NOVA GORICA, Slovenia (AP) – Beneath a small monastery in Slovenia, six marble sarcophagi flank a crucifix engraved with a French royalist coat-of-arms.
The stone crypt – 1,256 kilometers (780 miles) – from Paris holds the remains of the last Bourbon king of France, Charles X, and several members of his family. Their tomb has earned the Kostanjevica Franciscan monastery the nickname of “Little Saint-Denis” after the medieval church outside Paris where centuries of French monarchs were laid to rest.
The only French king buried outside France, Charles X was interred here 180 years ago, not long after he lost the throne to a revolution. But some historians and royalists in France are lobbying to have his remains reburied back home.
“It wasn’t his choice,” said Philippe Delorme, a historian behind the repatriation campaign. “Had he been able to choose, he would have died in France.”
The Rev. Jernej Kurincic, abbot of the Kostanjevica monastery, said the request to move the remains came as a surprise.