Ghislaine Thomas

Danielle Laberge

Department of Sociology

University of Quebec in Montreal

 
Text translated from French by Sylvie Lafreniere
 
 

Abstract

On September 29, 1930, in L'Annonciation, a small town in north-western Quebec, a 26-year-old man, Šdouard Thomas Tranchemontagne, killed 47 year old Arthur Nantel, his mistress's (Maria Jolicoeur Nantel, 49 years old) husband. Nantel's violent and deliberate death lead directly to a second death, one also deliberate, but rationalized through ritual and ceremony that excluded violent intent. After the coroner's inquest and the preliminary investigation in the month of October, Tranchemontagne was accused of murder and Maria was charged as an accomplice. Both cases were heard in February, 1931, at the Court of the King's Bench.

Tranchemontagne's insanity plea was rejected in a first trial. In a second trial, he was sentenced to be hanged on May 22nd, 1931. Maria was acquitted. Tranchemontagne's is the first and only hanging to have taken place in Mont-Laurier. The hanging was also the occasion for the inauguration of the new court house for the Court of the King's Bench. This event, with its actors and decor, marked the beginning of a new type of discourse. For the first time, the town played host to a superior court judge, provincial police officers, and the executioner. The people were intrigued by the arrival of detectives. Sheriffs, jailers, doctors, lawyers and citizens all played new roles. The townspeople, as jurors, took on a new responsibility, that of rendering judgement on the life and death of people in their own community, a role that granted them proximity to the exercise of justice. The newspapers reported emotion and agitation caused by this case in the community. In popular memory, this murder is the event par excellence since it establishes the ambiguity of the legitimate and the illegal. Throughout this event, the relationship between the power structures and the people is shown in an absolutely stripped down manner: order to kill, prohibition to kill, to be killed, to be executed; voluntary sacrifice, imposed punishment, memory, forgetting (Foucault, 1973: 271).

It is only since 1926 that the various facts relating to incidents, murders, and accidents make headlines in Quebec. These facts are the commentary of a small group that became the opportunity for public comment or gossip (Maffesoli 1988). As reference texts they establish the limits between right and wrong, acceptable and reprehensible. They provoke the judgement of readers and are often revealing of social norms, prohibitions and tensions(1). The death penalty or, what can frankly be called the power to take a life, is a legal and legitimate form of crime control used in Canada until 1976(2). According to reformers, the ideal punishment should fulfill three functions: dissuade from crime, compensate society and serve as a lesson in public morality.

We will present the theoretical premises underlying our understanding of certain practices and the methodology used for interpretive analysis. Our rewriting of the events is divided into two parts: Nantel's death - the murder - and Tranchemontagne's death - the hanging. The first part is based on the detective's interrogation and on the coroner's first inquiry. The second part is based on the tasks involved in managing the accused and the day of the hanging, on specific signs of resistance, and on the coroner's second report. Through these chosen events, we attempt to identify a priori prescriptions on which are based various practices, the roles of the agents, the actions taken, and the character of these actions. It is an attempt to find the anonymous and spatio-temporal historic rules that, at the time, defined the conditions which allowed the pronouncement of an illegitimate death versus a legitimate one.

Traditional studies often portray the way in which legal doctrines and institutions are reflections of society and culture. This type of reasoning was essentially based on reproductive functions and used power to explain power. New questions now allow for a better understanding of how power works. Power can be understood as a process punctuated by strategies and tactics. The strategies are what transform the social field into playing field; they attempt to create order and docility in a given population. Strategy resides in the choice of winning combinations. Tactics are the forces used to reach the strategic ends(3). By analyzing penal sanctions as process, we are able to have power relations as object, instead of power (Dreyfus and Rabinow, 1984: 312). We approach the problem from its center and not from its beginning or its end, its cause or its goal. The theoretical premises behind this event's analysis are not limited to power as a dominator-dominated relationship, a duality with repercussions from top to bottom and into social depths. We pay particular attention to Foucault's "formule-choc" (1976: 126): power comes from the bottom. Power, then, invests those who do not have it, [it] passes by them and through them; it leans on them, as they, in their battle against it, lean on the holds that it has on them (Foucault, 1975: 31-32). Be it usurped or given, power comes from the people: everything is done for the people and in the name of the people; nothing is done without them nor their unconsidered dictates; and while the colossal force of the people animates all parts of public organization [...], it lives quietly under the protection of laws [...]. In a word, it enjoys the sweet fruit of true freedom, guaranteed by a government strong enough to always be the protector (Arasse, 1982: 142).

We must take into account the fact that the event presenting itself to the researcher has already been named, classified, organized. Like Foucault (1971: 10-11), we can suppose that: in every society, the production of discourse is controlled, selected, organized and redistributed by a certain number of procedures whose function it is to eliminate its power and danger, master its random occurrence, and of evade its charged, formidable physicality. The archive, as system of statements, is conditioned by the law of what can be said (Foucault, 1969: 170). Though they are first hand accounts, archive documents are limited to an internal institutional logic. This accounts for the existence of certain objective facts that were not recognized by, nor brought before, the judicial system in Tranchemontagne's insanity trial and Maria's trial. These facts were left out of the legal archives and are only available through journalistic ones. Similarly, journalistic archives cannot report on issues of management discussed between judicial system agents, such as the requests for sentence reductions, which only appear in judicial correspondence. Certain draft or scattered documents left haphazardly in the archives allow for the reconstitution of certain incongruous activities. Strategies such as the interrogation, the coroner's inquest were interpreted as ritualized forms of exchange.

Goffman (1973: 73-77) defines ritual as a formal and conventionalized act by which an individual demonstrates respect and consideration towards an object of absolute value, or to its representative. For Foucault, the ritual is a system of communication and exchange, equipped with prescriptive norms and restrictions. The juridico-discursive is associated to the enacting of a ritual that determines, for its speaking subjects, specific properties and agreed-upon of suitable roles. Foucault (1971: 41) therefore classifies as ritual, a relation that: defines the necessary qualifications for speaking individuals (and who, in dialogue, interrogation, or narration, may occupy certain positions and formulate certain types of statements); it defines the gestures, behaviours, circumstances, and the entire set of signs that must accompany discourse; it fixes finally, the supposed or imposed efficiency of words, their effect on those to whom they are addressed, the limits of their restrictive value.

The archeological part of the analysis takes into account the system of representations in which this story unfolded. Thus, the new story is reconstructed from scattered and discontinuous elements. The coherence of facts is no longer dictated by the given order of events. The analysis is based on an epistemological cleavage and the archeo-genealogical method serves as the theoretical framework for analytical interpretation. This method favours the discourse of a society about itself at a given moment of its history in order to fully grasp its practices. Essentially, it is a writing strategy that consistently demonstrates the actions underlying discourse. The archeological approach is: nothing more and nothing less than a rewriting; a maintained externalized form that is a regulated transformation of what has been written (Foucault, 1969: 183). The materials used in the analysis include all the judiciary and journalistic archival documents that reported the event. The judiciary archives include declarations, reports, notices, certificates, petitions, bills of indictment, orders from the coroner, the judges and the assistant-prosecutor, dispositions and instructions, the sheriff's and the jurors' duties, the lawyers' and the judge's pleas, notes, letters, and telegrams. Journalists produced 45 articles related to the events, in eight different newspapers between October 1st 1930 and May 23rd 1931. The most reported events are the trials that took place in February (4).
 
 

In this society, there is a norm that may be qualified as situational in the same sense as Goffman's ceremonial rules. A person's death is accompanied by legitimate and/or legal rituals. The doctor seeks to know the cause of death, and the priest, if present before death occurs, seeks to know if the person has anything to confess, in order to assure the best conditions for his/her passage into the next life. These people have a duty to ensure that an individual's body and soul leave this life according to established norms. However, in the event of a "non natural" death, legal and medical expertise is required. The coroner's inquest on Nantel's body and the suspects' interrogation are, therefore, two ritualized practices that allow the transfer of events into the institutional sphere appropriate for dealing with them along established regulations. These two events occur simultaneously.

The confession takes place in the presence of the detective who represents the penal institution which requires and imposes a confession for assessment and study in order to judge, punish or pardon the confessor. The confession is a ritual prescribed by a number of institutions and the individual usually has a habit of confessing his crimes, his sins, his physical ailments, his dreams to those who have the privilege of listening to him speak. Throughout this exchange, the dominating impulse is not on the side of the speaker, the one who knows and who answers (because he is under constraint), but on the side of the listener, who is quiet, questioning and who is not supposed to know (5). Characteristics of detective's work with Tranchemontagne that interested us are the following: the enforcement of conventional roles by the two producing the confession, the transcription of the interrogation along prescribed forms, the process of conforming to the detective's information, the life story that presents a delinquent personality, and the signing of the confession.

This interrogation took place at the Montreal office of the provincial police, before three detectives and one secretary, on October 1st 1930. It repeated Detective Jargaille's interrogation of September 29th and 30th. Tranchemontagne signed his confession and was sworn in before a justice of the peace two days later. In order to have the rules of the game well established from the outset, the first thing the detective needs to know is what he represents for the confessor. The tactic used by the detective is to incapacitate the accused by placing him directly under his command and in a legal setting. Then, he wants confirmation and recognition of his authority/authoritative status. This is accomplished with only a few sentences: Q.- Thomas, you know you've been arrested? R.- Yes sir. Q.-For murder, for the murder of Arthur Nantel? R.- Yes sir. Q.- You know you are at the detectives' office? R.- Yes sir. Q.- You know what detectives are? R.- Yes sir. Q.- What are they? R.- Law men, police (6). The assertion, by the detective, of the circumstance, the place, his identity and Tranchemontagne's and the recognition by the latter of these facts determine the relationship between the interrogator and the interrogated and the rules associated to it. The typology of this relationship is not generated by the individuals as personal expression. The rules of conduct and compliance that bind these individuals are asymmetric; one treats the other differently than the way he is treated. It is a ritualistic idiom that is revealing of an attitude, a commitment taken by one individual while facing another(7). In this applied representation, the cooperation of the accused is obtained and will be maintained until the end of the interrogation. So much so, that at one point during the interrogation, the accused, after having talked uninterrupted and not knowing what more to add, asks that the questioning be resumed (8). After this, the detective informed the accused of his rights before obtaining more information.

Following the ritual reading of his rights the accused was offered a choice between two outcomes, not to confessing or not confess, but between two forms of confession.

Q.- Hey! I’m going to read you your rights. You don’t have to speak but everything you say will be written down and will be used as evidence against you during your trial (...), if you make a declaration, it has to be of your own free will; no one here wants to force you to talk, in any way. Do you understand?

R.- Yes sir.

Q.- Now, would you prefer that I question you, or do you want to speak on your own?

R.-Question me.

These statements show how the accused locates himself within the will of the detective. This results in a one-way dialogue since there is, throughout the interrogation, no willingness to know on the part of the accused. Not even to know whether or not he is obligated to talk. The detective’s second proposition causes ambiguity because it neutralizes the first proposition. In practice, the freedom to speak is an illusion. Before organized representatives of the legal force who have the capacity to exercise physical coercion on those who would not follow established norms, an individual, alone and under arrest, has few means of resistance (9). The interrogated man knows he has no choice; he is forced to play the role of voluntary partner. The reading of the rights is a false discourse in the sense that it is not what it claims to be. It serves mainly to clear the detective of any charges of coercion or undue influence rather than protect the one to whom it applies. The detective is neither embarrassed nor conscious that this procedure is, in fact, contradictory. He believes that in pronouncing the rule he is observing it, as if the statement in itself was enough to fulfil its function. This statement decreed as if serving the interests of justice dissimulates its penalizing and controlling nature while presenting itself as a neutral discourse and, in so doing, masks the detective’s authoritarian character.

The detective has a hypothetical version of the facts and of the accused’s life. His work consists, primarily, of confirming or rejecting the hypotheses he proposes. The newspapers mention unequivocally the existence of a preconceived version of certain facts: When Detectives H. Dorais and Pennee arrived here at one o’clock they learned that last spring there had been a quarrel between the victim and Edouard Thomas (10). The interrogation centers on two very precise elements: the facts and the individual. Concerning the facts, the detective wants the accused to produce, on his own, the details of the infraction to provide the information required by the penal system in order to determine when, where, how and the manner in which Arthur died. This part of the interrogation is direct and the accused’s answers are precise:

Q.- Mr. Thomas, I will ask you a very precise question, do you know who killed Arthur Nantel?

R.- Yes, I know.

Q.- You know?

R.- Yes, I know.

Q.- We are waiting sir?

R.- It was me. (...)

Q.- How did you kill him? (11)

The detective then continues to obtain all the details: what caliber gun? What type of bullets? Where are they? At what time? At what place? Once the correlation has been established between the facts and the legal notion of infraction to be used as a frame of reference for judiciary intervention, the investigation turns to the accused’s biography. The rest of the confession centers on the man, not as offender, nor even as criminal, but as the delinquent he was prior to killing Nantel.

The facts that need to be supplied must provide a picture of the crime that will determine, not the circumstances of the crime, but its causes and motives. The accused must provide that "extra" bit which is not required for a legal definition. Tranchemontagne’s life story must be elaborated in such a way as to allow his eventual examiners access to the organization of his life, in order to discover his malicious tendencies, social position, bad habits, education, family weaknesses (12). Assuming that the accused has a particular relationship with the victim’s wife, the detective needs more than the simple confirmation of that fact. He wants the accused to produce the part of his story that shows him to be, convincingly, one who violates that period’s rules, laws and, especially, moral values. The statement of this violation is expressed by the detective’s question: did you have relations with her; I mean carnal relations, the act of marriage? The detective thus pronounces a social norm. A sexual act is allowed within a marital relationship and, consequently, is prohibited outside that type of relationship. One journalist, during the February trial, qualifies these relations as clandestine and guilty (13). Wanting a detailed account of this relationship, the detective asks the accused to describe the conversations he had with his mistress in this triangular relationship. Tranchemontagne therefore produced a lot of details on his dealings with Maria and Nantel, listing their meeting places, the names of people who were a part of his universe and who witnessed his life, describing his life projects, etc. The introduction of the "biographical" is important in the history of the penalty, because it gives life to the "criminal" before the crime and, to a certain extent, outside himself (14). The correlative of penal justice is, without a doubt, the violator, but the correlative of the prison system is someone else. It is the delinquent, biographical unit, node of potential danger, representing a type of anomaly (15). Consequently, the judiciary institution introduces: an extra person, one who slips in between the one that the law condemns and the one enforcing that law (16). Legal punishment relates to the act whereas the punitive technique is based on a life and not the an authorial relation to an infraction. Delinquency is defined relative to a norm, to a collective tolerance or intolerance towards certain behaviours or life styles, and not by law.

The signed confession is essential because it constitutes proof so strong that it can eliminate the search for proof and elements of evidence. In the confession, the criminal has judged and condemned himself. This power to judge and condemn from "below" is, however, tactically provoked by an order from "above." The interrogation’s ritual form is a strategic structure which produces inequality in the relationship between interrogator and interrogated. While exercising his power, the detective also has the capacity and the freedom to exceed his functions, to do a little more in the hopes of achieving his goals, in order to answer the norms of his job. The confession gives support to the law, as stated by Foucault: The confession, act of the criminal subject, responsible and speaking, is the complementary piece of a written and secret information.
 
 
 
 

From the coroner’s inquest, we retained, for analysis purposes, ten judiciary documents and journalistic comments (17). The people involved in the production of the coroner’s inquest are the following: a community representative, Charbonneau - the neighbor from L’Annonciation; three representatives from the medical establishment, the town doctor, the district coroner, the provincial forensic specialist; three representatives from the judicial establishment, the Montreal detectives; and six community representatives, the jury members from l’Annonciation and Mont-Laurier. The documents were analyzed in order to determine these people’s roles as well as their work conditions.

The neighbor, Charbonneau, arrived at the scene after Nantel’s wife called him, and he called the local doctor. When reading his statement we notice that the neighbor’s remarks seem to be presented by another speaker (18). The medical establishment's work began on September 29th with Dr. Cartier’s arrival at the scene. The doctor testified to being notified by Charbonneau and arriving at the scene with the priest, who administered the necessary religious rituals. Afterwards, Dr. Cartier asked the town bailiff to make sure that the scene remained undisturbed for the provincial police and he called the district coroner to the scene. We notice, in this testimony, a transfer from the speaking subject to a representation of the speaking subject (19). Dr. Cartier’s testimony does not support the report’s conclusion of a murder, nor does it contradict it by saying it could not have been a suicide and he refrains from making any judgements on the family in question, which appears to be in response to his opinion having been asked. On September 30th, Coroner Lachapelle declared, according to the steps described in article 3477 of the 1909 provincial code, that he was informed by Dr. Cartier, that Nantel had been killed and that there had been a murder with premeditation. He filled in the report which describes the infraction, names the perpetrators and qualifies them as jointly and criminally responsible for the murder. His signature is witnessed by those of the six jurors. Next he prepared the signed statements for the jurors, committing them to serve again when the trial resumed on October 6, and he invited the court appointed doctor to the site to examine and report on Nantel's corpse. Coroner Lachapelle did not begin an enquiry on the victim’s body, but rather, organized an interrogation to classify the death. Exercising civil authority rather than a medical one, he gathered testimonies in order to prepare the inquiry report and to obtain the jurors' support in signing the declaration. The coroner’s speech reflects the form of prescribed documents. On October 2nd, 1930, Dr. Fontaine, from the Forensic Institute in Montreal, signed the autopsy report for Nantel’s body (20). Detective Jargaille testified that he questioned the two suspects on September 30th and on October 1st. He explains to the court that both statements were done in a legal manner since the rights were read. He recounts in five long pages the information received from Tranchemontagne and from Maria. Detective H. Dorais found footprints and the corresponding shoes, the bullet and the gun. He questioned Maria, who admitted nothing. He suspected Tranchemontagne and, upon the arrival of his superiors, detained him under the coroner’s orders. He adds that he corroborates Tranchemontagne’s testimony to Detective Jargaille, which was done in his presence. The detective’s testimonies differ from the neighbor’s and Dr. Cartier’s in that they reproduce confessions obtained from the suspects in their absence and that some of their statements clash with their colleagues'. The jurors’ work is done according to the formula describing the duties of the Grand Jury of the Court of the King's Bench, 1923 (21). Selected, called, and sworn-in by the law to serve it, the jurors receive instructions that establishes their role, their duties and their obligations. Their work consists of knowing and hearing the charges that have been submitted to them. The obligation related to this "knowing" and "hearing" is limited to the moment where there is adequate proof to support the accusation, in this case the one presented by the coroner on September 29th 1931. The condition of the jurors’ satisfaction must correspond to the satisfaction of the law’s. This condition is essential if the case is to be remanded to trial. The jurors also sign attest to their presence at the public resumption of the coroner’s inquest on October 6th.

The coroner’s inquest reconstitutes events with three forms of truths: factual truth, "scientific" truth, truth of opinion. This examination is an objectifying ceremonial, a place where power and knowledge meet. The report written according to disciplinary form, seems rational and credible. The truth which objectifies the crime is established through masked and hierarchical repetition. The different statements support one another and are produced by agents that represent various areas of discursive power. Jurors, coroner and witnesses are subjected by rules, and occupy a position that determines their functions. Based on the confessions obtained by Detective Jargaille, it was possible to construct all other forms of knowledge regarding the case. The technical aspects of the medical evidence are based on the statements obtained by the detective. The truth regarding the facts as pronounced by the detectives then takes on a scientific form, a techno-medical report. Both types of testimony are legitimized by the jurors. Although all of these practices are, a priori, invested by an idealized and authoritarian discourse, justice and law each occupy a specific material space. The detectives present the material objects as evidence and engage in the physical confrontation of the subject through interrogation. The doctors examine the body and the coroner initiates the judiciary process by associating members of the community to it. The jurors must sign, as community representatives, the first denunciation. Their function is necessary and utilitarian in the process of constituting the criminal identity.

As early as October first, four newspapers mention the developments and the significance granted to these events (22). The coroner’s inquest, the confession, the denunciation, the arrest and imprisonment have already taken place. The players have been named and their roles defined:

Tranchemontagne has admitted to killing Nantel. Maria, Nantel’s wife and Tranchemontagne’s mistress, is considered his accomplice. Both are being detained as suspects. When the coroner’s inquest is heard publicly on October 6th, the newspapers comment profusely. The inquest is replayed for the public in the presence of the accused. The journalists take advantage of the situation to comment on the detectives' work. This verdict was rendered without the jurors having to retire to deliberate. Very few witnesses were heard. The principal witnesses being Deputy-Chief L. A. Dorais, provincial SšretÈ Detective-Sergeant Jargaille and Detective Hector Dorais, both of whom brilliantly brought this case to its close (23).

What is expressed and the action that is brought to light through these comments is the detectives' performance, their speed and effectiveness in this case. The information presented by the journalists regarding this event is not limited to the murder, the accused and the facts. It is also an occasion to build up the justice discourse.

The transformation of the whole of a person's identity into an identity of an inferior category is a political ritual which Garfinkel (1956: 420-424) qualifies as a ceremony of statutory degradation. This ritual takes place within a specific social event, a moment that can be qualified as charged with social emotion. The newspapers repeatedly reported on the atmosphere that dominated in the village: Needless to say, a great emotion has been evident in this peaceful municipality and excitement is at its peak. Since Monday night, an enormous crowd is gathered outside Nantel’s house and everyone has a comment (24).

The public presentation of the coroner’s inquest takes place in the community center, which filled to capacity with spectators. The coroner and the jurors are seated in a half-circle on the stage. The detectives have their backs to the public and face the coroner and the jurors. Maria and Tranchemontagne are on the sides, surrounded by "powerful policemen" (25). One journalist cites a villager who describes the atmosphere of this inquiry: You’d think everyone had been convened to a performance (26). The witnesses who present evidence at the inquiry are not concerned with being heard by the crowd. Only the jury’s verdict is pronounced with a strong and assured voice: The witnesses, the coroner, the clerk of the court and the jurymen who asked questions from time to time, spoke in hushed tones, much to the disappointment of the crowd. Ears were strained in an effort to hear what was going on but even those in the front row were unable to follow all the evidence. At the close of the inquest, the clerk of the court rose and read in a loud voice the finding of the jury (27).

Tranchemontagne and Maria, the accused, are confined to silence but their bodies, shown publicly, surrounded by policemen, are eloquent by their gestures. Their presence has an instrumental function. Such circumstances trigger public externalization of feelings such as guilt, shame, embarrassment or moral indig nation. Garfinkel (1956: 421) defines these instances : (...) it is an instance of a class of feeling particular to the more or less organized ways that human beings develop as they live out their lives in one another’s company. Shame, guilt, and boredom are further important [sic] of such affects. Such expressions are well captured by certain observers. One journalist describes countenances marked by such feelings at the moment when the order is given for the crowd to leave the room at the same time as the accused: The order was obeyed instantly, but many remained outside on the main street of the village to get a glimpse of Edouard Thomas who marched with downcast eyes beside his towering guard, to whom his right wrist was fastened with an handcuff. A moment later Mrs. Nantel walked out without looking at anyone with Detective Hector Dorais at her side (28).

We can locate the effects of statutory degradation tactics in gestures, behaviours or remarks. The effect produced by these tactics is predictable, expected. These situational conventions are behavioral models that allow one the expression of regard for a particular situation (29). The behaviours of both the individual who expresses shame and the spectators expressing indignation, act as positive reinforcement of what is being experienced. The ritual destruction of a person is intentional because its goal is to produce an emotional state in a population by engendering "normalized" representative practices that support the discourse dominating the event.

This is the normative orientation of action as it was conceptualized by Durkheim. The moral indignation that a population may feel when faced with reprehensible behaviour allows the strengthening of social solidarity. These ways, by which a person or a collective performs their part of the representation and helps others accomplish theirs, demonstrate the level of acceptance for the fundamental rules of social interaction.

This process of statutory degradation is carried on by the journalists and the lawyers until the death sentence. At the very beginning, one journalist mentions that the accused was of a taciturn nature and solitary. During the preliminary hearing, there are references to the accused’s family context and, during the trial, there is mention of possible atavism because of a violent, alcoholic father and an aunt interned at a sanitarium. The insanity plea at the trial raises other doubts regarding this person’s "normality." There are comments referring to marginal or prohibited behaviours in many journalistic and judiciary documents, in particular in the Crown attorney’s plea at the February 1931 trial: But, here, gentlemen, it is not the case, it is not the one who stole the woman’s affections who is killed, rather it is the one who stole the affections of another’s wife who kills him to steal from him again. Gentlemen of the jury, there can be no sympathy for such a crime; there can only be pity. The accused, Thomas, is a young man in his prime. He is twenty-five years old. At twenty-five in this northern region, a man is long since a man. At twenty-five, most men in this country, here, are married and have fathered many children. Nothing prevented Thomas from doing the same thing but guilty passion that we invoke today to try to excuse him, prevented it. If you wanted to present a verdict based on the unfortunate passion that Thomas had for this woman, old enough to be his mother, your verdict would sanction all other criminal passions that a man may have to grant himself the satisfaction of committing an even greater crime than that of killing whoever stands in the way of the appeasement of his passion. Adultery is the cause of two thirds of the murders recorded in our judiciary annals (30). This plea shows us that Tranchemontagne severely infringed the social norms and values of his time. Seeing a married woman was considered stealing. The age difference between a man and a woman was also taboo. Such relations were prohibited and qualified as criminal and they were interpreted as motives for criminal behaviour. To this effect, one journalist comments: There was a motive.

Thomas killed Nantel in order to continue the illicit meetings with the victim’s wife. He had an unfortunate, criminal passion that pushed him to commit a crime. It is needless here to feel pity (31). The transformation of Tranchemontagne’s identity is based on motives related to collective norms. Garfinkel (1956: 420) explains it in the following manner: The identities referred to must be "total" identities. That is, these identities must refer to a person as "motivational" type rather than as "behavioral" types, not to what a person may be expected to have done or to do (in Parson’s term, to his "performance") but to what the group holds to be the ultimate "grounds" or "reasons" for his performance.

This type of statement asks as well as commands that both the witnesses and the community accept the claim that the accused is not as he appears to everyone’s eyes, but that he is very different, of a lower essence than what he appeared to be. What he is now is what, "after all", he was all along (32). These first judiciary rituals serve not only to designate the infraction but allow the combining of various statements into an identifying totality. Fact and criminal are arranged and designated, creating another character: the delinquent, biographical unit, node of potential danger, representing a type of anomaly (Foucault, 1975: 258). As Garfinkel said, it is a matter of retracing typological events: The preferences must not be for event A over event B, but for event of type A over event of type B (33).

What were the conditions of possibility for this discursive transformation? For the transition from infraction to crime, from crime to man’s crime, from man’s crime to the criminal man, and, finally, from criminal man to, simply, the criminal. First, there had to be an existing social system with symbolic and authoritarian discourses that materialized in the strategic rituals of the interrogation and the coroner’s inquest. As well, the concurrence of the journalists, along with their commentary, serve as unavoidable support for various norms and values, the taboos and prohibitions of the time. We can also observe the anonymous work of the editors who, in representing the subject’s remarks, do the work of normalizing the required truth. These contribute to the positive organization of the event within the penal discourse.
 
 

This second half of the analysis examines the acts of management that lead to the hanging. The documents which fuel this research come, almost exclusively, from the judiciary archives. During the months of preparation for the hanging, that is after the February 11th sentencing, we can observe a journalistic silence regarding the proceedings. The journalists reappear on the public scene only for the hanging (34). This second section is subdivided into four series: the management of Tranchemontagne, management of the day of the hanging, a few signs of resistance, and the coroner's inquest. These analyses are based on 70 documents including prescriptive forms, letters, requests, petitions, notices, telegrams, and the proclamation of the hanging. The work of the agents preparing the hanging is based on prescribed rituals from the Ministry of Justice.
 

On April 29th, 1931, the assistant solicitor general sends instructions to the Mont-Laurier sheriff for the management of the upcoming work (35). These instructions are represented in the form of a letter, a memorandum and a report. 1)The assistant prosecutor's letter states the rules concerning this specific execution, such as the location, physical installations, the executioner, the coroner's inquest, instructions for the sheriff, the burial, the police, the number of people admitted to the hanging and the conditions of these admissions, the jailer's duties. 2)A 1928 memorandum from the prosecutor recalls the criminal code laws and prescribes certain rules for the carrying out of death sentences. 3)An executive council report, from 1870, describes other recommendations for the execution ceremony, concerning schedule and the visibility of the event.

From the moment the death sentence is pronounced, the condemned is under the absolute control of the state and instructions are given for the distribution of management tasks according to the expertise of the various agents. All instructions pertaining to management of the condemned come from the lieutenant governor. The condemned's living body, his soul, the corpse, as well as the condemned's significant social relations, all are controlled by the state.

The principal person with a function in the management of the condemned's body is the Mont-Laurier sheriff under the supervision of a colleague, Sheriff Lapierre of Montreal. The sheriffs interact with the lieutenant governor general and his executive council, the solicitor general, the provincial police, the jailers, and the prison chaplain. The work of managing Tranchemontagne's living body begins on March 17th, 1931 with a notice from the provincial police which confirms their guarding the condemned's body in good health. This notice marks the moment where the condemned's whole person is seized by the penal system and the condemned will be under the constant surveillance of a jailer. On April 30th, the sheriff of Montreal asks the sheriff of Mont-Laurier for the names of all the jailers that have guarded the prisoner and of those who were present during the sentencing in order to fill in a form for the coroner's inquest. Three jailers guarded the prisoner at the Mont-Laurier prison and the executive council ordered his transfer. The Assistant-Jailer, L. Lamarche, declared having received the death sentence document and the order to guard the condemned from February 11th to the 16th. Assistant-Jailer Corbeil declared having guarded the condemned from February 16th to the 21st. Jailer St-Amour, was declared sick, under oath and with a medical slip, from February 10th to the 17th, and resumed his services from February 21^st to March 17th and from May 20th to the 22nd 1931. The executive council authorized the condemned's transfer to the Montreal Bordeaux prison from March 17th to May 20th and his transfer to the Mont-Laurier prison on May 20th 1931. The jailer must ensure that only the condemned's parents and his spiritual adviser be allowed to see him, and only under the sheriff's supervision. The condemned's soul must also be looked after. On May 4th, the prison chaplain at Bordeaux, in Montreal, writes to the sheriff that it is in the condemned's interest that he assist him on the scaffolding. The Bordeaux chaplain will spend the condemned's last night with him, he will say mass and he will accompany him up to the scaffolding while praying out loud.

The agents implicated in managing the corpse are, obviously, the sheriffs of Mont-Laurier and of Montreal, the Mont-Laurier and l'Annonciation priests, the condemned's mother, the solicitor general and the executive council. According to state regulations, the body must be buried in the prison yard unless someone asks that it receive a Christian burial. If this is the case, the sheriff must notify the authorities in order to receive the proper instructions. On the first of May, the sheriff of Mont-Laurier asks the l'Annonciation priest if the body will be claimed after the execution. On May 4th, the sheriff of Montreal asks the sheriff of Mont-Laurier to see if the family will claim the body, and if not, to make arrangements with religious authorities to do so. On May 6th, the sheriff of Mont-Laurier informs his Montreal colleague that he has advised the l'Annonciation priest and that he will see to it that the religious authorities claim the body if the family refuses to do so. On May 16th, the sheriff of Mont-Laurier informs the solicitor general that the body will not be claimed following the execution and he adds that the Mont-Laurier priest is prepared to bury it as discretely as possible. On May 18th, the Mont-Laurier parish priest writes to the sheriff that he has a duty to claim the body in order to give it a Christian burial. On May 18th, the executive council refuses, by telegram, a certain request for burial and repeats that only the prison chaplain or the parish priest may claim the body. On May 19th, a telegram from the executive council authorizes the sheriff to hand over the body to the Mont-Laurier parish priest. That same day, Tranchemontagne's mother signs the abandonment of her son's body as though he were already dead. I, the undersigned, declare to not claim the body of my son Edouard Thomas, deceased on May 22nd of this year. On May 21st, the sheriff of Mont-Laurier receives a copy of the decree in council, dated May 21st, which ratifies the authorization given by telegram to hand over Tranchemontagne's body to the parish priest.

All these communications that affect the condemned invest and connect a geopolitical space: l'Annonciation, Mont-Laurier, Montreal, Quebec and Ottawa. They are, respectively, the place of transgression, the place of the examination of the events, the place of management, the place of legislation and the place of legitimization. The executive council's orders relate to the control of Tranchemontagne's person, objectified as a body and a corpse. The executive council controls the movements and the registration of this body, alive or dead, within a given physical space. The distribution of work between the different agents has the effect of fragmenting the person of the condemned. Tranchemontagne's person is divided into five particular characteristics: the body, the soul, the corpse, the mental state and the social being (36). His is a body that must be fed, well-maintained, accompanied, "protected", watched and executed. This physical management is done by the police, the sheriff, the jailer and the executioner. His is a soul in which the religious authorities have a moral obligation to take interest. He also represents a future corpse to dispose of in an appropriate place, and a social being whose personal relations are under the absolute and exclusive supervision of the state. Beyond the destruction of a body by death, this ritualized destruction of a person as a social being is effected by various tactics. The fact of selecting this singular body and of dividing it allowed for its transformation into an element easily spread across a social space by its connection to other bodies who exercise hierarchical supervision upon it. At the same time as the inscription on the body and on the corpse is being officialized, the sheriffs prepare for the hanging.

Before making the material preparations for the hanging, the symbolic organization of the procedures must be finalized. The Joint-Clerks Lamarche & Boudreault of Mont-Laurier take care of this task. They were proto-notaries at the beginning of this case, the Crown's "joint-clerks" for the trial and, after it, they are, concomitantly, "joint-sheriffs" and "joint-clerks." As Mont-Laurier joint-clerks, they confirm the death sentence to the secretary of state, as early as February 12th, in thismanner:
 

From April 7th to the 9th, correspondence between the clerks of Mont-Laurier and Montreal concerns sending the judge's report, the exhibits, the copies of the confession and the preliminary inquiry to the secretary of state. This work done, Lamarche & Boudreault reclaim their roles as joint-sheriffs along with Sheriff Lapierre of Montreal to continue the organization of the hanging. On April 17th, the Mont-Laurier sheriffs ask the Montreal sheriff for assistance as it is the first hanging in Mont-Laurier. On May first, the Mont-Laurier sheriffs confirm to the solicitor general that they will strictly conform to the aforementioned instructions of April 29th. On the same day, they ask for the services of the provincial police, as instructed. All of the correspondence between sheriffs, up to May 12th, relates to organizational details for materials, people and procedures. The Montreal sheriff coordinates the work of the Mont-Laurier sheriff. He provides the materials, prepares the procedures, and determines the function of various agents during the hanging. The sheriff of Mont-Laurier provides the necessary information and personnel. The sheriff of Montreal therefore, books the services of the executioner, he sends the scaffolding to Mont-Laurier as well as the men to build it. He sends the forms with which the sheriff of Mont-Laurier will name him deputy sheriff ex-officio for the 20th, 21st and 22nd of May. He prepares the coroner's inquest and, to do so, requires names in order to fill-out forms. He asks the sheriff of Mont-Laurier for the names of the two doctors, the "sheriffs conjoint’s" initials, the jailer's name because the one given to him was not present in court. On May 11 the Mont-Laurier sheriff receives the completed notices, as if the hanging had already taken place.

The correspondence that precedes the hanging often uses reverential formulas, and notions of honor and submission. For example, the sheriffs address the under-secretary of state with forms such as these: We have the honor to inform you, (...) and they sign: your obedient servants. However, in the last letter addressed to the sheriff, the complimentary close is reversed and it is the deputy-secretary of state who becomes the sheriff’s servant: I have the honor to be, /Sir,/ your obedient servant. These formulas specify what needs to be ritualized, what one represents for the other. These attitudes are based on rules of behaviour that are linked to moral values. The obligation to conform to these values comes from a normative frame outside the judiciary system. All in all, each and every one of them is a servant to the order that regulates their actions.
 
 
 
 

The people who demonstrated in order to oppose the event are the condemned’s lawyer and his secretary, the jurors, one citizen, an anglophone lawyer, the C.P.W.A. (Canadian Prisoners’ Welfare Association) and the condemned’s mother. His lawyer, Mr. Pilon’s proceedings began on April 4th and ended on May 20th 1931. On April 28th, Mr. Pilon addresses the minister of justice to see if his letter, dated April 4th, accompanied by a petition signed by the citizens of Labelle county asking for the death penalty to be commuted, has been taken into consideration. On May 1^st Deputy-Minister Gallagher replied that he never received this letter and asks that he be sent a copy of the document. He stresses that such requests are studied with great attention and that the governor’s decision is rarely known until the last few days before the execution date. On May 2nd, Mr. Pilon explains to the ministry that the requisition included a considerable amount of signatures including those of MPs, priests, and the most prominent citizens in the area and that it would be difficult to obtain the same signatures. He hopes that the original request will be traced as soon as possible. On May 5th, the deputy minister replies to Mr. Pilon that he appreciates the difficulty associated with getting a new petition signed and he suggests foregoing the signatures for the time being and asks for the statements that constituted the request. On May 6th, Mr. Pilon sends Gallagher a copy o f the April 4th requisition and he continues his efforts to locate the original. On May 8th, Gallagher acknowledges receipt of Mr. Pilon’s letter and adds it to the file. On May 19th, the Montreal postal services’ district manager replies to Mr. Pilon that, after a careful search, no trace was found of the article in question and, he adds, that it is difficult to trace unregistered mail. On May 20th, Mr. Pilon presents the postal services’ district manager’s answer to Deputy Minister Gallagher. He hopes that the absence of signatures accompanying the requisition will not be prejudicial for his client and he describes what a dishonor a capital punishment would be for everyone:

That same day, Mr. Pilon wrote a second time, this time to the chief of pardons, who is also Mr. Gallagher, to present him with an affidavit and the recommendations of a juror. The affidavit is signed by Mr. Pilon’s secretary who states having been his stenographer for the past ten years.

She explains that she personally deposited the requisition at the principal postal office after having bought a special envelop on April 4th at approximately 1:10 p.m. She certifies having knowledge of the signatures that accompanied the requisition and that they covered 24 legal format pages. She recalls having seen the names of many members of the clergy, of notaries, mayors, secretary-treasurers of the local parishes and of the county deputy. The recommendation of Tranchemontagne to the leniency of the governor general in council is signed by the president of the verdict jury: We believe that, even though he has been found guilty, a number of circumstances have aroused our sympathy, and we would be happy and grateful if the death penalty to which he has been sentenced were commuted. On May 22nd, Gallagher replies for the last time to Mr. Pilon. He states that the missing requisition did not interfere with the plea for grace. He points out that it would have been preferable to have sent it prior to the eve of the execution and adds that, nevertheless, this request has been considered by the justice minister. He concludes by saying that the governor general’s decision was to have been telegraphed the previous day.

The officers and directors of the C.P.W.A. also sent a petition to the governor general on April 30th listing various reasons for pardon, among which the accomplice’s acquittal, the popular type of tragedy (triangular), the age difference between the condemned and his mistress, the latter’s influence, the condemned’s prenatal and familial conditions, the voluntary deposition made to Jargaille, the impulsive rather than premeditated nature of the act. They request a new trial or a commutation of the sentence. On May 2nd, the executive-secretary writes to the chief of pardons and reminds him of the C.P.W.A.’s history relating to capital punishment (37). As well, a hand-written note describes that Tranchemontagne’s mother and Mrs. Campbell of the C.P.W.A. arrived unannounced, on May 15th, at the justice minister’s office to implore leniency (38).

While Mr. Pilon and the C.P.W.A. continue with their proceedings, a Montreal citizen presents a request for leniency. Gallagher replies, on May 13th, that it will be studied with care. Finally, on May 21st, the minister of justice receives the same request from an Ottawa lawyer:
            Surely this man is not going to be executed. He was a piece of putty in the hands of the
            woman who was acquitted.
All these interventions did not succeed in swaying the governor general and, from May 20th, a round of repetition of the execution order began.
 
 
 
 

On May 20th, at 3:34, the deputy-secretary of state in Ottawa sends the following telegram to the Mont-Laurier sheriff:

The deputy-secretary confirms by letter, the telegram he has just sent to the same sheriff. The Mont-Laurier sheriff confirms and repeats the telegram to the deputy-secretary of state. At 4:22, the assistant sollicitor general of Quebec confirms and repeats the following telegram from the deputy-secretary of state to the Mont-Laurier sheriff:

The assistant sollicitor general confirms, by letter, the same telegram to the Montreal sheriff. On May 21st, the Mont-Laurier sheriff confirms this telegram by repeating it to the assistant sollicitor general. The sheriff repeats this order so often that he makes an error in a note inscribed at the top to the telegram: "Last night at 10 o’clock received telegram often", instead of writing following telegram (in French: reÁu telegramme "souvent" instead of reÁu telegramme "suivant"). It is the same telegram which is, every time, repeated and accompanied by a letter of confirmation. The repetition of the execution order is done along the hierarchical ladder: governor general in council, deputy-secretary of state, sollicitor general, Montreal sheriff, Mont-Laurier sheriff.

The use of the condemned’s body, as a mere object-body, allowed this village to connect with a penal justice system through links with its agents in the metropolitan periphery as well as the provincial and national capitals. The repetitive and hierarchical form of the telegrams shows this tactic. The obligation to wait for a permit to bury the corpse links, for a moment, two extremes of a social relation (the executive committee and the condemned) and creates a relation of power reduced to its essentials, where one is stripped bare of any social quintessence and the other invested with all its powers. These tactics show that the condemned is totally taken over by the state. One journalist describes him as being civilly dead the moment he was sentenced (39).

The documents on which this analysis is based include detailed documentation from the coroner's inquest and the bill reproducing in a synthetic and public manner the report and the minutes of the coroner's second inquest. This bill measures 70cm X 40 cm and was posted near Mont-Laurier prison's main entrance from 8:00am May 22nd, 1931 until 10:00am May 23rd, 1931.

The participants in the coroner’s second inquest are the district deputy-sheriff, the peace clerks, the jailer, the prison doctor, the coroner and the jurors each with a particular task assigned him. In the declaration, Deputy-Sheriff Lapierre attests to the following facts:

The jailers:

Assistant-Jailer Lamarche testifies to the following facts:

The second assistant-jailer testifies to the following facts:

The third jailer testifies to the following facts:

Sheriff Lapierre and the joint-clerks testify the following:

The prison doctor testified the following:
                    1) being present at the execution; 2) the condemned died of strangulation. The coroner
                        testifies the following fact: having received all the depositions.
The jurors testify the following:
                    1) having pronounced the verdict; a) having seen the corpse and heard the evidence,
                        b) the body on which they inquired is the one that was condemned to be executed.
 
 

A description of the bill shows the exacerbated coherence of the penal system, which operates in the doubling of representations presented in a hierarchical manner within the notice. The bill carries the British coat of arms. At the bottom, it carries the insignia and the motto of Great Britain, Dieu et mon droit, and at the center of this the motto Honi soit qui mal y pense, of the Ordre de la JarretiËre. This is an order of English knights instituted by Edouard III in 1348 (40). The phrase, which signifies: "Shame to he who sees evil", is often used literally and figuratively, and often ironically, to blame those who interpret in hindsight a perfectly honest act (41). This short adage states a moral or a behavioural rule. This coroner’s inquiry report is divided into three distinct parts: the declaration, the certificate and the verdict. In the declaration, three people with the duty and the capacity to assert a factual truth, declare collectively, by their signatures, that the death sentence was carried out on the person of Tranchemontagne, at such a place, at such a date, in their presence. These people practice different functions within the judiciary framework. The jailer is physically close to the prisoner, he watches and controls him. The deputy sheriff is responsible for the administrative management of the "condemned-justice" relationship by executing the court’s orders. The clerk’s function is to authenticate a judge’s acts, to produce documents and to testify. In the certification, the doctor who has the necessary competence to write the official death certificate produces a scientific truth in relation to the body, by executing the examination prescribed by the law in the case of an "unnatural" death. The archives do not contain a medical report, but the newspapers provide information on the doctor’s work in relation to the condemned’s death: twelve minutes after the springing of the trap he was declared dead by the prison physician (42). In the verdict, the jurors and the coroner declare that the corpse that is being investigated is, in fact, the one that was condemned to be hanged at such a date, for the murder that took place at such and such a date on such a person, at such a place. That a certain person refused to interfere with the sentence. They also declare that Tranchemontagne was executed as ordered at such a date, at such a place by such judgement. The jurors sign after having seen the body and heard the evidence: this is the declaration.

The three statements (declaration, certificate and verdict) state, in different ways, that the death sentence has been carried out on Tranchemontagne. These declarations are made after having witnessed the event, after examining the body and, lastly, after having seen and heard the evidence of the inquiry (which certifies and declares that the death sentence was executed after judgement, and after refusal to intervene to commute the sentence). In the first inquiry on Nantel's body, the coroner, as informer, acted as a trigger for the events that followed. This inquiry included the neighbor's, the doctor's and the detective's depositions. This inquiry began a series of procedures that led up to the judgement. Lawyers, a judge, and a doctor specialized in mental disorders organized and judged the proof in this criminal death and the jurors supported this proof. In the second inquiry on Tranchemontagne’s body, the same schema is used but only in form. The declaration of facts does not produce documentary expertise, nor does the coroner's declaration qualify the type of death, nor do the jurors, finally, produce a denunciation. Rather, it constitutes a statement. They all repeat that the sentence was executed and that the body is that of Tranchemontagne, who had been condemned. This report of the coroner's inquiry is a tautology. The Court of the King's Bench seems stripped of its subjects (judge, lawyers etc.) and the governor general was not able to intervene. The subjects of the action are discursive objects, namely the sentence, and the penalty. The first inquiry's conclusion stipulated the carrying out of a murder and the second inquiry's conclusion stipulated the carrying out of a sentence.
 

In the bill's iconography we may find the symbolic representation of the political penal institution in three different places. The state's territorial space is represented by the emblem of Great Britain, which is the political authority. God's name evokes an ideal space, and the religious system. The Law represents a discursive practice, while laws represent norms. At the heart of these representations, we find a motto, a penal prescription, a sentence: Honi soit qui mal y pense, historical artifact from a feudal era.
 
 

 Political Representation of Penal Order in its Technicality, the Judiciary (material organization)

We find, within this body of work, three modalities or three control practices: the statement, the examination and the judging. The agents who may exercise these three discursive strategies are named. First, the agents who manage the person and the event include the jailer, the clerk and the deputy-sheriff. They represent the administrative management of the penalty. Second, the doctor represents scientific discipline, he has the capacity to certify a death. Finally, the jurors, as representatives of the population, sanction the work.

Coroner Lachapelle signs the notice as witness, doctor and coroner. He represents three functions. As coroner, he is the king’s representative and thus may represent the three judiciary agents whose duty it is to make a statement. He may represent his colleague, the doctor, since he is capable of certifying death. Finally, he acts as witness, in the same manner as the jurors and represents, at this level, the population. He has the ability and the authority to use three forms of knowledge in order to practice three forms of power: 1) to report; 2) to examine and certify; 3) to approve a piece of evidence (that he himself, first put forth). He is understood, in this representation, as a constant element within the three discursive strategies. Another interesting characteristic is that the doctor is the only person to present himself as a subject by using "I" ("je") in the notice. Three uses of power are concentrated into one person and into one form of knowledge, medicine. We note an economic interest for the work of the coroner in a handwritten note dated June 1st, 1931, and signed, your humble servants. The note requests of the solicitor general: in the case of a doctor being present at the execution of someone sentenced to the death penalty, in order to confirm the death, does he have rights to honoraries, and, if so, what are these honoraries?

 Representation of Penal Order in a Management System, the Law (symbolic organization)

The verdict refers back to a representation of the political and penal system, that is the Law, which serves as its institutional management system. The law operates on three levels of the hierarchy (43), the legislative, the judiciary and the executive, through the sentence, the Court of the King's Bench and the governor general. At the end of this final section, we find sentencing practices that reflect the penal statement that appears as heading, He was hanged by the neck until death occurred. In the iconography we had a potential sentence that is here executed, one that was authorized, carried out and materialized.

On the bill, the light shed on the people related to the event is skewed. Some agents are left in the dark, others appear in the shadows, while others are clearly visible. We see that the agents are designated by name, as well as by their function in this inquiry (the coroner is designated by the three functions). However, the people who seem to have a decisional role are not designated by their personal identities. The governor general is only designated by his functional role whereas the lawyers and the judge who presided over in the case are represented by the institution: the Court of the King's Bench. However, the jurors are named, and are the only ones to have affixed a handwritten signature. In an economy of visibility, the people who legally held the right to legitimately punish the action, are excluded from the notice: the lawyers, the judges, the legal, medical and mental disorder specialists. The only signatures on the bill for the coroner’s inquest are those of the jurors.

It is interesting to note, in the bill, the progressive transformation in the representation of Tranchemontagne’s identity. In the first part, he is represented only by his name in relation to the judiciary personnel. In the medical exam of the second part, there is mention of Tranchemontagne’s body, while in the final part, there is mention of Tranchemontagne’s corpse. It is an exact re-production of the ritual to strip him of his social identity that took place in the proceedings. The legal system received a person that became, during his execution sentencing, a body whose watch was entrusted by the provincial police to the jailer. Finally, throughout the month of May, they speak only of a corpse to be delivered to a controlled area.

This coroner’s inquest symbolically repeats the trajectory of the penal event. We find the same elements, under another form: the statement of the fact; the examination of the fact; the verdict, which approximates the denunciation (and its repetitions), the trial, and the judgement. However, we repeat the whole judiciary process that generated the first inquiry, while excluding the last step, that is the judgement that led to the sentence. We declare, we examine, but we do not formally qualify this examination. Only the newspapers will qualify it as the work of justice, opposing it to the first death which was qualified as the work of a criminal hand. This second coroner’s inquest is undertaken in a controlled recursive form, with the exclusion of certain ritualized practices. The ritual is nothing but a symbolic form.

NOTES

1 We find traces of the necessity for this type of publicity in the words of the Archbishop of Montreal at the turn of the century. In fact Mgr BruchÈsi stated his opinion on the role of the media in all regional newspapers following the hanging of C. Viau. "It is unthinkable to live without newspapers today. (...). In countries where journalism is not universal, hangings should always be public. A certain knowledge of evil and the lessons to be learned from it is a necessary guide and warning to those who would be tempted to follow in its path" (Cadieux, 1979; 196).

2 Death is anything but punishment. The most unbearable punishment inflicted onto all of mankind by nature is the fear of death, not death (Jacquard, 1993; 117).

3 For more on the use of strategies and tactics as a fundamental means for the prevention of civil problems, see Foucault (1975: 70), where he shows, through the army's disciplinary model and the war conflict model, how strategy allows for an understanding of conflict as a means of political management between corporate structures, and tactic as a principle for maintaining the lack of conflict in civil society.

4 The articles are distributed in the following manner: Period 1 (the arrest) October 1930: 17 articles/ 6 newspapers; Period 2 (the trial) January, February 1931: 22 articles/ 4 newspapers; Period 3 (the hanging) May 21, 22,23 1931: 6 articles/ 4 newspapers.

5 Foucault (1976) presents the history of the confessional procedure as a technique for producing a true discourse where he shows entering into discourse of gender in the West as a form of power/knowledge.

6 Tranchemontagne's statement.