Most dramatic pictures, well done.

My thoughts instantly turned to a story in my own (rl) family, which has been passed down the generations about one of the mourning rites at the Russian court. One of my so-many-great-grandmothers was a mistress of the robes there in the 19th century. When one of the Romanovs died the highest ranking nobles had to take turns to sit in vigil for hours and hours. In this particular case (I'd have to look up which one, but it was a grand duchess if memory serve me right) the embalming had been a bit of a rushed job and not a very good one either; and it was high summer. The story was richly detailed on the slow decay of the corpse and the unbearable stench; which made many of the sitters quite sick to their stomachs. Nevertheless, court protocol demanded that they would sit it out. It's probably needless to say that the supply of smelling salts went rapidly down that week... there was also a vague detail about one courtier who actually got mortally ill because of it all. Talk about duty...

That's really cool! Yes, court procedures don't often make rational sense lol

That's very interesting, Abbondio.  Meanwhile, one of my "great-grandmothers" was a midwife in the Russian Empire.  I can't help but wonder what she would have thought about this tragic pregnancy and if there was any way the mother could have been saved.  Given my background I tend to be pro-midwife anti-doctor especially when talking about historical events.