Jean Amilcar

Jean Amilcar (1781–1793) was the adopted son (foster child) of king Louis XVI of France and Marie Antoinette.[1]

Jean Amilcar was from French Senegal and enslaved as a child by the French official Chevalier de Boufflers. When Chevalier de Boufflers returned to France in 1787, he brought with him Amilcar, and presented him to queen Marie Antoinette as a "gift". [1] The queen had him manumitted, baptized, adopted and placed in a boarding school on her expense. He was not the first child taken in as a foster child to the queen: he was preceded by Armand Gagné and Ernestine Lambriquet and followed by "Zoë" Jeanne Louise Victoire (b. 1787). In contrast to the others, however, he was not kept to be raised with the queen at court, but he lived on her expense, and she kept paying for him even after the outbreak of the French Revolution of 1789. When Marie Antoinette was imprisoned in 1792, she could no longer pay his fee. This resulted in Jean Amilcar being expelled from his school. Unable to support himself, he reportedly starved to death in the street.[1]