THE EXECUTIONER.
The Executioner--His Taxes and Privileges--_Monsieur de Paris_--Victor
of Nîmes.
The executioner is one of the most curious, interesting, and important
figures in the history of France in general and of Paris in particular.
Going back to the thirteenth century, we find that there already
existed an individual whose duty it was to whip, hang, behead, break
on the wheel, and burn in the name of the law. He was then called the
Executioner of High Justice, and every bailiwick possessed such a
functionary. An ordinance of 1264 against blasphemers provides that
"anyone who has offended by word or deed shall be beaten, naked, with
rods; that is to say, men by a man, and women by a woman, without
the presence of any man." Hence some historians have inferred that
the office of bourrelle, or female executioner, existed. This is an
error; though it is quite true that the wife or the daughter of the
_bourreau_ was usually preferred for the duty of whipping female
misdemeanants. As to the rest, an elaborate apprenticeship had to be
gone through by the executioner before he was deemed fit for his work,
the law stipulating that he must be competent to whip, quarter, break
on the wheel, fork, clip off ears, gibbet, dismember, and so forth.
For a long time the executioner wore a special costume--a cassock
wrought in the colours peculiar to the town in which he operated, and
bearing in front the representation of a gibbet, and, behind, that of
the scaffold staircase--emblems somewhat too obvious of his infamous
profession. So soon as the office of _bourreau_ was permanently
established, large taxes were enfeoffed to him, and the executioners
of France now became so jealous of their prerogatives that one of them
in 1560 sued a gentleman at law because, seizing a thief who tried to
take his purse, he had drawn his sword and cut off the rascal's ear.
In thus acting the gentleman was accused of having infringed on the
executioner's rights and invaded his profession, the ear technically
belonging to the executioner as one of his perquisites. No less curious
than manifold were the taxes and privileges of all kinds enjoyed by
this functionary. When he performed an execution on the domain of a
monastery he was entitled, amongst other things, to the head of a pig;
and the Abbé of Saint-Germain paid him an annual tax of this kind.
The heads, moreover, of any pigs found straying in the streets or
highways of Paris belonged to the executioner. During the thirteenth,
fourteenth, and fifteenth centuries the Parisians had permitted their
pigs to stroll about in the public thoroughfares; but when the son of
Louis le Gros was killed by a fall from his horse, which had stumbled
over one of these wandering animals, it was forbidden thenceforth to
allow them outside their owners' premises--though an exception was made
in favour of the monks of Saint-Antoine, who were still at liberty to
let out their pigs, which were distinguished by a peculiar mark on the
ear. Any pig found walking abroad without this mark was now seized by
the executioner, who could demand either its head, or, in lieu thereof,
four sous. Another of his curious privileges was to levy a tax on young
women leading objectionable lives. He received duty, moreover, on the
goods vended by different classes of shopkeepers, and could walk into
their shops and help himself to a certain fraction of their stock. Still
more extraordinary than any hitherto mentioned was the tax he levied on
all sick persons living in the suburbs of Paris, who were compelled
to pay him four sous apiece every quarter. Some of the tolls taken at
bridges went into his pocket. He was permitted to despoil the criminals
he put to death. At first he could only take possession of what they
had upon them above the girdle; but ultimately he obtained everything.
Besides the innumerable imposts and perquisites of all kinds belonging
to his office, he received a fixed fee for each execution. This, in the
fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, was 15 sous. In 1721 his taxes were
for the most part abolished, and in lieu thereof an annual salary of
16,000 francs was assigned to him; though, out of this sum, he had to
keep two assistants. In 1793 the National Convention entirely reformed
the criminal legislation so far as concerned the executioner. By a
decree of 13th June it decided that there should be an executioner
to every department of the Republic. He was to be remunerated at the
expense of the State. In towns with a population not exceeding 50,000 he
was to receive a salary of 2,400 francs, besides another 1,600 francs
for two assistants (in the departments), or 4,000 francs for four
assistants (at Paris). In the French capital today the _bourreau_ has a
fixed salary of 5,000 francs, and 10,000 francs for the maintenance of
his formidable machine.
The executioner is still regarded in France with much of the abhorrence
which has always been felt for him; but although he is an outcast from
the ordinary world, admission to churches, theatres, promenades, and
public places generally is not to-day, as it once was, denied to him.
Whenever his place becomes vacant there is a rush of candidates for
it more multitudinous and more eager than for any other State office
whatsoever. To be "Monsieur de Paris," as the executioner is styled,
seems the pinnacle of ambition with only too large a section of the
public. Once, indeed, the post of _bourreau_, although not, as some
have imagined, hereditary, remained long in the same family; and that
of Sanson produced seven generations of executioners, from 1688 to
1847. The post has seldom been a sinecure, and it was particularly
far from being so during the centuries which followed the thirteenth.
Thence, until the eighteenth, the executioner was a terribly busy man,
hanging, quartering, and otherwise judicially massacring with scarcely
a cessation. Kings with many enemies would sometimes make a pet of
him. Louis XI. took a particular fancy to Tristan, whom he called his
colleague. This man, by the way, had a genius for his ghastly business,
chopping off heads with a dexterity well calculated to excite the favour
of a king who had determined that all heads should fall which were
difficult to bend.
It was not only upon the persons of criminals that the executioner
had to operate. He was sometimes required to burn or behead dummies
representing offenders who had eluded capture. Peter the Cruel, King of
Castile, having killed one of his subjects, was condemned to death. But
as the person of the king was sacred, he was only executed in effigy,
the _bourreau_ beheading with his sword an image intended to represent
him.
The public executioner has generally been more loathed in France than
even in England. And justly so; for in the former country his work for
many centuries has been peculiarly infamous, not to say diabolical. In
the present day, it is true, "Monsieur de Paris" simply touches a button
and his victim, without a struggle or a pang, is no more. But he was
not always so humane. Once it was his own hand that dealt slow death
and inflicted fiendish torture. It was he who quartered the condemned
wretch--who attached horses, that is to say, to his legs and arms, and
then drove them in four different directions. It was he who burned or
broke on the wheel--the latter an indescribably ghastly operation, in
which he used an iron bar to break almost every bone in the victim's
body. It is not surprising, therefore, that even to-day "Monsieur de
Paris," with such a history behind him, should be the object of a
detestation which Ketch himself, or Marwood, failed to excite.
The Revolution of 1789, although it swept away his privileges,
completely rehabilitated that _bourreau_ whose services it was so
frequently to require; and a decree of the Convention decided that
thenceforth this functionary should be admitted to the rank of officer
in the army. It was even proposed to confer upon him, as executioner,
a new and finer title--that of "National Avenger"; and M. Matton de
la Varenne was quite eloquent in his praise. "What would become of
society?" he said; "of what use would be the judges, of what avail
authority, if an active and legitimate force did not exist to avenge
outrages committed upon citizens whom it is the care of the law to
protect? If the punishment of the guilty is dishonourable to those who
administer it, the magistrate who has pronounced the sentence, the
notary who has drawn it up, the protractor and the criminal lieutenant
who cause it to be executed beneath their eyes should bear part of the
dishonour. Why should he who puts the last hand to the work be reputed
infamous for duties which are simply the complement of those of the
magistrate?" The argument was specious enough; but the difference
between the two functionaries named is, after all, precisely the
difference existing between a civic corporation which decrees that its
town shall be kept clean, and the scavenger whom it hires to scrape the
streets.
However, the _bourreau_ became for a time an influential and admired
personage. He was sometimes invited to dine at distinguished tables,
and embraced as a favourite guest. Ultimately he figured as an
autobiographer. The last of the Sansons wrote his own memoirs, together
with those of his ancestors, executioners like himself. By no means
the least curious fact in the history of the _bourreau_ is that, in
former days, he killed with one hand and healed with the other. He was
a physician, that is to say; and at his dispensary, in the intervals
between his murderous operations, he dealt out medicines to poor people
who flocked to him for advice. By far the most famous of these medical
_bourreaux_ was Victor of Nîmes. His scientific reputation spread even
beyond the boundaries of France. One day an Englishman called upon
him for a consultation. This patient had a twisted neck, and had come
over to place himself under the treatment of the once-famous school of
Montpelier. After having endured all sorts of experiments, he found that
his head showed no sign of resuming its normal position, and therefore,
wishing his tormentors good day, he went on to Victor. "Can you cure
me?" he inquired. The executioner examined him, and then said: "It is
a simple case of _torticolis_. Nothing is easier than to cure you if
you will confide in me, and do whatever I command." The Englishman
consented; and after certain preliminaries both surgeon and patient
passed from the consulting-room into a more retired apartment. That
Victor, besides being a surgeon, was a humorist, seems beyond question.
The room now entered was remarkable for nothing in particular--with
one exception, namely, that from the ceiling hung a rope, at the end
of which was a noose. The doctor ordered his patient to put his head
in this noose. For a long time the Englishman hesitated and protested;
ultimately he obeyed. Then Victor tightened the noose, hoisted his
subject high up in the air, and, using the victim's legs as a kind
of trapeze, went through the most frightful gymnastic exercises.
At the end of a quarter of an hour--a _mauvais quart d'heure_ for
our countryman--the performance concluded, and the patient was let
down--cured.
[Illustration: IN PÈRE-LACHAISE.]