Execution: A Guide to the Ultimate Penalty (47 page)
Until it was abolished in 1870, the sword was used in Holland. Switzerland, too, used that weapon to rid itself of undesirable members of society, though the criminals were duly given notice of their impending demise, if not the method, whether hanging or beheading. They were also given their own choice of food and wine while under close confinement, though this privilege must have been of limited consolation. In that country, as in Germany, women were not hanged but were dispatched by the sword.
Denmark used the sword in the eighteenth century in addition to breaking delinquents on the wheel, but, for a country in which decapitation by the sword was almost an art form, France was just about ahead of the rest, if you’ll pardon the pun.
The family of executioners most closely involved was of course the Sansons, mentioned earlier as being exponents of the guillotine. But prior to the introduction of that device, the sword held sway, although the executioner on duty hoped that the victim wouldn’t. The procedure was as practised in Germany: the felon stood or knelt, the executioner took one or more preliminary swings with the sword in order to build up the necessary momentum, and would then aim at the nape of the victim’s neck, cleaving the head off.
Most of the executions passed off without incident but, as to be expected, some were better than others. Among those that were worse than usual, that involving a Mme Angélique-Nicole Tiquet turned out to be disastrous.
The drama started to unfold when, in 1677, M. Tiquet was fired on by an unknown number of assassins outside his house. Only wounded, he insisted on being carried, not to his own house but to the house of a lady friend. The rumours hinting at an illicit liaison which spread around Paris, however, were quashed when suspicions arose that the plot had been engineered by none other than Angélique herself. Upper class, uninhibited, with expensive tastes, she enjoyed the company of men other than her husband, it was said. Eventually, she was arrested and interrogated by the Criminal Prosecutor, Lieutenant Defitta. The interviews must have been acutely embarrassing for both parties, for M. Defitta was a former admirer of the lady.
As was the custom in those days, the accused was put to the torture in order to extract the names of any fellow conspirators. This case was no exception, it being reported that she was tied on her back on a bench, a cow’s horn was inserted in her mouth and she was forced to drink the first of eight pots of water. One pot was sufficient, however, to persuade the lady to tell all.
The sentence of the court spelled out her fate. On 3 June 1677 it was decreed that the condemned Angélique-Nicole Tiquet was to be decapitated in the Place de Grève; her conspirator, the porter Jacques Moura, to be hanged; their property to be confiscated, and, from Angélique’s property, 10,000 livres were to be transferred for the benefit of the King, and 100,000 livres for her husband Tiquet to be extracted.
Despite much sensational uproar in Paris society over the sentences, no reprieves were granted. After the sentence had been read out to her, she was taken in the cart to the Place de Grève, wearing a white dress and accompanied by her confessor. On their arrival at the scaffold a sudden thunderstorm broke, delaying the proceedings for half an hour. In the interim the hearse arrived, drawn by some of her own horses, in readiness to convey her body away after her execution.
When the storm had abated, she had to watch while the porter, Moura, was hanged, and only then was it her turn. She held out her hand for Charles Sanson to assist her up the steps and, after saying a short prayer, arranged her head-dress and long hair. Then, outwardly calm and composed, she turned to Sanson and said: ‘Sir, will you be good enough to show me the position I am to take?’
The executioner said quietly: ‘With your head up and your hair forward over your face.’ As he raised the heavy sword, onlookers reportedly heard her beseech: ‘Be sure not to disfigure me!’ Next moment Sanson swung the sword in a semicircle – and brought it down with its full weight on Angélique’s neck. Instantly, the blood spurted out – but the head did not fall. He struck again; but again the head was not separated from the body. The cries from the crowd were becoming threatening and, as his descendant Henri Sanson wrote in 1876, ‘Then, blinded by the blood which spurted at every stroke, he brandished his sword with a kind of frenzy. At last the head rolled at his feet. His assistant picked it up and placed it where the crowd could see it, and there it remained for some time; and witnesses asserted that even in death, it retained its former calmness and beauty.’
Such moments in an executioner’s life did little for his morale. However, the perquisites of his office no doubt salved his conscience. As well as those described under the Guillotine heading, the French executioner was also entitled to other, somewhat unusual benefits. By a decree of 1530, should his servants capture a pig, on handing it in, he could claim either the head or a sum of money in lieu. As in England, he had the right to some of the clothes worn by his victim; at first only clothes below the waist were his, but eventually he obtained the whole apparel.
In certain cities the executioner levied a tax on loose women. In contrast, the monks of St Martin gave him five loaves of bread and five bottles of wine for every execution that took place on their lands. And on St Vincent’s Day the abbot of St-Germain-des-Prés presented him with a pig’s head, and assigned him a prominent place in the procession of the abbey.
His instrument of execution, the Sword of Justice as it was called, was a masterpiece of the swordsmith’s art. Thirty-three inches long, double edged throughout its length, the blade was 2½ inches wide, with a blunted tip. Its handle, protected by a simple guard, was double handed, and had a heavy pommel to provide the essential balance. Like its German equivalent, it was engraved, having the word ‘Justicia’ on one side and the wheel on the other side.
But despite all its perfect balance and purpose-built design, it was still subject to human inaccuracy, as Lieutenant-General Thomas Arthur de Lally-Tollendal could vouch, were he able. This gentleman with the English-sounding name was actually of Irish extraction, whose family had supported the exiled Stuarts. At 12 years of age he had held a commission in Dillon’s Irish Regiment, and had taken part in the siege of Barcelona. By 1740 he commanded a regiment himself and was appointed lieutenant-general at the age of 37.
Having little liking for the English, he expended a large part of his fortune devising a plan to land 10,000 men on that country’s shores to support the rights of the Pretender, but the plan was never put into operation. His bravery, however, was such that the French government entrusted the command of their colonial troops in India to him where, with dash and fervour, he captured town after town from the English. Impetuous by nature, he ignored the excesses committed by his troops, overlooked the sacriligious destruction of Hindu temples and idols, and even permitted the killing of natives suspected of being spies, knowing that they were being ‘blown from cannons’.
Gradually, his successes turned to failures, surrender coming at the town of Pondicherry, and he and his officers were sent to England as prisoners. In Paris he had powerful enemies, and on returning to France he faced charges of treason and abuse of power in his military campaigns. After a lengthy trial, the verdict was finally given on 6 May 1765. He had been found guilty and, duly convicted of having betrayed the interests of the King, of the state, and of having abused his authority, was condemned to be decapitated.
His reactions to this pronouncement were violent. Refusing to remove the general’s-rank badges and medals which he wore, he fought the soldiers ordered to deprive him of his epaulettes and decorations, cursing the judges and branding them assassins and murderers. Confined in the Bastille, he attempted to commit suicide by stabbing himself with parts of a compass he had once used to plan his battles against the English, but succeeded only in inflicting a slight wound on one of his ribs.
Petitions were raised on his behalf, but to no avail; the execution would go ahead. In fact, it was such a foregone conclusion that Charles-Henri Sanson had been told to be ready for duty on the day before sentence was passed.
It was at this point that a macabre coincidence became apparent. Thirty-five years earlier Tollendal, in company with three other officers, had lost their way and, on inquiring at a house for directions, were invited in, to find that their host was Jean-Baptiste Sanson, the public executioner at that time. On being shown his sword, Tollendal asked whether Jean-Baptiste could really use it to remove a head at one blow, to which the executioner replied in the affirmative, adding that he would pledge his word on it.
Now, in 1766, Jean-Baptiste was old and weak, and it was not without trouble that his son, Charles-Henri, managed to persuade him not to keep his pledge to Lally-Tollendal. The old man eventually agreed, on condition that he could be present with his son and supervise him as he performed the execution.
On the scaffold Jean-Baptiste showed his withered arm to the condemned man and pointed to Charles-Henri, saying that he was too old to strike, and that his promise must be done by a stronger arm and steadier hand than his. In return Tollendal replied that he wanted the old man to have his vest, which had been made in India of fine gold tissue, each button being a large ruby of the finest quality. ‘And now you can strike,’ he said firmly.
Charles-Henri raised the sword and swung it at the victim’s neck, but the hair, which had not been cut, deflected the blow, and the head did not fall. The blow was, not unnaturally, so violent that Tollendal was struck down to the ground, but he sprang to his feet and glared at Jean-Baptiste with an expression of pain and reproach.
At this sight the old executioner rushed forward and, suddenly recovering his former strength, seized the bloody sword from his son’s hands. Before the cry of horror from the crowd had subsided, Jean-Baptiste swung the sword once only – to leave Lally’s head rolling on the scaffold boards. He had kept his promise. (Ironically, years later, the sentence passed on Lally-Tollendal was quashed and his memory solemnly rehabilitated.)
Charles-Henri’s reputation was to be redeemed when Chevalier de la Barre faced him on the scaffold, guilty of committing an irreligious act. Brave to the end, the chevalier refused to kneel, saying he was no criminal, and urged Sanson to do his duty quickly. Whereupon the executioner swung the sword, wielding the weapon with such deadly accuracy and speed that it severed the spine and cleaved the neck without dislodging the head from the shoulders. For what seemed like minutes the decapitated victim stood upright, swaying gently, and rumour had it that Charles-Henri Sanson murmured: ‘Shake yourself – it’s done!’ Next second the corpse’s knees buckled, the body collapsing on to the boards, the head rolling way across the straw, to the amazement of the watching multitude.
Across the border in what is now Belgium but in the sixteenth century was part of the Spanish Netherlands, the sword was also the weapon of execution, and one nobleman who fell foul of its razor-sharp edge was Egmont, Count of Lamoral, Prince of Gavre. A Flemish statesman and soldier, father of nine children, he was worshipped by the people despite having thrown in his lot with the Spaniards who ruled the country.
His loyalty to the Spanish King was such that not only was he dubbed a Knight of the Golden Fleece, the oldest Order of Rivalry in Christendom, but was chosen to stand as proxy for King Philip on the latter’s betrothal to Queen Mary of England in the Royal Chapel of St John the Evangelist, within the Tower of London.
As the years passed, Spain’s policies towards its possessions altered, and Egmont, whether activated by self-interest or noble principles, sided with those who wanted to shake off the foreign yoke. In 1567 the lieutenant-general to The Netherlands, Ferdinand Alvarez de Toledo, Duke of Alba, suspecting Egmont’s ambitions, had him arrested and condemned to death. On 4 June 1568 he was taken to the magnificent square in the heart of Brussels for execution.
Wearing a short black cloak over his red damask suit, a black silk hat set with black and white feathers, he carried over his arm the traditional cloth with which his lifeless body would soon be covered. In the centre of the square the black-draped scaffold had been erected. On it stood a table similarly covered, bearing a silver crucifix. And near the table was the velvet cushion on which he would have to kneel.
The whole area of the square was a dazzling display of colour, no fewer than 3,000 Spanish soldiers being drawn up, magnificently arrayed in their scarlet, yellow and blue uniforms. The count removed his hat and cloak, then knelt to pray. After taking up the crucifix and kissing it, he drew a cap on to his head and exclaimed: ‘Lord, into Thy hands I commend my spirit!’ As he uttered the last word he spread out his arms as the agreed signal. Instantly, the executioner acted, swinging the heavy sword round to decapitate the nobleman with a single blow.
