{"id":12883,"date":"2026-06-03T12:07:42","date_gmt":"2026-06-03T10:07:42","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/tacotichelaar.nl\/wordpress\/?page_id=12883"},"modified":"2026-07-13T13:16:13","modified_gmt":"2026-07-13T11:16:13","slug":"the-memoirs-of-sanson-authorship-authenticity-and-historical-value","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/tacotichelaar.nl\/wordpress\/the-memoirs-of-sanson-authorship-authenticity-and-historical-value\/","title":{"rendered":"The Memoirs of Sanson: Authorship, Authenticity and Historical Value"},"content":{"rendered":"

The nineteenth-century works collectively known as the Memoirs of Sanson<\/strong> have long been treated as a single apocryphal publication. This article argues that such a view oversimplifies their history. The memoirs published in 1830\u20131831 and Henri-Cl\u00e9ment Sanson’s Sept g\u00e9n\u00e9rations d’ex\u00e9cuteurs (1862\u20131863) were distinct editorial projects with different aims, different methods and structure and different historical value.<\/p>\n

”’Memoirs of Sanson”’ (French: ”M\u00e9moires de Sanson”) is the collective title commonly applied to several nineteenth-century publications associated with the Sanson family, a dynasty of Parisian executioners who served under the Ancien R\u00e9gime, the French Revolution and the nineteenth century. The works combine family tradition, historical narrative, documentary material and editorial reconstruction. Their authorship and authenticity have been debated since the nineteenth century.1<\/a><\/sup>, 337 | juillet\u2013<\/span>septembre 2004, mis en ligne le 15 \u00a0f\u00e9vrier 2006. URL : https:\/\/journals.openedition.org\/ahrf\/1561<\/span><\/a> ; DOI : https:\/\/ \u00a0doi.org\/10.4000\/ahrf.1561]<\/p>\n

Publication history<\/h3>\n

The first publications appeared in 1830 under the title ”M\u00e9moires pour servir \u00e0 l’histoire de la R\u00e9volution fran\u00e7aise<\/em>”. The project was initiated by Louis-Fran\u00e7ois L’H\u00e9ritier (1789-1852) during the Bourbon Restoration and involved Gabriel Honor\u00e9 de Balzac, who wrote at least part of the opening volume. Henri-Cl\u00e9ment Sanson later stated that Balzac’s opening narrative was based partly on family traditions supplied by Henri Sanson, but that its concluding episode was a fictional device intended to provide an origin story for the apocryphal memoirs.2<\/a><\/sup> 3<\/a><\/sup> Henri-Cl\u00e9ment’s detailed discussion of L’H\u00e9ritier and the origins of the 1830\u20131831 publications appeared only in the original French introduction to the first volume (1862). It was omitted from the English translation (1876) and from the abbreviated preface to the revised French edition (1879), which contributed to later misunderstandings about the relationship between the different Sanson publications.<\/p>\n

Presented as the recollections of Henri Sanson, son of Charles-Henri Sanson, the Memoirs were publicly repudiated by Henri, who declared that he had neither written nor authorised them and that they bore little resemblance to the papers left by his father. Publication was suspended at his request in 1830, although revised volumes continued to appear in 1831. (Henri Sanson was anglizised to Henry Sanson<\/em> in later literature).<\/p>\n

More than thirty years later, Henri-Cl\u00e9ment Sanson, the last executioner of the family, undertook a new project under the title ”Sept g\u00e9n\u00e9rations d’ex\u00e9cuteurs, 1688\u20131847<\/em>” (1862\u20131863). Volume I, II and III were published in 1862; Volume IV, V and VI were published in 1863.<\/p>\n

In a substantial autobiographical introduction, he rejected the earlier publications as an unauthorised and romanticised account of his family’s history and presented his own work as a reconstruction based on family papers, correspondence, private notes, official records and printed historical sources. Contemporary advertisements and legal proceedings show that Henri-Cl\u00e9ment was actively involved in the publication and regarded the work as his own, while disputes with his publisher concerned financial arrangements rather than the authenticity of the project itself.<\/p>\n

This work differs markedly in conception from the publications of 1830\u20131831. Rather than presenting a continuous personal memoir, it combines autobiographical passages, essays on criminal justice and capital punishment, documentary transcripts, historical case studies and extended narratives covering both the Ancien R\u00e9gime and the French Revolution. Henri-Cl\u00e9ment regularly compares conflicting accounts, cites contemporary documents and historians\u2014including the newspaper ”Le Moniteur universel<\/em>”, and the authors Fran\u00e7ois-Emmanuel Toulongeon, Louis Blanc and Jules Michelet\u2014and incorporates material attributed to the Sanson family archives. The result is a hybrid historical work that combines family testimony, historical scholarship and literary narrative.<\/p>\n

The ”Sept G\u00e9n\u00e9rations d’Ex\u00e9cuteur<\/em>s<\/em>” enjoyed considerable public attention when it appeared. It was serialised in the French press, widely advertised, reviewed favourably for its literary style, and continued to be cited by historians and journalists well into the early twentieth century. Historians such as Jules Claretie (1840-1913) and G. Lenotre (1855-1935) <\/span>drew upon both the published memoirs and the Sanson family collection, while distinguishing between the documentary material preserved by the family and its literary presentation.[Lenotre, G. (1893) La guillotine et les ex\u00e9cuteurs des arr\u00eats criminels pendant la r\u00e9volution : d\u2019apr\u00e8s des documents in\u00e9dits tir\u00e9s des archives de l\u2019Etat.<\/a>]<\/span> Modern scholarship likewise treats the work as a complex nineteenth-century historical compilation whose documentary value must be assessed source by source rather than accepted or rejected as a whole. The different publications are therefore best understood not as a single set of memoirs, but as successive editorial projects reflecting changing literary, historical and documentary aims.<\/p>\n

The ”Memoirs of Sanson<\/em>” comprise two distinct nineteenth-century publishing projects associated with the Sanson family.<\/p>\n

The first, ”M\u00e9moires de l’ex\u00e9cuteur des hautes-\u0153uvres<\/i>\u00a0and\u00a0M\u00e9moires pour servir \u00e0 l\u2019histoire de la R\u00e9volution fran\u00e7aise<\/i>”, appeared in 1830. It was initiated by Louis-Fran\u00e7ois L’H\u00e9ritier during the Bourbon Restoration in France and developed with the assistance of Honor\u00e9 de Balzac, who later acknowledged his contribution to the opening volume. Presented as the recollections of Henri Sanson, son of Charles-Henri Sanson, the work combined historical narrative with fictionalised scenes and dialogues, while explicitly acknowledging the role of both authentic documents and family traditions in reconstructing the history of the Sanson family. Henri-Cl\u00e9ment Sanson publicly repudiated the publication, on 3 October 1840, declaring that he had neither written nor authorised it and that it bore little resemblance to the papers left by his father.4<\/a><\/sup> At Henri’s request the project was suspended in 1830, although a revised ”M\u00e9moires pour servir \u00e0 l’histoire de la R\u00e9volution fran\u00e7aise<\/em>” continued to appear in 1831.<\/p>\n

More than thirty years later, Henri-Cl\u00e9ment Sanson (1799\u20131889), the last executioner of the family, undertook a new edition under the title ”Sept G\u00e9n\u00e9rations d’Ex\u00e9cuteurs, 1688\u20131847<\/em>” (1862\u20131863). Published by Paul V. Dupray de la Mah\u00e9rie, the six-volume work was conceived as an independent reconstruction of the history of the Sanson family based on family papers, correspondence, official documents and printed historical sources. Contemporary advertisements presented it as a documented family history rather than a continuation of the earlier memoirs, while legal proceedings between Henri-Cl\u00e9ment Sanson and his publisher demonstrate that he remained actively involved in its publication and claimed authorship of the work.<\/p>\n

Although the journalist d’Olbreuse, is believed to have assisted with the preparation of the text, the extent of his contribution remains uncertain.<\/p>\n

Sept G\u00e9n\u00e9rations d’Ex\u00e9cuteurs, 1688\u20131847<\/strong><\/h3>\n

A six-part family chronicle from 1862\/1863 with an extensive introduction and notes. Edited by Henri-Cl\u00e9ment Sanson; Paul Dupray de la Mah\u00e9rie as publisher and a publicist known as d’Olbreuse, though nothing at all is known about him, not even his first name.<\/p>\n

The 1862\u201363 edition is not a collection of sensational family stories, but a well-documented historical work in which Henri-Cl\u00e9ment Sanson attempts to synthesize family papers, official documents, parliamentary reports, and existing historical accounts. He attempts to describe the entire institutional process of Thermidor:<\/p>\n

Content and historical character<\/h3>\n

The first volume of the Memoirs start with a historical and philosophical approach on death penalty from the Middle Ages, the guillotine, and torture\u2013 around 200 pages. On page 208 he wrote about the first edition in 1829\/30:<\/p>\n

These two volumes are moreover a tissue of mendacious allegations and puerile inventions, devoid, I will not say only of truth, but even of plausibility. Here is the version that the authors had imagined to place in the mouth of my father about the origins of our family. In Vol. I, on page 211: If I have dwelt so long on these apocryphal Memoirs, it is so that they can never be opposed by people of good faith to the work that I am publishing today, and which is the only true repository of the memories of my family. I found in my father\u2019s papers, a draft of the letter that he intended to write to the newspapers to deny these false Memoirs: Several respectable people, who are willing to honor me with their esteem, have seemed to believe that I was the author of the Memoirs of Sanson, executor of criminal judgments. I declare that I have never written anything similar and that the memories that my father left us offer no analogy with this publication, of which all the details are romantic.<\/pre>\n
Henri-Cl\u00e9ment Sanson compares sources. He refers to historiography, he mentions Barr\u00e8re, Michelet, Toulongeon and Blanc, and contrasts this with a family tradition: Michelet is wrong, Louis Blanc is wrong, Barr\u00e8re is untrustworthy and Toulongeon is more convincing.<\/p>\n
Page 205-432 are about the origin of the family in Abb\u00e9ville and Dieppe, who moved to Paris in 1685. The presence of Charles I Sanson in the capital cannot be proved before the year 1688.<\/p>\n
The second volume is about Fran\u00e7ois Damiens, Lally-Tollendal and the Chevalier de la Barre. The third volume deals with Charles-Henri Sanson, his case with the press in 1790, the events in August 1792, but he does not mention the death of his supposed uncle Gabriel Sanson (and was not buried in the family grave at the cemetery Monmartre!).<\/p>\n
Henri-Cl\u00e9ment Sanson recounts the death of an unnamed young assistant who collapsed while exhibiting a severed head, attributing the death to an apoplectic seizure. Later accounts identify the assistant as Gabriel Sanson and often state that he slipped from the scaffold, but these details are not explicit in Henri-Cl\u00e9ment's narrative. \r\n\r\nThe oft-repeated account that Gabriel Sanson died after falling from the scaffold in 1792 is widespread in modern literature, but contemporary newspaper evidence has proved elusive. Henri-Cl\u00e9ment Sanson's own narrative describes the death of an unnamed young assistant without identifying him as Gabriel.<\/pre>\n
It ends with the execution of thiefs and forgerers and the death of King Louis XVI.<\/p>\n
Volume III deals with the mass for the executed king, Corday, Custine, the Queen Marie-Antoinette, the 21 Girondins, Philipe \u00c9galit\u00e9, Madame Roland, and Bailly. The diary of his grandfather begins afterwards,\u00a0 on 16 November 1793. Vol. IV contains details about Danton, Desmoulins, not about their trial, but the execution, Madame \u00c9lisabeth, 9 Thermidor, and Robespierre.<\/p>\n
To describe the events in the Convention, he cites Le Moniteur universel<\/em>. Henri-Cl\u00e9ment repeatedly mentions: the vice-president Toussaint-Gabriel Scellier; Liendon, substitut de l’accusateur public; the delay until 12:30 p.m.; the legal difficulty regarding their identification and the route to the guillotine. His description of the execution is strikingly matter-of-fact: 6:15 p.m.: arrival at the Place de la R\u00e9volution; Gobeau is the first to be executed. Saint-Just embraces Couthon. To Robespierre, he says only: \u201cAdieu.\u201d Robespierre responds with nothing more than a nod.5<\/a><\/sup><\/a><\/p>\n
Charles Henri Sanson listed the names of a few thousand people, who were executed during the Grand Terreur.6<\/a><\/sup> Then the work also becomes documentary, quasi-administrative and almost prosopographic.<\/p>\n
A hybrid historical work<\/h3>\n
The Memoirs function both as a counter to sensationalism and, at the same time, thanks to sensationalism. He depicts the executioner not as a sadist, but as a hereditary official of the state. This ties directly into Cesare Beccaria, the Italian jurist and philosopher; the legitimacy of punishment; the role of the state; and the moral responsibility of the executioner. This shows that the Memoirs also offer insights into: citizenship; the social status of executioners; the Reign of Terror; the legitimacy of the death penalty.<\/p>\n
The 1862\u20131863 edition has increasingly been studied independently of the earlier publications because it presents itself not as the personal memoirs of Henri Sanson, but as a documented reconstruction by his son Henri-Cl\u00e9ment Sanson. The 1862\u20131863 edition should not be regarded as a revision of the 1830\u20131831 memoirs, but as an independent work written partly in response to them.<\/p>\n
Reception and historiography<\/h3>\n
The 1830\u20131831 Memoirs were widely regarded as a literary undertaking, whereas the six-volume ”Sept G\u00e9n\u00e9rations d’Ex\u00e9cuteurs<\/em>” followed a different editorial approach. Contemporary reviews praised its literary qualities, it was serialised in the French press, and it continued to be cited by journalists and historians into the early twentieth century. French historians such as Jules Claretie and G. Lenotre drew extensively upon the Memoirs and the Sanson family collection, while distinguishing between documentary material and its literary presentation.<\/p>\n
Modern historians generally adopt a more nuanced assessment than earlier criticism allowed. Rather than accepting or rejecting the work as a whole, they evaluate its different components separately, distinguishing between literary reconstruction, family tradition and documentary evidence. The destruction of many judicial and administrative archives during the Paris Commune in 1871 has made independent verification of numerous details difficult, while at the same time preventing the complete dismissal of material that may have derived from family papers no longer extant.<\/p>\n
Contemporary reviews, advertisements and newspaper serialisations treated the 1862\u20131863 edition as a major historical publication, and it continued to be cited in the French press into the early twentieth century.<\/p>\n
Memoirs of the Sansons: From Private Notes and Documents (1688\u20131847)<\/h3>\n
”Memoirs of the Sansons: From Private Notes and Documents (1688\u20131847)<\/em>” (published in 1876) is an abridged English translation based on ”Sept g\u00e9n\u00e9rations d’ex\u00e9cuteurs<\/em>” (1862\u20131863), not on the earlier memoirs of 1830\u20131831. The anonymous translator stated that he had shortened passages that wandered from the narrative while preserving what he regarded as the essential historical material. The preface describes the work as literary in style but argues that it was substantially inspired by, and probably written under the direction of Henri-Cl\u00e9ment Sanson.<\/p>\n
Summary in French<\/h3>\n
Henri-Cl\u00e9ment Sanson pr\u00e9sente son ouvrage comme bien davantage qu’un simple recueil d’anecdotes judiciaires. Dans sa longue introduction autobiographique, r\u00e9dig\u00e9e sur un ton \u00e0 la fois personnel et justificatif, il d\u00e9crit sa r\u00e9vocation en 1847 comme le terme de la longue histoire de sa famille dans l’exercice des hautes \u0153uvres. Il pr\u00e9sente cette fonction h\u00e9r\u00e9ditaire comme un devoir impos\u00e9 par la naissance plut\u00f4t qu’un choix personnel, en insistant sur l’isolement social et le poids moral attach\u00e9s au nom des Sanson.<\/p>\n
Il explique avoir quitt\u00e9 sa charge avec soulagement et \u00e9voque son projet d’\u00e9migrer en Am\u00e9rique afin d’\u00e9chapper \u00e0 la r\u00e9putation qui poursuivait sa famille. Parall\u00e8lement, il pr\u00e9sente les Sanson comme les d\u00e9positaires d’un patrimoine documentaire exceptionnel, affirmant que plusieurs g\u00e9n\u00e9rations d’ex\u00e9cuteurs avaient conserv\u00e9 des manuscrits, une correspondance, des documents officiels et des notes priv\u00e9es relatant non seulement les ex\u00e9cutions c\u00e9l\u00e8bres, mais aussi les \u00e9v\u00e9nements politiques de leur \u00e9poque.<\/p>\n
Henri-Cl\u00e9ment inscrit ainsi les ”M\u00e9moires” dans une double d\u00e9marche, historique et morale. Il affirme avoir entrepris ce travail afin de reconstituer l’histoire de sa famille \u00e0 partir de sources manuscrites et imprim\u00e9es, tout en prenant ses distances avec les ”M\u00e9moires” publi\u00e9s en 1830\u20131831, qu’il jugeait largement romanc\u00e9s. Son ouvrage m\u00eale souvenirs familiaux, documents d’archives, extraits de sources contemporaines et commentaires historiographiques. Loin de d\u00e9fendre la peine de mort, il plaide \u00e0 plusieurs reprises pour son abolition et pr\u00e9sente l’ex\u00e9cuteur non comme un personnage sanguinaire, mais comme l’instrument involontaire de la justice, condamn\u00e9 par sa naissance \u00e0 exercer une fonction h\u00e9r\u00e9ditaire. Les ”M\u00e9moires” se pr\u00e9sentent ainsi \u00e0 la fois comme le t\u00e9moignage du dernier repr\u00e9sentant de la dynastie des Sanson, une tentative de reconstitution documentaire de son histoire familiale et une r\u00e9flexion plus g\u00e9n\u00e9rale sur la justice criminelle et la peine capitale.<\/p>\n
References:<\/h3>\n
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  1.  Philippe Bourdin, \u00ab Sept g\u00e9n\u00e9rations d\u2019ex\u00e9cuteurs. M\u00e9moires des bourreaux Sanson (1688\u2013<\/span>1847)<\/em> \u00bb, \u00a0Annales historiques de la R\u00e9volution fran\u00e7aise [En ligne ↩<\/a><\/span><\/li>\n
  2.  Memoirs of the Sansons, From Private Notes and Documents (1688-1847), p.4-5, 26<\/a> ↩<\/a><\/span><\/li>\n
  3.  “…tout cela n\u2019est qu\u2019une fable imagin\u00e9e pour donner une origine aux M\u00e9moires apocryphes qu\u2019on voulait publier.” In: Sept g\u00e9n\u00e9rations d’ex\u00e9cuteurs (1879), p. 400, 412 ↩<\/a><\/span><\/li>\n
  4.  Vol I, p. 212-214 ↩<\/a><\/span><\/li>\n
  5.  Faits recueillis aux derniers instants de Robespierre et de sa faction, du 9 au 10 thermidor ↩<\/a><\/span><\/li>\n
  6.  Reising (2024) Beccaria, the Executioner, and the French Revolution  ↩<\/a><\/span><\/li>\n<\/ol>\n<\/div>\n
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    The nineteenth-century works collectively known as the Memoirs of Sanson have long been treated as a single apocryphal publication. This article argues that such a view oversimplifies their history. The memoirs published in 1830\u20131831 and Henri-Cl\u00e9ment Sanson’s Sept g\u00e9n\u00e9rations d’ex\u00e9cuteurs (1862\u20131863) were distinct editorial projects with different aims, different methods and structure and different historical … Lees verder The Memoirs of Sanson: Authorship, Authenticity and Historical Value<\/span> →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n
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The memoirs published in 1830\u20131831 and Henri-Cl\u00e9ment Sanson’s Sept g\u00e9n\u00e9rations d’ex\u00e9cuteurs (1862\u20131863) were distinct editorial projects with different aims, different methods and structure and different historical … Lees verder The Memoirs of Sanson: Authorship, Authenticity and Historical Value →","og_url":"https:\/\/tacotichelaar.nl\/wordpress\/the-memoirs-of-sanson-authorship-authenticity-and-historical-value\/","og_site_name":"Taco Tichelaar","article_publisher":"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/taco.tichelaar","article_modified_time":"2026-07-13T11:16:13+00:00","twitter_misc":{"Geschatte leestijd":"12 minuten"},"schema":{"@context":"https:\/\/schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https:\/\/tacotichelaar.nl\/wordpress\/the-memoirs-of-sanson-authorship-authenticity-and-historical-value\/","url":"https:\/\/tacotichelaar.nl\/wordpress\/the-memoirs-of-sanson-authorship-authenticity-and-historical-value\/","name":"The Memoirs of Sanson: Authorship, Authenticity and Historical Value - Taco Tichelaar","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/tacotichelaar.nl\/wordpress\/#website"},"datePublished":"2026-06-03T10:07:42+00:00","dateModified":"2026-07-13T11:16:13+00:00","breadcrumb":{"@id":"https:\/\/tacotichelaar.nl\/wordpress\/the-memoirs-of-sanson-authorship-authenticity-and-historical-value\/#breadcrumb"},"inLanguage":"nl-NL","potentialAction":[{"@type":"ReadAction","target":["https:\/\/tacotichelaar.nl\/wordpress\/the-memoirs-of-sanson-authorship-authenticity-and-historical-value\/"]}]},{"@type":"BreadcrumbList","@id":"https:\/\/tacotichelaar.nl\/wordpress\/the-memoirs-of-sanson-authorship-authenticity-and-historical-value\/#breadcrumb","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"name":"Home","item":"https:\/\/tacotichelaar.nl\/wordpress\/"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"name":"The Memoirs of Sanson: Authorship, Authenticity and Historical Value"}]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https:\/\/tacotichelaar.nl\/wordpress\/#website","url":"https:\/\/tacotichelaar.nl\/wordpress\/","name":"Taco Tichelaar","description":"geschiedenis, huisonderzoek","publisher":{"@id":"https:\/\/tacotichelaar.nl\/wordpress\/#\/schema\/person\/9507958c5bf79d94fffc2702606bc3a6"},"potentialAction":[{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https:\/\/tacotichelaar.nl\/wordpress\/?s={search_term_string}"},"query-input":{"@type":"PropertyValueSpecification","valueRequired":true,"valueName":"search_term_string"}}],"inLanguage":"nl-NL"},{"@type":["Person","Organization"],"@id":"https:\/\/tacotichelaar.nl\/wordpress\/#\/schema\/person\/9507958c5bf79d94fffc2702606bc3a6","name":"admin","image":{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"nl-NL","@id":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/a49b40cf75021306b5946fce4549f64c43bfe4038dec77cf518111eb1b9e3f77?s=96&d=identicon&r=g","url":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/a49b40cf75021306b5946fce4549f64c43bfe4038dec77cf518111eb1b9e3f77?s=96&d=identicon&r=g","contentUrl":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/a49b40cf75021306b5946fce4549f64c43bfe4038dec77cf518111eb1b9e3f77?s=96&d=identicon&r=g","caption":"admin"},"logo":{"@id":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/a49b40cf75021306b5946fce4549f64c43bfe4038dec77cf518111eb1b9e3f77?s=96&d=identicon&r=g"},"description":"My hobby is house and occupant research of canal houses in Amsterdam. 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