About Me
Highly respectable civil servant and officer of the Parisian law courts. Public executioner for Paris since 1778, unofficially since 1754.I was the eldest son of Charles-Jean-Baptiste Sanson, executioner of Paris. When I was fifteen, my father had a stroke and I had to step in for him. I have been officiating at executions ever since, under both the monarchy and the Republic.In forty years as executioner I have executed the Chevalier de La Barre, the Comte de Lally, Louis XVI, Madame Elisabeth, Marie-Antoinette (my son Henri did that, but I was there), Robespierre, Danton, Hébert, Brissot, many, many Royalists, Moderates, Jacobins, and Girondins, and a fair number of ordinary criminals too insignificant to be remembered.What a life, n'est-ce pas?* * *For those friends who do not speak French, allow me to provide a translation of the brief biography of me that my estimable friend Vieux Paris provides below:"Charles-Henri Sanson. (1739-1806). Son of Jean-Baptiste Sanson (executioner). Married the daughter of a market-gardener [Marie-Anne Jugier] on January 10, 1765, and was the father of two sons: Gabriel Sanson [my friend has incorrectly mistaken my grandson Henri-Clément for my son], Henri Sanson."Charles-Henri Sanson began his "career" as executioner in 1754, being obliged to take over for his gravely ill father. At his father's death in 1778, he obtained his official title of "Executor of High Works" (executioner). He exercised his profession throughout the Revolution (1789 to 1794), taking part in all the executions (Louis XVI, Marie-Antoinette de Habsbourg-Lorraine, the Girondins, Georges Danton, Camille Desmoulins, Maximilien de Robespierre, Jacques-René Hébert, etc."No [contemporary] portrait of Charles-Henri Sanson exists. His biography was written by his grandson, based on the notebooks and diaries that his grandfather had kept during the Revolution."
