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Authors: Geoffrey Abbott

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But now to come to the finishing up of his life, and so that the last torture might in severity equal the first, they caused four strong horses to be brought, to tear his body into pieces, and to separate his limbs into four quarters; where being ready to pay his last punishment, he was questioned again to make knowne the truth, but he would not, and so died without speaking one word of God, or remembering the danger of his soul.

But so strongly was his flesh and joints knit together, that for a long time these four horses could not dismember him, nor in any way tear one joint from the other, so that one of the horses fainted, the which a merchant of the city of Paris perceiving, put to one of his own, being a horse of exceeding great strength, yet notwithstanding for all this, the executioners were constrained to cut the flesh under his arms and thighs with a sharp razor, by which means his body was the easier torn to pieces.

But when this was done, the rage of the people grew so violent that they snatched the dismembered corpse out of the executioners’ hands; some beat it in sunder against the ground, others cut it to pieces with knives, so that there was nothing left but bones, which were brought back to the place of execution from where it had been dismembered, and there burned to cinders, the ashes whereof being scattered into the wind, as thought to be unworthy of earthly burial.’

The second instance of dismembering by horses occurred, interestingly enough in the same country some 150 years later. One bitterly cold winter evening in 1757 King Louis XV was leaving the apartments of the palace when, just as he was about to step into his carriage, a man rushed between the guards surrounding him and struck him. ‘Someone has given me a fearful blow!’ the King exclaimed. As has been the case in every actual or attempted assassination before or since, for a few moments no one knew, in the utter confusion, just what was happening. However, an observant footman had seen the attack and, with the aid of two colleagues, rushed forward and seized the man.

His Majesty, remarkably cool under the circumstances, checked to see whether he had been seriously wounded. Luckily, he wore two coats, one lined with fur, because of the inclement weather, and so had sustained only a flesh wound. On seeing the man who had struck him, he exclaimed: ‘He is the man; arrest him but do him no harm.’

The would-be assassin, a tall, middle-aged man with an aquiline and protuberant nose, deep-set eyes and shaggy hair, was searched, and a two-bladed knife was found in his pocket, the larger blade of which he had used to stab the King. With the weapon was a book entitled
Christian Instructions and Prayers
together with 37 louis of gold.

When he was questioned, he gave his name as Robert François Damiens, and claimed that he had attempted to kill the King for God and the people. When asked whether the gold in his possession was payment for the deed, he refused to answer, but begged that the Dauphin, the king’s son, should take care.

Taking this warning to indicate the existence of a vast plot against the Royal Family, the officers of the guards started to use violence against Damiens in an attempt to extract more information from him. In this they were assisted by a minister of the Royal Court, Machault, who thrust tongs into the fire and, when they were red-hot, began to burn Damiens’ legs, taking care never to pinch the same part of the leg twice. This highly unofficial torture was halted by the arrival of the Duke d’Ayen who, horrified at the smell of burned flesh, handed the prisoner over to the police. Under heavy guard, Damiens was taken to the dreaded prison, the Conciergerie, where he was incarcerated, appropriately enough, in the very cell once tenanted by Ravaillac.

Meanwhile, the King’s wound had been examined and, although he had lost a lot of blood, no serious injury had been sustained. And the concomitant fear, that the blade might earlier have been dipped in some kind of poison, was alleviated after further questioning of the prisoner.

In the prison, Damiens was closely guarded, 12 sergeants watching him day and night. Strapped down on a leather mattress, only his right hand was free so that he could eat the food specially prepared for him by a cook of the court who had strict orders to taste everything himself in case some accomplice should try to protect the plotters by poisoning Damiens. When spoken to, Damiens answered incoherently, showing every sign of being a religious fanatic rather than a ruthless murderer.

At seven o’clock on 26 March the judges announced their decision, any signs of mercy or compassion being singularly lacking, for it read:

‘The Court declares that Robert François Damiens duly convicted of the crime
lèse-majesté
, divine and human, for the very wicked, very abominable and very detestable parricide perpetrated on the King’s person; and therefore condemns the said Damiens to amende honourable before the principal church of Paris, whither he shall be taken in a cart, wearing only a shirt, and holding a candle of weight of two pounds: there, on his knees, he shall say and declare that, wickedly and with premeditation, he has perpetrated the said very wicked, very abominable and very detestable parricide, and wounded the King in the right side, for which he repents and begs pardon of God, the King, and Justice; and further the Court orders that he then be taken to the Place de Grève and, on a scaffold erected for the purpose, that his chest, arms, thighs and calves, be burnt with pincers; his right hand, holding the knife with which he committed the said parricide, burnt in sulphur; that boiling oil, melted lead, and rosin, and wax mixed with sulphur, be poured into his wounds; and after that his body be pulled and dismembered by four horses, and the members [limbs] and body consumed with fire, and the ashes scattered to the winds. ‘Further, the Court orders that his property be confiscated to the King’s profit; that before the said execution, Damiens be subjected to
question ordinaire et extraordinaire
, to make him confess the names of his accomplices. The Court also orders that the house in which he was born be demolished and that no other building be erected on the spot. Decreed by Parliament on 26 March 1757.’

At this stage sadism was given full rein, regarding the choice of instruments with which Damiens should be tortured, to which not only the judiciary bent their powerful intellects, but members of the public were also invited to participate, an eighteenth-century equivalent of a television phone-in. Some suggested that matches be inserted under Damiens’ fingernails, that his teeth should be pulled out, or that he should be partly flayed and a burning liquid poured over his muscles. However, after due consideration of these proposals, the surgeons of the court voted for that well-tried favourite, the boots.

If the public were eager to participate in the coming event, the executioner of the province in which the assassination attempt had been made, Nicolas Gabriel Sanson, was certainly not. Crimes within his area had not involved capital punishment for 50 years, and, although his family was one of hereditary executioners, Gabriel viewed the execution of Damiens with apprehension and alarm. Anxiously, he appealed to the public prosecutor, suggesting that his nephew, Charles-Henri Sanson (of later Revolution fame), should take over, but this was turned down, Charles-Henri being then only 17 years of age; permission was, however, granted for the young man to assist on the scaffold.

Further complications immediately arose. Torturing to that extent, followed by tearing a victim to bits by horses, hadn’t been carried out for a century and a half; no one knew the procedure. Desperate searches through the archives were eventually successful, though reading through the yellowing documents of instructions made Gabriel Sanson feel ill at the very thought of having to inflict such torments. Much to his relief, however, a man, Soubise, whose ancestor had taken part in the execution of Ravaillac, came forward and volunteered to wield the red-hot pincers when the time came.

The scaffold was erected in the Place de Grève, in the centre of an area of 100 square feet, surrounded by thick wooden railings, the space being needed for the later gruesome activities of the horses. Gabriel Sanson, his nephew Charles-Henri and their assistants, having checked the scaffold, then proceeded to the Conciergerie to attend to their prisoner. There, Damiens was brought into the room, literally, for he was encased in a large leather bag, only his head protruding from it. Extracted from this strait-jacket, he was made to kneel while the sentence was read out to him. After prayers, he was taken to the torture chamber and, further interrogation eliciting nothing, the executioners inserted his feet in the boots and commenced the torture.

The pain must have been unbearable, for Damiens shrieked, his face became livid, he threw back his head and nearly fainted. Charles-Henri gave him wine, holding the glass to his lips, and as soon as he had revived, the torture was recommenced, the victim enduring excruciating agony for a further two and a quarter hours. At the eighth brodequin (wedge) the surgeons decided that Damiens could take no more; the boot was taken off, to reveal that the condemned man’s legs had been broken. Leaving Charles-Henri and the assistants to transport Damiens to the scaffold site, Gabriel went on ahead to assure himself that all was ready – to be filled with panic on finding that, on the contrary, everything had gone disastrously wrong. Soubise, who in addition to wielding the pincers, had promised to purchase the necessary ingredients for the torture session, was drunk and incapable, and there were no signs anywhere of the lead, sulphur, wax and rosin which, in a very few minutes’ time, were going to be urgently needed. Nor was that all: the wood for the necessary fire had been collected, but it was damp!

Gabriel Sanson lost his presence of mind, and for a time the scaffold was a scene of indescribable confusion until the criminal lieutenant arrived and severely reprimanded Gabriel, threatening him with a fortnight’s gaol, and ordering Charles-Henri to take over. The assistant executioners were sent to the local grocers for the vital supplies, and these were obtained with much difficulty, the shopkeepers demurring to produce them until forced to do so. And in the midst of it all, the tumbril arrived, Damiens having to sit on the scaffold steps until everything was ready.

Eventually, he was helped up on to the scaffold, there to be instantly fastened down on the boards with two iron fetters, one placed over his breast below his arms, and the other over his abdomen, just above his thighs. His arm had been tied to an iron bar so that the wrist extended beyond the boards, and the chafing-dish on which the sulphur was being burned with the hot coals now filling the air with acrid, choking fumes, Gabriel brought it across and started to sear the flesh with the blue flames.

At the burning sensation Damiens ‘gave a very loud and continuing cry, which was heard at a great distance from the place of execution’, and this proved too much for the executioner. With shaking hands, he withdrew the blazing dish and desperately offered 100 livres to any of his assistants who would take over. One, André Legris, eagerly accepted the offer, and proceeded to pluck the red-hot pincers from the fire and pinch Damiens in the arms, thighs and breasts, ignoring the screams of the tortured man. The application of the boiling oil, melted wax and lead, and rosin followed, and when he had undergone this, the execution proper was started.

The vast crowds were moved back as the victim was brought down the steps and on to the ground. There, the executioner and his team fastened ropes around his arms, legs and thighs, the task taking some time, during which Damiens renewed his shrieks as the cords bit deep into his freshly made wounds. Again we are fortunate in having an account by an eyewitness, who related:

BOOK: Execution: A Guide to the Ultimate Penalty
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