Sanson Family Background: "She had left Abbeville and was journeying to Dieppe to meet him. Well, he arranged to accompany her on the last leg of the journey and Charles is, he just has no luck. While they were riding towards Dieppe, a violent thunderstorm erupted. Frightened by a bolt of lightning their horse shied, bolted and threw them both to the ground. When Charles regained consciousness he found a man, a woman, and a young girl bending over him. They informed him that Columba was dead. Well until he was well enough to return to his regiment that family named Jouenne, looked after him. And in particular, that daughter Marguerite Jouenne looked after him...
What Charles doesn't know at this point is that the woman he's fallen in love with or she has fallen in love with him is the dog of an executioner. Now the custom at this time is very simple. If you marry, if you are not an executioner or a relative of an executioner and you marry into the executioner's family, you become an executioner because no one will give you a job. Now, it was required that if you were an executioner you had your family. When you, if you had a daughter, when she became of marriageable age, you were required to put a note on the church door and a note on the door of your house and warn everybody that your daughter was now at marriageable age and beware. So we're going to see what happens and this is how we, how the Sansons get involved in executions. By love"
Charles Sanson New Job: "He wanted to marry her, but for some reason another she stubbornly and inexplicably refused, although she did consent to be his mistress...
One day, crossing the main square of Dinep, Charles caught sight of a scaffold and standing beside it was Margueritte’s father. Pierre Jouenne turned out to be the executioner for not just Dienep, but also Rouen and Cote de Becque En Co [sp?]. Now Charles realized with a sinking heart why Marguerite could not accept his marriage proposal…
Execution orders, letters of commission, payments and other communiques to executioners were not delivered into their hands, but rather thrown on the ground so that the recipient would have to kneel to receive papers and payments. Executioner's were often required to live in isolated places, but some communities requiring their houses to be painted red. In church, the executioner's pew was usually set apart from all the others. As public prejudice increased, some executioners couldn't even find places to lodge and merchants frequently refused to sell goods to them, fearing it would frighten off other customers, but that's more on the provincial level…
Charles realized what would happen so he made an effort to stay away from the Jouenne farm, but his feelings overpowered his will… [His officer accused him] of dishonoring the regiment and gave him a choice. He was ordered to stop seeing Marguerite or to resign his commission. Well, Charles had to think about it a little while so Charles left the barracks... he was now threatened by Pierre her father who gave him two choices: marry her or he would have to kill her"
French View of Justice Pre 1789: "Mutilation. Branding with a red hot iron or the amputation of a hand, the foot, an ear or a tongue were common punishments administered by the executioner. *Something* or ear cropping, another frequent punishment. First offence, one ear was severed. The culture was found guilty a second time, the other one followed. The left ear was usually cut first because the belief that it was connected with the sexual organs. Its absence therefore would prevent procreation of children who might inherit the father's criminal tendencies"
Executioners Royal Contract: "If you're ever in London the original guillotine that killed Louis XVI is in Madame Tussaud’s Wax Museum in London because she purchased it from one of his descendants because after Louis XVI was executed he removed it from the guillotine and kept it in his house. Actually made a little altar in a closet that he prayed for forgiveness when he got up and left in the morning and when he got ready for bed. And he’d just put a new blade that they had on the guillotine and then continued on from there, but it wasn't stealing. It was his. He was the chief executioner, it was his"
Charles Sanson II Part 2: "When Charles was informed that De Horn was to be broken on the wheel, he looked for the usual additional permission to use the retentum. The retentum is a very thin rope invisible to the public by which the executioner strangled his victim before subjecting him to the torture of the wheel. There was no mention of it. Appalled by the barberisms of his orders, Charles Sanson disobeyed them and used the rentum anyway"
Charles Sanson II Part 3: "It is interesting to note that not even the women connected with the Sanson family could escape their fate. Her second husband belonged to a family of executioner from the town of Metz. If Charles had outlived his wife, the Sanson heritage might not have had such a, been such a bloody one. If his gentle stepmother Renee Dubeurre [sp?] had been able to influence him, the future might have changed for generations to come, but Renee was only Jean-Baptiste’s grandmother. Despite her pleading it was his mother's will that prevailed. And Martha Debut Sanson, a royal commission was a prized possession.
The job of executioner as port, is as important to France as any other in the royal household. Renee urged her to take advantage of the child's youth, to use it as an excuse to renounce the inheritance. But Martha was adamant. Apprehension that the parliament might not accept her husband's last will as valid, she decided to plead her cause in person. A tragic figure in her widow weaves and fully aware of it, she confronted the public prosecutor whose sympathy or disgust made him succumb to her plea and name the seven year old Jean Baptiste, executioner. Although a deputy actually carried out the sentence, the seven year old child had to legalize every execution by his presence. Martha did not apprentice her offspring to a provincial executioner, but trained them herself, and Renee would marry the executioner of Soixante [sp?]. Gabrielle became an executioner at Reims. To prepare Jean-Baptiste for his position as Monsieur de Paris. He was made to witness flagellations, branding, hanging, decapitation, breaking on the wheel. And at 18, he performed his first execution much to his mother's proud joy"
Jean Baptise Sanson: "He'd been trained by his mother. Unfortunately for Martha, Jean-Baptiste never lived up to her hopes because he was a sensitive man. He suffered deeply and after every execution became so upset that he would saddle his horse and gallop out of Paris, often riding for hours trying to forget what he had done. Like his grandfather, the ghosts of his victims never left him"
Charles Henri Sanson Part 3: [On hunting] "Charles Henri was genuinely fond of the sport. A fondness of the upper class privilege that would once again involve him in trouble. One evening on his way home from a foray into the countryside, he stopped at an inn. He entered the dining room and because he cut a rather striking figure, he was asked by a young noblewoman if he would join her for dinner. When she asked his name, he replied, I am the Chevalier de Longueville, an officer of the Parliament. After dinner, the young Marquessa accepted his offer to escort her to her rooms. He hesitated outside her door, realizing that she wanted him to spend the night with her and would have succumbed to her charms, but for the fact that he had to be back in Paris early the next morning to prepare for an execution, so he left abruptly. Furious at the rebuff, she waited until she heard the sound of his horses’ hooves clattering away from the courtyard of the inn, then went downstairs and ask if anyone knew the young man's identity. As luck would have it, one of the other guests had recognized him and quickly disabused her of the idea that she had dined with an aristocrat…
Returning to Paris, she lost no time in consulting a lawyer, demanding that Charles Henri be made to appear in courts to offer a public apology to her for the offense of having dined with her. In addition, she asked that all executioners be made to wear some distinctive marking on their clothing so that everyone would know who they were and could avoid contact with them. Well, Charles Henri could get no lawyer to defend them, no man of honor would touch the case. So he acted on his own defense, his words echoing the often repeated phrases of his indomitable grandmother. He argued the importance of the executioner as an officer of the law.
He stated that ‘he killed men in the same way and for the same reason as any other soldier. To protect the kingdom and to protect his fellow men. And that his job was as respectable and his station in life as honorable as any other. Ask any soldier what his profession entails, said the executioner proudly. He will answer as I do, that he kills men. No one flees his company for that reason. No one refuses to eat with him. Who does he kill? Innocent people, people who are serving their country just as he is. I too serve my country, but I respect innocence. I kill only the guilty. The eloquence of his plea impress the court and the case was dismissed. Now this is something that's going to occur a few more times because there's one incident during the Revolution where he was called before the assembly and he's accused of selling hair of people for profit, and he threatened to quit. And since no one else knew how to operate the guillotine, they simply let it go"
Charles Henri Sanson 1788: "You're buying the tax collector job. This happened very frequently in the ancient world. But the gabelle or the salt tax was the one that inflicted the most hardship. Every person over the age of seven years of age was to require or buy at least seven pounds of salt a year whether he wanted it or not. That seven pounds could be used only for cooking or on the table. If a man wanted to salt down and preserve fish or meat he had to buy an additional amount. It was estimated that 30,000 people were imprisoned each year and over 500 condemned to death or sent to the galleys for illegal trade in salt. Wine assessed at the site of manufacture, and again at the time of sale could also be taxed as many as 30 or 40 times as it traveled from its point of origin through the provincial towns to Paris. Liberty did not exist.
Protestantism had been outlawed since the revocation of the Edict of Nantes in 1685. Jews were considered to be foreigners and treated as second class citizens. Catholics were required by law to observe communion, fast days and Lent. Nor did the law permit the formation of societies or the convening of public gatherings. The authorities could arrest and imprison whomever they wished for as long as they chose. Quite frequently, the famous letter de cachet [Ed: lettre de cachet] were used to pay off a personal grid, although that is widely overblown. And as if all of these restrictions and hardships did not result in enough suffering, nature provided an additional attack. In the summer of 1788 a terrible drought at the country. Then in July 1788, a violent hailstorm on the 13th ruined a large part of the already meager crop. And the harvest as it was was one of the poorest in many years. When the ensuing winter turned so cold that the Seine froze and nine tenths of the people could not afford fire, firewood or food, it’s a small wonder that brigands didn't have, rode the streets."
Charles Henri Sanson 1788: "He received orders to break a man named Luscart [Ed: Louschart] on the wheel. Louschart, a young revolutionary was full of spirit and ideas that would result in the storming of the best deal in less than a year. His father, a widower, was equally fanatic in support of the throne and everything it represented. Both men were articulate, and both men were hot tempered. When the younger man fell in love with a cousin and announced his intention to marry her, his father decided to wed the girl himself to punish his son for his revolutionary ideas. Needless to say a quarrel ensued during which the angry father picked up a hammer and threatened this son.
Being younger and stronger, Louschart the son had no trouble in wrestling the instrument from his father. Then not wanting to prolong the fight, he strode towards the door throwing the hammer back over his shoulder. Unfortunately, his aim proved more accurate than he intended. The hammer struck the old man on the forehead killing him instantly. Murder? No. Accidental, unintentional death? Yes. Death on the wheel is the sentence, was a brutal and unjust sentence. The populace getting wind of the circumstance thronged the place of execution, shouting its anger and threatening Charles Henri Sanson. There should be no execution at all, let alone the inhumane and unjust punishment of the wheel. For the first time in centuries, public feeling exploded. A crowd of men destroyed the scaffold, freed the victim who was then carried off in triumph and attacked the executioner. Had it not been for the protection of a brawny blacksmith who held off the attackers long enough for Charles Henri to escape, he would have been trampled to death. Both scaffolding and wheel were ripped apart and then burned by the mob.
When the word of this episode reached the king he not only pardoned Louschart, but ordered that henceforth the penalty of the wheel would be abolished in France. A wise decision and one that found its echo in the courts of justice. Judges suddenly found that it prudent to be more lenient in their sentencing and then the type of punishment meted out to criminals. But this newfound humanity came to late to obliterate the memories of the past injustices and cruelty. Too late to stem a wave of discontent and then bitterness that had already reached its height. So the revolution had already begun. Now, if you listen to the executioners of England, as that series went through, you saw that eventually people were going, you know, why are we executing people for stealing five pounds worth of merchandise? But initially, the upper classes believed that if anyone was stealing, they needed to be gotten rid of because it would lead others to do the same thing. And obviously, it's not quite that bad in France.
But this idea of the punishment that you saw in the inequality of the punishment. Which the revolution will indeed take in the hand in the very first year of the National Assembly and declare that everybody is going to get executed the same way."
Creation of the Guillotine: "Anton Lewis had his office in the Tuileries palace and it was there that he received his visitors. As the foreman studied the plans, a door at the back of the room opened and Charles Henri Sanson had his second meeting with Louie the 16th. Whether true or apocryphal the story has been told many times but most dramatically by Alexander Dumas. In Le Drame des quatre-vingt-treize. The king says Dumas, examined the drawings carefully and when he came to the blade, he said the fault is there. The blade should not be a crescent shape, but triangular with a beveled edge like a scythe. To illustrate the point Louis the 16th, who by the way, whose hobby was locksmithering, took a pen in his hand and drew the instrument as he thought it should be. Nine months later, the head of the unhappy Louis the 16th would be felled by the very instrument he had drawn...
It seemed to me that the public was crying out for Monsieur Sanson to return to the messes of the Ancien Régime and bidding him to *something*. Translated: Give me back my guillotines of wood, give me back my guillotines. Now what's interesting here is what's wrong with his point of view is, although the crowd probably indeed chanted it, you remember, in a hanging, there's a lot of drama, it takes a while to get prepared, anything can happen. Sometimes you have priests trying to convert the person. So there's a lot of theater. And then, when the hanging is done, all sorts of things can happen, the rope can break, it might take a while for them to die. So there's a lot of entertainment, which is kind of terrible to use that term, but there's a lot of entertainment value. In the case of the guillotine, if you blinked or turned your head, to speak to Francois next to you, it could be all over. That's what they're complaining about. There was no fun in it. There was no drama in it. It was just swift. And one of the things that begins happening is that to get a little more notoriety, people being executed would work on making last statements prior to their execution.
Some people even during the Reign of Terror, when it was their turn, would try to dance across the scaffolding to the positioning. So there's all sorts of little things that were done to try to make the new victim feel like he was in, doing something special. But in the end, Dr. Guillotine was destined to go down in history not as a skilled physician but as a household word for execution. His name entered the language as both a noun and a verb, his contention that he never had and never would witness an execution fell on deaf ears and whenever he walked the streets of Paris, passer by struck the napes of their necks with the palms of their hands and winked at one another. And of course, Paris would catch guillotine mania. Women wore small silver or gold guillotines dangling from their ears. Children played with toy guillotines in the Girondine salons, the moderates during the revolution, a miniature mahogany guillotine was placed on the dinner table when desserts were served. A tiny doll, the head of which might have been modeled on the likeness of Robespierre, Danton or some other famous personage was then decapitated. A red liquid flowed from his neck and the ladies dip their handkerchief in it for each doll was actually a falconne [sp?] containing a sweet liqueur. The mania then spread to England where it became fashionable to cut chickens’ heads off with small guillotines"
Execution Louis XVI Part 2: [On Charles Henri Sanson] "We know that afterwards, he will remove the blade from the guillotine, take it home, put it in a closet, where he makes a makeshift little altar with a picture of Louis the 16th, some candles, crucifix, and every night before he went to bed, he would pray for forgiveness, and every morning he would do the same thing for the rest of his life."
Execution of Marie Antionette: "[She heard] herself charged with a long and outlandish list of crimes against the state. In the words of the prosecutor Fouquier Tinville, “Since her residence in France, Marie Antoinette, widow of Louis Capet, had been the curse and the leech of the French people”. The final indignity was the charge that she had sexual intercourse with her son, the Dauphin, was only eight years old at the time. As well as a lesbian affair with her daughter. The verdict of the convention was unanimous - death, each member of the jury aware that a vote for her life might actually cost him his own"
Executions During the Directory and Consulate: "La Fille Bonhourt known as the Manette had committed not one murder, but many. A pretty vivacious blonde, she had fallen in love with a man. Believing his attestations of love and his promise to marry her, she let him seduce her. Her carefree lover not only deserted her, but jeered at her desperate attempts to ensnare him. Realizing at last her efforts were in vain, she swore revenge on all men. For the purpose, she dressed in men's clothing. This beautiful young girl’s blond hair fell from beneath a man's top hat. Her tight fitting coat enhance the shapeliness of her body, and her white culottes and black leather boots revealed long slim legs. The startling and intriguing effect fascinated and attracted a masculine population whose jaded palates were ever in search of the unusual.
Manette would lure her victim to a hotel room, where she would persuade him to order wine. Then she managed at some point during the evening to divert the man's attention long enough to drop an opiate into his glass. While he slept, she pulled a hammer from her purse and bludgeoned him to death. Instead of departing immediately she spent the night in the hotel room. The following morning, having robbed the corpse of whatever money and jewels she could find, she instructed the clerk to leave her husband alone. He's sleeping late and does not wish to be disturbed, she would say. I'm going shopping and shall return at noon. Invariably the clerk was so astonished by her costume that when questioned by police, he could only shake his head and offer the vague statement that the woman had been pretty and blonde, and inasmuch as she always changed back into feminine attire, she became no more noticeable than any other pretty parisienne.
Despite the intensive search that the agents of Fouché the Minister of Police conducted after every one of her murders, Manette eluded capture for a number of years. A police agent finally trapped her having let himself be lured into a hotel room, he drank her potion, but managed to call for help before asleep overcame him. A hotel employees came running into the room in time to stop Manette whose hammer was poised to strike. Arrested and taken to prison, she confessed, boasting that she had killed 18 to 20 men, she couldn't remember the exact number…
Amazingly enough, probably because of her beauty, the case inspired sympathy, so much so that pleas for clemency reached the desk of the Emperor himself. Her appeal was denied, but instead of rendering its decision in a matter of weeks, as was customary, the appeals court let the verdict dangle for two years. Even the hard hearted custodians at the Concierge had come to her charm, expressing admiration and pity for the smiling prisoner who had lost none of for loveliness during her confinement.
On the day of execution, she changed skirts for masculine attire, saying that she would go to her death in her costume of revenge. She's submitted without complaint to the cutting of her blonde curls, offered no resistance when her wrists were strapped together behind her back… this calm, smiling woman who maintained her composure to the last, quote, don't you think it's a pity she said to Henri as he led her to the guillotine to cut off a head as beautiful as mine"
