Charles-Henri Sanson, full title Chevalier Charles-Henri Sanson de Longval (15 February 1739 – 4 July 1806), was the royal executioner of France during the reign of King Louis XVI, as well as High Executioner of the First French Republic. He administered capital punishment in the city of Paris for over forty years. By his own hand he executed nearly 3,000 people, including Robert-François Damiens, who attempted to assassinate King Louis XV. Sanson would later execute King Louis XVI. Family history Charles-Henri Sanson was the fourth in a six-generation family dynasty of executioners. His great-grandfather, a soldier in the French royal army named Charles Sanson (1658–1695) of Abbeville, was appointed as Executioner of Paris in 1688. Upon his death in 1695, the Sanson patriarch passed the office to his son, also named Charles (1681 – September 12, 1726). When this second Charles died, an official regency held the position until his young son, Charles Jean-Baptiste Sanson (1719 – August 4, 1778), reached maturity. The third Sanson served all his life as High Executioner, and in his time fathered 16 children, 10 of whom survived to adulthood. The eldest of his sons, Charles-Henri—known as "The Great Sanson"—was apprentice to his father for twenty years and was sworn into the office on 26 December 1778. Life Charles-Henri Sanson was born in Paris to Charles Jean-Baptiste Sanson and his first wife Madeleine Tronson. He was first raised in the convent school at Rouen until in 1753 a father of another student recognised his father as the executioner and he had to leave the school in order to not ruin the school's reputation. Charles-Henri was then privately educated. He had a strong aversion to his family's business. Executioner as a career His father's paralysis and the assertiveness of his paternal grandmother, Anne-Marthe Sanson, led Charles-Henri to leave his study of medicine and to assume the job of executioner in order to guarantee the livelihood of his family. As executioner (), he came to be known as "Monsieur de Paris"—"Gentleman of Paris". On January 10, 1765, he married his second wife, Marie-Anne Jugier. They had two sons: Gabriel (1767–1792), who also worked in the family business and had been his assistant and heir apparent from 1790, but he died after slipping off a scaffold as he displayed a severed head to the crowd, and Henri (1769–1830), who became his successor. In 1757, Sanson assisted his uncle