, the first victim of lynching "à la lanterne" The first prominent victim of lynching "à la lanterne" was
Joseph Foullon de Doué, a corrupt, unpopular politician who replaced
Jacques Necker as a
Controller-General of Finances in 1789. Immediately following the
storming of the Bastille on 14 July 1789 two of the
invalids (veteran soldiers) forming part of the garrison of the fortress were hanged in the Place de Grève, although it is not recorded whether
lanternes were used for the purpose. Particularly the lamp post standing at the corner of the
Place de Grève and the Rue de la Vannerie served as an improvised
gallows. The reason for that was partly symbolic: the lantern was placed opposite the
Hôtel de Ville (Paris City Hall), directly under the bust of
Louis XIV, so that "popular justice could take place right under the eyes of the king". In August 1789, journalist and politician
Camille Desmoulins wrote his ''
, a defense of lynchings in the streets of Paris. Desmoulins was nicknamed Procureur-général de la lanterne'' (Attorney-General of the Lamp-post). On 21 October 1789, a hungry Parisian mob dragged François the Baker (Denis François) out of his shop and hanged him from a lamp post, apparently because he had no bread to sell. Street lynching, instigated by various factors, gradually became an effective tool for the ends of the
Jacobins. On 14 December 1790, the crowd hanged barrister Pascalis and
chevalier de La Rochette from a lamp post in
Aix-en-Provence. The advocates of street justice cried "À la lanterne! À la lanterne!" shortly before the lynching. On 20 June 1792, a mob broke into the
Tuileries and threatened the queen
Marie Antoinette. Her lady-in-waiting
Jeanne-Louise-Henriette Campan reported that in the crowd "there was a model gallows, to which a dirty doll was suspended bearing the words
"Marie-Antoinette a la lanterne" to represent her hanging". == Influences ==