At eight o’clock next morning (9th June) four members of the committee of general safety came to the Tower to make sure that the Prince was really dead.  When they were admitted to the death-chamber by Lasne and Damont they affected the greatest indifference.  “The event is not of the least importance,” they repeated, several times over; “the police commissary of the section will come and receive the declaration of the decease; he will acknowledge it, and proceed to the interment without any ceremony; and the committee will give the necessary directions.”  As they withdrew, some officers of the Temple guard asked to see the remains of little Capet.  Damont having observed that the guard would not permit the bier to pass without its being opened, the deputies decided that the officers and non-commissioned officers of the guard going off duty, together with those coming on, should be all invited to assure themselves of the child’s death.  All having assembled in the room where the body lay, he asked them if they recognised it as that of the ex-Dauphin, son of the last King of France.  Those who had seen the young Prince at the Tuileries, or at the Temple (and most of them had), bore witness to its being the body of Louis XVII.  When they were come down into the council-room, Darlot drew up the minutes of this attestation, which was signed by a score of persons.  These minutes were inserted in the journal of the Temple tower, which was afterwards deposited in the office of the Minister of the Interior.

During this visit the surgeons entrusted with the autopsy arrived at the outer gate of the Temple.  These were Dumangin, head physician of the Hospice de l’Unite; Pelletan, head surgeon of the Grand Hospice de l’Humanite; Jeanroy, professor in the medical schools of Paris; and Laasus, professor of legal medicine at the Ecole de Sante of Paris.  The last two were selected by Dumangin and Pelletan because of the former connection of M. Lassus with Mesdames de France, and of M. Jeanroy with the House of Lorraine, which gave a peculiar weight to their signatures.  Gomin received them in the council-room, and detained them until the National Guard, descending from the second floor, entered to sign the minutes prepared by Darlot.  This done, Lasne, Darlot, and Bouquet went up again with the surgeons, and introduced them into the apartment of Louis XVII., whom they at first examined as he lay on his death-bed; but M. Jeanroy observing that the dim light of this room was but little favourable to the accomplishment of their mission, the commissaries prepared a table in the first room, near the window, on which the corpse was laid, and the surgeons began their melancholy operation.