Damiens's Attack on Louis XV

January 5, 1757

A half-mad footman named Robert-Francois Damiens slipped a penknife into the king's ribs at Versailles. Louis survived; Damiens was sentenced to be drawn and quartered in the Place de Greve, a medieval execution that took hours. Foucault would open Discipline and Punish with the scene two centuries later. The attack was the last regicide attempt punished with the full medieval apparatus of public torture in France.