by Phil Clarke
When Charles arrived at the house the master executioner was busy conducting a torture session on his own daughter in order to discover the name of her seducer. Charles bravely owned up to the fact that it was him, and offered to marry the daughter in order to remove her from her violent father’s clutches. Master Jouanne refused the offer of marriage because he was appalled at the thought of his daughter marrying into a family who would regard her with contempt. The only way Sanson could convince Master Jouanne to sanction the marriage was by promising to adopt the profession of executioner himself. So the sacrifice was made and Sanson became a headsman in order to ensure the hand of an executioner’s daughter.
Sanson’s first outing
At this time in France, the guillotine was but a twinkle in the nation’s eye. The French establishment still favoured painful and torturous punishment over efficient decapitation. They broke their criminals on the wheel, asphyxiated them slowly on the gallows or decapitated them using a heavy axe.
Charles Sanson’s first job as executioner came when he was involved in the torturous execution of a man named Martin Eslau. The records show that his new boss, Master Jouanne, insisted that his new assistant aimed a blow at the prisoner, whereby the unwilling rookie fell into a fit, to the jeers and taunts of the spectating mob.
Tragically for the young Sanson, his beloved wife died shortly after giving birth to a son. He was now a widower and single parent who was trapped in an occupation that horrified him. The reality of losing of his wife made him angry and bitter, and as a result the people of Rouen came to see him as a figure of terror. When a job offer came from Paris, Sanson jumped at the chance to leave behind this unwanted celebrity, as well as the scene of so many sad memories. Sometime during the latter part of 1685, Sanson arrived in Paris.
Charles Sanson eventually settled in to his gory profession, although his nerves sometimes got the better of him. One Madame Tiquet found herself on the wrong end of his shakey hands during her execution for the murder of her husband. The forty-two-year-old woman looked so graceful, dressed head to toe in spotless white, and her manner was so gentle that Sanson quite forgot himself. It took no less than three messy swings of the axe for Sanson to finally sever her head from its pretty neck.
At the age of sixty-four, Sanson’s jittery nerves finally got the better of him and he was compelled to resign. He and his second wife moved from Paris to a small farm at Condé in the district of Brie. Where, one hopes, he lived out his remaining days in relative peace and tranquility. His eldest son, also called Charles Sanson, inherited the roll of executioner in 1703.
Charles Sanson II
According to reports, Charles Sanson Jr was a chip off the old chopping block, and so not at all suited to his profession. He was a mild-mannered and gentle man who married young and was able to provide his wife and children with a comfortable life through his career as a headsman. He carried out torture sessions and executions until his own death in 1726, when he left behind three children.
Charles Jean-Baptiste Sanson
Charles Jean-Baptiste was the eldest son of Charles Sanson II. He inherited the job of executioner at just seven years of age. To many, the premature death of Charles Sanson II would seem like the perfect opportunity for the mother of his children, Anne Marthe Debut, to break the cycle by refusing to allow her young child to take the scaffold. However, it was not to be. For reasons known only to them, Anne and her new husband, Francois Prudhomme, decided to actively encourage Jean-Baptiste to follow in his father’s footsteps. The young boy had long acted as his father’s assistant, enthusiastically holding on to the legs of his victims in order to afford his father a clean strike of the axe. However, to begin with, he was not strong enough to lift the axe himself. He had to be present at executions in order to legalise them, but two stand-ins were hired to actually carry out decapitations. Jean-Baptiste continued in this role until 1754, when an attack of paralysis, or palsy, meant he had to resign from the post. He never fully recovered. When Jean Baptiste eventually died, he left behind ten children, three daughters and seven sons. All his male children went on to become headsmen, but one child in particular, Charles Henri Sanson, became the most famous Sanson of them all.
Charles Henri Sanson
Charles Henri Sanson was the eldest son of Charles Jean-Baptiste. He was a handsome and well-formed man of superior intellect and education. At the time of his father’s death, Charles had already rejected the idea of entering the family profession and was studying to become a physician. However, destiny had other ideas and in 1788, at the age of just fifteen, he received the red cloak – the symbol of the Parisian executioner.
Charles Henri had an unusual talent for performance that would come in useful in later years. He became so well-known for his elegant manner and elaborate dress that he was banned from wearing blue because it was a colour reserved for noblemen. In protest, he began to wear even more gorgeous clothing made from a sumptuous green cloth. Ironically, these green garments were so stylish that he succeeded in making them fashionable with members of the royal court, who began dressing a la Sanson.
By 1792, the French revolution was gathering pace, and Sanson was experiencing difficulty dispatching with so many enemies of the republic. He asked for a machine to help him, and on 25 April 1792 the National Assembly obliged, presenting him with the brand-new guillotine. The crowds didn’t like it at all, insisting loudly that he ‘bring back the block’, but Sanson himself was quietly impressed with its ‘simplicity and absence of noise’. At the peak of the terror, Charles Henri Sanson executed over 300 men and women in just three days. He could decapitate twelve people in as little as twenty minutes. He famously had the honour of demonstrating his talent to King Louis XVI on the day of his execution, 21 January 1793. It was cold and wet when King Louis XVI made the two-hour coach journey to his place of execution. The king was silent for most of the trip, speaking only to recite psalms from the Bible. When the procession eventually arrived at the Place de Louis XV, the king stepped out of the coach, flanked by guards. He refused to allow the guards to undress or bind him, preferring to undo his necktie and loosen his shirt himself. Louis was confident as he mounted the scaffold, proclaiming these immortal words:
I die innocent of all claims laid to my charge; I pardon those who have occasioned my death; and I pray to God that the blood you are going to shed may never be visited on France.
The drums began to beat, and with one swift slice of the guillotine’s blade it was all over. The king was dead, and the crowd began to shout over and over again ‘Vive La Republique’! Charles Henri later confirmed in a letter to a newspaper that the king died with bravery and calmness of mind. Nine months later, King Louis’s wife, the despised Marie Antoinette, also brushed shoulders with the guillotine. In fact, she trod on Sanson’s foot as she mounted the scaffold, exclaiming, ‘Monsier, I beg your pardon, I did not do it on purpose’.
Fernand Meysonnier
Fernand Meysonnier was one of France’s last official executioners. His career was a long one, lasting for over two decades. He began in 1947, at the tender age of sixteen, when he became apprenticed to his father, the Chief Executioner for Algeria during the period that the country was ruled by France. Over the next twenty-one years, he assisted at the execution of 200 men. His usual job was to hold the victim’s head, but on two occasions he actually performed the execution himself, under the benevolent eye of his proud father. Because of the War of Independence raging in Algeria at the time he lived there, many executions were ordered by the French government, particularly of Algerian nationalists. Fernand continued in the job until the French finally lost the war. After the war had ended, Meysonnier left North Africa to work in Polynesia, returning to France in his later years to open a museum.
Keeping it in the family
Fernand’s father Maurice Meysonnier was a communist who owned a bar and restaurant in Algiers. The family belonged to the ‘pied noir’ community – white French-speak
ing nationals who had been born in Algeria. This community was a tightly knit one, and the Meysonnier family became friendly with Henri Roch, another ‘pied noir’. Roch was from a long line of executioners going back to the sixteenth century and had held the post of Chief Executioner in the colony for many years. When Fernand was born, Maurice asked Roch to become the child’s godfather. On Roche’s retirement, after World War II, Maurice himself took on the job as Chief Executioner in the city, thus linking his son to the macabre line of business that was later to shape his life. Maurice also continued to run the bar and restaurant.
As the War of Independence in Algeria escalated during the 1940s, many executions were ordered by the French government to quell the insurgents. Again, it was mostly Algerian nationals who met their end in this way. To cope with the demand, Maurice Meysonnier enlisted his son’s help in carrying out the beheadings. Later, Fernand recalled: ‘I remember the first time I witnessed an execution. It was very violent. It wasn’t like killing a fly. This was a human being. It affected me greatly.’ He went on to describe the event in detail:
Everything happened very quickly. Just three seconds separated the base of the guillotine from the blade raised above it. However, an hour of suspense and strained, pressing silence were unbearable. And when the blade dropped, I gave a shout. Then the blood gushed out of the wound, and several streamlets ran from the carotid artery.
Perks of the job
Despite his shock at the sight of the beheading, Fernand agreed to become his father’s assistant in performing executions. He later denied that he had wanted to emulate his father, saying that it was more case of wanting to help his father carry out his job. ‘My father needed someone he could trust absolutely,’ he said. ‘The important thing about the job was that absolutely nothing should go wrong.’ In time, the young man became accustomed to the horror of the event, but the gravity of the situation never failed to impress him. ‘I don’t mean that these are things men can get used to,’ he explained. ‘However, when you know what your objective is, you concentrate on the job only.’
Despite the gruesome nature of the work, Fernand found that there were positive advantages in working as the assistant to the Chief Executioner of Algiers. ‘I had good money,’ he remembered. ‘I could carry a gun. I had plenty of free time; the chief of police would greet me. And I had the goodwill of the whole of French Algeria.’
Holding the Dead Man’s Head
Fernand Meysonnier began his career as a junior assistant. This involved waiting at the bar for a call from the prosecutor’s office, and then packing up the guillotine equipment into boxes. In the evening, father and son would set off by lorry to the prison in Algiers, Oran, or Constantine, where the executions would take place. The guillotine was erected in the courtyard of the prison, and at dawn, the prisoner would be brought out.
Fernand’s job involved tying the condemned man’s ankles and thighs together with fishing wire. After this, the man’s hands were handcuffed behind his back and his elbows were tied together. This method of trussing the prisoner meant that the man’s head stuck out from his body, which made decapitation easier. Fernand proved reliable and trustworthy at this task, and before long was promoted to first assistant. As first assistant, Fernand had to stand in front of the guillotine and pull the condemned man’s head through the wooden half-circle, holding it until the blade came thundering down. This was not a particularly easy job. It was important to make sure that the prisoner was held in exactly the right place on the neck, otherwise the assistant himself could have an accident. On several occasions, assistants had had their fingers sliced off. Also, the prisoner had to be manoeuvred into position quickly.
‘You must never give the guy time to think,’ Meysonnier later recalled. ‘Because if you do he starts moving his head around, and that’s when you have the mess-ups. The blade comes through the jaw, and you have to use a butcher’s knife to finish off the job.’
Fernand later recounted that once he had got the prisoner’s head held properly in his hands, he would give the instruction to his father to let down the blade by saying ‘Go, father!’ Immediately the blade would fly down, there would be a cracking sound, and Fernand would find himself holding the dead man’s head in his hands. The blood would spurt out ‘like two glasses of red wine chucked three metres’, as he later described it. Unphased by this bloody gore, Fernand would finish the job by throwing the head in the bucket beside him, and then he would help to clean up the blood, re-pack the guillotine and go home to work in the bar until the next execution order came in.
Conscience Not Troubled
Father and son soon developed into a slick team, and before long they had notched up 200 souls on the death list of those executed for agitating against French colonial rule. At the height of the conflict in Algeria, there were five or six executions carried out every month, most of them Algerian nationals. Yet, in later years, Fernand was not troubled by his conscience. He declared that he believed each one of the men he helped to execute to be guilty, and had no regrets about beheading them. However, over time, his feelings about the death penalty changed. When interviewed in his seventies, Fernand explained that in certain cases, he thought capital punishment was too ‘soft’; he felt that all prisoners should receive life sentences, since languishing in jail for forty years or more would be a more painful, lasting punishment than instant death, and thus more appropriate for mass murderers and the like.
Words of an Executioner
Once the war in Algeria came to an end, the demand for executions tailed off, so Fernand moved to Polynesia, where he earned a living as a fly exterminator and bar owner. In 1992, he returned to France and opened a Museum of Justice and Punishment at Fontaine de Vaucluse, a pretty town in the south of the country. On display at the museum were such items as medieval torture instruments, a preserved head and notebooks owned by the last executioner to ply his trade in Britain, Albert Pierrepoint.
However, the museum was not a success, and eventually Fernand had to pack up the displayed items and store them in boxes in his basement. In a rather contradictory fashion, he then went on to write a book, ‘Words of an Executioner’ whose aim, as he explained it, was to ‘end this image of the bloody executioner of the Middle Ages’.
In his book, Fernand argued that the process of beheading 200 prisoners had not hardened him. He told a story about how once, in Algeria, a friend was trying to start a car with a handle and injured his head in the process. Fernand had taken him to hospital to have stitches, and while watching the process, began to feel nauseous. When he told the doctor that he felt sick, the doctor said it was probably because he wasn’t used to the sight of blood. This the executioner found very amusing.
Fernand also pointed out in his book that he did not regret his career as an executioner. Although he took no pleasure in the job, he believed that punishment for the victims was necessary.
I executed a sentence, but no matter how guilty the sentenced was, I never felt hatred against him. At the same time, I never demonstrated weakness, because I thought about his victims, whom he probably tortured, and their relatives. I am proud that I was a punitive instrument of justice.
He added, “If the government entrusts us with this hard and sad duty, it means that we are considered just, honest, and not spiteful toward anyone.”
However, Fernand also pointed out that there were times when he could not bring himself to do the job, as happened when several communists were sentenced to death for posting political leaflets in the streets. On this occasion, Fernand pleaded illness. ‘I couldn’t execute the punishment,’ he says. ‘I said I was unwell and stayed home.’ Thus the executioner was not always as impartial and objective as he has claimed to be.
Off With His Head!
In his later years, Fernand contracted liver cancer, but said that he was not afraid of dying. ‘May I, the man who beheaded 200 criminals, be afraid of death?’ he commented. ‘This would be absurd.’ In accordance with h
is light-hearted approach to his past, he also trained two grey parrots to sing The Marseillaise, France’s national anthem, and to shout ‘Off with his head – long live Meysonnier.’ To some this might appear to be in bad taste, but he explained his action by saying that he was ‘fond of a laugh’.
He continued to live quietly in Fontaine de Vaucluse, and with his neat appearance and the gentlemanly air of a respectable retiree, it was hard for local residents to believe that he had helped to dispatch 200 victims during his time as executioner’s assistant. He was described as an opera and ballet lover, a champion of justice, a resourceful businessman’ the founder of a museum and – last, but not least – a man with a ‘humane attitude towards other people’. Little did they know that, far away in Algeria, the ghosts of 200 men haunted his past. Yet Fernand himself claims that the memory of the many executions he helped to perform does not trouble his sleep at night.