Louis Mandrin, The French Robin Hood

An artist’s impression of a chained Louis Mandrin in his prison cell pondering his forthcoming execution (inset)

May 26, 1755 — Louis Mandrin, known as the French Robin Hood, became famous for rebelling against tax collectors in 18th Century France. Many of them were greedy and corrupt, taking a slice as they collected money supposedly for the King. They were hated by the French people.

According to Michael Kwass, author of the 2014 book, Contraband: Louis Mandrin and the Making of a Global Underground, “France’s economic system was tailor-made for an enterprising outlaw like Mandrin.

“As French subjects began to crave colonial products, King Louis XIV lined the royal coffers by imposing a state monopoly on tobacco from America and an embargo on calico cloth from India.

“Vigorous black markets arose through which traffickers fed these exotic goods to eager French consumers.”

Mandrin was born in 1725 in a French border province. His father, a horse merchant, died when Louis was 17, leaving nine children. Louis, the eldest, became responsible for them as the new head of the family, making a living as best he could.

At one stage he was under contract to supply the French army in Italy with “100 mules minus three.” Unfortunately, most of them died crossing the Alps and he had only 17 left on arrival. They were in such a pitiful state that the tax collectors, who were responsible for the army’s finances at the time, refused to pay him.

A couple of years later, Louis’s brother was hanged for alleged counterfeiting. Seeking revenge, he began to wage war against the tax collectors.

He joined a gang of smugglers and was soon appointed their leader. In his book, Noted French Trials (1882), Horace Williams Fuller wrote: “A solemn oath was imposed upon all the members of the band, in which they swore against the government officers an undying hatred, and death, if they interposed any obstacles in the way of their success. The number of recruits increased rapidly.”

Mandrin is said to have ordered his men to avoid violence unless they had the opportunity to direct it against the tax collectors. He created a vast smuggling network along a north-south corridor of France, shifting mainly tobacco and cotton, but anything else of value.

Michael Kwass wrote: “Vigorous black markets arose through which traffickers fed exotic goods to eager French consumers. Flouting the law with unparalleled panache, Mandrin captured widespread public attention to become a symbol of a defiant underground.”

Inevitably, however, he was captured, put on trial, convicted, and quickly put to death in an horrific public execution intended not only to demonstrate the King’s absolute authority, but to prevent any possibility of reprieve.

The execution involved being broken on the wheel, an extremely cruel punishment which in the case of Mandrin, aged about 30, is said to have been witnessed by six thousand people.

In his autobiographical work, Authentic Memoirs Of The Life And Exploits Of Mandrin (1755), the author revealed how his sentence was delivered:

“For the Crimes proved against him, we have condemned Louis Mandrin to be delivered to the Execution of Justice, to be stripped to his Shirt, with a Rope about his Neck, and a Writing affixed to him, containing these Words in large Characters, ‘The Chief of Smugglers of Criminals guilty of High Treason, of Assassins, Robbers, and Disturbers of the Public Peace,’ holding in his Hand a lighted Wax Candle of the Weight of two Pounds, before the Cathedral Church of Valence in Dauphiny, where the said Mandrin, bare-headed and kneeling, shall declare with a loud Voice, that he begs Pardon of God, of the King, and the Officers of Justice, for all the Crimes and Villainies by him committed.

“He shall then be taken to the Place of Execution, and there have his Arms, Legs, Thighs, and back broken while alive, on a Scaffold prepared for that Purpose, and at length be put on a Wheel with his Face turned towards Heaven, where he is to end his Life.”

Michael Kwass commented: “The spectacle only cemented Mandrin’s status as a rebel folk hero in an age of mounting discontent. Amid cycles of underground rebellion and agonising penal repression, the memory of Mandrin inspired ordinary subjects and Enlightenment philosophers alike to challenge royal power and forge a movement for radical political change.”

Within a few short years the French Revolution began . . .

Published: May 2, 2022
Updated: May 5, 2022