Amazing True Stories of Execution Blunders (29 page)

No matter how serious the crimes committed by a criminal, the court usually gave him the benefit of the retentum, a fatal blow to the heart after a certain number of strokes, and that merciful clause had been included in Cartouche’s sentence, but due to an appalling error by a clerk, Sanson was not informed, and so the sickening procedure had to be meted out in full. More blows rhythmically rained down on the victim, shattering his arms above and below his elbows, and his legs above and below his knees. Cartouche eventually received eleven blows with the bar, and it was reported that he was still alive twenty minutes after first being strapped to the wheel.

Broken On The Wheel

The persuasive capability of the instruments in the torture chamber was such that an almost complete round-up of the remaining members of the Cartouche gang then swung into action. More than 150 of them were arrested, many subsequently being hanged; renegade jewellers, informers, receivers and collaborators were also caught and suitably punished. Nor were those women and children associated with the mob spared; Cartouche’s animal magnetism where women were concerned was never more evident than when five of his mistresses were taken into custody and later hanged on Sanson’s scaffold, and the gangleader’s brother, although only fifteen years of age, was sentenced not only to hard labour for life, but was also the first to suffer an unusual and unnatural punishment, the brain-child of Judge Arnould de Boueix.

In revenge for the recent murder on the highway of his father, a police officer, he ordered that the boy ‘be suspended under the armpits for two hours in the Place de Grève.’ Accordingly, Sanson and his assistants obeyed, placing the noose around his chest, but the boy’s frantic screams and protestations that he would rather die than endure such pain, faced them with a predicament, one that was only solved by the executioner deliberately disregarding the judge’s instructions; on seeing the lad’s face being suffused with blood and then being unable even to whisper, he cut down their victim long before the specified two hours had elapsed and ordered that he be returned to the prison. Regrettably however, the boy died without regaining consciousness.

When, in 1535, Sir Thomas More was ordered to position his head on the block, ‘he, having a great grey beard, said to the Executioner, “I pray you let me lay my Beard forward over the Block lest you should cut it off; for though you have a Warrant to cut off my Head, you have none to cut off my Beard!”’

A Happy Ending?

Although, in most of the countries referred to in this book, many of the methods of execution are still being administered and the scope for their associated gaffes therefore continues unabated, one method at least will never bring untold agony to its victims ever again, the abolition of being ‘broken on the wheel’ allowing this book at least to finish with a Happy Ending.

The event which brought this about started with a domestic quarrel over politics. In 1788 an elderly, conservative-minded blacksmith, Mathurin Louschart, and his family lived in a house in the Rue de Satory in Versailles. Mathurin, much respected by the local community, had a son, Jean, whom he loved dearly, even when the young man, instead of wanting to follow in his father’s footsteps around the anvil, started to show signs of having radical ideals.

One day at dinner, as related in the Sanson
Memoirs
:

‘Jean, carried away by his enthusiasm, extolled the socialist merits of Voltaire and Rousseau; Master Louschart was at first astounded at his audacity, but his stupefaction was soon replaced by anger. A dispute followed and Jean was peremptorily ordered to hold his tongue. The young man, although respectful, was passionate and headstrong, and disobeyed the injunction, retorting that his father had a novel way of settling a discussion. This did not mend matters, and at length his father showed him the door. It was in vain that Jean expressed his regret and readiness to apologise; the old smith would listen to no excuse, and turned him out.’

Now it so happened that a Mme Verdier, a distant relative, was also living in the house, and she had a very attractive daughter, Helen. Helen and Jean thought a lot of each other, which is more than could be said of Helen’s mother who, on hearing of the controversy, encouraged Mathurin to have nothing further to do with his son; moreover her influence over him was so great that she actually urged him to become Jean’s rival and seek to marry Helen, at the same time ordering her daughter to forget all about Jean and prepare to accept Mathurin’s proposal of marriage.

Helen could never accept this, and she and Jean made secret plans to elope. Accordingly, Jean kept the rendezvous outside his father’s house but, instead of being joined by his sweetheart, he heard her screams from inside; breaking the door down, he rushed in to discover that her mother had found out their intentions and was now thrashing her unmercifully while his father looked on.

The
Memoirs
continued:

‘Jean sprang forward to protect Helen, but his father stopped him and, with the utmost violence, upbraided him for what he styled his infamous conduct. Mme Verdier now came forward and goaded the old smith to such a climax of fury that he spat in his son’s face. Jean had suffered in silence up to now, but this last insult was too much for his temper and he retorted with words of extreme bitterness. At this, Mathurin’s rage knew no bounds; he seized a crowbar and aimed a terrific blow at his son.

The passage in which this scene took place was so narrow that the bar struck against the wall as it came down, and Jean was able to leap aside. Helen, who was watching with terror, cried to Jean to fly. The young man followed her advice and made for the door while his father was raising the crowbar for the second time, but the woman Verdier had anticipated Jean’s intention and was resolutely standing against the door. Mathurin struck a second blow, and again missed his aim. As he was raising it for the third time, Jean rushed past him and tried to enter the workshop, whence he intended to jump through the window into the street, but the door to the workshop was locked and his father was giving chase; as he tried to break it open, a heavy piece of iron whizzed just above his head and struck one of the panels, which it shattered to pieces. Old Louschart had laid down his crowbar and had hurled his heavy hammer. He now came up and grappled with Jean, who now felt that the only way he could save his life was to master him; disarming his father, he tore himself away from the older man’s grasp and took to his heels. As he was crossing the threshold, hardly knowing what he was about, he threw the hammer behind him and rushed out. So rapid was his flight that he did not hear a cry from the workshop – Master Mathurin had just risen from the ground; the heavy mass of iron, the hammer, had struck him above the right eye and, fracturing his skull, had killed him instantly.’

The consequences were as expected; the crime of patricide was so rare that from the meanest cottage to the royal court it was the only topic of conversation, and the King himself ordered the Public Prosecutor to proceed against the culprit without a moment’s delay. Mme Verdier’s evidence, that she had witnessed Jean deliver the fatal blow, was sufficient proof, but when Jean was arrested, he was shocked and dismayed, for he had been totally unaware that the hammer had even struck his father; so shocked in fact that when taken back to the house, he rushed forward to his father’s corpse and passionately kissed the pale face, a gesture which was immediately dismissed as one of sheer hypocrisy by the local magistrate.

The public at first condemned Jean as a brutal murderer, but their sentiments slowly started to swing in his favour, not least when they realised that it must indeed have been a terrible accident and that he had been the victim of the acrimonious temper and vicious nature of Mme Verdier. So strong was their support that although at his trial the court found him guilty and sentenced him to death, they did not insist on the usual
amende honorable
, a punishment which included the prior amputation of the hand that had struck the blow, and by way of further mitigation, they stipulated that although he was to be broken on the wheel, he was to be secretly strangled before all his limbs were shattered.

But public opinion had already come to the conclusion that Jean was innocent of murder, and the news that his forthcoming execution would take place on 3 August caused wild excitement. Henri Sanson wrote:

‘On the morning of the previous day my grandfather [Charles Henri Sanson] sent from Paris two carts containing the instruments of torture, and beams and boards for the erection of the scaffold. He himself went to Versailles in the afternoon. News of the rising emotions of that city’s residents had not reached the capital and Charles Henri was so thoroughly convinced that he had to deal with a common criminal that he was greatly surprised when he found the whole town in a fever. The Place Saint-Louis was covered with so great a multitude that his assistants and carpenters could hardly go on with their work. No hostility was manifested, however; the crowd was noisy but its mood was gay; the name of Jean was scarcely mentioned, and the workmen who were erecting the scaffold were merely jeered. However, when one of the carpenters struck an urchin who was throwing stones at him, cries of ‘Death!’ were uttered; in an instant all the mocking faces became dark and threatening. The assistants and carpenters were attacked and their lives were in great danger. But a body of about a hundred men, easily identified as smiths by their athletic proportions and brawny faces, interfered, and partly by strength, partly by persuasion, they induced the crowd to retreat.

So far, my grandfather had not bestowed much attention to this popular demonstration, but he became more attentive when the interference of the smiths took place. He directed his assistants to finish the erection of the scaffold as quickly as possible, then he returned to Paris and lost no time in acquainting the authorities with his apprehensions.

The multitude which had thronged the Place Saint-Louis retired during the night; only a few young men remained to watch what took place around the scaffold. Meanwhile Charles Henri took what precautions he could, causing a strong paling [fence] to be erected around the scaffold, and on their side, the magistrates took it upon themselves to advance the hour of execution.

It was two o’clock in the morning when my grandfather went to the prison, to find Jean Louschart stretched out on his pallet when he entered the condemned cell. The doomed man rose and calmly surveyed him. The clerk of the Parliament read aloud the sentence, to which he listened with much attention. He then murmured a few words, among which only those of ‘Poor father!’ were heard, and he added in a loud voice, ‘In two hours I shall justify myself before him!’ Then, on being told that it was time to depart for the scaffold, he turned to the executioner, saying, ‘You can be in no greater hurry than I am, sir.’

At half past four the cart moved in the direction of the Place Saint-Louis. The executive magistrates were in hopes that because of the granting of merciful retentum, the whole affair could be quickly over and done with before the population awoke, but they soon perceived their mistake, for the streets were swarming with people, the whole population was astir. Deafening clamours broke from the crowd as the cart appeared, and it was with the greatest difficulty that it made its way. The prisoner did not even seem to suspect that all this tumult was caused by the sympathy people felt for him. At the corner of the Rue de Satory a piercing cry was heard and a girl was seen waving her handkerchief. Jean Louschart looked up and, rising to his feet, he tried to smile, and exclaimed, ‘Farewell, Helen, farewell!’ At that moment a smith of tall stature and Herculean proportions who was walking near the cart, cried in a thundering voice, ‘It is
au revoir
you should say, Jean. Are good fellows like you to be broken on the wheel?’

One of the guards on horseback drove him away, but applause and cheers came from every quarter. It was obvious by the pale faces of the Parliament clerk, the policemen and the soldiers surrounding the cart that the agents of the law were anything but confident. The scaffold, however, was reached without accident. The crowd was thickly packed in the Place Saint-Louis, and as the cart stopped, Jean Louschart addressed a question to the priest who was sitting near him, and my grandfather heard the latter reply, ‘To save you.’ The doomed man said in a feverish voice and with some impatience, ‘No, father, even if I am innocent of the intention of committing the crime, my hands are nevertheless stained with blood. I must die, and I wish to die – be quick, sir,’ he added to my grandfather.

‘Sir,’ exclaimed Charles Henri, pointing to the infuriated masses who were already breaking through the palisade, ‘if there is a man in danger of death here, it is not you!’