Posted on 05/27/2023 9:35:16 AM PDT by CheshireTheCat
On this date in 1610, the fanatical Catholic who assassinated Henri IV of France was ripped apart on the Place de Greve.
The road to this man’s calvary begins long before his infamous crime, even long before the birth of his illustrious victim.
The Protestant Reformation — so richly represented in the executioner’s annals — had fractured France in the 16th century.
After decades of voluptuously indecisive Catholic-versus-Hugeunot slaughter, matters had finally been settled by the man upon whom French absolutism would erect its (ill-fated) edifice.
Henri IV, the first Bourbon monarch and a Huguenot, had unified the country by the sword, capped by his memorably politic conversion to Catholicism in 1593 to win over the holdout capital of Paris — the occasion of his understated declaration that “Paris is worth a mass”.
Let us tarry here to appreciate “the good king Henri” in a kaleidoscope of flattering artwork to the tune of Vive Henri IV, the monarchy’s unofficial anthem after its subject’s passing....
(Excerpt) Read more at executedtoday.com ...
The poor guy was drawn and quartered, sadly.
This is a good example of what the founding fathers meant by “cruel and unusual punishment. “
I wonder what was considered “cruel and unusual punishment” in those days...
“On 27 May, still protesting that he had acted as a free agent on a divinely inspired mission, Ravaillac was put to death. Before being drawn and quartered, the lot of the regicide, on the Place de Grève scaffold he was scalded with burning sulphur, molten lead and boiling oil and resin, his flesh then torn by pincers. Then his arms and legs were attached to horses which pulled in opposite directions. One of the horses “foundered,” so a zealous chevalier offered his mount; “the animal was full of vigour and pulled away a thigh.” After an hour and a half of this horrendous cruelty, Ravaillac died, as the mob tried to prevent him receiving last rites. When he finally expired,
“…the entire populace, no matter what their rank, hurled themselves on the body with their swords, knives, sticks or anything else to hand and began beating, hacking and tearing at it. They snatched the limbs from the executioner, savagely chopping them up and dragging the pieces through the streets.”
Children made a bonfire and flung remains of Ravaillac’s body on it. According to one witness, Nicholas Pasquier, one woman actually ate some of the flesh. The executioner, supposed to have the body of the regicide reduced to ashes to complete the ritual demanded by the law, could find nothing but his shirt.”
Well at least he received his “last rites”.
I wondered about the last line of the article's footnote, quoted above. It would have had to be a pretty ferocious lynching to outdo what actually happened to the poor guy.
sometimes I believe that this planet is actually the Hell that is mentioned in the Bible. I’m ready to go find a better place to exist.
I remember watching on the show “The Tudors”, the execution of Anne Askew by burning. The sickest thing I ever saw, considering how they had tortured her before.
It probably was sarcasm.
Well, the last Frenchman to have been drawn and quartered met his punishment in 1757, or only 30 years before the U.S. Constitution.
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