 |
| A guillotine (image source: pixabay) |
For as long as we know, the death penalty was used in France as the capital penalty for a various list of crimes, which changed through time, from the most insignificant to the most serious infraction. Various methods were used, and it was often savagely cruel. After the guillotine came into use in April 1792 (five months before the abolition of monarchy and the establishment of the First Republic), it has been the most symbolic way to carry out the death penalty.
But there were other means, especially during the Middle Ages with quartering, burning people alive on a pyre (such as Jeanne d’Arc in France), hanging, crucifixion, beheadings with different types of weapons.
The specificity of the executions in France is that they were public, which is not by itself a specificity, but it became an entertainment for the people who came to witness the death of the convict. The executions took place on the Place de Grève, in Paris (nowadays the square in front of the Hôtel de Ville). Death was a show, it entertained people, but it was also a way to show the example. The government and the people who were favourable to the death penalty saw it as the purpose of the penalty for two reasons: the first one is to show the example, ‘watch what you risk if you do this’, but it was also a way for the government to prove its strength and authority, along for the convict to suffer and pay his debt to society.
.jpg) |
| LE ROI ARRIVANT A L'HOTEL-DE-VILLE le 17 Juillet 1789 (image source: Getarchive.net) |
It
is hard to know how many people were killed by death penalty in France, because
it was used for a very long time and not really documented, but
we know that the use of death penalty was severe. For instance, in 1816, 500
death sentences were handed down.[1] Same in 1817. Abolitionist authors, fighting for the removal of death penalty, talked about an immoderate use of the death penalty at the beginning of the 19th
century, and very few pardons were pronounced. But, around 1850, convictions dropped drastically to almost 50 per year.
The
other issue with death penalty is its cruelty. Indeed, it is a public death
that can be so violent and shocking. For instance, the execution of Robert-François
Damiens, who was executed by quartering on March 28th, 1757, in
Paris (he attempted to murder King Louis XV), lasted for hours and was transcribed in the smallest details in
newspapers[2].
Thus, we can say that death penalty was a huge topic in French history, especially its abolition, which took almost two centuries to be voted on. The French history of death penalty abolition is going to be compared to the Canadian one, which is much more recent and condensed as it was only legalised from 1859 to 1976. In Canada, only around 700 people were executed. The two countries in question do not have the same use of death penalty at all!
I.
The many stages of the abolitionist
fight in France (1789-1981).
The Revolution in France officially started on May the 5th 1789 and the constituent assembly later met on July 9th 1789. During the Revolution, the use of death penalty was massive. The death penalty was then a tool for political pressure.
A.
Ideologies of the constituent assembly from
1789 to 1791.
During the
constituent assembly (Assemblée Nationale Constituante, which emerged from the Three Estates assembled by Louis XVI in the Estates-General, July 9th,
1789 - September 30th, 1791), the
subject of death penalty was brought up, as it was part of the revolutionary
claim, and no one agreed.
For
instance, the President of the Constituent Assembly
and member of the criminal legislation committee Louis-Michel Lepeletier de
Saint-Fargeau (1760-1793) argued for a penalty essentially based on
imprisonment, to punish the guilty by making them better, by inspiring
repentance. He considered the death penalty ineffective and immoral as it
evokes either cruelty or pity from spectators[3].
The use of torture had to be abolished in
all cases. The assembly decided to limit the death penalty to only the most
serious crimes (murder, poisoning, arson, treason).
Maximilien de Robespierre (1758-1794) was the first to intervene in the debates at the Constituent Assembly to ask
for the abolition of death penalty. He spoke of "legal murder",
tyranny, and despotism. He explained the ineffectiveness of such a cruel
repression. A moderate punishment was needed to return to virtue. The death
penalty did not prevent crimes.
On the other hand, according to Jean Anthelme Brillat-Savarin (1755-1826)[4], a deputy to the Constituent Assembly, only the death penalty is truly intimidating for "villains", whom he almost believes to be irredeemable by society, as they are born criminals. On this point, his ideas will be taken up and systematized by the late 19th-century criminology, especially by the Italian school of Cesare Lombroso (1835-1909) – the theory of the "born criminal"[5]. He develops the idea that the death penalty is a form of life insurance: it guarantees the safety of citizens against crime by applying, on a social scale, the principle of self-defence. He mainly uses his professional experience to criticize the replacement penalty proposed by the members of the Penal Code project: imprisonment and forced labour. Such a long sentence would be corrupting, as prison is the school of crime, not to mention that such a stay, even for twenty years, can never bring back to goodness souls that the author believes are forever corrupted.
B. Victor Hugo’s book The last day of a condemned man; a symbol of abolitionism.
In French literature, not only in the Parliament, the subject of death penalty was discussed a lot. Victor Hugo was part of the debate as an abolitionist, but he was not the only abolitionist author in French literature, we can also think of Voltaire, Lamartine, and Guizot. Victor Hugo (1802-1885), a famous French 19th Century author and politician, was also famous for his opposition to the death penalty, as he was one of the first to openly contest it. In 1829, he released The last day of a condemned man[6] (Le denier jour d'un condamné, see here in open access) This book became a reference in French literature, and it also nourished the abolitionist thoughts.
He
also describes his detention conditions which are poor: the cell is very
little, filled with humidity, there is no real window or bed, no real meal,
only bread. The condemned is scared, frightened each time the door of his cell
is opened, thinking that it is his time to go and meet the executioner. It’s
not even the death that is torturing, it is the wait for it, knowing that he is
going to pass, knowing how, but not when.
He is also tortured by the hope of being pardoned and the fact that he knows it will never happen. He writes an appeal of his execution judgment without hope, but he is still devastated when the negative answer comes back. In fact, very few pardons were granted at the time. As we can see in the picture with the pipes, each pipe goes with a letter asking for pardon. Each broken pipe represents a negative answer to the pardon demand. On the picture, we can see that only one pardon was granted, only one life spared, that is very few and hopeless.
 |
| This picture was taken in the National Museum of prisons in Fontainebleau (France) where those letters and pipes are exposed. This piece of exhibition is called Tableau de pipes de condamnés à mort (image source: criminocorpus) |
The most important part is that we do not know what crime the condemned committed. This way, we cannot judge, we only think about the death penalty in itself, not compared to the facts. It makes us wonder about if the death penalty is human or not, if humans really deserve to be killed as a sentence.
The convict doesn’t know what’s real and what’s a dream anymore, he can only think about death, he’s obsessed about it. The prisoner is also talking about his interactions with the prison staff. He knows that those interactions are devoid of honesty, but he holds on to it, it comforts him, reminds him that he is still alive. For instance, he asked to talk to the priest, even though he is not a fervent believer, he needs to be reassured, to believe in things, to think to another something else than his imminent death. Sometimes, he has hallucinations and thinks that his daughter is playing with him, in his cell.
One day, the prisoner hears a lot of noise in the court. Through his tiny window, he can see what is happening. A large group of prisoners are standing outside side by side. They are given new uniforms and need to change in front of everyone. Once they are changed, they have to wait outside, in rain and cold. Those prisoners are exiled and are going to have to do forced work for the rest of their lives. The narrator explains that he is grateful for his fate, that he prefers to die than to be exploited for the rest of his life.
The prisoner is kept in three different prisons, depending on the progress of his trial. At a time, he is kept in the ‘Petite Roquette’ prison, which was a panoptic prison[7] built in 1836. This prison was the first model of solitary confinement in France.
 |
| Representation of the Petite Roquette prison (image source: histoire-image) |
 |
| Inside of a panoptic prison (image soruce: pottolistik) |
With
his book, Victor Hugo was able to touch the citizens, to make them think about
death penalty. Even though it didn’t make the death penalty disappear, it
nourished the thoughts to fight against it. Victor Hugo has fought the death
penalty not only with his books, but also delivered a speech to the Constituent
Assembly on September 15th 1848[8]
in favour of abolition of the death penalty.
At the beginning of the 3rd Republic in France, Jules Simon (1814-1896), along with Victor Schoelcher (1804-1893) (both MPs in the Chambre des Députés) proposed a bill in favour of the abolition. They were followed by Aristide Briand (1862-1932) in 1908, minister of Justice from 1908 to 1915, who also proposed a bill about it under the Clemenceau presidency.
However,
the initiative was quickly abandoned because of the Soleilland case,
which marked a turning point in the debate because it was exploited by the
mainstream press, and led to a reversal of public opinion, prompting
hesitations and shifts among abolitionist-leaning deputies. Albert Soleilland
murdered and raped his eleven-years-old neighbour, on January 27th,
1907. The previously trusted relationship between the murderer and the victim's
parents (who entrusted their child to his care) made the crime even more cruel.
Albert Soleilland was sentenced to death on July 24th, 1907, but he
was quickly pardoned by President Armand Fallières (1841-1931), an abolitionist who had
granted clemency to all death row inmates since taking office. The pardon
sparked numerous protests, with a petition signed by several mothers from the
neighbourhood.
 |
| The Soleilland Case front page (image source: Bagne de Guyane) |
After
this event (and other similar events), the public opinion keeps staying
favourable to the death penalty, as a climate of fear is strongly installed.
Even though the death penalty is kept in place for a moment, its publicity
questioned and abandoned in 1939. After WWI and WWII, the death penalty is
discussed again, especially by Albert Camus (1913-1960) and Arthur Koestler (1905-1983) in Réflexions
sur la peine capitale (1957)[9].
C. 1981:
Robert Badinter and the abolition of death penalty in France.
Robert Badinter was an important French abolitionist figure, he passed away recently (1928-2024). He used to be a lawyer, he started campaigning against the death penalty after losing one of his cases, when both the criminal and his partner were executed, even though the proofs were not sufficient. From that moment on he started campaigning. Then, from 1981 to 1986, he was the minister of Justice under President François Mitterrand (1916-1996) who pleaded for the abolition in front of the National Assembly (Assemblée Nationale, the directly elected chamber of the French Parliament in the Fifth Republic).
On
September 17th, 1981, he took a speech in front of the National
Assembly; the next day, the bill was voted: Robert Badinter quoted the Socialist thinker and leader Jean Jaurès (1859-1914):
 |
| (image source: RTL) |
"The death penalty is contrary to
what humanity, for 2,000 years, has thought of as highest and dreamed of as
noble"; “there has never, ever been
established any correlation whatsoever between the presence or absence of the
death penalty in criminal legislation and the curve of violent crime”; “nothing
can change the fact that this justice is human, and therefore, fallible”.
On October 9th 1981, a total abolition of the death penalty came into force. On February 23rd of 2007, the abolition was written in the Constitution of the Fifth Republic, which means that it is more protected as it may need to change the Constitution to put back the death penalty, which is way more complicated than to repeal a law.
II.
The abolitionist fight in Canada.
The death penalty came into force in Canada in 1859, much more recently than in France. In Canada, we know that only 710 people were executed, which is way less than in France. The death penalty was established for a bunch of serious offenses such as murder, rape and violence but also some minor offenses such as turnip trafficking. According to the experts (Pascal Bastien, a Canadian historian), the death penalty was seen and conceived as a pedagogy of fear, murdering the culprit as he murdered to setting an exemple[10]. The death penalty was a sentence and a way of maintaining peace and order. In Canada, the main method used was hanging people at midnight. As it was during the night, it was not really a public show compared to France. Another difference with France is that in Canada, the death penalty for political crimes did not exist at all, whereas in France, it was an important part of executions, especially since the French Revolution. In 1914, a member of parliament proposes a bill in front of the Canadian House of Commons.
The
protests started with the Coffin[11]
case during the 1950s. Wilbert Coffin was suspected of a triple homicide and
was hanged in 1956. The problem is that the proofs were questionable, and a
real doubt was remaining about whether he was guilty or not, the public opinion
really started to question this practice. A few years later, on January the 8th
1964, the Brossard Commission was put in place to investigate
on the case. It led to the confirmation of Wilbert Coffin being the culprit.
Even
though the judgment was confirmed by the Commission, the public debate had
started, talking about how awful it is to hang a possible innocent person, that
the risk or judicial error is non-negligible.
Public opinion is impacted by Victor Hugo’s texts, because when asking people
in the streets, they are sensible and take into consideration the horror of the
last moments of life as a condemned: only waiting to die, being in a rotten
cell, the pity of the priest. People consider the death penalty as unjustified,
that it should not punish the culprit physically, it is not the purpose of the
Law to torture and kill people, it should make justice instead[12].
A
prosecutor and a judge are interviewed in the TV show Premier Plan
in 1960 by Gaétan Barrette, they explain that the possibility of a judicial
error exists and is dangerous, and that proofs are not always strong, do
witnesses always tell the truth, and the whole truth? With time, the death
penalty in Canada was more and more reduced concerning its field. In the end,
it was only for murder.
The
same year, the journalist Catherine Kovacs made an interview with a nurse
working in prison. The man explained that he had to witness the executions and
then take care of the bodies, that his job had traumatized him. The public
opinion was mad about the death conditions of the condemned.
Another
event which agitated the debate was the double hanging of Arthur Lucas and
Ronald Turpin in 1962, it has deeply shocked the public opinion as it was a
public hanging in the prison of Bordeaux (Montréal Detention Centre) in Canada[13].
The condemned agonized for 15 minutes. It showed the cruelty of death penalty.
The following year, the death penalty was abolished de facto. These two men
were the last two people executed in Canada.
The
abolition was voted in 1976, it took 13 years to pass the law. During those 13
years, debates about the reinstatement of the death penalty took place, members
of the parliaments’ opinion really went back and forth. This instability shows
how unsure people were, which is also a difference with France. Indeed, in
France, there were two camps, people for and against death penalty, but they
did not really change their mind. In Canada, people’s opinion was more mixed.
Prime Minister Brian Mulroney (1984-1993) was opposed to death penalty[14], especially to the idea that a chance remained of condemning and executing an innocent. He made a speech on June 22nd, 1987, followed by minister of Justice Ray Hnatyshyn and the minister of Foreign affairs Joe Clark. They convinced the House, which voted the law right after. The vote took place on June the 30th 1987, 148 voted against the reinstatement and 127 for it. From this day, death penalty in Canada was officially abandoned.
Conclusion:
The
abolition of death penalty was mainly guided by humanist considerations and
also by rethinking the meaning of the sentence. It was interesting to compare
the fight in France and Canada, as it was different in both countries, it was
quite quick in Canada, and took centuries in France. Some people are still in
favour of the death penalty, but nowadays, it is a shocking idea for the most
of us. As countries have different cultures with different and histories, we
remark that countries are not synchronized at all in the death penalty
abolition.
To end this presentation, here is a map to show how the death penalty is still used today all around the world:
®
Blue: abolitionist,
®
Green: abolitionist for common
infractions,
®
Orange: abolitionist de facto,
® Red: death penalty still used.
Carte mondiale de la peine de mort : https://www.peinedemort.org/zonegeo/monde
Bibliography:
Books :
Archives parlementaires de 1787-1860, première
série, 1791, 23 may, 31 may 3 june tome XXVI, Paris 1887.
Badinter, Robert, L’exécution, 2e
éd., Paris 1998
Badinter, Robert, L’abolition, Paris
2000
Beccaria, Cesare, Dei
delitti e delle pene, (1764),
Bentham, Jeremy, Panoptique, Mémoire
sur un nouveau principe pour construire des maisons d’inspection et nommément
des maisons de force, Paris, 1791
Carbasse, Jean-Marie, La peine de mort, coll. Que
sais-je ? 3e éd., Paris 2016
Imbert, Jean, La peine de mort, Paris
1972
Hoshowsky, Robert, Ronald Turpin, Arthur Lucas
and the end of capital punishment in Canada, Toronto, 2017
Hugo, Victor, Le dernier jour d’un condamné,
Paris,1829
Naour, Jean Yves, L'invention de
l'abolitionisme de L'histoire de l'abolition de la peine de mort, 2011, Paris, ISBN 9782262036898
Review :
Revue Histoire de la Justice
"Les chemins de l'abolition de la peine de mort", 2023/1, No
34
Articles/websites :
France :
Le 9 octobre 1981, la peine de mort est abolie
en France (2023) : https://www.gouvernement.fr/actualite/le-9-octobre-1981-la-peine-de-mort-est-abolie-en-france
Le discours de Robert Badinter pour l’abolition de la peine
de mort en 1981 (2024) : https://www.lemonde.fr/culture/video/2024/02/09/le-discours-de-robert-badinter-pour-l-abolition-de-la-peine-de-mort-en-1981_6097730_3247.html
Peine de mort, le
rappel historique par l’Assemblée Nationale: https://www.assemblee-nationale.fr/histoire/peinedemort/rappel_historique.asp
Chronologie
de l’abolition de la peine de mort en France (2021) : https://www.vie-publique.fr/eclairage/19491-abolition-de-la-peine-de-mort-en-france-chronologie
Les
grandes pages : la Révolution par le Sénat : https://www.senat.fr/connaitre-le-senat/lhistoire-du-senat/dossiers-dhistoire/20e-anniversaire-de-labolition-de-la-peine-de-mort/les-grandes-pages-la-revolution.html
La
dernière lettre d'Arthur, 22 ans, fusillé au Mont-Valérien : "Ma chère
maman" : https://actu.fr/bretagne/saint-malo_35288/la-derniere-lettre-darthur-22-ans-fusille-au-mont-valerien-ma-chere-maman_60403061.html
Criminocorpus,
exposition sur la peine de mort en France : https://criminocorpus.org/fr/expositions/histoire-de-la-peine-de-mort-en-france-1789-1981/
Canada :
L’histoire par l’image, la prison panoptique (2016) : https://histoire-image.org/etudes/prison-panoptique#:~:text=La%20prison%20panoptique%20est%20con%C3%A7ue,lui%2Dm%C3%AAme%20et%20%C3%A0%20Dieu.
Comment s’est déroulé le débat sur la peine de mort au
Canada (2020) : https://ici.radio-canada.ca/nouvelle/1651707/peine-capitale-justice-canada-histoire-archives
Les origines de la peine de mort (2021) https://ici.radio-canada.ca/ohdio/premiere/emissions/aujourd-hui-l-histoire/segments/entrevue/371090/peine-de-mort-capitale-abolition-pascal-bastien
40e anniversaire de l'abolition de la peine de
mort au Canada (2016) : https://ici.radio-canada.ca/nouvelle/792850/peine-mort-abolition-canada-pendaison-peine-capitale-justice-crime-emprisonnement-code-criminel
Affaire Coffin : la justice a-t-elle condamné
à mort un innocent ? (2018) https://ici.radio-canada.ca/ohdio/premiere/emissions/aujourd-hui-l-histoire/segments/entrevue/64646/affaire-coffin-wilbert-meurtre-proces-peine-de-mort-jacques-hebert-marc-laurendeau
Peine capitale au Canada, The Canadian encyclopedia (2020) :
https://www.thecanadianencyclopedia.ca/fr/article/peine-capitale
[1] Jean-Claude FARCY, Pourquoi
deux siècles pour supprimer la peine de mort ? Les raisons du retard,
8 octobre 2006, published on : https://criminocorpus.org/fr/expositions/anciennes/peine-de-mort/la-peine-de-mort-en-france-de-la-revolution-a-labolition/complements/la-peine-de-mort-en-france-deux-siecles-pour-une-abolition-1791-/
[2] La Gazette
d’Amsterdam, April 21st, 1757: this newspaper from Netherlands was
written and published in French. It played an important part during the
Enlightenment movement, providing political information.
[3] Cf. on Lepeletier de Saint
Fargeau: https://www.revuegeneraledudroit.eu/blog/2015/01/23/louis-michel-lepeletier-de-saint-fargeau-loublie-des-journees-des-20-et-21-janvier-1793/
[4] Archives
parlementaires de
1787-1860, première série, tome XXVI, Paris 1887, p. 642-643.
Find the complete
debate online: https://criminocorpus.org/fr/bibliotheque/doc/353/
[5] L’uomo deliquente, 1876, Cesare Lombroso,
Torino
[6] In French : Le
dernier jour d’un condamné
[7] The panoptic prison is the modern form
of prison, which was created during the French Revolution (around 1789). In
1791, Le Pelletier de Saint-Fargeau claims that this form of prison is a tool
for social redemption and a tool for human sentences. The idea of panoptic
prison was born in Bentham’s thesis Panopticon. The panoptic
prison is shaped as a hexagon with a central tower which allows constant
monitoring in all the six galleries around it. The prisoner is constantly
observed and isolated. For his sins, the prisoner is constantly facing himself
and God. According to the inventor, it should incite the prisoner to penance
and ensure his punishment. This model of prison is the first to have individual
cells. Those
panoptic prisons were not a success in France, as a very few were built, and
were the lack of hygiene, the violence and the suicide rate were important.
To discover more about the origins of the panoptic prison: Jeremy Bentham, Panoptique, 1791 Michel Foucault, Surveiller et punir, Naissance de la prison (1975); on modern theory of criminal law see Cesare Beccaria, Dei delitti e delle pene, (1764).
[8]https://www2.assemblee-nationale.fr/decouvrir-l-assemblee/histoire/grands-discours-parlementaires/victor-hugo-15-septembre-1848#:~:text=Partout%20o%C3%B9%20la%20peine%20de,est%20rare%2C%20la%20civilisation%20r%C3%A8gne.
[9] https://www.senat.fr/connaitre-le-senat/lhistoire-du-senat/dossiers-dhistoire/20e-anniversaire-de-labolition-de-la-peine-de-mort/les-sources-du-debat.html#:~:text=C'est%20en%201906%2D1908,lorsque%20survient%20l'affaire%20Soleilland.
[10] Pascal
Bastien was interviewed in a podcast on Radio Canada: https://ici.radio-canada.ca/ohdio/premiere/emissions/aujourd-hui-l-histoire/segments/entrevue/371090/peine-de-mort-capitale-abolition-pascal-bastien
[12] Comment
s’est déroulé le débat sur la peine de mort au Canada (2020) : https://ici.radio-canada.ca/nouvelle/1651707/peine-capitale-justice-canada-histoire-archives
[13] Robert
Hoshowsky, Ronald Turpin, Arthur Lucas and the end of capital punishment in
Canada, 2017
Comments
Post a Comment