Personal Life
Sanson's hobbies included the dissection of his victims and the production of medicines using herbs he grew in his garden. In his free time he liked to play the violin and cello, listened to Christoph Willibald Gluck, and often met with his longtime friend Tobias Schmidt, a well-regarded German maker of musical instruments who would later build Sanson's guillotine.
An anecdote reports that Charles-Henri Sanson after his retirement met Napoléon Bonaparte and was asked if he could still sleep well after having executed more than three thousand people. Sanson's laconic answer was, "If emperors, kings and dictators can sleep well, why shouldn't an executioner?"
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