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Light over the Scaffold: Prison Letters of Jacques Fesch and Cell 18 : Unedited Letters of Jacques Fesch Guillotined on October 1, 1957 at the Age of 27
A rare insight into the spiritual journey of a young man condemned and executed in France in 1957.
250 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1998
13 people are currently reading
119 people want to read
About the author
Jacques Fesch
4 books6 followersJacques Fesch was a French criminal who killed a cop and then reinvented himself while on death row. Raised as an atheist he turned devout Roman Catholic while waiting for the guillotine during his incarceration between 1954 and 1957 leading to conversion other inmates and jailers.
Until his crime Fesch had led a spoiled and vicious life. At one time he had dreams of sailing the South Pacific, leave everything and live there. And to fulfil his vision, on 24 February 1954 Fesch attempt to rob money from a money changer office to buy a boat, when he tried to escape Fesch accidentally shot policeman Jean Vergne, who was in pursuit.
Later on the press and public opinion went frenzy about the case and Fesch was sentenced to death penalty on 6 April 1957.
At first Fesch was indifferent to his plight and mocked his lawyer's Catholic faith whom he nicknamed "the panther of God". However, after a year in prison, he experienced a profound religious conversion, became very pious, and bitterly regretted his crime. He corresponded regularly with his family, notably his brother and stepmother, and kept a spiritual journal. He accepted his punishment serenely and was reconciled to his wife the night before his execution. His last journal entry was "In five hours, I will see Jesus!". An appeal for clemency to President René Coty failed, and he was guillotined.
After his death he became an example of redemption and devotion and a cause for his beatification was formally opened in 1993.
Until his crime Fesch had led a spoiled and vicious life. At one time he had dreams of sailing the South Pacific, leave everything and live there. And to fulfil his vision, on 24 February 1954 Fesch attempt to rob money from a money changer office to buy a boat, when he tried to escape Fesch accidentally shot policeman Jean Vergne, who was in pursuit.
Later on the press and public opinion went frenzy about the case and Fesch was sentenced to death penalty on 6 April 1957.
At first Fesch was indifferent to his plight and mocked his lawyer's Catholic faith whom he nicknamed "the panther of God". However, after a year in prison, he experienced a profound religious conversion, became very pious, and bitterly regretted his crime. He corresponded regularly with his family, notably his brother and stepmother, and kept a spiritual journal. He accepted his punishment serenely and was reconciled to his wife the night before his execution. His last journal entry was "In five hours, I will see Jesus!". An appeal for clemency to President René Coty failed, and he was guillotined.
After his death he became an example of redemption and devotion and a cause for his beatification was formally opened in 1993.
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Displaying 1 - 6 of 6 reviews
November 13, 2016
Catholicism, since I converted in 2004, has always had a beautiful stronghold over me. One aspect of that powerful influence has always stemmed from the fascinating lives of the saints and those on the path to sainthood. Over the years, I have certainly read my lion’s share of biographies on these remarkable holy men, women, teenagers and even children. Their life stories, from antiquity to the present day, are so individualistic, so unique and touching because of their unbridled openness and allowance of divine grace to penetrate into the core of their consciousness, their spirit. I always thought, at least at the onset of my religious journey, that a person had to be unquestionably perfect to be thought of as a saint, someone beyond reproach who founded a religious order or who lived an austere life of poverty, chastity and obedience or someone who was a martyr. And while, for the most part, that is usually the case, it is not always so. And the life story of Jacques Fesch illustrates that clearly.
Growing up in a lukewarm Catholic family where atheistic nihilism ruled the roost, Jacques Fesch was a boat without a port, floating hither and thither without the framework of love in his life. Love was not completely absent, but it was not grounded in anything transcendent, a higher truth: God. Materialism and careerism were poor substitutes, yet, that seemed to be the only thing available to Jacques Fesch. During his life he was looking for something, but at every avenue to which he turned, more day-to-day worldly hardness greeted him. As that was so, he delved deeper and deeper into unrealistic dreams and fantasies. Mental escapism of the highest order. That combined with the inherent flaws of his character-immaturity, an attitude of entitlement, irresponsibility as well as a pervasive hard-bitten cynicism-made his whole person hard as marble. To compensate for his inner coldness, he became a lust filled playboy, sleeping around and siring two children. Not content with the direction of his life, he hungered to live a life on the sea. To financially fund an endeavor of that magnitude he needed money; denied the capital by his father, he chose to rob a seller of gold coins to make his unrealistic dreams come true. However, in the process of that robbery, a police officer was shot and killed. But all this is a setup to what is truly remarkable about Jacques Fesch: his conversion and his letters and journal entries - literary works in their own right that are so profoundly theological and clear-cut and comforting they are almost supernatural in nature. When you read the letters, you can sense the Dark Night of the Soul and the despondency as well as the divine graces of mystical elevation. Yet his prose is simultaneously blunt and eloquent while not at all diminishing the hard but loving truths of his insights. It is as if he himself is not fully capable of what he is writing down, but he is being supernaturally infused with the knowledge that he is expressing. He is a channeler or a conduit of God’s mercy, as were the authors of the Gospel books.
His beginning journey behind bars and eventual execution by means of the guillotine in 1957, however, was anything but open and holy. Initially, he was caustic and insulting to his Catholic lawyer who defended him. And he upped the anti with his defiance, refusing to acknowledge the crimes for which he was charged. For his lawyer and for those who loved him, he was a public relations nightmare. But in the solitariness of his cell, away from the media and public din, he was able to look inward, and in that process became suddenly attuned to a supernatural voice counseling and urging him to accept the truth of faith to which he had so smugly abandoned years earlier. Questioning his experience but not fully denying it altogether, the door to his soul was left slightly ajar. And because that hardness had cracked just a little bit, Jesus Christ was able to penetrate and condescend down to Jacques Fesch and to be moved for him. Sensing that unearthly love, unlike anything he had experienced before, he became immediately transformed, and that transformation is beautifully illustrated in these stunning letters. To say that these letters conveyed a “Wow!” factor for me is to put it mildly. Faith is a wonderful and metamorphic gift. People just have to learn to be humble enough to ask for it. In the late eighties the Archbishop of Paris opened a diocesan inquiry into his life, thus paving the way for the cause for his beatification, which was formally opened in 1993. Now instead of being known as Jacques Fesch the murderer, he is Servant of God Jacques Fesch, the repentant murderer who through the blood and truth of the Cross will one day hopefully be counted among His elect.
Growing up in a lukewarm Catholic family where atheistic nihilism ruled the roost, Jacques Fesch was a boat without a port, floating hither and thither without the framework of love in his life. Love was not completely absent, but it was not grounded in anything transcendent, a higher truth: God. Materialism and careerism were poor substitutes, yet, that seemed to be the only thing available to Jacques Fesch. During his life he was looking for something, but at every avenue to which he turned, more day-to-day worldly hardness greeted him. As that was so, he delved deeper and deeper into unrealistic dreams and fantasies. Mental escapism of the highest order. That combined with the inherent flaws of his character-immaturity, an attitude of entitlement, irresponsibility as well as a pervasive hard-bitten cynicism-made his whole person hard as marble. To compensate for his inner coldness, he became a lust filled playboy, sleeping around and siring two children. Not content with the direction of his life, he hungered to live a life on the sea. To financially fund an endeavor of that magnitude he needed money; denied the capital by his father, he chose to rob a seller of gold coins to make his unrealistic dreams come true. However, in the process of that robbery, a police officer was shot and killed. But all this is a setup to what is truly remarkable about Jacques Fesch: his conversion and his letters and journal entries - literary works in their own right that are so profoundly theological and clear-cut and comforting they are almost supernatural in nature. When you read the letters, you can sense the Dark Night of the Soul and the despondency as well as the divine graces of mystical elevation. Yet his prose is simultaneously blunt and eloquent while not at all diminishing the hard but loving truths of his insights. It is as if he himself is not fully capable of what he is writing down, but he is being supernaturally infused with the knowledge that he is expressing. He is a channeler or a conduit of God’s mercy, as were the authors of the Gospel books.
His beginning journey behind bars and eventual execution by means of the guillotine in 1957, however, was anything but open and holy. Initially, he was caustic and insulting to his Catholic lawyer who defended him. And he upped the anti with his defiance, refusing to acknowledge the crimes for which he was charged. For his lawyer and for those who loved him, he was a public relations nightmare. But in the solitariness of his cell, away from the media and public din, he was able to look inward, and in that process became suddenly attuned to a supernatural voice counseling and urging him to accept the truth of faith to which he had so smugly abandoned years earlier. Questioning his experience but not fully denying it altogether, the door to his soul was left slightly ajar. And because that hardness had cracked just a little bit, Jesus Christ was able to penetrate and condescend down to Jacques Fesch and to be moved for him. Sensing that unearthly love, unlike anything he had experienced before, he became immediately transformed, and that transformation is beautifully illustrated in these stunning letters. To say that these letters conveyed a “Wow!” factor for me is to put it mildly. Faith is a wonderful and metamorphic gift. People just have to learn to be humble enough to ask for it. In the late eighties the Archbishop of Paris opened a diocesan inquiry into his life, thus paving the way for the cause for his beatification, which was formally opened in 1993. Now instead of being known as Jacques Fesch the murderer, he is Servant of God Jacques Fesch, the repentant murderer who through the blood and truth of the Cross will one day hopefully be counted among His elect.
July 19, 2023
A painful and beautiful collection of letters written by Jacques Fesch during his imprisonment before his execution at the age of 27, this collection allows glimpses into the mystery of the working of God’s mercy and Grace in a troubled soul. Jacques’ story shows how truly no one is beyond hope, and how the most lost and miserable among men can become the most happy of all.
September 8, 2024
This tool me soooooo ridiculously long to read which I think is probably the main reason for my rating. Reading 250 pages of letters from prison is not the most digestible thing and while there were some beautiful spiritual nuggets, I just got tired of it at some point.
Really holding on to reflections of suffering and accepting the reality in which we are invited into by the Lord.
Really holding on to reflections of suffering and accepting the reality in which we are invited into by the Lord.
June 9, 2025
Testemunho impactante de fé
August 25, 2012
This is really two books in one. Light Over the Scaffold is Jacques Fesch's letters from prison and Cell 18, his unedited letters written to his mother in-law. In both sets of letters, the reader is witness to the events that lead to Fesch's arrest and imprisonment, to his sentence of death by guillotine, and in the midst of this, his amazing conversion.
In reading his letters, we also see what good God can bring from evil in a repentant soul.
As conversion stories go, this is a must read.
There is some overlap of letters between the two sections, but not enough to call it repetitive.
In reading his letters, we also see what good God can bring from evil in a repentant soul.
As conversion stories go, this is a must read.
There is some overlap of letters between the two sections, but not enough to call it repetitive.
Displaying 1 - 6 of 6 reviews