Place Fernand Lafargue

This guide to Place Fernand Lafargue in Bordeaux centers on le pendard, the city's official executioner, who worked this square when it was known as the Vieux Marche. It traces how the post was filled not by a professional but by a condemned criminal trading his life for the one job nobody else would take, and the punishments carried out here under the city's medieval council. Picture him in his blue livery, moving among the fish and meat stalls of the old market.