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'Robert-François Damiens' (1715-1757) was a Frenchman who attained notoriety by unsuccessfully attempting the assassination of Louis XV of France in 1757. He was the last person to be executed in France with the traditional and gruesome form of death penalty used for regicides, which was drawing and quartering.
Damiens was born in 1715 in La Thieuloye, a village near Arras in Artois, and enlisted in the army at an early age. After his discharge, he became a domestic servant at the college of the Jesuits in Paris, and was dismissed from this as well as from other employments for misconduct, earning him the epithet of ''Robert le Diable'' (Robert the Devil). During the disputes of Pope Clement XI with the Parlement of Paris, Damien's mind seems to have been excited by the ecclesiastical ferment which followed the refusal of the clergy to grant the sacraments to the Jansenists and Convulsionnaires; and he appears to have thought that peace would be restored by the death of the King. He, however, asserted, perhaps with truth, that he only intended to frighten the King without wounding him severely.
On January 5, 1757, as the King was entering his carriage, Damiens rushed forward and stabbed him with a knife, inflicting only a slight wound. He made no attempt to escape, and was apprehended at once. He was then tortured so as to have him divulge his accomplices or those who had sent him. This was unsuccessful. He was condemned as a regicide by the Parlement of Paris, and sentenced to be drawn and quartered, by horses at the Place de Grève. Before the torture, he said " the day will be hard". He was tortured first with red-hot pincers; his hand, holding the knife used in the attempted assassination, was burned using sulphur; molten wax, lead, and boiling oil. Horses were then harnessed to his arms and legs for his dismemberment. Damien's limbs and ligaments did not separate easily; after some hours, representatives of the Parlement ordered the executioner and his aides to cut Damiens' joints. Damiens was then dismembered, to the applause of the crowd. His torso, apparently still living, was then burnt at the stake. He is viewed by some people as the Guy Fawkes of France, since both of these men tried to kill their Kings but failed and were brutally executed.
After his death his house was razed to the ground, his brothers and sisters were ordered to change their names, and his father, wife, and daughter were banished from France.
Damiens' execution is described and discussed at length in the introduction to Michel Foucault's study of systems of punishment, ''Discipline and Punish''. There is also a description of the death of Damiens in Peter Weiss' play ''Marat/Sade''. The incident figures prominently in H.H. Ewers' frame-tale "The Execution of Damiens."

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External links

★ An account on Damiens' actions and death (in French)
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