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The Headsman of Colmar

A grisly assignment on a winter's night
By David Cocksedge

PIERRE TORTURE was an unusual name for the executioner of the French town of Colmar in the late 18th century. His surname was obviously bestowed on one of his ancestors because of his profession. The post of public executioner had passed down from father to son in his family for many generations.

He lived alone in a small house situated outside the town. Because of his sinister calling, he was not exactly a popular man, and he accepted that fact without rancor.

On the misty night of 8 November 1780, he was enjoying a rest by his fireplace following his evening meal, when there was a violent knocking at his door. He opened it, and three men, wrapped in heavy cloaks with hats pulled down over their faces stood before him.

"You are the headsman?" one of them asked without ceremony.

"Yes"

"You are alone?"

"Yes"

As soon as he answered for the second time, the three men threw themselves on him, and in spite of his exceptional strength they soon overpowered him. He was gagged and bound without a further word being said.

The men then bundled him into a roomy closed carriage waiting for them close by, and they got in beside him as a fourth man whipped up the horses and they drove off at a quick pace into the misty darkness.

When they were well out of town, the man who had spoken first to Pierre Torture addressed him again. "You need not be alarmed", he said. "No one will harm you. We are taking you to carry out a sentence that has to be carried out by a licensed executioner. When you have accomplished this task, you will be taken back to your home safe and sound, and you shall receive two hundred louis as a reward. But do not attempt to find out where you are going or who we are. If you cry out for help or try to escape we shall be forced to kill you."

He was then ungagged and untied, and given a drink of wine mixed with water. At daybreak next morning they tied a black band around his eyes, and the windows of the carriage were carefully darkened with blinds. The journey continued all that day and throughout the following night and then one more day. Horses were changed several times and fresh starts made at a quickened pace. The three men and their prisoner ate and slept in the carriage. Torture's every movement was closely watched and he could not tell in which direction they were traveling. It seemed to him, however, that they had crossed the Rhine.

On the evening of the second day, he was able to tell by the sounds made by the four wheels that they were crossing a drawbridge, apparently, for he could hear heavy chains rattling as they bounced over wood. In a few seconds the horses were brought to a standstill. A gate opened and Torture, guided by the men, got out of the carriage and walked forward. Presently they went up some stairs, and then through a succession of long halls, their footsteps resounding beneath the lofty vaults. It was icy cold.

At last they stopped and the dark drape was removed from his eyes. He found himself in a vast crypt, hung with funereal black draperies and dimly illuminated by torches. In front of him, against the wall, stood a row of stone stalls in which a dozen men, garbed like judges, sat motionless. They were not masked, but Torture could not make out their features due to the nature of the lighting and the distance.

In the middle of the crypt, in the glare of the torches held up by attendants in hooded gowns, stood a young woman dressed in a long dark robe, her face covered by a thick veil. At her feet was a block of wood, and leaning against it was a sword, which Torture immediately recognized as similar to those used by executioners in Switzerland.

Then one of the members of the tribunal began to speak in German. He said to Torture: "You are here to fulfill your function. This woman has been condemned to death, and you will behead her."

The Frenchman overcame his bewilderment and recovered his senses somewhat. He protested that he could not act as headsman in this matter without the prescribed orders from the authorities over him. He was an official executioner and not an assassin.

The president of the tribunal merely repeated his command. When Torture persisted in refusing, the president said, "You have a quarter of an hour in which to obey. If you have not accomplished your task within that period, it is you who will be the first to die. And then we shall find a more complaint executioner." As he spoke, a great clock above them struck eleven o'clock.

No one moved for several more minutes, as the clock ticked off the seconds.

"You have only two more minutes"; the judge said presently, as an attendant handed Torture the sharpened sword.

Without any kind of protest the woman knelt down, turning her black veil as she did so. She rested her neck in the hollow on the block of wood. Torture now saw that she was exceptionally beautiful. There was an eerie mixture of dignity and sorrow in her movements.

Torture reluctantly moved into position and lifted the great sword. Then he swung it downwards in one expert and convulsive movement.

An instant later the woman's head rolled on the stone floor.

The Frenchman's nerve deserted him, and he fainted. He was lifted to his feet, and with his eyes again bandaged, he was taken back to the horse-drawn carriage. Two days later he was left at the door of his own home, his purse fattened by the two hundred louis he had been promised. Haunted by his memory of the beautiful woman he had murdered, he secretly donated all the money to a local orphanage. But he never forgot her, and she came back to him often in his nightmares.

(Research: 'Pierre Torture' by Frederic Boutet, Xanadu Publications Ltd)

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