Lost Art Press

Death by Roubo

Posted on by Lost Art Press

suicide

For those readers who are squeamish or easily offended, stop reading now.

For the rest of you, here is a little nugget of workbench history unearthed by Jeff Burks. It was published in the April 5, 1903, edition of the French illustrated newspaper Le Petit Parisien. Headlined: “Un étrange suicide,” it detailed the odd suicide of the joiner who ended his life with the help of his workbench.

Below is Jeff’s quick translation of the text. You can read it in the original French here.

A Strange Suicide

This is obviously a particular case of madness, that of the strange suicide of this joiner from Sainte-Ménehould, with whom all the press is occupied. Mr. Lemaître, the joiner in question, was sick for a long time; He was, in addition, suffering from paranoia; his rationale seemed very shaken.

Tired of suffering, he resolved to finish his own existence. But he did not use, like so many others, poison, the revolver or the rope; He wanted to be guillotined. He very patiently sharpened a spade, so it would be keen as a razor; he tied it to his joinery workbench, which had been loaded quite heavily with wood; then, using a piece of wood as a brace, he lifted his bench to 60 centimeters in height and spread himself on the ground so that, by removing the piece of wood, the spade would strike his neck.

These tragic preparations had taken a fairly long time. With a chisel, Mr. Lemaître knocked out the brace that was holding the workbench and the spade descended suddenly, working as a guillotine blade. Indeed, the carotid artery was severed and the head weakly attached to the body. The doctor who was called found him dead.

— Christopher Schwarz

76 thoughts on “Death by Roubo”

  1. Now there’s a fellow with a really interesting idea…a nice little compartmented box for nails and screws with a tote handle. Never would have thought of that.

    2. I’m sorry, I don’t know how you can focus on a box for nails and screws when there is CLEARLY some type of sawhorse with a screw on it for glue-ups! Come on, man. Priorities!

      1. That is where my eye went too! Any idea what it might be? Maybe a workholding solution for crosscutting a wide board solo? It might be the table from the Pit of Dispair.

  4. I had previously placed Jeff Burks on my list people I’d like to meet. He’s now on my short list.

  6. It’s a fake – the twine at at the top of the bow saw all winds on one direction.

  7. Maybe Jeff could start a blog titled, “Strange and Bizarre Tales from the Workshop”. You know somebody is going to do it eventually.

  8. If he’d been smarter he’d have made himself a set of pulleys and then used them to raise the bench with a rope he could cut with a knife instead of this whole “wedge a bit of wood under it” nonsense.

    Much more efficient.

  9. This is probably the strangest blog post I have ever read concerning woodworking.

    Got any more like it?

  10. How long did he have to wait there until the artist finished drawing him?

  11. Interestingly, if he were from Japan, he would be on top of the bench.

  12. Hold nothing back.

    What angle was that blade sharpened to and did it have a micro bevel?

  13. Man, I love woodworkers and humor…

    But seriously, I’d like to see more info on that saw horse with the clamping system set up on it. That looks quite interesting.

    1. That clamp is not actually attached to the saw horse. One thing the French joiners did use though was a saw horse with a wagon vise and dogs. These were used to hold parts during work operations rather than during glue ups.
      http://tinyurl.com/cjk8jav

  15. Despair indeed. It must have been challenging being a solo joiner in that era. If only he had a day job and lithium….

  18. This post leaves me wanting the answers to so many more questions:

    – Did he sharpen the spade with a micro bevel or convex bevel?
    – What is the appropriate angle to sharpen a spade to sever the carotid artery?
    – Are oil stones or water stones better for spade sharpening?
    – The floor appears to be some kind of tile. Were special cut nails required to nail the batten into the floor that holds the bench from sliding backwards?
    – Did the leg vice not have a parallel guide or was it removed for this operation?
    – How is the drawer under the bench attached? Any form of attachment to the bench top would surely be a cross grain connection.

    Please don’t leave us hanging with posts like this. There is so much more we can learn from old pictures such as this!

  19. I love it that when you read the blog top to bottom, the next post is “Meanwhile, back at the Ranch” . . .

  20. Ohhh…and his bench appears to have an end cap on the vice side of the bench that is only nailed on. Has this been seen on other historical examples? It would seem to me that the nails would not hold well in end grain and the cap would be a very weak point.

  22. He even nailed a cleat to the floor to keep the bench from sliding! Very thorough.

    1. No, everyone just needs the new patented ‘BenchStop’ technology installed. It should be made mandatory on all benches.

  25. 15 minutes before this a prospective customer asked why he charges so much when she can get perfectly good things at le Ikea for a fraction of the price.

    1. My thoughts exactly. How inconsiderate!
      All that wide stock at arms length. He could have placed the coffin under the bench to contain the corpse (no messy severed head rolling all over the shop.) And with the joiner dead, who makes the coffin?
      Clearly, this guy was thinking only of himself.

  27. Jonas Jensen, I think that may just be artistic foreshortening. It looks to me that the artist made the drawing deliberately with a skewed perspective to dramatize the event, resulting in what we would now call a ‘fisheye lens’ effect.

    Personally, yes I find the background scenery interesting, but of more interest is the psychology of this. It is strange that a suicidal man would go to so much time and effort to commit the deed in this way. I wonder if it had anything to do with the fact that the guillotine was seen as the execution method of the aristocracy. It was originally proposed, by Msr Guillotine himself, as a ‘humane’ way to execuite a person, since the rapid dissection of the spinal chord would theoretically cause instantaneous death, and it was surmised, the shock of the cut on the chord would result in it not even being felt by the person. Perhaps Msr. Lemaître felt that he deserved a “royal” death.

    Or perhaps it could have been some sort of statement about his profession, in that he died at the hands of his own tools.

    1. It may have been something more like twenty years of, “You’re Always out there in that Shop with those Tools and never pay any attention to Me,” and ‘She’ll be sorry when…”

  28. Thanks, Thanks loads. Now if I ever get a chance to examine any antique workbenches I will find myself looking for blood spatter on the legs instead of admiring the workmanship or vises.

  29. Nicely built bench though…
    No apparent wracking under that heavy load, despite the poorly supported fourth leg.

  30. Tacky. Very, very tacky.

    If I’d spent all that time sharpening a spade, I’d find a better use for the edge.

  31. I saw a guillotining once. It was done very quickly. The prisoner was brought out with a sack over his head, obviously drugged,. He was set on the apparatus and bam. The whole thing was over in less than 10 seconds.

  33. In my line of work I have seen a guy whom started his Cadillac inside a closed garage and then shot himself with a .22 caliber handgun; a guy whom placed a trash bag around his head with a wire closing it off, then hung himself using after wrapping a light cord around a door knob, over the top of the door, then stepped off a step stool; a woman whom wrapped herself all in plastic sheeting from head to toe to keep the blood from running everywhere, then shot herself in the head; another guy whom holed himself up in the kitchen, then took a filet knife and cut his head half off while we raced to keep him from doing so. You want weird, work homicide for a while!
    Thank you Chris for the article, and all of you guys whom made funny comments, you made me laugh! I needed it!

  36. p.s. one of the reasons I like woodworking and woodworkers, the warped sense of humor to match the warped boards!

  37. Will this dangerous application now be added to the list of Health and Safety “don’t”warnings you get with a Workmate? And with every spade??

    1. Workmates aren’t heavy enough. Using one would get you committed to an asylum. Real men who are committed (to ending it) use a Roubo.

      Using a Workmate would be like tying a noose to a drop-ceiling.

  39. Personally, I would have lifted the bench before loading it up with wood. After all, you would not want to risk injury through lifting a heavy bench would you!

  40. Maybe he was playing “French Roulette” with someone else. You take turns chipping a sliver of wood off the brace until …

  42. Has this guy lost his mind? And middle schooler knows applying force(weight) close to the pivot point doesn’t develop much leverage. Use a ‘deadman’, leg vise (that beast would surely hold) and those long boards to exponentially increase force by handing the logs way out at end of board. I swear, what was this guy thinking?

  43. Gentlemen,
    Be aware that the left (handed) media is not out to eliminate the menace of French style workbenches, like those patterned after the anarchist Roubo and supported in the US by a left leaning blogger from Kentucky. (this is not a political leaning, it is most apparent after the consumption of numerous craft beers.
    There is however a movement in Congress to register workbench components so that unlicensed trade does not take place at flea markets, woodworking shows, big box stores, etc. You are especially vulnerable when attempting to purchase large capacity wooden vises, tail vises and hold downs. The rate of suicide by workbench is rising rapidly, and your government only wants you and those around you to be safe.

  45. Maybe Jameel at Benchcrafted will be selling shovels on April 1st?

    1. jeebus, jethro, If my ‘tails looked that bad, I’d be reaching for the spade myself!

      1. I suspect that they’d been reaching for the spade to cut the joints in the first place!

        cheers,
        Burbidge.

  47. Think offing yourself in the workshop really hurts the resale value too much. Better outside in the sawing pit. Bought a bunch of stuff from a house where the guy hung himself and the real estate agent was complaining about why he couldn’t hang himself outside instead of the second floor balcony inside.

    Rich

  50. I get what Don’s saying, bet he didn’t even dig a hole with the shovel first.

    Wonder if he made hats in his spare time too………

  51. My grandfather told me a woodworker he knew who waited until his wife and children were away, drug the mattress out to the workshop (for comfort I suppose), cut his throat on the table saw and lay down to bleed to death.

  52. Sickos,

    I think you are all missing something. Who has a spade in a woodworking shop? I don’t think this was suicide. This was very skillfully contrived murder and I am pointing a very causing finger at… THE GARDENER!

    Cheerio,
    Virg.

  53. The only thing that will stop a bad guy with a workbench-guillotine is a good guy with a workbench-guillotine.

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