Hélène Gillet

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Hélène Gillet (born around 1604; died after 1625) is a fictional character by the French writer Charles Nodier , whose story (French : Histoire d'Hélène Gillet ) became known because she survived her execution on May 12, 1625. The author gave his protagonists their own fictional résumés, in the case of Hélène Gillet also of noble descent.

Life

A complete biography of Gillet has not survived.

Her father, Pierre Gillet, was the royal castellan of Bourg-en-Bresse and had other children alongside her. For his sons he hired a coach on / tutor who Hélène Gillet stalked. The either 21- or 22-year-old was examined for evidence of a concealed pregnancy and suspected of child murder , but initially released for lack of evidence. When a soldier soon discovered a baby's body in a bush on the property, Gillet was arrested again and in Dijonput on trial, where on February 6, 1625 the death sentence for murder was imposed. Because of her rank, she had the privilege of being beheaded by the sword.

The judgment was in accordance with applicable law. The relevant edict from the time of Henry II was read out publicly four times a year : the concealment of a pregnancy was to be condemned as infanticide, as was a stillbirth without witnesses. Gillet was aware of this damning legal situation and accordingly made contradicting statements in court. She has little or no memory of her alleged rape by her brothers' intrusive tutor, as well as of the miscarriage .

The execution of the death sentence on May 12, 1625 at the Morimont execution site at the gates of Dijon failed. The executioner Simon Grandjean missed Gillet's neck twice and then took refuge in the chapel of Morimont. His wife who was present tried to carry out the death sentence on her own by trying to strangle Gillet and then stab him with sharp scissors. The angry crowd attending the perceived unjust execution spiraled out of control in the face of these events and lynched both Simon Grandjean and Madame Grandjean. The seriously injured Hélène Gillet was taken to a doctor and recovered.

Since Dijon could not carry out the death sentence without an executioner and the local parliament was in a break , this gave Gillets supporters, including the lawyer Charles Fevret (1583-1661), the opportunity to petition Louis XIII. to send. On June 5, 1625, on the occasion of the wedding of his sister Henrietta Maria to Charles I , he canceled the trial against Gillet and overturned the death sentence.

Gillet is said to have spent the rest of her life in a Bernardine convent and later, according to a chronicler, died “gently and comfortably”. The writer Charles Nodier assumed that she was over 90 years old. According to an epitaph written in 1782, however , she is said to have died around 1628 as a result of a medical malpractice ("par la faute d'un Médecin").

literature

  • Poésie sur le jugement, supplice et rémission D'Hélène Gillet de Bresse. Duquesne, Paris 1857. (Poem on Gillet in 25 stanzas)

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ David Evans, Kate Griffiths: Le sex-appeal de la Veuve: guillotine et fantasmes romantiques . In: Pleasure and Pain in Nineteenth-Century French Literature and Culture . Rodopi, 2008, ISBN 978-90-420-2502-8 ( google.de [accessed November 27, 2020]).
  2. ^ Loïc Guyon: Les martyrs de la veuve: romantisme et peine de mort . Peter Lang , Oxford 2010, ISBN 978-3-03911-999-8 , pp. 121 .
  3. ^ A b Charles Nodier: Œuvres de Charles Nodier Volume III, Eugène Renduel, Paris 1832. pp. 335–373. Digitized
  4. ↑ Julius Eduard Hitzig : The new Pitaval . A Collection Of The Most Interesting Crime Stories Of All Countries From Older And Modern Times . Brockhaus Verlag, Leipzig 1843. Digitized version ( The child murderer and the executioner , pp. 276–288)
  5. ↑ Jean-François Chiappe (eds.) And Marina Gray (author): The famous women of the world , p. 109. From the French (Le monde au féminin - Encyclopédie des femmes célèbres) under Ludwig Knoll, approx. 1977.
  6. ↑ Pierre-Antoine de La Place: Récueil d'Épitaphes sérieuses, badines, satiriques & burlesques; de la plupart de ceux qui, dans tous les tems, ont acquis quelque célébrité par leurs vertus, ou qui se sont rendus fameux soit par leurs vices, soit par leurs ridicules . tape 1 . Brussels 1782 ( limited preview in Google Book Search [accessed November 26, 2020]). , P. 295f.
  7. ↑ Little things. In:  newspaper for the elegant world / intelligence paper of the newspaper for the elegant world , January 23, 1823, p. 3 (online at ANNO ).Template: ANNO / Maintenance / elw

Web links

personal data
SURNAME Gillet, Hélène
SHORT DESCRIPTION French survivors of a public execution
DATE OF BIRTH around 1604
DATE OF DEATH after 1625