Free Public Executions: From Ancient Rome to the Present Day by Nigel Cawthorne

to a bench on her back and a cow's horn was inserted in her mouth. Eight pots of water were assembled, which she would be forced to drink unless she confessed. One pot was enough: she confessed and named Jacques Moura the porter as her co-conspirator. He was to be hanged while Madame Tiquet was to be beheaded due to her higher social status.
    A reprieve was expected but none came. It was said that Monsieur Tiquet went to Versailles with their two children and threw himself at the feet of Louis XIV. The king refused clemency but allowed Monsieur Tiquet to keep his wife's property rather than have it forfeited to the Crown. On the appointed day, Madame Tiquet, in a white dress, and her confessor were loaded onto a tumbril. A thunderstorm delayed the proceedings but they arrived at the Place de Grève in time to see Moura hang.
    Sanson assisted Madame Tiquet up onto the scaffold. After a short prayer, she asked calmly: 'Sir, will you be good enough to show me the position I am to take?' 'Kneel down with your head up and your hair lifted from your neck,' said Sanson. 'Take care not to disfigure me,' said the beautiful Angelique. Sanson swung the sword but the first stroke sliced off her ear and cheek. The force of the blow threw her forward and his two assistants had to pick her up and hold her in place. He struck again but still her head did not come off. By this time, the crowd was becoming agitated and violent. Henri-Clement Sanson, Sanson de Longval's descendant, wrote in 1862: 'The blood spurted out but the head did not fall. A cry of horror rose from the crowd. Sanson de Longval struck again; again, the hissing of the sword was heard but the head was not separated from the body. The cries of the crowd were becoming threatening. Blinded by the blood that spurted with every stroke, Sanson brandished his weapon a third time with a kind of frenzy. At last the head rolled at his feet. His assistant picked it up and placed it on the block, where it remained for some time; and several witnesses asserted that even in death it retained its former calmness and beauty.' However, this case is not as bad as that of the amateur headsman who took twenty strokes of the sword to put the Comte de Calais to death in 1626.
    The great Charles-Henri Sanson was also known to miss his aim from time to time. In 1766, he was entrusted with the execution of the Comte Thomas Arthur de Lally-Tollendal, who himself had had Hindus, suspected of being spies, blown from the barrel of a gun when he was commander of the French forces in India, thereby rallying the Indians to the British. Thirty-five years earlier, Lally-Tollendal and some fellow officers were lost in the suburbs of Paris one night when they came upon a house where there was a ball. They knocked on the door and were invited in. It was being held to celebrate a wedding and they danced until dawn. As they were leaving, they asked the bridegroom his name and he replied: 'Jean-Baptiste Sanson'.
    Some of the officers were disturbed that they had spent the night in the company of a family of executioners but Lally-Tollendal was fascinated and asked if he could see the tools of the trade. Jean-Baptiste complied and found him particularly interested in his 'Sword of Justice' (the execution sword). It was some thirty-three inches long and about two and a half inches wide, with a blunt tip. A simple guard protected its double-handed grip and a heavy pommel gave it the necessary balance. Like its German equivalent, it had a wheel engraved on one side and the word
'Justica'
on the other. Lally-Tollendal held up the sword and took several practice swings with it. Could it remove a man's head with a single blow? he asked. Jean-Baptiste said that it could and promised that if Lally-Tollendal was ever on the scaffold, he would not suffer.
    By the time Lally-Tollendal came to the Place de Grève, Jean-Baptiste Sanson had already suffered a stroke and was partially paralyzed down one side. The execution was