According to the official version of events, the eight-year-old had been separated from his parents and elder sister at the Temple prison in Paris and had incarcerated on his own in an attempt to prevent loyalists rescuing the boy and re-establishing the monarchy. To make the point that he was now just one of the people, his captors called him ‘Louis Capet’ – after his ancester Hugh Capet, founder of the royal dynasty, but also as a deliberate insult as royalty tend not to use surnames – and set him to work as a cobbler’s assistant. The former dauphin was also forced to sing revolutionary songs, drink alcohol and to curse his mother and father. He remained in prison for two years, dying of tuberculosis in 1795.
