1722: Marie-Jeanne Roger, “la Grande-Jeanneton”
July 24th, 2015 Headsman
On this date in 1722, Cartouche’s redoubtable lover “Big Jenny” was executed on Paris’s Place de Greve.
As befits a thief intrepid enough to grace the execution playing cards, the great French outlaw Cartouche boasted a veritable harem of mistresses whose offices were no less valuable for their contributions to Cartouche’s criminal enterprises: “‘La Catin,’ ‘La Bel-Air,’ ‘La Galette,’ ‘La Petite Poulailliere,’ ‘La Mion,’ ‘La Belle-Laitiere,’ ‘Margot-Monsieur,’ ‘La Religieuse,’ ‘La Bonne,’ ‘La Blanche,’ “Tape-dru,’ &c. &c. But far beyond them all stands out, in rich relief, the name of that most celebrated, most accomplished, most devoted of all the (titular) wives of Cartouche — Big Jenny!” (Source)
Under the guise of an innocent fruit-pedlar, Marie-Jeanne Roger, alias La Grande-Jeanneton “flitt[ed] about from place to place, spying, plotting, drinking, fighting, robbing, and being robbed — the terror and admiration (according to the spectator’s point of view) of every one that approached her.” And she and the robber prince had by accounts that might admittedly be colored by sentimental projection a passionate romance. (Parlement’s published condemnation traduces her as a “debauched woman, concubine” of a number of disreputable characters. Our doomed principal tartly replied that Paris would halve her vices if only greedy innkeepers were not so eager to play procurer.)
La Grande-Jeanneton‘s well-known dalliance with Cartouche made her a prime target after authorities started rolling up that brigand’s gang, and they were mean enough to deny her request to go to the scaffold with her man.
Her sex did not spare her the horrible torture of the Brodequin; posterity has not seen fit to blame her overmuch for succumbing to the leg-crusher to the extent of yielding 52 names, especially since she at least salvaged the opportunity to embarrass many distinguished merchants.
Depuis un an logeait, vers le Palais-Royal,
Une fille de bien qui se gouvernait mal.
Cartouche fréquentait cette tendre poulette;
Salope, s’il en fut, d’ailleurs assez bien faite.
Oeil fripon, petit nez retroussé, teint fleuri,
Friande d’un amant, bien plus que d’un mari,
Fourbe au dernier degré, mutine jusqu’à battre,
Son coeur fut captivé par ce jeune tendron,
Que chacun appelait ta Grande Jeanneton.
On this day..
- 2003: Allen Wayne Janecka, hit man - 2020
- 1833: Anastasio Aquino, Nonualco rebel - 2019
- 1951: Arno Esch, liberal - 2018
- 2010: Michel Germaneau, AQIM hostage - 2017
- 1653: Six beheaded and one hanged for the Swiss Peasant War - 2016
- 2008: Christopher Scott Emmett, jocund - 2014
- 1471: Dmitry Isakevich Boretsky, son of Marfa Boretskaya - 2013
- 1735: Patience Boston, converted - 2012
- 1588: Nicholas Garlick, Robert Ludlam, and Richard Simpson - 2011
- 1892: Ruggles brothers lynched - 2010
- 1942: Joan Peiro i Belis, Catalan anarchist - 2009
- 1794: Not Thomas Paine - 2008
Entry Filed under: 18th Century,Capital Punishment,Common Criminals,Crime,Death Penalty,Execution,France,Gibbeted,Hanged,History,Organized Crime,Public Executions,Theft,Torture,Women
Tags: 1720s, 1722, cartouche, july 24, la grande-jeanneton, love, marie-jeanne roger, paris
