ArticleScience advances2021
2D macro-XRF to reveal redacted sections of French queen Marie-Antoinette secret correspondence with Swedish count Axel von Fersen.
Article in Science advances, 2021. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 2 papers.
What it found
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The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
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Who cites it
2 citing papers in PubMed.
- X-ray Dark-Field Imaging for Improved Contrast in Historical Handwritten Literature.Journal of imaging · 2022Article
- Uncovering eco-friendly design in the ancient bronze goose-and-fish lamp: an unnoticeable gap boosts ventilation.Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America · 2022Article
Corrections and comments
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Authors and funding
3 authors.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
During the French Revolution, Marie-Antoinette, queen of France and wife of Louis XVI, maintained a highly secret correspondence with the Swedish count Axel von Fersen, her close friend and rumored lover. An unidentified censor later redacted certain sections of the exchanged letters. This presumably sensitive content has been puzzling historians for almost 150 years. We report on the methodology that successfully unraveled this historical mystery. X-ray fluorescence spectroscopy was used in macroscanning mode on the redacted sections. Specific data processing was applied to improve the legibility of the hidden writings (elemental ratios, statistical data reduction, multimodal images fusion, unmixing procedure, and image treatments). This methodology successfully revealed the redacted contents of eight letters, shedding new light not only on Marie-Antoinette and Fersen relationship but also on the author of the redactions. It will also be of great interest for other historical and forensic cases involving the disentanglement of superimposed multi-elemental materials.
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Registered trials
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