Robert François Damiens

Robert François Damiens , born in 1715 with Thieuloye, close to Arras (Pas-de-Calais) and died in 1757 with Paris, is famous to have tried to assassinate the king Louis XV.

Biography

He was initially soldier, then servant in a college of Jésuite S in Paris, from which he was driven out for misconduct. He was used as servant in many advisers of the Parlement as Paris, of which some among most virulent against the king. He was large, thin and brown. He had an aquiline nose and its face was marked by the Petite pox. It had given up his wife and her daughter. It spent much time to the Law courts, enquérant news and playing the dispach rider for such or such magistrate. In these times of conflict between the Parliament and the king, Damiens heard only recriminations against the king and the cardinal Dubois. Prompt to warm up, he concludes from it that the king was to be punished.

The attack

Wednesday January 5th 1757, whereas the Court was with Trianon, Louis XV returned visit to his/her daughter, Mrs Victoire, who had remained confined to bed with Versailles. Whereas it was going to regain its fits with body, Damiens split the hedge of the guards, the hat on the head, struck the king and moved back by perforated that it had practiced. Louis XV accepted a punch initially, then found his side ensanglanté. The guards had already seized Damiens to make him take off its hat. The king shouted “ then That it is kept and that it is not killed! ”. He was transported to his room. One made call its first surgeon, who was in Versailles.

The weapon of the crime was a penknife with two blades, found in the pocket of Damiens. That which had struck the king measured 8,1 cm. The wound, located right-sided, was between the fourth and the fifth coast. The many layers of clothing in particular those out of silk, necessary because of the rigorous winter, had deadened the greatest force of the blow. Martinière, first surgeon, probed the wound: no body was reached. It was thus about a wound without gravity, unless the blade had not been poisoned beforehand. A courtier precipitated near the assassin whom one had trailed to the room of the guards. It was questioned, the man récria: “Not, on my heart, I swear that not”. For the form and because it was the universal cure of the time, the doctors bled the king by twice.

Damiens, when it had been apprehended by the guards, had exclaimed “ That one takes guard with Mr. the Dolphin! ” to divert the attention. Nevertheless, one feared the existence of accomplices or a conspiracy. The Minister of Justice, Machaut d' Arnouville, arrived little of time after, ordered torture. One applied to the feet of Damiens of the tweezers reddened to fire, one started the tendon of Achilles deeply to him, without succeeding in making it speak. In the afternoon of the following day, Damiens was transferred to the jail of the prévôté from the Hotel.

The lawsuit

In Paris, agitation was large. The people showed initially the Britanniques, then the Jésuites. Louis XV guessed that it was about an isolated act. He declared immediately that he forgave him. He would undoubtedly have preferred a sorrow symbolic system for a benign wound. He tried to maintain discretion around the event, and refused to make sing Te Deum for his cure. Legally, the crime of Damiens concerned prévôté the Hotel, responsible for the police force in the royal residences. However, it was about an attempt at regicide, i.e. of a Crime of lese-majesty. The first councils held by the Dauphin evoked a commission of advisers of State and Masters of the requests. The abbot of Bernis objected that the public would conceive suspicions of them. He pled in favor of the Parlement of Paris, and carried it.

The January 15th, of the letters patent thus ordered that Damiens would be judged by the large room of the Parliament - instead of the Small tower, ordinary room of the criminal audiences. The count of indictment was the Parricide. Louis XV specified in preamble:

“the feelings of religion of which we are penetrated and the movements of our heart carried us to leniency. But our people, to which our life does not belong less than to ourselves, claim our justice the revenge on a crime committed against of the days that we wish to preserve for their happiness. ”

In the night of the 17 to the January 18th, Damiens was transferred to the Conciergerie - where Ravaillac had been locked up. As it had tried to commit suicide by twisting the genitals, it was constantly attached on its bed by an amazing assembly of leather belts of which held each member to him and were retained by rings sealed with the floor. The lawsuit opened the February 12th. It appeared quickly that Damiens had acted only, but following the remarks which it had heard. Damiens acknowledged: “If I had never entered the rooms of the palate, and that I had served only as people of sword, I would not be here”. Ten audiences occurred and the March 26th, Damiens was condemned to death. It is the cruelest sorrow which was retained: To rough-hew after quartering. With the advertisement of the sentence, Damiens had this astonishing sentence: “The day will be hard”.

The 28, the sentence was carried out, under particularly atrocious conditions, the torment lasted of the hours, with the great fear of the spectators. The women assisted to with it in great number. The observers will note with stupor their capacity to follow until the end the Supplice inflicted by the Bourreau Sanson, helped of sixteen assistants.

The March 29th, one ordered that the native house of the regicide was shaven with prohibition to rebuild. His wife, her daughter and her father were banished kingdom, under penalty of immediate death in the event of return, and the remainder of its family was constrained to change name. Damiens had been used as Scapegoat with the Magistrature.

Free trade movement

Following the extent of torture surrounding the Capital punishment of Damiens, several their dissensions with this execution expressed. Several today allot to these oppositions the premises of the movement for the Abolition of the capital punishment.

Note

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