- Title: FRANCE: DIARIES OF FRANCE'S LAST EXECUTIONER, ANATOLE DEIBLER AUCTIONED IN PARIS
- Date: 5th February 2003
- Summary: CLOSE-UP OF BOOK TITLE VARIOUS PHOTOGRAPHS AND FRAGMENTS OF MANUSCRIPT (SOUNDBITE) (French) MANUSCRIPT EXPERT ALAIN NICOLAS SAYING: "These are the diaries of Deibler, the last executioner, who executed 395 people. We call him the man who cut 400 heads...He did it between 1900 and the time of his death in 1939. Some of the 395 convicts that he killed where very famous, like Landrou, Ravachol, the anarchists, the Bonnot gang or Violette Noziere, on whom Claude Chabrol based one of his great films, etc VARIOUS VIEWS OF MANUSCRIPTS (SOUNDBITE)(French) MANUSCRIPT EXPERT ALAIN NICOLAS SAYING: "He did his job like anyone else, he accepted his role, but one gets the feeling that he needed to justify himself through his diaries. The manuscript is like a personal diary that works, in a way, like a confession." VARIOUS OF AUCTION IN PROGRESS AUCTIONER TAKING ON THE PHONE AUCTIONEER KNOCKING DOWN HAMMER TO CONFIRM SALE FOR 85,000 EUROS
- Embargoed: 20th February 2003 12:00
- Keywords:
- Location: PARIS, FRANCE
- City:
- Country: France
- Topics: Crime,Quirky,Light / Amusing / Unusual / Quirky
- Reuters ID: LVA30BM3HEGNLOWLX7OM13P57LYL
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- Story Text: The diaries of France's last executioner have been auctioned in Paris. The documents include detailed accounts of the executions as well as the trials that preceded them.
The notebooks of a French executioner who sliced off the heads of almost 400 people fetched 85,000 euros as they went under the auctioneer's hammer in Paris on Wednesday (5 February).
Anatole Deibler meticulously charts his work at the end of the 19th century and early 20th century on some 2,000 pages, noting places, dates, the weather, the names and crimes of the condemned he dispatched in the 41 years up to the outbreak of the First World War, as well as details of their trials.
"At the moment of his execution, (the man) cried out in a loud voice: 'Long live anarchy! Death to the cops!'," he wrote of an execution in 1925.
The auctioneers Beaussant-Lefevre, who had expected up to 15,000 euros for the notebooks, along with Deibler's wedding photo and personal papers, fetched 85,000 euros for the sale to an undisclosed buyer at the Drouot auction house in Paris.
"He did his job like anyone else, he accepted his role, but one gets the feeling that he needed to justify himself through his diaries. The manuscript is like a personal diary that works, in a way, like a confession", manuscript expert Alain Nicolas told Reuters Television.
Deibler died of a heart attack on an underground platform in 1939, on his way to another execution.
Six months later France banned public executions, confining them to a prison courtyard, where they continued until 1977.
France abolished the death penalty in 1981.
Born on 29 November, 1863, he was descended from a line of executioners stretching back to the end of the 17th century.
Deibler's father, Louis, had taken part in over a thousand executions and had guillotined 154 people as chief executioner, before retiring and handing over the post to his son in December 1898.
Historians and psychologists believe that Deibler managed to cope with the horrors of his profession by leading a double existence in which he kept his home life as mundanely normal as possible while pouring into his notebooks all the mixed emotions of repugnance and attraction which capital punishment inspired in him.
When he was not busy chopping off heads, Deibler, who sported a typical Gallic moustache, enjoyed a spot of fishing and also amused himself by playing billiards and trying his chance on the lottery.
At home he kept canaries and two tortoises. Conservative in his habits, Deibler was faithful to the end to the horse-driven cart in which he transported his grim apparatus to and from the railway station.
However, he was not insensible to progress and made many improvements to his guillotines, proudly claiming that he had beaten all records for rapid executions.
It was also his boast that he had not an enemy in the world.
In his diaries, Deibler, who was nicknamed "Monsieur de Paris" and "The Executor of High Works", noted in chronological order all the details of those he considered to be "his" condemned, whose trials he attended out of a sense of professional conscience.
The notebooks provide a fascinating and depressing glimpse into the sociology of crime.
They describe prowlers, thieves, crimes of jealousy, parricides and fratricides, anarchists, members of organised crime groups, pirates, rapists and the insane.
Among the criminals he dispatched was the serial killer Henri-Desire Landru, Jeronimo Santo Caserio, who assassinated president Carnot, the Corsican bandit Andre Spada and the notorious gangster known as "Raymond la Science". - Copyright Holder: REUTERS
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