They had gone into it with very low expectations.

Most of the 800 graves had held nothing more than the skeletal remains of their occupants,

and even the first four lead coffins proved to be just as disappointing.

So we can't blame them for standing over the fifth with no hope of anything different.

The archaeologists were working their way through the burials at the site of a convent in

Western France in the city of Ren.

The ground had been opened up to begin construction on a convention center, but came to a halt when

the 17th century graves were found.

This particular lead coffin was among them.

When they pulled the lid open, they were astonished.

The body inside was not a dry skeleton like all of the rest, but the well preserved remains

of a woman.

She was still wearing the clothing she'd been buried in, too.

Shoes, wool stockings, a simple brown habit, a cap, and a veil.

All the telltale signs that this was the grave of a nun.

But the coffin held a deeper story.

This woman might have been buried as a nun, but she hadn't always been one.

In fact, archaeologists know for sure that she'd been married and widowed.

They know this because she was found with a precious relic, a small lead heart shaped

box containing her dead husband's heart.

She had lived and loved, and then life had taken that love away.

Even though she had spent her last remaining years in a convent away from the rest of the

...