His father's paralysis and the assertiveness of his paternal grandmother, Anne-Marthe Sanson, led Charles-Henri to leave his study of medicine and to assume the job of executioner in order to guarantee the livelihood of his family.

They had two sons: Gabriel (1767–1792), who also worked in the family business and had been his assistant and heir apparent from 1790 but who died after slipping off a scaffold as he displayed a severed head to the crowd, and Henri (1769–1830), who became his successor.

Swift and efficient decapitations of straw bales were followed by live sheep and finally human corpses, and by the end, Sanson led the inspectors in pronouncing the new device a resounding success.

[4] Within the week, the Assembly had approved its use and on 25 April 1792, Sanson inaugurated the era of the guillotine by executing Nicolas Jacques Pelletier for robbery and assault at the Place de Grève.

As David Jordan notes, "No Monsieur de Paris had ever had the honor of executing a king, and Sanson wanted precise instructions.

He experienced the stress of having to execute not only the king but also successive waves of ousted officials as those in power shifted rapidly in a time of revolutionary change.

Fearing rescue efforts, the streets of Paris were lined with troops as Louis's carriage took its somber two hours to travel to the scaffold arriving at 10 a.m. on 21 January 1793.

[8] But the execution may not have gone as smoothly as possible: "One of two accounts of Louis' death suggest the blade did not sever his whole neck in one go, and had to be borne down on by the executioner to get a clean cut.

Sanson and his men executed successive waves of well-known revolutionaries, including Hébert, Danton, Desmoulins, Saint-Just, and Robespierre.

After Joseph-Ignace Guillotin publicly proposed Antoine Louis's new execution machine, Sanson delivered a memorandum of unique weight and insight to the French Assembly.

The relatively lightweight tools of his trade broke down under heavy usage, and the repair and replacement costs were prohibitive, unreasonably burdening the executioner.

Even worse, the physical exertion required to use them was too taxing and likely to result in accidents, and the victims themselves were likely to resort to acts of desperation during the lengthy, unpredictable procedures.

[20] Sanson's eldest son Gabriel (1767–1792) had been his assistant and heir apparent from 1790, but he died after slipping off a scaffold as he displayed a severed head to the crowd.