She, her companion Dodi Al Fayed and their driver were killed shortly after midnight during a high-speed chase in the French capital while they were pursued by photographers on motorcycles. Al Fayed's Mercedes crashed in a tunnel along the Seine River at the Pont de l'Alma bridge, less than a half mile north of the Eiffel Tower.

At a 6 a.m. press conference at Paris' Hospital de la Pitie Salpetriere, doctors said the Princess, 36, died at 4 a.m. (10 p.m. EDT Saturday) from internal bleeding, the result of major chest and lung injuries. (News was withheld from the public for two hours, until her sons could be notified.)

"We could not revive her," said anesthesiologist Dr. Bruno Riou. He said Diana had quickly gone into cardiac arrest and never regained consciousness after the crash, and that physicians opened the princess' chest cavity and discovered "an important wound of the left pulmonary vein." The wound, the apparent source of the hemorrhage, was closed. Dr. Riou said doctors massaged her heart for two hours but failed to get it going.

Authorities said seven photographers were in custody, and a criminal investigation was under way. France Info radio said some of the photographers took pictures before help arrived -- and that one of the photographers was beaten at the scene by horrified witnesses. Police will develop the film themselves before deciding what, if any, charges will be made in the fatal accident, they said.

Prince Charles, Diana's former husband, woke their children, Princes William, 15, and Harry, whose 13th birthday is Sept. 15, and informed them of their mother's death. (The French ambassador in Britain reportedly telephoned the queen's private secretary to break the news.) Members of the royal family having been spending the past weeks at Balmoral Castle in Scotland. A Buckingham Palace spokesman said Prince Charles and Queen Elizabeth II were "deeply shocked and distressed by this terrible news."

France's interior minister, Jean-Pierre Chevenement, said Diana's car was traveling at high speed through the narrow tunnel when the driver lost control. He didn't specify the speed, but a source close to the investigation said it was well over 60 mph. Britain's ITN TV quoted one source as saying the Mercedes had entered the tunnel at twice that speed, 120 mph.

Witnesses told French radio that the car slammed into a concrete support post, then bounced into the wall. The impact turned the car to crumpled metal and broken glass, with the radiator from the front of the engine pushed into the passenger compartment. France Info reported the chauffeur was a security agent at the Hotel Ritz, owned by Mohamed Al Fayed, Dodi's father. A fourth person in the car, a bodyguard, was also seriously injured.

Before dawn, people began gathering outside Diana's Kensington Palace residence in London, as well as at Buckingham Palace. Many of the generally reserved British wept openly. Candles were lit outside the gate of Diana's house and bouquets of flowers were left, just as they were outside Harrods department store, which is also owned by the Al Fayed family. Through spokesperson Michael Cole, Mohamed Al Fayed said of the deaths: "This is an appalling and quite needless tragedy. The world has lost a princess who is simply irreplaceable."

Diana and Al Fayed, a 42-year-old film producer, had arrived in Paris on Saturday afternoon on a private visit. They had dined at the Ritz and were headed to a villa owned by Al Fayed in a posh district in western Paris, France Info reported.

Prince Charles, accompanied by Diana's sisters Lady Jane Fellowes and Lady Sarah McCorquodale, flew to Paris Sunday afternoon in order to bring Diana's body back to Britain.

In Cape Town, South Africa, Diana's brother Charles Spencer accused the media of killing his sister. "I always believed the press would kill her in the end," Spencer said, pointing a finger at editors or publishers who had paid for intrusive pictures. Every one of them, he said, "has blood on his hands."

Spencer added he was glad his sister was in a place "where no human being can ever touch her again."

THE ROYAL FAMILY

Sunday morning at 11:30, the royal family arrived at the Crathie Church near Balmoral in a convoy of black limousines, as they do every Sunday when they are at their estate in Scotland, reported the Associated Press.

Elizabeth, the 97-year-old Queen Mother, came in the first car, dressed in black and accompanied by Charles' younger brother, Prince Andrew, and Peter Phillips, son of Charles' sister, Princess Anne.

The Queen Mother was followed by Charles in a dark suit and the young princes. William and Harry looked shocked and pale, but calm, seated on either side of their father. Behind them came Queen Elizabeth II, staring somberly ahead, with her husband, the Duke of Edinburgh.

The family looked composed as they entered the church, where mourners had left piles of flowers at the entrance. The queen looked briefly into the crowd of people lining the steep entrance to the rural church.

Charles chatted briefly with the minister, the Rev. Robert Sloat, before going inside with his sons.

WORLD REACTION

President Clinton heard the news of Princess Diana's fatal accident at 11:45 Saturday night while at a private social gathering on Martha's Vineyard, where he is vacationing. He reportedly embraced his wife Hillary and the two left the party shortly afterward.

In a formal statement personally delivered to the press Sunday, Clinton mourned the death of Diana and lauded her work with children, for health causes such as AIDS and, most recently, for demanding the elimination of land mines around the world.

"For myself, I will always be glad that I knew the princess and always think of her in very strong and positive terms, as will Hillary," said the President. "I know that this is a very difficult time for millions of people in the United Kingdom, who are deeply shocked and grieving, and the American people send their condolences. We value their friendship and we understand this great and painful experience."

British Prime Minister Tony Blair, calling Diana "the people's princess," said he was saddened by the "devastating, appalling tragedy." Throughout England radios are playing "God Save the Queen."

In Calcutta, Mother Teresa expressed sorrow over Princess Diana's death. The two had met recently in a Bronx, NY, mission that helps children.

"Mother has heard the news and she is very sorry. She is praying for her and we all are praying for her," Missionaries of Charity, the Roman Catholic nun's religious order in the eastern Indian city of Calcutta, said in a statement to Reuters.

SHADES OF ANOTHER TRAGEDY

The death of Princess Diana bears tragic echoes of the car crash 15 years ago that killed another "fairy tale princess" -- Princess Grace of Monaco. On September 14, 1982, Princess Grace -- the American film actress Grace Kelly -- died when the car she was driving crashed on a hairpin bend on the winding road to Monaco. The car plunged over the parapet on a steep winding road overlooking the Mediterranean. Princess Grace's daughter, Princess Stephanie, who was aged 17 at the time, was also in the vehicle. That death cast a pall over the tiny principality.