Amazing True Stories of Execution Blunders by Geoffrey Abbott
Authors: Geoffrey Abbott
Tags: History
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that there is a very great difference between the two sacrifices.’
The executioner smiled slowly, then said, ‘Yes, Monsieur – in the size of the knife!’
Mme Thomas
This young French lady endeavoured to use her feminine wiles when escorted on to the scaffold on 23 January 1887 as, before an immense crowd of lascivious-minded spectators, she immediately started to remove all her clothing. With much difficulty, and assailed by a veritable barrage of lewd objections from the onlookers, the assistant executioner managed to restrain her and then had to drag her by the hair to the plank, where she was securely strapped down. He then went round to the other side of the machine, to hold her by the hair, writhing and screaming, as the blade fell.
That episode so appalled and upset Louis Deibler, the executioner, that he vowed he would never again execute a woman, and forthwith tendered his resignation; this, however, was neither accepted nor necessary, for after that occasion any death sentence passed on a woman in France was never carried out, except for some few cases during World War II.
When, on New Year’s Eve 1793, executioner Charles-Henri Sanson went to the prison in order to escort General Biron to the guillotine, he found his quarry in the head turnkey’s office, eating oysters with much gusto. On seeing the executioner the officer said, ‘Please allow me to finish this last dozen oysters!’ Sanson replied, ‘At your orders, sir.’ ‘No, morbleu,’ exclaimed the general. ‘It’s just the other way about – I am at yours!’ He leisurely continued his repast, remarking while he did so, that he would be arriving in the next world just in time to wish all his friends there a Happy New Year.
M. Laroque
One entry in the diary kept by the French executioner Charles-Henri Sanson describes how, on one occasion, a very unfortunate accident happened.
‘Only one convict remained, all his companions having been executed before him. As he was being strapped down, my son Henri, who was attending to the baskets [exchanging those containing severed heads for empty ones] called to me and I went to him. Larivière, one of the assistants, had forgotten to re-raise the blade, so when the weigh-plank, the bascule, was rapidly lowered with the convict Laroque strapped to it, his face struck the edge of the blade, which was bloody. He uttered a terrible shriek. I ran up, lifted the plank, and hastened to raise the blade. The mob hissed us and threw stones at us. In the evening Citizen Fouquier [his superior] severely reprimanded me. I deserved his blame, for I should have been in my usual place. Citizen Fouquier saw I was very sorry and dismissed me with more kindness than I expected.’
Sanson concluded that entry, as he always did, with that day’s total: ‘thirteen executions.’
In 1793 ex-Mayor of Paris, Jean Sylvain Bailly was sentenced to death by the Revolutionary Tribunal. The executioner, on climbing into the tumbrel with his victim, told an assistant to throw a coat over the man’s shoulders, as the weather was chilly and wet. ‘Why?’ asked Bailly. ‘Are you afraid I should catch a cold?’
On reaching the guillotine, the executioner discovered that the carpenters had forgotten some of the floorboards of the scaffold. The tumbrel party had to go back and collect the lengths of timber, the beams taking up so much space in the cart that both executioner and victim had to walk behind!
Eugen Wiedman
Public executions ceased in England in 1868, but continued in France until 1939, the last one there being that of Eugen Wiedman. Wiedman had a life-long criminal record of assault and armed robbery, and in 1937 changed his modus operandi by kidnapping Jean de Koven, an American dancing instructor, and holding her to ransom. But things went badly wrong for him and in desperation he murdered her, the remains not being found until four months later, buried beneath the
The executioner smiled slowly, then said, ‘Yes, Monsieur – in the size of the knife!’
Mme Thomas
This young French lady endeavoured to use her feminine wiles when escorted on to the scaffold on 23 January 1887 as, before an immense crowd of lascivious-minded spectators, she immediately started to remove all her clothing. With much difficulty, and assailed by a veritable barrage of lewd objections from the onlookers, the assistant executioner managed to restrain her and then had to drag her by the hair to the plank, where she was securely strapped down. He then went round to the other side of the machine, to hold her by the hair, writhing and screaming, as the blade fell.
That episode so appalled and upset Louis Deibler, the executioner, that he vowed he would never again execute a woman, and forthwith tendered his resignation; this, however, was neither accepted nor necessary, for after that occasion any death sentence passed on a woman in France was never carried out, except for some few cases during World War II.
When, on New Year’s Eve 1793, executioner Charles-Henri Sanson went to the prison in order to escort General Biron to the guillotine, he found his quarry in the head turnkey’s office, eating oysters with much gusto. On seeing the executioner the officer said, ‘Please allow me to finish this last dozen oysters!’ Sanson replied, ‘At your orders, sir.’ ‘No, morbleu,’ exclaimed the general. ‘It’s just the other way about – I am at yours!’ He leisurely continued his repast, remarking while he did so, that he would be arriving in the next world just in time to wish all his friends there a Happy New Year.
M. Laroque
One entry in the diary kept by the French executioner Charles-Henri Sanson describes how, on one occasion, a very unfortunate accident happened.
‘Only one convict remained, all his companions having been executed before him. As he was being strapped down, my son Henri, who was attending to the baskets [exchanging those containing severed heads for empty ones] called to me and I went to him. Larivière, one of the assistants, had forgotten to re-raise the blade, so when the weigh-plank, the bascule, was rapidly lowered with the convict Laroque strapped to it, his face struck the edge of the blade, which was bloody. He uttered a terrible shriek. I ran up, lifted the plank, and hastened to raise the blade. The mob hissed us and threw stones at us. In the evening Citizen Fouquier [his superior] severely reprimanded me. I deserved his blame, for I should have been in my usual place. Citizen Fouquier saw I was very sorry and dismissed me with more kindness than I expected.’
Sanson concluded that entry, as he always did, with that day’s total: ‘thirteen executions.’
In 1793 ex-Mayor of Paris, Jean Sylvain Bailly was sentenced to death by the Revolutionary Tribunal. The executioner, on climbing into the tumbrel with his victim, told an assistant to throw a coat over the man’s shoulders, as the weather was chilly and wet. ‘Why?’ asked Bailly. ‘Are you afraid I should catch a cold?’
On reaching the guillotine, the executioner discovered that the carpenters had forgotten some of the floorboards of the scaffold. The tumbrel party had to go back and collect the lengths of timber, the beams taking up so much space in the cart that both executioner and victim had to walk behind!
Eugen Wiedman
Public executions ceased in England in 1868, but continued in France until 1939, the last one there being that of Eugen Wiedman. Wiedman had a life-long criminal record of assault and armed robbery, and in 1937 changed his modus operandi by kidnapping Jean de Koven, an American dancing instructor, and holding her to ransom. But things went badly wrong for him and in desperation he murdered her, the remains not being found until four months later, buried beneath the
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