l'appréhension qui lui avait serré le ventre avant de partir

Question

Why in this sentence is both 'lui' and 'le' needed? As isn't "le" meaning "her" here because "ventre" is a body part? The same thing with the sentence "Le vent vivifiant lui fouettait le visage"

Accepted Answer

Hi James,
Just to add to Chris' answer in both expressions 'lui' is an indirect object pronoun and it stands for him or her. Her in this case as it is a woman we are talking about.

Lit- 
Le vent fouettait à elle le visage
L'appréhension avait serré (à elle) le ventre...

If you don't use lui you don't know who the action is happening to, but you could say something like :

le vent vivifiant fouettait le visage aux enfants 
l'appréhension avait serré le ventre à Marie avant de partir

Hope this helps!

Answer

L'appéhension, qui lui avait serré le ventre. -- The apprehension, which had gripped his stomach.

Le ventre -- the stomach, is a masculine noun and hence the le.

The function and meaning of lui in this sentence becomes more apparent in a literal translation: the apprehension which gripped him the stomach. This kind of construction is quite common in French and is often translated to English by transforming the indirect object pronoun (lui) into a posessive pronoun (his) in English.