The first phase ("épuration sauvage") consisted of popular convictions, summary executions, and the shaving of women's heads. Estimates by police prefects made in 1948 and 1952 were that as many as six thousand executions occurred before the liberation of France, and four thousand thereafter. The second phase, "épuration légale" (legal purge), began on 26 and 27 June 1944 with Charles de Gaulle's ordinances on the judgment of collaborators by the "commissions d'épuration"; the commissions sentenced approximately 120,000 persons. Charles Maurras, the leader of the royalist "Action française", was, for example, sentenced to life imprisonment on 25 January 1945. The third phase was more lenient towards collaborators; the trials of Philippe Pétain and the writer, Louis-Ferdinand Céline are examples of actions taken during this phase.