The poisoner Derues is put to the torture before his execution in 1777

The poisoner Derues is put to the torture before his execution in 1777

Derues and the ritual of execution

The execution of Derues was accompanied by an unprecedented outpouring of images.  According to Grimm, portraits of Derues and scenes from his crime and trial, "of marvellous exactitude", were produced everywhere and purveyors of engravings sold nothing else for a fortnight.  The following are mostly from a series of thirty-nine prints offered by the engravers Esnauts et Rapilly, to accompanied the extremely popular Vie privée et criminelle d'Antoine-François Derues by the bookseller Cailleau.  Among them are some of the most striking images of the final years of "the age of spectacular execution".  Cailleau's  work sought to portray Derues as a monster of hypocrisy and crime; but paradoxically, the illustrations seem (and probably seemed at the time) more an indictment of the cruelties of 18th-century capital punishment.  They stand as  testimony to the suffering and resilience of the little man, whose protestations of innocence so disconcerted contemporary observers.

On 6th May, at six in the morning, Derues had his condemnation formally read to him.  He was then led into the torture chamber where the various high officials,including the lieutenant criminal Bachois de Villefort, were foregathered, with the executioner and his assistants in attendance. 

The details given in the manuscript journal of the bookseller Sébastien Hardy, suggest that much of what transpired was common knowledge:

Derues, Hardy noted, was paler than usual but he did not tremble.  He listened to the solemn reading of the arrêt against him by the court clerk, on his knees, bareheaded, with his hands tied behind his back.  When his eyes caught sight of the crucifix on the wall, he inclined his head piously and murmured a prayer.  Looking at his judges, he remarked quietly, "I did not expect so severe a sentence". ["je ne m'attendais pas a un traitement semblable".] 

According to custom, before the torture commenced, he was interrogated once more sur la sellette.  With unshakeable courage, he continued to affirm his innocence; he gave his name, age then stated that he had nothing to add to the testimony he had given at the trial.  In answer to the questions, he continued to deny that he had bought or administered poison. He remained apparently calm, his state of anguish  revealed only by the loosening of his bowels.(Hardy, quoted by Claretie, p.274-6)

The official records tell much the same story. The surgeons present feared that Derues would die under torture and proscribed the use of the water torture. He was submitted to the brodequins. The "ordinary" torture consisted of four wedges.  With the first,  he called on God to give him courage and continued to insist he was not  guilty of poisoning but only of concealing Mme de Lamotte's body.   After the second Derues "cried out much" and merely called on God to give him the strength to maintain the truth.  After this came the extraordinary torture;  he was now reduced to howling and crying,  "I am innocent!  I am innocent!  "At the first wedge of the extraordinary, he persisted and said the same thing, letting out great cries - At the second wedge, he said nothing - At the third wedge, nothing".  He had fainted away, but on the matelas the surgeons succeeded in reviving him. He even conversed  with magistrates, absolving them of blame and protesting his innocence. He was questioned again, but was too feeble to sign the procès-verbal.

Shortly before two o'clock in the afternoon Derues was taken to the parvis of Notre-Dame to perform the amende honorable.  He climbed into the cart which would take him to the scaffold.  Jean Gilbert Segaud, curé of Saint-Martin in the faubourg Saint-Marcel was in attendance.  It was raining and one of the executioner's assistants held an umbrella over the priest as he showed a crucifix to the condemned.  An immense crowd lined the route from the porte du Parlement.  It was observed that  Derues's palour was accentuated by his white shirt.  However, his expression betrayed no emotion.  According to the formula,  he was made to kneel, a cord around his neck and an heavy wax candle in his right hand; on his chest and back, a board recalled his crime:  Empoissoneur de dessein prémédité.  Before the clerk, sheltering under his umbrella, could begin to read the prescribed words of the amende honorable, Derues cried out once again, "I am innocence".  He addressed the crowd, his voice carrying clearly: "If justice disposes of my body, I hope that God will have care of my soul" (Metra, Correspondance littéraire secrète, quoted Claretie,p.280.)

Derues was then obliged to climb once more into the cart to travel to the place de Grève  Here the crowd was truly phenomenal; the archers on duty had difficulty containing the throng and illustrations show how the soldiers created a restraining cordon.  Colporteurs moved among the onlookers selling copies of the arrêt of condemnation and the various brochures containing details of the trial. The event coincided with a military review on the plaine de Sablon in the presence of the King and the whole royal family;  but there was no competition.  Not since Damiens had an execution attracted so huge a gathering.

Still Derues remained impassive;  only a slight trembling of his lips gave his emotion away. Once arrived, he immediately claimed his right to enter the Hôtel de Ville in order make his final declarations.  The magistrates gathered in one of the rooms;  M. Bachois de Villefort was there in his splendid scarlet robes.  But there were no new revelations.  Derues again protested his innocence of any poisonings. He tried above all to save his wife by insisting that she knew nothing of his schemes to dispose of the bodies.

The wretched Mme Derues  was brought from the For-l'Évêque prison to "confront"  her husband.  The little man embraced her and commended their children to her care, to be brought up in "fear of God and love of their duties".  He called on the protection of the bishop of Chartres and of Archbishop de Beaumont of Paris. (Hardy).  The miserable woman cried hysterically, pulled out her hair, collapsed to the ground.  According to Hardy she had already tried to kill herself by knocking her head against a doorpost.  Even the lieutenant criminal was moved to try and calm  her.  Desrues was questioned again to no avail, then signed the proces-verbal with  a firm hand.

At the last minute a bailiff from the Parlement arrived at the Hôtel de Ville with a letter from M de Gourgues, the president of the Tournelle  ordering a stay of execution if Derues had confessed. But he had admitted nothing.

It was now nearly six in the evening.  "Come", said Derues, "it must be finished"  The doors opened.  Supported by two aides he descended the steps of the Hôtel de Ville, climbed calmly onto the scaffold, and started to undress himself, helped by the executioners' assistants who served, said Hardy, as his valets de chambre.

Suddenly silence fell.  Derues was bound to the cross of St Andrew with his face towards the sky.  He was wearing only his chemise, leaving his arms and tights exposed.  The executioner Charles-Henry Sanson took up his iron bar and began to break his bones.  In this case the condemnation contained no retentum and the little man's cries of the suffering filled the air.  The crowd were horrified; it is recorded that, an apprentice engraver, a boy of fourteen, fainted right away and had to be taken to hospital.

Sanson finished his work  with two or three obligatory blows to the stomach and detached Derues from the cross.  He was not, however, dead;  he shuddered and still breathed feebly.  Nonetheless, he was now placed on the bonfire which had been prepared next to the scaffold, his body covered with brushwood and set alight.  When the fire was extinguished, according to the terms of the arrêt, his ashes were "thrown to the wind"  The crowd rushed to find some relic.  The urchins sold fragments of bone which were said to bring good luck (Hardy).  According to Metra the remains were bought up by an enterprising individual for 300 livres.

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