Execution: A Guide to the Ultimate Penalty (25 page)

For him there was no alternative. Resignation would result only in his own head being forfeited. At least he could salve his conscience by decapitating those who mounted the steps of his scaffold as quickly and as mercifully as he could.

His worst experience occurred not in sheer numbers of victims but on the day when he had to execute just one man, Louis XVI, the King to whom he had always been loyal, and whom, even at this late stage, he secretly hoped could somehow escape the guillotine.

Earlier that day, 21 January 1793, he had received letters from those who hoped to rescue the king, begging him to delay the execution for as long as possible, to give time for an attempt to be made; warning him, too, that should he resist the rescuers, he would be killed. But let him give the account in his own words:

‘I started this morning at seven o’clock and took a carriage with my brothers Charlemagne and Louis Martin. The crowd was so large in the streets that it was close on nine o’clock before we reached the Place de la Revolution. Gros and Barre, my assistants, had erected the guillotine, and I was so persuaded that it would not be used that I hardly looked at it.

My brothers and I were well armed; under our coats we had, besides our swords, daggers, four pistols and a flask of powder, and our pockets were full of bullets. We felt sure that some attempt would be made to rescue the King, and we intended if we could to assist in saving his life.

When we reached the Place, I listened intently for some indication as to what was about to occur. I rejoiced at the thought that the King had perhaps been rescued on the way, and that he was already beyond the reach of danger. Suddenly I espied a body of cavalry coming up at a trot, and immediately after it, a carriage drawn by two horses and surrounded by a double row of horsemen. No doubt could now exist; the victim was at hand. My sight became dim and my brothers were deathly pale.

The carriage stopped at the foot of the scaffold. The King was sitting on the back seat on the right; next to him was his confessor, and on the front seat, two gendarmes. The latter got out first, then the priest, directly followed by the King, who appeared calm and collected.

As he approached the steps of the scaffold, I cast a last glance around. The people were silent, the drums were sounding, but not the slightest sign of a rescue being at hand was evident. Charlemagne was as troubled as I was; as for my brother Martin, he had more firmness and, advancing respectfully, took off his hat and told the King that he must take his coat off. “There is no necessity,” answered he. “Dispatch me as I am now.” My brother insisted, and added that it was also necessary to bind his hands. This last observation moved him greatly. He reddened and exclaimed: “What, would you dare touch me? Here is my coat, but do not lay a finger on me!”

After saying this he took off his coat. Charlemagne came to his brother’s assistance and, scarcely knowing how to address the illustrious victim, in tones in which he could hardly conceal his profound emotion, he said: “It is absolutely necessary. The execution cannot proceed otherwise.”

In my turn I interfered, and bending to the ear of the priest I said: “Monsieur l’Abbé, ask the King to submit. While I tie his hands we can gain time, and perhaps some assistance may be forthcoming.”

At that the King held out his hands, while his confessor was presenting a crucifix to his lips. Two assistants tied the hands which had wielded a sceptre. He then ascended the steps of the scaffold, supported by the worthy priest. “Are these drums going to sound for ever?” he said to Charlemagne. On reaching the platform he advanced to where the crowd was thickest, and made such an imperative sign that the drummers stopped for a moment. “Frenchmen!” he exclaimed in a strong voice. “You see your King ready to die for you. May my blood cement your happiness – I die innocent of what I am charged with!”

He was about to continue when Santerre, who was at the head of his staff, ordered the drummers to beat loudly, and nothing more could be heard.

In a moment the King was bound to the weigh plank, and a few seconds after, while under my touch the knife was sliding down, he could hear the voice of the priest saying: “Son of St Louis, ascend to Heaven!”

Thus died the unfortunate prince, who might have been saved by a thousand well-armed men. I am at a loss to understand the letter I had received, that some attempt was to be made. The slightest signal would have been sufficient to cause a diversion in his favour, for although, when Gros, my assistant, showed the King’s head to the multitude, some cries were uttered, the greater part of the crowd turned away with profound horror.’

The body was placed in a long wicker basket, the head, its face pale, the eyes wide open, being placed on the corpse’s legs. Sanson’s cart transported it to the Church of the Madeleine, where, after a short religious ceremony, the remains, now in a pine wood coffin, were interred in a pit 6 feet wide and 12 feet deep, then covered with quicklime.

As the cart left, the now empty wicker basket fell off. Immediately it was surrounded by the mob; like vultures, they rubbed handkerchiefs and pieces of cloth on the bloodstains, even breaking off pieces of the wickerwork as macabre souvenirs of the day a King was decapitated.

In the weeks that followed, Sanson worked like an automaton, trying to insulate himself from the horrific details of his work, yet unable to avoid the necessary attendances at court and on the scaffold.

The tribunal’s sittings usually opened between 9 and 10 a.m. in the morning, stopping for lunch at noon and resuming their ghastly business at 2 p.m. The trials being little more than formalities, the verdict was given in the afternoon, and those who were condemned to death would be taken to the scaffold on the same day. Each morning Sanson would report to the public prosecutor, Fouquier-Tinville, in the law courts, there to be informed of the number of prisoners to be tried. This allowed Sanson to calculate the number of tumbrils he would require; he had only two, so had to hire more, at fifteen francs each plus a further five for the driver.

Returning home, he would then prepare the placards that identified each victim by name and sentence, recruiting, in addition to the four assistants allowed him by law, three others he paid for out of his own purse. He also had the help of his son.

About half-past three he would return to where the prisoners were being held, the staff there being familiar with his appearance, for he wore a hat with a high and slightly convex crown covering his sandy hair, and a smart, buttoned-up riding-coat of dark green – Sanson green, as it became known. Parisian fashion demanded a white wig for gentlemen in those days, but such could hardly have been worn without it getting spattered with blood on the scaffold, so Sanson wore a high-collared cravat instead.

Passers-by would joke as they saw him: ‘There goes Sans-farine!’ they would say, the name being a play on the fact that the executioner used empty bran sacks,
sacs de son
, in which to deposit the heads, and
sans farine
, meaning ‘without grain’. Another nickname was ‘Chariot’, this being bestowed on later executioners in the same way as ‘Jack Ketch’ was applied to those of the same trade in England. Nor was Sanson bereft of humour himself, his coat of arms featuring a cracked bell, a pun on
sans son
, ‘without sound’.

At the prison he would supervise his assistant Desmorets as the man trimmed away the hair from the back of each victim’s neck – the hair being sold by the wife of the concierge to local wigmakers at a good profit – and made sure that each victim’s shirt or dress had been slit sufficiently so as not to impede the falling blade. Then, having checked off the roster, he would accompany the condemned in the tumbrils back to where the guillotine waited for its helpless prey.

Even for one of Charles-Henri’s iron constitution, the appalling work took its toll on his health. Despite the slackening of the massacre as the weeks passed, ill health threatened, and this was exacerbated by the fact that neither he nor his wife Marie-Anne had got over the death of their younger son Gabriel. He, assisting his father on the scaffold, had retrieved a felon’s head from the basket and, in stepping forward to hold it high and exhibit it to the crowd as the law demanded, had missed his footing on the blood-slippery boards and fallen off the scaffold, sustaining a fractured skull and dying instantly. Thereafter all scaffolds had a rail around their perimeters.

Finally, on 30 August 1795, having contracted nephritis, Sanson submitted his resignation, and he and his wife retired to his house at Brie-Comte-Robert. He died on 4 July 1806 and was buried in what is now the cemetery of Montmartre, the inscription on his gravestone reading: ‘
Cette pierre lui fut erigée par son fils et sa famille dont il fut regrette
’ – ‘This stone was erected to him by his son and family, to whom his death brought sorrow.’

Contrary to some beliefs, Dr Guillotin himself did not end up a victim of his own device but died of a more mundane complaint, that of a carbuncle in the shoulder, compounded by pneumonia, in 1814.

During the worst days of the Terror, many aristocrats, disdainful of their approaching fate, refused to exhibit their fear to the vengeful crowds, concealing it instead with droll witticisms. On it being suggested that, because of the bitterly cold weather, he might need to wear a coat in the tumbril, one replied: ‘What’s the matter? Are you afraid I might catch a cold?’

Colonel Vaujour, condemned to death, asked his guards at what hour the ceremony would be performed, and on being told ‘At two o’clock’ replied ‘That is a pity, it is my usual dinner hour! But never mind, I’ll dine a little earlier.’ Accordingly, he asked for several dishes, but, when the fatal hour struck, he hadn’t finished. ‘I’ll just have a bit more,’ he remarked to those who had come to fetch him, continuing: ‘Oh, well, it doesn’t matter – let us be off!’

And Danton, once a leading light of the revolutionary council, sneered: ‘Show my head to the people – it’s worth looking at!’ Even a murderess, fully aware of her attractive features, murmured to the executioner as he strapped her to the bascule: ‘Do you not think it a pity to cut off a head as beautiful as mine?’

Humour there was, but also many tragic errors occurred during the decades in which the machine was employed, for neither the guillotine nor its operators were infallible. In 1792 it was reported that the ropes which controlled the blade became entangled to such an extent that the blade was slowed down and had to be raised again, a second attempt proving successful. The machine was later modified, a mechanical trigger replacing the rope method. No mention was made of the victim’s state of nerves during the ordeal, though.

Not only had the machine to be fully operational; the victim, too, had to be correctly secured and prepared. A report in ‘Lettre le 27 Mai 1806 par le Procureur général de Sa Majesté l’Empereur à Son Excellence le Grand Juge Ministre de la Justice’ in the French National Archives, stated: