Guillotine
51272
224329537
2008-07-08T11:00:11Z
RedSpruce
474086
rv; unnecessary
{{otheruses4|the decapitation device|other uses|Guillotine (disambiguation)}}
[[Image:guillotinemodels.jpg|thumb|right|Historic replicas (1:6 scale) of the two main types of French guillotines: Model 1792, left, and Model 1872 (state as of 1907), right]]
The '''guillotine''' ([[Help:IPA|pronounced]] {{IPA|/ˈgijətin/}} or {{IPA|/ˈgɪlətin/}} in English; {{IPA|[gijɔtin]}} in French) was a device used for carrying out [[capital punishment|execution]]s by [[decapitation]]. It consists of a tall upright frame from which a heavy [[blade]] is suspended. This blade is raised with a rope and then allowed to drop, severing the victim's head from his or her body. The device is noted for long being the main method of execution in [[France]] and, more particularly, for its use during the [[French Revolution]]. The guillotine also "became a part of popular culture, celebrated as the people's avenger by supporters of the Revolution and vilified as the preeminent symbol of [[the Terror]] by opponents."<ref>R. Po-chia Hsia, Lynn Hunt, Thomas R. Martin, Barbara H. Rosenwein, and Bonnie G. Smith, ''The Making of the West, Peoples and Culture, A Concise History, Volume II: Since 1340'', Second Edition (New York: Bedford/St. Martin’s, 2007), 664.</ref>
==Development==
The guillotine became [[infamy|infamous]] (and acquired its name) in [[France]] at the time of the [[French Revolution]]; however, guillotine-like devices, such as the [[Halifax Gibbet]] and [[maiden (beheading)|Scottish Maiden]] seen on the right, existed and were used for executions in several [[Europe]]an countries long before the French Revolution, the earliest reference to the Halifax Gibbet dating back to 1286. The first documented use of The (Irish) Maiden was in 1307 in [[Ireland]],<ref>Robertson, Patrick ''The Book of Firsts'' Clarkson Potter, 1974.</ref> and there are accounts of similar devices in [[Italy]] and [[Switzerland]] dating back to the 15th century. Nevertheless, the French developed the machine further and became the first nation to use it as a standard execution method.
[[Image:DrGuillotin.jpg|thumb|left|Portrait of Dr. Guillotin]]
[[Image:The Maiden dsc05364.jpg|thumb|right|px=150|The [[Maiden (beheading)|Scottish Maiden]], an older [[Scotland|Scottish]] design. This example is an exhibit at the [[Museum of Scotland]], [[Edinburgh]]]]
In August 1788 France’s High Executioner [[Charles Henri Sanson|Charles-Henri Sanson]], while attempting to execute a prisoner by [[Breaking wheel|breaking on the wheel]], was assaulted by a mob who freed the prisoner, and destroyed the wheel. Sensing the growing discontent [[Louis XVI of France|Louis XVI]] banned the use of the wheel.<ref name="MM">{{cite video| people = Executive Producer Don Cambou | title = Modern Marvels: Death Devices || publisher =A&E Television Networks | year =2001}}</ref> In 1791 as the [[French Revolution]] progressed, the [[National Assembly]] (at the suggestion of Assembly member [[Joseph-Ignace Guillotin]]) sought a new method to be used on all condemned people regardless of class. Their concerns contributed to the idea that capital punishment’s purpose was the ending of life instead of the infliction of pain.<ref name="MM"/> A committee was formed under [[Antoine Louis]], physician to the King and Secretary to the Academy of Surgery.<ref name="MM"/> Joseph-Ignace Guillotin, a professor of anatomy at the facility of medicine in Paris, was also on the committee. The group was influenced by the Italian Mannaia (or Mannaja), the [[Maiden (beheading)|Scottish Maiden]], and the [[Halifax Gibbet]]. While these prior instruments usually crushed the neck or used blunt force to take off a head, their device used a crescent blade and a lunette (a hinged two part yoke to immobilize the victim’s neck).<ref name="MM"/> An apocryphal story claims that King Louis XVI (an amateur locksmith) recommended a triangular blade with a beveled edge be used instead of a crescent blade.<ref name="MM"/>
On [[October 6]] [[1791]], a law was passed that "every person condemned to death should be beheaded". Guillotin's suggestion had by then been almost forgotten and there was some debate on how exactly such sentences were to be carried out. Charles-Henri Sanson, the High Executioner, gave the opinion that beheading with a sword was cruel and uncertain, and a report by [[Antoine Louis]], the secretary to the Académie Chirurgicale (Academy of Surgeons), dated [[March 7]] [[1792]] recommended a machine such as Guillotin had previously described, but without mentioning Guillotin himself.<ref name=chambers>{{cite journal | last = | first = | authorlink = | coauthors = | title = Dr Guillotin | journal = Chambers's Edinburgh Journal | volume = I | issue = | pages = pp. 218–221 | publisher = | location = | date = January - June 1844 | url = http://books.google.co.uk/books?id=LLQCAAAAIAAJ&pg=RA3-PA218 | doi = | id = | accessdate = 2008-09-03}}</ref>
Laquiante, an officer of the [[Strasbourg]] criminal court, made a design for a beheading machine and employed [[Tobias Schmidt]], a [[Germany|German]] [[engineer]] and [[harpsichord]] maker, to construct a prototype. Antoine Louis is also credited with the design of the prototype; however, it was Schmidt who suggested placing the blade at an oblique 45-degree angle and changing it from the curved blade.<ref>{{cite web | last = | first = | authorlink = | coauthors = | title = Joseph Ignace Guillotin | work = | publisher = whonamedit.com | date = | url = http://www.whonamedit.com/doctor.cfm/2275.html | format = | doi = | accessdate = 2008-03-09}}</ref>
Although Guillotin did not actually contribute to the machine’s design, it was his name that it would carry throughout history, thanks to a comic song about Guillotin and his proposal which appeared in the Royalist periodical, [[Actes des Apôtres]], shortly after the 1791 debate;<ref name=chambers/> the machine was originally called ''louison'' or ''louisette''.
On [[April 25]], [[1792]] the first victim of the device was a [[highwayman]] named [[Nicolas Jacques Pelletier]]. The crowds marveled at the machine's speed and precision.<ref name="MM"/>
The basis for the machine's success was the belief that it was a [[humane]] form of execution, contrasting with the methods used in pre-revolutionary, ''[[ancien régime]]'' France. In France, before the guillotine, members of the [[nobility]] were beheaded with a sword or axe, while commoners were usually hanged, a form of death that could take minutes or longer. Other more gruesome methods of executions were also used, such as [[Breaking wheel|the wheel]], [[burning at the stake]], etc. In the case of decapitation, it also sometimes took repeated blows to sever the head completely, and it was also very likely for the condemned to slowly bleed to death from their wounds before the head could be severed. The condemned or the family of the condemned would sometimes pay the executioner to ensure that the blade was sharp in order to provide for a quick and relatively painless death.
The guillotine was thus perceived to deliver an immediate 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 [[March 20]] [[1792]]. The guillotine was from then on the only [[capital punishment in France|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]].
When Guillotin himself died, it was not on his namesake as legend would have it, but instead of natural causes on [[May 26]], [[1814]].
==Guillotine in France==
===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]], invasion by foreign monarchist powers and the [[Revolt in the Vendee]] combined to throw the nation into chaos and the government into frenzied paranoia. Most of the democratic reforms of the revolution were suspended and large-scale executions by guillotine began. The first political prisoner to be executed was Collenot d'Angremont of the National Guard, followed soon after by the King's trusted collaborator in his ill-fated attempt to moderate the Revolution, [[Arnaud de Laporte]], both in 1792. Former [[Louis XVI of France|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. [[French nobility|Nobility]] and commoners, intellectuals, politicians and prostitutes,{{Fact|date=June 2007}} 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.{{Fact|date=June 2007}}
[[Image:Guillotine.jpeg|thumb|right|Public guillotining in [[Lons-le-Saunier]], 1897.
Picture taken on [[20 April]] [[1897]], in front of the jailhouse of Lons-le-Saunier, Jura. The man who was going to be beheaded was Pierre Vaillat, who killed two elder siblings on Christmas day, 1896, in order to rob them and was condemned for his crimes on [[9 March]] [[1897]].]]
At this time, Paris executions were carried out in the Place de la Revolution (former Place [[Louis XV of France|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.
Eventually, the National Convention had enough of the Terror, partially fearing for their own lives, and turned against Maximilien Robespierre. In July 1794 he was arrested and executed in the same fashion as those whom he had condemned. This arguably ended the Terror, as the French expressed their discontent with Robespierre's policy by guillotining him.<ref>
{{cite web
|title =The Reign of Terror
|work =French Revolution Exhibit
|url =http://www.historywiz.com/terror.htm
|accessdate = }}</ref>
===Guillotine retired===
The last ''public'' guillotining was of [[Eugène Weidmann]], who was convicted of six murders. He was beheaded on [[June 17]] [[1939]], outside the prison Saint-Pierre rue Georges Clémenceau 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. [[Jules-Henri Desfourneaux]], the presiding "number one" executioner at this time was variously reported as slow, possibly drunk, and indecisive, certainly a far cry from his well-regarded immediate predecessor Anatole Deibler. He was also prone to arguing with his cousin and "number two" [[Andr%C3%A9 Obrecht]] which led to the latter's resignation on two separate occasions, the last involving a fistfight between the pair after an execution.
The guillotine remained the official method of execution in France until France abolished the death penalty in 1981. The last guillotining in France was that of torture-murderer [[Hamida Djandoubi]] on [[September 10]], [[1977]].
==The guillotine outside France==
[[Image:Fallbeil muenchen 1854.jpg|left|thumb|200 px|German Fallbeil of 1854, Munich<br/><small>Historic replica 1:6 scale</small>]]
As has been noted, there were guillotine-like devices in countries other than France before 1792. A number of countries, especially in Europe, continued to employ this method of execution into modern times.
In [[Antwerp]], [[Belgium]], the last beheaded was [[Francis Kol]]. Convicted for robbery with murder, he received his punishment on [[1856]]-[[05-08]]. During the period [[1798]]-[[03-19]] until [[1856]]-[[03-12]], the town of [[Antwerp]] counted 19 beheadings<ref>Gazet van Mechelen, May 8th, 1956</ref>
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 [[Napoleon]]ic 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 original German guillotines resembled the French Berger 1872 model but eventually evolved into more specialised machines largely built of metal with a much heavier blade enabling shorter uprights to be used. Accompanied by a more efficient blade recovery system and the eventual removal of the tilting board (or bascule) this allowed a quicker turn-around time between executions, the victim being decapitated either face up or down depending on how the executioner predicted they would react to the sight of the machine. Those deemed likely to struggle were backed up from behind a curtain to shield their view of the device.
In 1933 [[Hitler]] had a guillotine constructed and tested. He was impressed enough to order 20 more constructed and pressed into immediate service.<ref name="MM"/> Nazi records indicate that between 1933 and 1945 16,500 people were executed in Germany by this method.<ref name="MM"/> In Nazi Germany beheading by guillotine was the usual method of executing convicted criminals as opposed to political enemies, who were usually{{Fact|date=March 2008}} either hanged or shot. By the middle of the war, however, policy changed: the six members of the [[White Rose]] anti-Nazi resistance organisation were beheaded in [[1943]], as were a hundred or more [[conscientious objectors]] from that date, including [[Franz Jagerstatter]], beheaded in Berlin on [[9 August]] [[1943]]. The last execution in Germany, other than in [[East Germany]], took place on [[11 May]] [[1949]], when 24 year old Berthold Wehmeyer was beheaded in [[Moabit]] prison, [[West Berlin]], for murder and robbery. When [[West Germany]] was formed in [[1949]], its [[Grundgesetz|constitution]] forbade the death penalty; East Germany abolished it 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 [[Långholmen 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 introduction of 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 donation|organ donors]]. The proposal was not adopted.
==Living heads==
[[Image:Execution_of_Languille_in_1905.jpg|thumb|right|300px|Execution of Languille in 1905]]
From its first use, there has been debate as to whether the guillotine always provided as swift a death as Guillotin hoped. With previous methods of execution, there was little concern about the suffering inflicted. As the guillotine was invented specifically to be "humane", however, 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 so that there is relatively little impact on the brain case, and perhaps less likelihood of immediate unconsciousness than with a more violent decapitation, or long-drop [[hanging]].
Audiences to guillotinings told numerous stories of blinking eyelids, speaking, 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 several seconds.<ref>[http://tafkac.org/medical/decapitated_head_blinking_more.html Excerpt from British Medical Journal, Vol 294: February, 1987], quoting ''Proges Medical'' of [[July 9]] [[1886]], on the subject of research into "living heads".</ref>
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]]:<div style="clear:right;"></div>
{{Quote|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 – I insist advisedly on this peculiarity – 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[...].
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 – and the eyes took on the glazed look which they have in the dead.<ref>
{{cite web
| title =Dr. Beaurieux's Report
| work =The History of the Guillotine
| url =http://www.metaphor.dk/guillotine/Pages/30sec.html
| accessdate = }}</ref>}}
==See also==
{{commons}}
{{wikiquote}}
*[[Henri Désiré Landru]]
*[[Eugen Weidmann]]
*[[Marcel Petiot]]
*[[Bals des victimes]]
*[[Decapitation]]
*[[Flying guillotine (weapon)]]
*[[Plötzensee Prison]]
*[[Use of capital punishment by nation]]
==References==
{{reflist}}
* {{cite book | author= Gerould, Daniel | title=Guillotine; Its Legend and Lore | publisher=Blast Books| year=1992 | id=ISBN 0-922233-02-0}}
==External links==
*[http://www.guillotine.dk/ The Guillotine Headquarters] with a gallery, history, name list, and quiz.
*[http://site.voila.fr/guillotine/ L'art de bien couper] a French site with a quite complete list of guillotined criminals, pictures, history.
* [http://boisdejustice.com/History/History.html Bois de justice] History of the guillotine, construction details, with rare photos (English)
* {{cite web
| last =Fabricius
| first =Jørn
| title =The Guillotine Headquarters
| date =
| url =http://www.guillotine.dk/Pages/Guillot.html
| accessdate = }}
[[Category:Execution methods]]
[[Category:Capital punishment in France]]
[[Category:Execution equipment]]
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