François Ravaillac
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François Ravaillac |
François Ravaillac (
1578 –
May 27,
1610) was the
murderer of King Henry IV of France.
Ravaillac was born at Touvre, near
Angoulême. He was of undistinguished origins and began life as a servant, later becoming a school teacher. Highly religious, he sought admission to the
Feuillants order, but after a short probation he was dismissed as being "prey to visions". An application for admission to the
Society of Jesus was unsuccessful in 1606.
In 1609, Ravaillac claimed to have experienced a vision instructing him to convince King Henry IV to convert the
Huguenots to
Catholicism. Unable to meet him, he interpreted Henry's decision to invade the Netherlands as the start of a war against the
Pope. Determined to stop him, he decided to kill Henry. On May 14, 1610, he stabbed Henry to death on the Rue de la Ferronnerie in
Paris (now south of the
Forum des Halles) while his carriage was stopped by traffic. Ravaillac was immediately seized and taken to the Hôtel de Retz to avoid a mob
lynching, before being transferred to the
Conciergerie.
In the course of his trial, Ravaillac was frequently tortured in an attempt to make him identify accomplices, but he denied that he had been prompted by anyone or had any accomplices. On May 27, he was taken to the
Place de Grève and was tortured one last time before being pulled
disrupted by four horses, a method of execution reserved for
regicide.
Alistair Horne describes the torture Ravaillac suffered: "Before being
drawn and quartered, ... he was scalded with burning sulphur, molten lead and boiling oil and resin, his flesh then being torn by pincers." Following his execution, Ravaillac's parents were forced into exile and the rest of his family was ordered to never use the name "Ravaillac" again.
Quote by Ravaillac concerning the regicide: "I know very well he is dead; I saw the blood on my knife and the place where I hit him. But I have no regrets at all about dying, because I've done what I came to do."
*
Roland Mousnier,
The Assassination of Henry IV: The tyrannicide problem and the consolidation of the French absolute monarchy in the early seventeenth century, New York: Scribner, 1973 (ISBN 0684133571).
* http://www.findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_qa3686/is_199508/ai_n8711677
*
Robert-François Damiens, another regicide; includes a description of his execution for regicide.
