THE FINAL SWING

Love and hate were once the main purveyors of the gallows. The tragic fates of three women executed by hanging in the days of New France and the United-Canada bear witness to this. Reconstructing the events from historical articles and, above all, from the Ottawa Criminal Archives, the author recounts these little-known stories that animated the lives of former Canadians:•The crime and hanging of a young Montreal slave, Marie-Joseph Angélique, who, out of hatred, set fire to half the city of Montreal in 1734.•the murders perpetrated by the legendary Marie-Josephte Corriveau, and her execution in 1763, on the very spot where Quebec’s National Assembly now stands.•the crimes committed by Marie-Anne Crispin, the murder of her husband and that of her lover’s wife, as well as her problematic death on the gallows with her accomplice in 1858, which provoked an extremely violent riot in the streets of Montreal.This plunge into the heart of the crimes, trials and executions gives us an unusual opportunity to relive a part of Quebec’s judicial History.