Here goes science, spoiling everything (but giving us the more accurate answer).
New genetic evidence casts further doubt on the authenticity of a grisly French relic: a gourd long believed to be stained with the blood of Louis XVI.
Scientists sequenced the genome from dried blood inside the 200-year-old gourd and found that it didn’t match with the DNA signatures of the king’s ancestry, nor did it seem to carry the code for Louis XVI’s celebrated traits, like his imposing height and blue eyes.
Supposedly, cloths were used to soak up the blood of the beheaded king.
The Y chromosome of three living Bourbons was studied. They matched each other but not with the DNA recovered from the gourd. That DNA matched northern Italian heritage, a finding that also doesn’t correlate to Louis.
All such relics are questionable, based on stories and biased with a need for the object to be special. As technology improves, we find ways to debunk the stories behind them to the chagrin of those that house the relics. But, sometimes the real answer does not matter, as in the Shroud of Turin. The object remains sacred, venerated by the faithful and those who want to believe it is genuine.