Le Triomphe de la Guillotine en EnferNicolas Antoine Taunay

•Reserved for the lower classes

•Resulted in a slow strangulation

•Neck breaking techniques had

not been developed yet

•All religious heretics were

burned at the stake•A merciful executioner would strangle the condemned before the flames engulfed them

•Condemned would be strapped to the wheel and tortured or put to the “Question”•Used on murderers and bandits to determine whether or not they acted alone

•Used for criminals convicted of

assaulting the King or a

member of the clergy

•It was the final blow in the

condemned’s execution

•They were first put to the

question

•Then hanged till near death

•When near death they were

drawn and quartered as a final

insult

•Often required the executioner

to sever the victims tendons

before the horses could

accomplish the task

•Reserved only for nobility

•Performed with either a sword

or an axe

•Often took multiple swings

resulting in a gruesome and

painful experience for all

involved

•Born 28 May 1738 in Saintes

•There is a popular story regarding

the circumstances of his birth

•His mother inadvertently bore

witness to a man being broken on

the wheel. She was so distressed

by what she had witnessed that

she went into premature labor

•This is said to be the reason for

his drive to reform the French

penal code and bring equality to

capital punishment

•He left the Jesuit order in 1763 to

pursue the study of medicine

•In 1770 he received his doctorate

•In 1788 Dr. Guillotin put the Pétition des Six-Corps des Marchands de

Paris before the King

•This was the first ever petition to directly address the King

•The petition made four demands

•The number of representatives from the Third Estate should

be at least equal to the total number of representatives of

the other two estates

•Votes were to be counted by heads

•The deputies of the Third Estate should be chosen from this

Order

•The representatives of the Third Estate will be in proportion

to the franchise

•This led to Guillotin being elected to the Constituent Assembly as a

deputy of the Third Estate

•Article 1. Crimes of the same kind shall be punished by the same kinds of punishment,

whatever the rank or estate of the criminal.

•Article 2. Offenses and crimes are personal, and no stain shall attach to the family from

the criminal’s execution or loss of civil rights. The members of the family are in no

way dishonored and remain, without exception, eligible for all kinds of

profession, employment and civic dignity.

•Article 3. Under no circumstances whatever may order be made of the confiscation of

the goods of a condemned man.

•Article 4. The body of the executed man shall be returned to the family, should the

family so request. Normal burial shall in all cases be permitted and the register shall

not specify the circumstances of the death.

•Article 5. No one may reproach a citizen with the execution or loss of civil rights

incurred by a relative. Should anyone dare to do so, he shall be reprimanded by a

judge.

•Article 6. The method of punishment shall be the same for all persons on whom the law

shall pronounce a sentence of death, whatever the crime of which they are guilty. The

criminal shall be decapitated. Decapitation is to be effected by a simple

mechanism.

•Guillotin’s sixth article was passed 3 June 1791

•Despite passing it would be nearly a year before the guillotine would take

its place as France’s official method of execution

•After much delay, Dr. Antoine Louis, the permanent secretary of the Academy

of Surgery, was enlisted to design the simple mechanism

•Design was given to Tobias Schmidt a German harpsichord maker

•Guillotine was first tested on three corpses at Bicêtre Hospital on 17 April

1792

•It failed to sever the neck of the last corpse a particularly large man due

to the convex shape of the blade

•There is an ironic story that says Louis XVI suggested that the blade should be

oblique

•Story was told by Clément-Henri Sanson and later it is included in

Alexandre Dumas’ book, The Tragedies of 1793

•Designed by Dr. Antoine Louis

•Permanent Secretary of the

Academy of Surgery

•Machine was originally called

louison or louisette in his honor

•Based on the Halifax Gibbet

•Built by Tobias Schmidt

•German Harpsichord Maker

•Painted red to hide the blood

•Was placed on a tall scaffold in

order for crowd to have a better

view

•The condemned is not told ahead of

time and instead are dragged from

their cell the morning of while still

asleep

•They are allowed a final meal and a

chance to write a letter to loved

ones

•Next they are given the toilette du

condamne

•The collar of the shirt is removed

and their hair is cut above the neck

•Loaded in cart and paraded through

Paris on their way to the Guillotine

•Once there it takes only seconds

from the moment they step on the

stairs

•2

5 April 1792 the guillotine takes its’ first live victim, Nicolas Jacques

Pelletier, an armed robber

•A

t the guillotines first appearance a massive crowd gathered to witness the

event

• From the time the condemned mounted the scaffold till his death was less than a

minute

• Crowd was disappointed by this.

•T

his attitude would quickly change as the number of executions rapidly grew

•D

uring the revolution it is estimated that nearly 40,000 people were

executed by the guillotine

•Most faced the guillotine with

stoicism

•She became hysterical begging

for her life and struggling with

the executioners

•She appeared so pitiful that the

masses began to feel sorry for

her and even wished for her to

be spared

•It was speculated by many that

if all would have acted in this

manner the guillotine would not

have taken a central role in the

revolution

• The Guillotine would remain a public spectacle well into the 20th

century

•The government tried to reduce the visibility of public executions

•First by removing the guillotine from atop the scaffold

•Painting it a dark brown instead of the bright red of

revolutionary times

•Executions began to take place in the early morning in an

attempt to lessen the crowds

•In 1939 the government finally put a halt to public executions

and moved the guillotine inside the walls of the prison

•The guillotine would remain in use until capital punishment was

abolished in 1981

•The last execution took place on 10 September 1977

•The Reign of Terror began in June of 1793

•It would transform the guillotine, which had been derived from

humanitarian intentions, from a machine of justice into a tool the

revolutionaries would use to spread fear

•The revolutionary tribunal would use the guillotine to dispatch all enemies of

the revolution including:

•Nobility

•Clergy

•Anyone not sharing their views

•The Terror would witness the rise and fall of many prominent French

revolutionaries and ultimately their death beneath the blade

•It would end with the execution of Maximillien Robespierre, the architect of

the Terror

•A leading member of the

revolution and the first

president of the Committee of

Public Safety

•He played an large role in the

overthrow of the monarchy

•When Robespierre grew

threatened by Danton he

deemed him a moderate and

had him executed

•Executed on 5 April 1794

•Once atop the scaffold he told

Sanson, “Show my head to the

people, it’s worth looking at!”

•Born in Arras in 1758

•He was a prominent lawyer and

orator

•Originally argued to abolish

capital punishment

•During the Revolution he rapidly

put himself in a prominent

position as the leader of the

Jacobins

•During the Reign of Terror he

acted as a de-facto emperor

•Used the guillotine to eliminate

anyone he saw as an enemy of

the revolution

•After the fall of the Jacobins he

too fell to the guillotine on 27 July

1794

•She killed Jean-Paul Marat•He was known for his radical journal “The Peoples Journal”•A leading member of the revolutionaries who was loved by the people

•She was taken to the guillotine dressed in red, which was normally reserved for those who commit regicide•After being beheaded the assistant executioner lifted her head from the basket and slapped it

•It is said that her face blushed and became filled with indignation•This led to the belief that the head survives for some time after decapitation

•Allegedly from an account of Sanson•Two opposing members of the National Assembly were executed on the same day. Their heads were placed in the same sack at which point one bit the other so hard that their heads could not be separated

•In 1880 Dr. Dassy de Ligniéres went as far as to pump blood from a living dog into the severed head of Louis Menesclou

•He witness the face redden and the lips swell at which point he announced, “This head is about to speak”

•In 1905 Dr. Beaurieux addressed a recently severed head by calling his name

•On the first time he witnessed the eyelids open and the pupils focus on him•He called out a second time and again the eyelids opened and the head looked at him with “unmistakably alive eyes”•The doctor attempted a third time but received no reaction

•As late as 1956 similar experiments were being carried out on recently severed heads

•In order to attend one had to prove they had a family member that was guillotined

•People would forge documentation

•Guests dressed à la victime•Women wore dresses with large red x’s across their upper back•Both women and men would were red ribbon or red thread around there neck•They also cut there hair to imitate the toilette du condamne•They would greet each other by abruptly dropping their head- as if it had just been cut off

•In 1820 he wrote “The Last Day

of a Condemned Man”

•It is written as if it was a

manuscript written by a

condemned man and left

behind in his cell

•It describes what he felt would

be a truly nightmarish ordeal

•It also plays an ominous role in

Hugo’s “Les Miserables”

•Wrote “The Tragedies of 1793”

•“The Woman With the Velvet

Collar”

•In which a man falls in love

with a beautiful stranger

wearing a velvet collar

•He spends the night with her

and in the middle of

lovemaking her head falls off

•It was only held on by the

collar

•He wrote the “Eleventh Hour

Guest”

•A story in which a guillotine

enthusiast pays to perform the

duties of the executioner

•Took a contrasting position to

Hugo and Dumas

•Believed that by removing the

guillotine from the scaffold you

cheapened the condemned’s

death and robbed them of their

stage

Arasse, Daniel. The Guillotine and the Terror. Trans.

Christopher Miller. London: The Penguin Press,

1989.

"Axe, Wheel, Guillotine: Seven Generations of

Executioners." New York Times 4 June 1876: 10.

Fife, Graeme. The Terror: Under the Shadow of the

Guillotine. New York: St. Martin's Press, 2004.

Gerould, Daniel. Guillotine: It's Legend and Lore. New

York: Blast Books Inc., 1992.

Opie, Robert Frederick. Guillotine. Phoenix Mill: Sutton

Publishing Limited, 2003.

Soubiran, André. The Good Dr. Guillotin and His

Strange Device. Trans. Malcolm MacCraw.

London: Souvenir Press, 1964.