The guillotine in France was an execution device which was made to take the life of
someone very quickly.
It was invented to take the heads of opponents of the French Revolution en mass and with
this thousands of people would lose their heads at the slanted blade of the guillotine
in France and other lands following the Revolution.
The French King Louis XVI and his Queen Marie Antoinette would also lose their heads on
it, but in the centuries after the guillotine was used to execute criminals as it was seen
as reliable and slightly humane as the ordeal of the condemned would be rather swift and
would be very quick.
But the guillotine was used up until just decades ago in France, but the last woman
who was executed on the device was Germaine Leloy-Godefroy who in 1949, 4 years after
the Second World War came to an end was executed in a prison on the guillotine.
But what is the story of her execution?
Join us today as we look at the execution of the last woman guillotined and as always
remember to support our channel, please make sure to subscribe.
Germaine Leloy-Godefroy was born on the 18th May 1917 inside of France and she would work
as a young woman as a coal merchant from Bauge.
She married Albert Leloy and the pair would work together on the family business.
But her victim would be her husband.
However it’ believed that Germaine Godefroy had fallen in love with another man who was
a bit younger than her, and he was the clerk of their coal business and with this, Germaine
then planned to murder her husband and then run the business with her lover.
Five days before the murder she asked her lover to sharpen an axe and also shorten its
handle meaning it would be easier for her to swing.
She then hid this in a pile of wood and she brought it into her house and she then hid
it inside of a crate waiting for the moment that she would strike killing her husband.
On the 10th December 1947 in the evening around 7pm Germaine gave her lover all of the savings
that she had, around 82000 francs.
She said to him, ‘Hide it, I will say that I was robbed.’
She then entered the family home.
She was planning to disguise the crime as a random robbery which had gone wrong.
Germaine wielded the axe, and shortly after speaking with her lover she carried out the
brutal attack and murder.
She killed her husband with this, smashing him twice on the head whilst he slept and
the crime was incredibly brutal.
Very soon after her husband’s body was discovered, and with this Germaine and her lover Raymond
were caught and were arrested.
But it would be a different axe that would fall upon Germain Godfroy.
They were brought to trial, and Raymond received a prison sentence of 10 years, but Germaine
would not be lucky and she was then transported to Angers Prison to await her death date with
the guillotine and the executioner.
She would be executed by an executioner with the nickname ‘The Man From Paris.’
Regional executioners had been abolished in the century before but then there was only
one chief executioner and he was ordered to life in Paris.
Because of this the executioner Jules Henri Desforneaux was summoned from Paris, and he
had a long history as being a headsman and his family also had been executioners.
Some executioners were despised by the French population, but they did not mind coming to
watch the execution, but they didn’t want to be friends with executioners.
Jules Henri Desforneaux had executed dozens of people throughout the years, but Germain
Leroy Godefroy would be the last woman who was executed by guillotine in France.
The executioner would also be the man that performed the last public execution in France
with the German serial killer Eugen Weidmann being strapped to the device and the wooden
board before the blade was released.
At the time in public a lot of the audience would behave shockingly, taking photographs
of the executions and also being rather riotous.
Because of this executions in public were banned, and this stopped the centuries of
public executions in France.
Germaine Leloy-Godefroy asked for clemency following her death sentence, but this was
not granted.
Germaine knew the end was coming, and she was not informed that she would die until
it was time to take her final walk to the execution chamber.
At 4:30am on the 21st April 1949, Germain Leroy Godefroy’s time was up.
The aging executioner was ready to perform the final execution of a woman in France on
the guillotine.
Germaine spoke with a priest and she attended mass before writing a final letter, and she
then underwent the toilette du condamne.
This was where her hair was trimmed and cut and her neck was prepared ready for the blade.
Traditionally condemned people were given a final cigarette and a glass of rum, but
Germaine refused this.
But the execution would be delayed slightly as at the time a convict under French law
could not be executed.
They had to be formally paroled by the justice system in the custody of the executioner,
but the paperwork then went ahead and the guillotine was prepared.
It was said Germaine ‘turned pale and dressed in silence helped by the two inmates who shared
her cell.’
Following this, Germaine Godefroy would enter the execution chamber where the guillotine
was found.
She was then attached to the wooden board which was then slid under the guillotine.
The executioner then made the final checks and preparations before he released the blade
and it fell taking the head clean off Germain Godefroy, the brutal murderer who slaughtered
her husband with an axe.
The axe fell at 5:50am, just over an hour after she had been told she was going to die.
Germaine Godefroy was a brutal murderer who was became the last woman who was executed
on the guillotine in France.
Her execution was performed in private, but there were a number of witnesses who were
close to the deceased her husband who looked on as the executioner secured her in place.
Her execution took a matter of seconds, and it was done with ruthless efficiency.
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