Hiding a Ritual of Obedience

This chapter describes executions as rituals of obedience and discusses how it was used in the symbolic construction of the relationship between rulers and citizens by attempting to force individual internalization of the state's monopoly over legitimate physical violence. The chapter talks about how the elimination of executionary publicity becomes inseparable from the practices of the modern public sphere. Under the Third Republic, many people learned to be the spectators of new sights that worked by representing a reality that was physically absent (dioramas, cinema) and in turn acquired new standards of speed. They came to find executions too slow, marred by shocking incidents, severed from reality, and likely to produce unhealthy emotions. Ultimately, these spectators began to develop a public culture accustomed to more distanced forms of political communication. The depublicization of executions was achieved when the authorities concluded that the public spectacle of death no longer had an exemplary effect and was no longer a tool that legitimized the state's monopoly over physical violence.

Conservative Representations of Executions

Executionary publicity was not universally contested. Many people were still attached to the show of political force embodied by public executions, as well as the opportunity to morally “test” oneself. Faced with the advocates of this form of “brutalization,” the chapter examines the arguments that backed the preservation of public rituals of execution. It includes discussions about the demand for exemplarity and attempts to delegitimize the regime in its attempts to reform the Criminal Code; the plan to restore the use of corporal punishment and the whip as a deterrent to crime; the people's thirst for the guillotine in the wake of the Soleilland affair paradoxically led to a major victory for the pro-death-penalty camp; compartmentalization of the civilizing process and insensitivity to suffering of the general populace; the executions, brutalization and glorification of the violence of war; the diffusion of military values in service of executions being conditioned by “trivialization”; a martial relationship to executions, executions that attracted spectators; lastly the transforming of an execution into a good death “by self-punishment” and a “good death” by convincing the public that punishment was administered by an autonomous individual to himself rather than by the law.

The Impossible Task of Designating Execution Sites

This chapter talks about execution sites. The political desire to alter executionary rituals can be seen in the choices made regarding execution sites, which were increasingly subject to a process of rationalization that moved executions ever closer to the prison walls in order to stop their public spread. The chapter discusses the executionary transformation of the urban landscape by means of a portable guillotine and a single, traveling executioner; the statutory regime for choosing execution sites, and setting the stage for executions once it was confirmed that no presidential pardon would be granted. It further talks about the symbolism found in execution sites, and the logical displacement off the death penalty thanks to the siren call of the prison. Execution sites moved from temporary places to uncertain places with legislation moving execution sites closer to prisons, which saw the naturalization of penitentiary dominance mostly because of the prison presenting a solution to the unsolved location problem of execution sites.

Watching Executions

This chapter talks about the culture of watching executions. Much like the figure of the executioner, the entire staging of the executionary process came to seem both commonplace and outdated. New uses of the executionary spectacle began to emerge and quickly escaped the authorities' control. In addition to providing us with numerous archival sources, the “sensitive men” who observed public executions while repeatedly decrying the spectacle unwittingly illustrated important shifts in the psychological landscape of the turn of the twentieth century: the urban space was seen as the site of interactions from which violence and overly strong emotions were banned. The chapter discusses the executioner being transformed into an ordinary figure, the controversial embodiment of political violence, and the desacralizing of the executioner. Due to the feelings provoked by executions, such as squeamishness and concern for the condemned, there was a growing refusal of the public to be subjected to violent and unpleasant emotions.

Conclusion

This concluding chapter summarizes the key points of the book. The year 1939, when executions moved behind prison walls and thus definitively exited the public stage, marked the beginning of remote governance, a new stage in the transformation of the public sphere: power no longer had to manifest itself directly, but could instead use various media platforms to assert itself. The disappearance of public executions also signaled the advent of the civilizing process, which sought to conceal anything that might provoke anxiety or negative emotions. The criticism levied at, and the final disappearance of, public executions illustrates a historical moment when a technology of power was gradually modified, eliminated, and concealed thanks to the efforts of the elites as well as, most likely, to the efforts of executionary spectators, because the emotions that executions unleashed were in contradiction with society's desire to reject violence. The elimination of publicity did not resolve the problem of violence in the Republic nor immediately solve the issue of the death penalty, which would drag on for another four decades, but it did demonstrate that people were no longer willing to tolerate a certain kind of state violence. It also revealed a phase in the evolution of the psychological landscape in which self-control came to be determined by the authorities and their instruments.

Competition between Legal Publicity and the Press

This chapter discusses media coverage of public executions. When executions were still visible, starting in the second half of the nineteenth century, publicity most often took the shape of straightforward newspaper accounts. This was how most contemporaries had access to descriptions of the death penalty. The chapter continues that it is useful to start the analysis by looking at how executions were historically depicted in the press. The press played a large part in public debate: it gave executions a specific image that was shaped by its own professional standards and style. The press also sought to compete with the legal publicity regime in the hope of being the primary source of information once official publicity was eliminated. The chapter discusses the editorial templates in execution narratives, the stereotypes of the popular scandal, the “Troppmann Moment,” the illegitimate attitude of the crowd, and the newspapers' advocacy to eliminate the publicity of executions.

Introduction

This chapter discusses what happened after executions were kept from public view. Even though the “timbers of justice” had exited the urban stage, death and executions had found a new home on television and in newspaper photography, where shootouts, hangings, torture, and other deadly disasters were acceptable fare. Decapitation was the only image to be banned from peak viewing hours, as if executions conducted by decapitation possessed an extra sprinkling of the macabre that transformed death into an obscene sight. The chapter discusses the death penalty as a phenomenon of sovereignty, a political ritual of violence. It talks about Republican sanctions, and the punitive technology that have been challenged by public sensibilities.

The Liturgical Crisis of Executionary Rituals

This chapter discusses executionary rituals. The executionary ceremony retained its general formal structure, although several elements were forbidden over time. As a result, the actors responsible for managing executions also became ad hoc guardians, working to prevent photographs from being taken or holding executions at night so that the spectacle would quite literally become invisible. The ritual that was specific to the Third Republic entered crisis mode. It was discussed by parliament, which sought to come up with a new publicity regime that would be capable of incorporating the emerging channels of information. The chapter dicsusses neutralizing of the publicity principle due to the public barely being able to tolerate the spectacle by the Third Republic, and the mechanization of representation thanks to journalists and photography. Moving the ritual into the night was able to ocucur thanks to the development of public lighting. Hostile political representations of publicity were thwarted in the Chamber of Deputies, with failed legislative attempts to eliminate publicity.