1889: Fulgence-Benjamin Geomay, at the Paris Exposition

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Attendees at the 1889 Paris Exposition had the opportunity of a dawn side excursion on May 22 to see the French soldier Fulgence-Benjamin Geomay beheaded.

This Exposition was the event that gave Paris its signature landmark, the Eiffel Tower — a design whose defeated counterproposals included, among other things, a giant-sized kitsch guillotine replica. (The fair coincided with the centenary of the French Revolution.)


This could have been the National Razor instead. (cc) image by Alex Lecea.

What an opportunity squandered! Gawkers would have to make do with the real thing instead … although as usual at this late date the scene was staged to expose minimum visible spectacle to onlookers.

Paris was considerably excited by an execution which took place at La Roquette at 20 minutes past four on Wednesday morning. The weather was eminently favourable for the lovers of the gruesome spectacles which M. Deibler directs. The nocturnal and matutinal scenes around the prison were similar to those which were enacted before and during the execution of Pranzini and Prado.

Howling, shouting, gesticulating, eating, drinking, and coarse joking were carried on all over the neighbourhood. The windows of the houses were full of spectators, and the foul nightbirds, male and female, were abroad in scores. Women in light summer costumes and big hats, who had been in the Boulevard cafes until two o’clock in the morning, were there in dozens. They were standing up in hackney carriages, supported by their temporary adorers or permanent protectors, and were craning their necks in order to catch a glimpse of the guillotine.

A still stranger sight was that of a youthful bride in her white dress and orange blossoms, who, with her husband, was having a nocturnal honeymoon on the Place de la Roquette.

The felon who was guillotined that morning was a soldier who made away with an old widow woman — a Madame Roux — who kept a wineshop in the shabby part of the Boulevard St. Germain. He was Corporal Geomay of the Eighty-seventh regiment of the Line, in garrison at St. Quentin, in the North, and while on a short furlough in Paris he entered Madame Roux’s shop at midnight on Jan. 13.

After he had partially closed her shop Geomay seized her, knocked her down, and battered in her skull with a heavy hammer. The murderer then robbed his victim, caroused in the markets during the night, and next day returned to St. Quentin, where he treated his comrades lavishly, and bestowed a watch and gold chain on a woman with whom he kept company.

Geomay was condemned to death on March 27. He met his fate without flinching, and had resolved, he said, to die like a soldier.

When he arrived at the foot of the guillotine he looked calmly at the spectators, and then in a firm voice thanked the governor and warders of the prison for the kindness which they had shown him during the period of suspense preceding his execution.

M. Deibler, the executioner, was less nervous than usual, and pulled down the knife by touching a handle, and not pressing a button.

When the head was severed from the body the remains were taken off for interment, and, in accordance with the last wishes of the deceased, were not handed over to the Faculty of Medicine. After the execution, when the cordon of police and guards was withdrawn, a rush was made by the ribald crowd to the spot, marked by four stones, which was still sprinkled with blood. Men and women exchanged obscene jokes and repartees, until, wearied out at last by their night’s watch, they slunk away to their homes in the slums.

–Lloyd’s Weekly Newspaper, May 26, 1889

We have a taste of that obscene repartee in this a scrap of doggerel courtesy of entertainer Aristide Bruant:

Une nuit qu’il était en permission,
V’là qu’i tue la vieille d’un coup d’sion,
C’est ti bête!

L’autre matin Deibler d’un seul coup,
Place de la Roquette,
i a coupé la tête!

On this day..

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