Elizabeth II died on Thursday, September 8, in Balmoral, Scotland, and will be buried on Monday, September 19, in the vault of St. George’s Chapel in Windsor Castle, outside London. Meanwhile, her remains will have been transported more than 800 kilometers and, above all, eleven days will have elapsed.
An atypical situation that raises questions, although the issue is one of the most delicate: how to ensure the good state of conservation of a body for such a long period? René Deguisne, president of the French Embalming Institute, responds to BFMTV.com.
An exceptional delay
To begin with, this period of latency between the death of the deceased and his burial -or here in the grave- is unusual, as confirmed by the specialist who relies on the French example: “There are legal deadlines: six days between death and burial. Ten days is exceptional. In this case, we will have to ask the prefecture or the department for an exemption.”
Let’s start with the fact that in the case of the funeral of their monarch, the British authorities did not face such difficulties. As for the procedures used to protect the queen’s body after her death, they didn’t say much. We hardly know, thanks to the British press, that the royal coffin is lined with lead. The first protection is not to expose the body too much to the air. René Deguisne, skeptical on this point, specifies: “We are talking about lead but above all we should be talking about an airtight coffin. In any case, it is a metal coffin that will protect the body from air and moisture.”
Preservative liquids and drainage
Beyond this material precaution, it is the work of funeral directors that will be decisive here. “We will proceed to embalming care, first by arterial injection of preservative liquids, based on formalin. These liquids will fix the tissues”, states the president of the French Institute of Embalming, who adds that the operation is more or less the same as waiting five or ten days, except that in this last option, the professional must use “more concentrated” products. The operation therefore consists of injecting this liquid into the blood vessels, and in particular the arteries, to retard the effects of decomposition.
The expert can then launch the second phase, the draw phase. “We are going to eliminate part of the physiological fluids present in the body”, continues René Deguisne. This justifies this last intervention by remembering that “our body is made up of almost 70% water”. A fact that unites the queen and common mortals.
With these operations, according to our expert, the situation is quite similar for a conservation of five or six days, that of eleven. After that, the Queen will rest at the George VI memorial, little known to the general public, located in St George’s Chapel at Windsor Castle. She will be with her parents, her sister and her late husband Felipe, whose remains must be transferred to join them, since she currently rests in the royal pantheon, under the chapel.
Source: BFM TV
