Robert-François Damiens pulled a small knife and stabbed King Louis XV in the si

Featured Event 1757 Event

Louis XV Survives Assassination: France Faces Fury

Robert-François Damiens pulled a small knife and stabbed King Louis XV in the side as the king was boarding his carriage at Versailles. The blade barely penetrated. Louis survived. Damiens didn't. He was the last person in France executed by drawing and quartering — a sentence that took hours and required five horses instead of the usual four. His arms and legs wouldn't detach. The executioner had to cut the tendons first. Twenty thousand people watched. The Paris crowd cheered when it was over, then fell silent when the body was finally torn apart. France would execute people more efficiently from then on. The guillotine came 32 years later. They called it progress.

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January 5, 1757

269 years ago

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Louis XV Survives Assassination: France Faces Fury

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