The name of Germaine Leloy-Godefroy won’t be as familiar as that of Hamida Djandoubi, the last man to be guillotined in France, but she’s worth a mention. She was the last woman in France to face the dreaded ‘Timbers of Justice.’ Marie Antoinette is without doubt the best known victim of the ‘National Razor,’ but Godefroy’s was France’s final female execution.
Her crime was unexceptional. The wife of coal merchant Albert Leloy, she brutally hacked him to death with an axe while he slept, later trying (very ineptly) to disguise it as a random robbery gone wrong. A vicious murder inflicted on a defenceless victim simply to replace him with her toyboy lover, Raymond. Not a case deserving of much sympathy or, you might say, of any mercy. There probably wouldn’t have been any fuss at all if Albert Leloy had wielded the axe on his wife to run off with a younger woman. But France is France and, as in most places, executing a woman was a big deal regardless of her crime.
On December 10, 1947 Albert Leloy would succumb to the axe. On April 21, 1949 Germaine would succumb to a different kind of axe, and for the last time in French history. Germaine and Raymond were soon caught and, when tried in 1948 at the Assize Court of Maine-et-Loire, Raymond drew ten years as an accomplice. Despite trying to shift the entire blame onto Raymond and another toyboy named Pierre, Germaine wouldn’t be as lucky. She was transported to Angers Prison to await a date with the sinisterly-nicknamed ‘Monsieur de Paris;
‘The Man from Paris.’
In 1870, French law had changed. Regional executioners, long known by the towns from which they came, were abolished. From then on there would be only one chief executioner and, by law, he was required to live in Paris. While the likes of ‘Monsieur de Rennes and his brethren were disbanded, French convicts learned to dread hearing one guard say to another the simple phrase ‘Monsieur de Paris est arrivee…’
‘The Man from Paris has arrived…’
The then-current ‘Monsieur de Paris’ was one Jules-Henri Desfourneaux. Desfourneaux, like all French executioners for several centuries, came from a long-serving family of headsmen. Executioners, known disparagingly as ‘Bourreaux,’ were despised by the french public. They didn’t mind turning out to watch them work, but wanted nothing else to do with them. By abolition in 1981 all French executioners could trace their ancestry back to a mere handful of families, mostly intermarried with each other. The Desfourneauxs had been serving French justice for centuries. Jules-Henri himself had racked up scores of ‘customers.’
Germaine Leloy-Godefroy wasn’t the only last of his career. On June 17, 1939 he’d been in Paris performing what would be France’s last public execution. German serial killer Eugen Weidmann would be the last to face the ‘People’s Avenger’ before an audience. So distasteful was the behaviour of the public outside Saint-Pierre Prison that day (an execution witnessed by 17-year old would-be actor Christopher Lee, that President Lebrun immediately banned any further public beheadings and, in the process, cut off centuries of French tradition as well.
Ironically, Lee (eventually to become Sir Christopher Lee) would later play legendary bouureaux Charles-Henri Sanson in one of his many screen and stage parts.
With her appeals denied and Presidential clemency not forthcoming, Germaine prepared herself for the end. France’s condemned weren’t informed of their impending execution until it was time to take their final walk. It hindered suicide or escape attempts and didn’t leave them sitting in tiny cells watching the clock tick as they brooded on their impending death.
At around 4:30am on the cold, grey dawn of April 21, 1949, Germaine Leloy-Godefroy’s time finally came. Desforuneaux, by then ageing and sliding into alcoholism, was ready for perform his grim task. Things moved swiftly from then on. After a brief talk with Chaplain Moreau she attended Mass before writing a final letter. The grim ritual known as the ‘toilette du condamne’ was performed, her hair being trimmed and her neck bared, ready for the blade. Offered the traditional final cigarette and glass of rum, she declined.
All that remained was one final piece of bureaucracy. Under French law a convict couldn’t actually be executed. Instead, they had to be formally paroled by the justice system into the custody of the executioner. With the paperwork attended to, nothing else stood between her and her unwilling date with destiny.
It was over quickly. Like England’s hangmen, the bourreaux didn’t waste time. As soon as she reached the guillotine after a brief walk from her cell, they laid her out and strapped her down. Without any further ado, the blade fell. The audience, now composed only of those specifically invited to view an execution behind prison walls, signed their witness statements and departed.
Germaine Leloy-Godefroy was dead.
