Is it true during the French Revolution the skins of aristocrats were tanned to make leather and one hide was?

Question

actually used to bind the new French constitution?

Answer 1

Lots of unverified rumours, gossip and propaganda. It seems the Carnavalet Museum in Paris has a book bound in human skin, but the origin is unknown.

"THE MACABRE: Human skin " : http://www.chezjim.com/sundries/s26.html

Answer 2

Part of the story is true enough. I do not know if the Revolutionaries skinned any aristocrats' bodies. Nor do I know if one human hide was used to bind a copy of the French constitution.

But, during the Terror, Revolutionaries certainly did skin some of the corpses of their victims. And it was a fairly common practice at that time to use human skin as a book-binding.

In 2003, Breton nationalists staged an anti-French demonstration in Nantes, in which they displayed a tanned human skin dating from the 1793 Terror.

Here is a quote from source [1] below: -

"it's a documented, incontestable fact that human skins were indeed tanned on occasion as horrid trophies by Jacobin madmen, not only in Vendée and Brittany, but in Paris itself (where the skins were those of victims of the guillotine). A French Genocide documents several instances in Vendée and Brittany.
In Angers, the skin of victims was tanned, to make riding breeches for superior officers. The man named Pecquel, surgeon-major of the 4th Battalion of the Ardennes, explained a witness, Claude-Jean Humeau, in a declaration to the tribunal of Angers on November 6, 1794, skinned thirty-two of them ... the skins were transported to the house of a man named Langlais, a tanner ... a soldier confessed to the countess of La Buere that he did the same thing in Nantes and sold twelve skins in La Fleche.

Meanwhile, St-Just reported thus to the Commission of Extraordinary Means in Paris on August 14, 1793:
'In Meudon, they are tanning human skin, of which perfectly good wash-leather is made, for breeches and other uses. Skin coming from men has a consistency and quality superior to chamois. That from feminine subjects is suppler but it has less strength.'

For an excellent, but gruesome, article on other atrocities committed by the Revolutionaries, visit source [2] below.

Answer 3

That is a new one to me. In all of my research on the French Revolution, I never came across that scenario. Plenty of heads were chopped off, but skinning the aristocrats?? I don't think so.

Chow!!

Answer 4

particular, France fought alongside the supporters of the independence. between the main charismatic French fighter became into Marquis de Lafayette. He became into close to to Washington and became right into a brilliant help during the conflict of Yorktown. you will hit upon a sturdy biography of Lafayette in this internet site. Cheers.

Answer 5

oh my god! i never heard of that and i guess i read alot and seen lots of movies both commercial and documantaries but never heard that. i head they draged them alife then pushed em off their roof they fed some to their own hingry animals they chopped heads they poked eyes they prisoned alot alot of sick deeds smuggled teh revolution , but skinng them which might be true but to make bags and shoes out of that i dont think so!

Answer 6

it was more famous with heads chopping