Louis XVII was the second son of Louis XVI; after his father’s execution in 1793 he succeeded to the throne (in name and in the minds of his royalist supporters). Most of his life was spend in prison, where he died age ten of disease and neglect. His mistreatment by revolutionary guards and the possibility that he might have escaped (and another body substituted) made him raw material for romance and for false claimants through the 19th century (one occurs in Mark Twain’s Huckleberry Finn). This image is part of that romance and was presumably created for a royalist sympathizer either during the Revolutionary years or after the Restoration. It shows what never happened: a saint-like eight year old wearing coronation robes, the collar of the Order of Saint Esprit and the French crown. The profile presentation is appropriate for a king as this is how he should appear on the coinage; it also suggests a memorial image of one regarded as a royal martyr.