her last husband, the Earl, was a politician, natural and complete. Hero/rapist/insurgent protestant—the one who married the hell out of her. Eighteen years later she was executed. Coincidence?