Jean Châtel

Jean Châtel (* 1575 ; † December 29, 1594 ) was an assassin who attempted murder of Henry IV , King of France on December 27, 1594 . One consequence of the attack was the expulsion of the Jesuits from France.

Jean Châtel was the son of a wealthy and strictly Catholic family. He had first studied philosophy and the liberal arts with the Jesuits before turning to studying law at the Sorbonne . On the day of the assassination, Henry IV was just returning from Picardy to Paris . Châtel mingled with the royal entourage. When the king accepted the homage of two nobles, Jean Châtel took the opportunity: he stabbed the monarch's neck with a knife, but only injured his lip and knocked out a tooth. During the commotion that followed, he is said to have almost escaped, but it is said that the guards were made aware of the assassin by the king himself.

After the crime, Jean Châtel was tortured in order to reveal who was behind him. At this point in time, however, the French crown had already decided that the attack had been initiated by Jesuits. The background to this was that the Jesuits had agitated against him in the previous civil wars, especially in the " War of the Three Heinriche ", and were still in opposition to the king. Châtel, however, testified under the torture that he had led a sinful life and had hoped for a lesser punishment in the afterlife from the murder of the king ; this is what philosophy gave him. He was sentenced to death by cycling and then quartering by the Paris Court of Justice . At the same time, the court ruled that the members of the Societas Jesu and their students had to leave France within three days.

literature

• Sven Felix Kellerhoff : Assassin , Böhlau Verlag, Cologne, Weimar, Vienna, 2003, ISBN 3-412-03003-1 , p. 42 ff.