Guillotine
This article is about the machine used for executions. For alternative meanings, see: Guillotine (disambiguation).The
guillotine is a device used for carrying out
executions by
decapitation. It consists of a tall upright frame from which is suspended a heavy
blade. This blade is raised with a rope and then allowed to drop, severing the victim's head.
The guillotine became famous (and acquired its name) in
France at the time of the
French Revolution. However, guillotine-like devices, such as the
Halifax Gibbet (an English execution device that dates from the 13th century) and
Scottish Maiden seen on the right, existed and were used for executions in several
European countries long before the French Revolution. The first documented use of The Maiden was in
1307 in
Ireland[Robertson, Patrick The Book of Firsts Clarkson Potter, 1974.], and there are accounts of similar devices in
Italy and
Switzerland dating back to the
15th century. However, the French developed the machine further and became the first nation to use it as a standard execution method.
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Portrait of Dr. Guillotin |
The device derives its name from
Joseph-Ignace Guillotin, a French
doctor and member of the Revolutionary
National Assembly, on whose suggestion it was introduced. Dr. Guillotin proposed the use of a mechanical device to carry out the death penalty. The basis for his recommendation is believed to have been his perception that it was a
humane form of execution, contrasting with the methods used in pre-revolutionary,
ancien régime (old regime) France. In France, before the guillotine, members of the
nobility were beheaded with a sword or axe, while commoners were usually hanged, or more gruesome methods of executions were used (
the wheel,
burning at the stake, etc.). In case of decapitation, it sometimes took repeated blows to sever the head completely. The family of the victim or the victim themselves would sometimes pay the executioner to ensure that the blade was sharp in order for a quick and relatively painless death. The guillotine was thus perceived to deliver an instantaneous death without risk of misses. Furthermore, having only one method of execution was seen as an expression of equality among citizens. The guillotine was adopted as the official means of execution on the
20 March 1792.
Antoine Louis (1723–1792), member of the Académie Chirurgicale, developed the concept put forward by Guillotin, and it was from his design that the first guillotine was built. The guillotine was first called
louison or
louisette, but the press preferred
guillotine as it had a nicer ring to it. Antoine Louis (and perhaps others) introduced several improvements over the guillotine's ancestors, notably the characteristic angled blade and the
lunette — the two-part circular collar that held the victim's head in place. On
April 25,
1792,
highwayman Nicolas J. Pelletier became the first person executed by guillotine.
Guillotin himself died, not on his invention as myth would have it, but of natural causes on
May 26,
1814. The descendants of Dr. Guillotin have since changed their surname because of the association with a method of execution.
The guillotine was from then on the only
legal execution method in France until the abolition of the death penalty in 1981, apart from certain crimes against the security of the state, which entailed execution by
firing squad.
The Reign of Terror
The period from June
1793 to July
1794 in France is known as the
Reign of Terror or simply "the Terror". The upheaval following the overthrow of the
monarchy, fear of invasion by foreign monarchist powers and fear of
counterrevolution from pro-monarchy parties within France all combined to throw the nation into chaos and the government into frenzied paranoia. Most of the democratic reforms of the revolution were suspended and wholesale executions by guillotine began. Former
King Louis XVI and Queen
Marie Antoinette were executed in 1793.
Maximilien Robespierre became one of the most powerful men in the government, and the figure most associated with the Terror. The
Revolutionary Tribunal sentenced thousands to the guillotine.
Nobility and commoners, intellectuals, politicians and prostitutes, all were liable to be executed on little or no grounds; suspicion of "crimes against liberty" was enough to earn one an appointment with "Madame Guillotine" (also referred to as "The National Razor"). Estimates of the death toll range between 15,000 and 40,000. In July 1794, Robespierre himself was guillotined.
At this time, Paris executions were carried out in the Place de la Revolution (former Place
Louis XV and current
Place de la Concorde) (near the
Louvre); the guillotine stood in the corner near the Hôtel Crillon where the statue of Brest can be found today.
For a time, executions by guillotine were a popular entertainment that attracted great crowds of spectators. Vendors would sell programs listing the names of those scheduled to die. Regulars would come day after day and vie for the best seats. Parents would bring their children. By the end of the Terror the crowds had thinned drastically. Excessive repetition had staled even this most grisly of entertainments, and audiences grew bored.
The guillotine retired
The last
public guillotining was of
Eugen Weidmann, who was convicted of six murders. He was beheaded on
June 17,
1939, outside the prison Saint-Pierre rue Georges Clemenceau 5 at
Versailles, which is now the Palais de Justice. The allegedly scandalous behaviour of some of the onlookers on this occasion, and an incorrect assembly of the apparatus, as well as the fact it was secretly filmed, caused the authorities to decide that executions in the future were to take place in the prison courtyard. The last execution in France was of
Hamida Djandoubi and took place on
September 10,
1977.
Just as there were guillotine-like devices in countries other than France before 1792, likewise some countries, especially in Europe, have continued to use this method of execution into modern times.
A notable example is
Germany, where the guillotine is known in German as
Fallbeil ("falling axe"). It has been used in various German states since the 17th century, becoming the usual method of execution in
Napoleonic times in many parts of Germany. Guillotine and firing squad were the legal methods of execution in
German Empire (1871-1918) and
Weimar Republic (1919-1933). The
Nazis employed it extensively: twenty guillotines were in use in Germany which, from 1938, included
Austria. In Nazi Germany beheading by guillotine was the usual method of executing convicted criminals as opposed to political enemies, who were usually either gassed, hanged or shot. An exception would be the six members of the
White Rose anti-Nazi resistance organization, who were beheaded on
February 22,
1943. The Nazis have been estimated to have guillotined some 40,000 people in Germany and Austria; possibly more than were beheaded during the French Revolution. The last execution in
German Federal Republic occurred on
11 May 1949, when 24 year old Berthold Wehmeyer was beheaded for murder and robbery in
Moabit prison in
West Berlin. West Germany abolished the death penalty in 1949, East Germany in 1987 and Austria in 1968. In
Sweden, where beheading was the mandatory method of execution, the guillotine was used for its last execution in 1910 in
LÃ¥ngholmen prison,
Stockholm.
Although the guillotine has never been used in the
United States as a legal method of execution (it had been considered in the 19th century before the
electric chair), in 1996 Georgia state legislator Doug Teper proposed the guillotine as a replacement for the
electric chair as the state's method of execution to enable the convicts to act as
organ donors. The proposal was never adopted.
From its first use, there has been debate as to whether the guillotine always provided as swift a death as Dr. Guillotin hoped. With previous methods of execution, there was little concern about the suffering inflicted. But where the guillotine was invented specifically to be "humane," the issue was seriously considered. Furthermore, there is the possibility that the very swiftness of the guillotine only prolonged the victim's suffering. The blade cuts quickly enough that there is relatively little impact on the brain case, and perhaps less likelihood of immediate unconsciousness than with a more violent decapitation.
Audiences to guillotinings told numerous stories of blinking eyelids, moving eyes, movement of the mouth, even an expression of "unequivocal indignation" on the face of the decapitated
Charlotte Corday when her cheek was slapped. Anatomists and other scientists in several countries have tried to perform more definitive experiments on severed human heads as recently as 1956. Inevitably the evidence is only anecdotal. What appears to be a head responding to the sound of its name, or to the pain of a pinprick, may be only random muscle twitching or automatic reflex action, with no awareness involved. At worst, it seems that the massive drop in cerebral blood pressure would cause a victim to lose consciousness in 7 seconds or less.
[Excerpt from British Medical Journal, Vol 294: February, 1987, quoting Proges Medical of July 9 1886, on the subject of research into "living heads".]The following report was written by a
Dr. Beaurieux, who experimented with the head of a condemned prisoner by the name of
Henri Languille, on
June 28,
1905:
''''"Here, then, is what I was able to note immediately after the decapitation: the eyelids and lips of the guillotined man worked in irregularly rhythmic contractions for about five or six seconds. This phenomenon has been remarked by all those finding themselves in the same conditions as myself for observing what happens after the severing of the neck...''"I waited for several seconds. The spasmodic movements ceased. [...] It was then that I called in a strong, sharp voice: 'Languille!' I saw the eyelids slowly lift up, without any spasmodic contractions â€" I insist advisedly on this peculiarity â€" but with an even movement, quite distinct and normal, such as happens in everyday life, with people awakened or torn from their thoughts.
''"Next Languille's eyes very definitely fixed themselves on mine and the pupils focused themselves. I was not, then, dealing with the sort of vague dull look without any expression, that can be observed any day in dying people to whom one speaks: I was dealing with undeniably living eyes which were looking at me. After several seconds, the eyelids closed again, slowly and evenly, and the head took on the same appearance as it had had before I called out.
"It was at that point that I called out again and, once more, without any spasm, slowly, the eyelids lifted and undeniably living eyes fixed themselves on mine with perhaps even more penetration than the first time. Then there was a further closing of the eyelids, but now less complete. I attempted the effect of a third call; there was no further movement â€" and the eyes took on the glazed look which they have in the dead.''
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Capital punishment*
Use of death penalty worldwide*
Decapitation*
French Revolution*
Guillotine choke*
Plötzensee - site of much-used Third Reich guillotine
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The Guillotine Headquarters with a gallery, history, name list, and quiz.
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L'art de bien couper a French site with a quite complete list of guillotined criminals, pictures, history.
