PARIS | Letter discovered in Louis XV desk at Versailles | The Herald

Letter discovered in Louis XV desk at Versailles

The Associated Press

PARIS --

For 67 years, a message from Nazi-occupied France remained hidden in a secret drawer of a desk that belonged to France's 18th century King Louis XV.

Restorers at the Chateau of Versailles recently discovered the letter, written by a World War II-era colleague who last restored the bronze-coated bureau.

The letter, released Tuesday by the chateau, details restoration work on the desk during the war. The restorer says he wrote the note after he finished the work - just as Paris was being liberated from the Nazis in August 1944.

The letter was found in one of the desk's many small drawers, which can be opened only by a complex mechanical system of secret buttons and locks considered cutting-edge in its day.