Recently I gathered a lot of information on Charles Henri Sanson (1739-1806). It seems he left school in 1753 and received private education. It is unclear when he started to assist the executioners, likely 1754, when his father paralized or in 1756 when he was 17.[Reising, Willa Carlyle, “Beccaria, the Executioner, and the French Revolution” (2024). Graduate Theses, Dissertations, and Problem Reports. 12609. https://researchrepository.wvu.edu/etd/12609 , p. 62] While officially holding the post, most of the work was carried out by Charles-Henri, assisted by his step-grandfather François Prudhomme. However, the Parliament allowed Charles Henry Sanson, to replace his father, but refused him to invest legally (1755). To his lasting shame, he had (in 1766) unintentionally tortured a condemned former friend of his father’s, the Comte de Lally, by failing to sever his head in a single stroke.

Ils payent, disent-ils, comme les autres sujets du roi, les vingtièmes, la captation, les charges de ville et de police, la taxe des pauvres. Ils rendent le pain béni sur tes paroisses; ils sont enregistrés dans la garde nationale de leurs districts. Pourquoi donc les empêcherait-on de participer aux autre» avantages dont jouissent les autres citoyen»?...[Le Petit Moniteur universel, 27 décembre 1874]

ChatGPT: This document appears to relate to a legal plea or defense involving Charles-Henri Sanson, and Louis-Marie Prudhomme, a prominent revolutionary journalist and publisher of the newspaper Révolutions de Paris. Prudhomme was known for his critical stance toward the monarchy and its agents, which may have led to this legal dispute. This case highlights the tensions between the press and public officials during the revolutionary period in France, reflecting broader debates about freedom of expression and the responsibilities that accompany it.

In September 1790 when a new revolutionary constitution was published, Sanson proposed to stop and to appoint his eldest son. It was not accepted by the National Assembly? He never joined the Jacobin club but strived for to become a “citoyen actif”. On 25 April 1792, the National Assembly approved the guillotine’s use on a live human being, according to the Mémoires Louis XVI was involved and gave his opinion? [Vol. III, p. 403-] 

It seems Sanson  was arrested on or after 10 august 1792, but released on 21st, to do a few more executions as there was a lot of crime in those days. His son Gabriel died on 27 August 1792 executing Jean-Blaize Vimal, a manufacturer of fake assignats, and two of his helpers, after slipping in the blood and falling from the scaffold.[Gazette nationale ou le Moniteur universel, 21 janvier 1893] [https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/History_of_the_Guillotine] During the September Massacres Sanson (and two half brothers Charlemagne and Louis Martin in Versailles and Tours and Auxerre) were arrested again? Sanson offered up his resignation to the new authorities. But he was refused.[https://allthatsinteresting.com/charles-henri-sanson] He introduced a fashion, wearing blue but changed to green after being criticized as blue was the color of the nobility.[https://www.alternatehistory.com/forum/threads/strange-history-collection.403041/] 

Garde Nationale

Under the law of 14 October 1791, all active citizens and their children over 18 years were obliged to enlist in the National Guard. Their role was the maintenance of law and order and, if necessary, territorial defense in wartime. Those who were active citizens in 1790 must provide a certificate that they have been enlisted in the National Guard since that time. On August, 12 1792 the royal family was taken to the Temple. It seems on that day, during the elections of the officer of  the National Guard, my grandfather and father were appointed sergeants; my great-uncle Charlemagne Sanson became corporal. These offices obliged them to take a more active part than they liked in the political events.[Vol III, p. 462] 

En revanche, le décalage entre les sections et les bataillons était maintenu : ce n’est qu’au lendemain du 10 août 1792 que la correspondance entre les deux cadres devait être rétablie, les sections devenant « sections armées », tandis que la Garde nationale s’ouvrait aux anciens citoyens passifs.[https://books.openedition.org/psorbonne/66979]

A Paris, dès le 13 août 1792, les commissaires des sections rétablirent la concordance entre les sections et les bataillons de la garde nationale, que la loi du 21 mai 1790 avait détruite. La loi du 19-21 août 1792 légalisa la réduction des soixante bataillons à quarante huit ; ce qui correspondait au nombre des sections de la Commune.[Devenne Florence. La garde Nationale ; création et évolution (1789-août 1792). In: Annales historiques de la Révolution française, n°283, 1990. pp. 49-66. DOI : https://doi.org/10.3406/ahrf.1990.1411 www.persee.fr/doc/ahrf_0003-4436_1990_num_283_1_1411]

Auparavant l’état-major sortait d’une élection au troisième degré : les capitaines, lieutenants, sous-lieutenants et sergents des compagnies d’un même bataillon élisaient le commandant en chef, le second et l’adjudant de ce bataillon. Et ceux-ci élisaient ensuite, avec ceux des autres bataillons, le chef, l’adjudant et le sous-adjudant de chaque légion (Braesch F., op. cit., p. 93). Voir l’arrêté de la Commune du 16 août, qui réorganise la garde nationale. Affiches de la Commune de Paris.[https://books.openedition.org/psorbonne/66979]

L’Assemblée des Représentants nomma les officiers de ces compagnies dès le 24 octobre (S. Lacroix, op. cit, t. II, p. 476-477).[https://books.openedition.org/pur/16612]

"The buttons, scraps of clothing, and shirt of Louis Capet, as well as his hair, were collected and sold at very high prices to collectors. Executioner Sanson, accused of having participated in this new type of trade, has just written to journalists to clear his name on this matter; here are his words: 'I have just learned that there is a rumor circulating that I am selling or arranging the sale of Louis Capet’s hair. If any has been sold, this vile trade could only have been carried out by scoundrels. The truth is that I did not allow anyone from my household to take or remove even the slightest trace.'"

"Here lies the executioner once again.
These facts, accepted as authentic by chroniclers, have given rise to various picturesque embellishments, and sensitive souls are now convinced that Sanson succumbed to remorse for having beheaded the king.
These are all errors, and unpublished documents leave no doubt on this matter. Charles-Henri Sanson ceased to perform his duties only on the 13th of Fructidor, Year III: 'It has been forty-three years,' he states in his resignation letter, 'that he has served in the position he occupies. He is suffering from nephritic disease and can no longer continue his duties.'[G. Lenotre, p. 148-149]

From the Mémoires: During a certain period of the revolution Charles Henri Sanson kept a diary not only of the executions he witnessed, but also of his personal feelings. This diary was kept regularly only towards the end of the Brumaire in 1793; but he left us an account of the death of Charlotte Corday (on 17 July), which is more complicated and detailed than all those used in the reports on the processes of the first phase of the revolution. I will share this report, as well as the diary later, without changing the disjointed form of it, since this simple version characterizes precisely the author and gives the note all the more value.

Le 27 septembre 1793 Charlemagne Sanson récit un certificat de civisme délivré par le comité de surveillance révolutionnaire de la section du faubourg du nord.[Feuille de Provins, 19 décembre 1874] [Le Petit Moniteur universel, 27 décembre 187] 

From the Mémoires: Henri Sanson supervised the removal of the bodies, which were thrown in pairs into the baskets waiting behind the guillotine. But after six heads had fallen, the baskets and the fallboard were so flooded with blood that the touch of this blood must have been much more terrible for the following ones than death itself. Charles Henri Sanson ordered two assistants to pour out several buckets of water and wash off the pieces with a sponge after each execution, p. ? 

Toulongeon, a former constituent who wrote in 1812, confirms that Robespierre received a pistol shot that shattered his chin cheek. There is reason, therefore, to suppose that an attempt at suicide on the part of Robespierre was only suspected; Louis Blanc shows it clearly in the notes which follow the seventh chapter of the tenth volume of his History of the Revolution. According to Louis Blanc, Médal would have entered the commune's consulting room long before Leonard Bourdon; when he recognized Robespierre, he would have wounded him with a pistol shot; all those present would have fled, and with a pistol shot he would have hit the shoulder of a man who was carrying Couthon away on a dark staircase. I will add a statement to this succinct account of Mr. Louis Blanc, which, however modest it may be, has its value. Médal belongs to that gendarmerie of the Tribunal, which came into daily contact with my father through his service; but the reasons for his promotion were no secret to anyone, and at the time when the most reliable historians assumed an attempt at suicide on the part of Robespierre, my father was already telling me about the pistol shot of gendarme Médal, about the consequences that the same had had for him, and about the anger that his promotion had caused among his former comrades, most of whom were angry Robespierrists. Be that as it may, a quarter of an hour after Leonard Bourdon entered the meetinghouse, the state of affairs was almost exactly as Barère described it.
Maximilian Robespierre lay on the ground, badly wounded and covered with blood; after the younger Robespierre had taken off his shoes and walked a distance along the wide carnies of the first floor by the townhouse, he threw himself down on the tips of the bayonets; Couthon, only slightly bruised, was carried by his friends to the quay, but left there by them; Henriot was in no better condition than his accomplices, he had not let justice be done to himself, as Barère put it : outraged by his cowardice, Coffinhal had rushed him out to a window leading to one of the inner courtyards, and he had fallen on a pile of broken glass; still completely stunned by his trap, he had dragged himself into an alley, where he was found only a few hours later. Saint Just, Payan, Lescot, Fleuriot were arrested.

Coward, Coffinhal told his friend, you had answered me for your troop: and, with a vigorous arm, dragging him towards a balcony, he threw him into a sewer, from where he was pulled out alive, but covered in blood and filth.[https://gallica.bnf.fr/ark:/12148/bpt6k6213052m/f9.image/f1n398.pdf?download=1, p. 309]

Dans les derniers mois de 1829 ou les premiers mois de 1830, L’Héritier de l’Ain qui venait de donner avec un grand succès (d’argent) les Mémoires de Vidocq proposa au libraire Mame la publication des Mémoires de Sanson. L’affaire se conclut et Charles-Henry Sanson signa un traité par lequel il s’engageait à laisser mettre son nom sur les volumes et à fournir des documents et matériaux aux « teinturiers » acceptés par lui. [La Gazette, 25 novembre 1905]

ChatGPT: Honoré de Balzac (1799–1850) was both Catholic and a royalist, which is evident in his work and personal beliefs. Although he did not live a strictly devout life, he valued the Catholic faith as a moral and social foundation in society. For Balzac, the Church was a stabilizing force amid the upheavals and chaos of his time, such as the French Revolution and the Napoleonic era.

As a royalist, Balzac admired the monarchy and the traditional hierarchies associated with it. He saw the monarchy as a symbol of order and continuity during a period of rapid democratic and liberal changes. This is also reflected in his magnum opus, La Comédie Humaine, where he often writes nostalgically about the nobility, old values, and the disappearance of traditional structures.

His political and religious convictions made him somewhat controversial in 19th-century Paris, which was increasingly influenced by revolutionary and liberal ideas. Nevertheless, he remained committed to his conservative ideals, setting him apart from many of his contemporaries.

Les explications circonstanciées de Marco de Saint-Hilaire rassurèrent pleinement Dutacq, et c’est ainsi (pie, six mois après, le 15 juin 1853, parut dans Le Pays, sous le nom de Balzac, un nouveau fragment des Mémoires de Sanson sous le titre de : Une exécution militaire, Scène de la vie militaire.[Mercure de France, 1 novembre 1950]

Philippe Bourdin, « Sept générations d’exécuteurs. Mémoires des bourreaux Sanson (1688–1847) »,  Annales historiques de la Révolution française [En ligne], 337 | juillet–septembre 2004, mis en ligne le 15  février 2006. URL : https://journals.openedition.org/ahrf/1561 ; DOI : https://  doi.org/10.4000/ahrf.1561

Sources