Guillotine

Description

The apparatus consists of a base whose form varies and on which are fixed two high vertical uprights approximately four meters, to 37 centimetres one of the other, themselves surmounted by a transverse bar and a pulley. Between these two pillars a heavy trapezoidal blade (the chopper) surmounted of a metal weight slides (the sheep) (the unit weighs 40 kilograms). The blade is assembled at the top of the amounts with a cord which passes in the pulley, and remains fixed at the transverse bar by a system of grip. Condemned to death is thorough on a vertical board which rocks horizontally, and its neck is found placed in the glasses. The glasses are a wood collar, in the shape of circle, which separates in two half-circles at will - only the upper part is mobile - and makes it possible to lock up the neck of condemned between the two amounts, preventing it from moving.

By lowering a lever located on the left amount of the machine, the grip retaining the chopper opens. The blade falls, by simple revolved, at a distance which varies according to the model (in the neighborhoods of 2,30 meters on the French models, less on the German models) before striking the neck of condemned. The head falls into a basin from zinc, in front of the machine. The body is thorough in a large wicker basket doubled of zinc, which is laterally on the right guillotine.

Origins

Under the Old Mode, there was a multitude of modes of enforcement of the capital punishment, according to the crime and the condition of condemned: the Décapitation with the sword (or the axe) was reserved for the noble S, the Pendaison with the robbers, the Bûcher with the heretics, the wheel with the highwaymen, the quartering with the regicides.

The method of decapitation mechanical is recommended in two speeches with the constituent Assembly the October 10th and February 1st 1789 by the doctor Joseph Ignace Guillotin, who regarded this method as more human than the Pendaison or decapitation using an axe. Indeed, the anguish of hung could be long, and certain decapitations with the axe were missed, requiring several blows. Guillotin estimated that the instantaneity of the punishment was the requirement and absolute of a decent death.

The October 6th 1791, the legislative Assemblée promulgates a law declaring that “very condemned to death will have the distinct head”. The apparatus was tested with the Old people's home of Bicêtre. But, in the absence of precise plans for the construction of the machine, the suggestion of Guillotin, although initially supported by Mirabeau, will put more than two years to come into force.

The first project of guillotine had a horizontal blade. It is the doctor Antoine Louis, celebrates surgeon of the time, which recommends, in a submitted report the March 7th 1792, the development of an oblique blade machine, only means of giving death to all condemned with speed and safety, which was not possible with a horizontal blade.

It is as advanced as the use of the blade obliques would have been recommended by Louis XVI itself, this one being better handyman (one knows his passion for the iron work) that manager of the businesses of the kingdom. Nothing confirms this assumption.

The manufacturer of the first guillotine was a factor of Clavecin S Prussian, established in Paris, named Tobias Schmidt, personal friend of the Bourreau of the capital Charles-Henri Sanson. Schmidt manufactured the machine for the sum of 812 books.

It should be noted that never Doctor Joseph Ignace Guillotin did not attend the least capital execution, and that, until its death which has occurred in 1814, it deplored in small committee which its name is associated with the machine of which it had done nothing but recommend the study and the use.

With final, and contrary to what many times was said and written, Doctor Joseph Ignace Guillotin was not victim of " sa" machine, but of a carbuncle with the left shoulder.

Places of execution in Paris

The first execution by means of the guillotine proceeds the April 25th 1792 on the place of Strike (current Place of the Hotel-of-City). All condemned to death from now on are carried out in this place, until the scaffold is finally transported, the August 21st, on the place of the Carousel, vis-a-vis the Palais of Tileries, for the execution of the political condemned first, called Collenot d' Angremont. Two days later it will be the turn of Arnaud de Laporte, Intendant of the Civil list and one of the chiefs of the Contre-révolution. October 13rd, the guillotine is drawn up on the place of the Revolution (current Place of the Harmony) for the execution of the robbers of the jewels of the Crown. January 21st 1793, it is again drawn up on this place for the execution of Louis XVI. The May 11th, it definitively leaves the place of the Carousel for the place of the Revolution: there are in particular carried out Marie-Antoinette of Austria, the Girondins, Philippe of Orleans and Georges Jacques Danton. The June 9th 1794, it moves Place of the Bastille then, the June 14th, place of Throne-reversed (current Place of the Nation), before returning place of the Revolution the July 27th for the execution of Maximilien de Robespierre. After the Revolution, the executions proceed again on the place of Strike. It is there that are in particular guillotines Georges Cadoudal (in 1804) and Four sergeants of the La Rochelle (in 1822). Starting from February 4th 1832, the guillotine is installed in front of the barrier Saint-Jacob (current Saint-Jacob place). It is there that are carried out Pierre-François Lacenaire (1836) and several authors of attacks against Louis-Philippe, among which Giuseppe Fieschi. The November 29th 1851, the scaffold is transferred in front of the prison from the Large Rocket (with the current site of the n° 166-168, rue de la Roquette). Y are in particular carried out Orsini (1858), author of an attack against Napoleon III, and the assassin in series Troppmann (1870). In November 1870, the scaffold disappears and the guillotine from now on is assembled to same the ground (on five always visible flagstones today street of the Cross-Faubin, with the outlet of the street of the Rocket). Starting from the August 6th 1909, the guillotine is used with the angle of the Arago boulevard and the street of Health. It is there that are carried out the members of the Band with BONNOT and Paul Gorgulov. It is in Versailles that is held the last public execution, that of Eugen Weidmann, the June 17th 1939, in front of the Saint-Pierre prison. During the Occupation, the men are guillotines in the court of the Prison of Health, the women, in that of the prison of the Small-Rocket (with the site of the n° 143, rue de la Roquette). And it is finally with Marseilles that the last capital execution takes place, that of Hamida Djandoubi, the September 10th 1977.

Residences of the guillotine

In 1793, the public prosecutor of the revolutionary Tribunal Fouquier-Tinville, orders to the torturer Charles-Henri Sanson to find a place where to store the “widow”. She will elect finally residence in the engineer of the Département of the Seine, named Demontier.

When Jean-François Heidenreich becomes torturer in 1849, the machine is moved with 11-13, rue Pont- with-Cabbages, in the Quartier of the Marsh. Then it makes it move again, this time in a hangar located at 60 bis, rue de la Folie-Régnault, with two steps of the Prison of the Rocket. It will remain there thus fifty years.

In 1911, whereas the Rocket was demolished, Anatole Deibler decides to move the guillotine in a coldly built handing-over all of the Prison of Health, with the angle of which all the Parisian executions proceed.

Then in 1978, the last executor, Marcel Knight, receives administration the order to move the “guillotine” to the Prison of Fresnes, where from now on all the executions must take place. However the guillotine will remain definitively dumb, the last four condemned to dead having all be pardoned.

Since the abolition of the capital punishment in 1981, the two guillotines from now on are stored, dismounted, in the basements of the prison of Fontainebleau.

Carried out famous

April 25th 1792: place of Strike to Paris, the Terrassier and robber Nicolas Jacques Pelletier was the first condemned to died guillotine.
January 21st 1793: place Revolution at Paris, Louis XVI, old King de France
October 16th 1793: place Revolution at Paris, Marie-Antoinette of Austria, former Queen of France
November 17th 1793: place Revolution at Paris, Jean Nicolas Houchard, general under the French revolution.
April 5th 1794: place Revolution at Paris, Georges Jacques Danton
May 8th 1794: place Revolution at Paris, Antoine Lavoisier, the “father” of modern chemistry.
May 27th 1794: (8 Meadow of the Year II) Mathieu Jouve Jourdan, revolutionary French implied in the Massacres of the Refrigerator.
July 28th 1794: (10 Thermidor of the Year II), place of the Revolution in Paris, Maximilien de Robespierre.
May 27th 1797: place of Strike to Paris, (8 Prairial An V), Gracchus Babeuf.
January 9th 1836: St-Jacques barrier in Paris, Pierre-François Lacenaire.
January 19th 1870: quay level of the Rocket in Paris, Jean-Baptiste Troppmann, assassin of a family of eight people.
July 11th 1892: Montbrison (the Loire), François Koënigstein, known as Ravachol, the “Christ of anarchy”.
February 5th 1894: Auguste Vaillant, French anarchistic Activist.
February 25th 1922: in Versailles Desired Henri Landru, assassin of ten women and a young boy.
June 17th 1939: Eugen Weidmann, assassin of six people (last public execution in France)
October 18th 1940: Hans Vollenweider, the last condemned to died of Switzerland, guillotine with Sarnen
February 22nd 1943: Decapitation of the “white Rose”. Three German students of a score of years are guillotines in the prison of Stadelheim, close to Munich. Their crime is to have denounced the Nazism within the framework of a clandestine movement, “the white Rose” (Die Weiße Pink in German). Among them Hans and Sophie Scholl.
July 30th 1943: Marie-Louise Giraud, abortionist (a crime against the French family under Pétain).
May 25th 1946: Marcel Little laddie, assassin of at least 27 people.
June 19th 1956: Ahmed Zabana, first condemned to died of the War of Algeria. (see the war of liberation of Algeria).
October 1st 1957: Jacques Fesch - to see the article
November 28th 1972: execution of Claude Buffet and Roger Bontems (for taking of hostages, and Claude Buffet only, assassination)
July 28th 1976: Christian Ranucci, for the murder of the small Marie-Dolorès Rambla, in June 1974.
June 23rd 1977: Jerome Carrein for the Assassination of young girl a eight year old.
September 10th 1977: last execution, that of Hamida Djandoubi for the Torture followed assassination of an young girl.

Abolition in France

The three last French executions contributed to put a term at the Capital punishment in France which was abolished in 1981 by the National Assembly on proposal of François Mitterrand and Robert Badinter. In particular that of Christian Ranucci because certain elements would suggest that this last was perhaps innocent crime which one showed it (see the business Ranucci or the novel the red Pullover of Gilles Perrault) or, at least, that serious gaps sullied quality with the investigation led to this moment (and the January 19th 2006 the newspaper the Evening in Belgium makes appear an article implying that the serial killer Michel Fourniret could be implied in the business).

Imaginary popular

Besides the guillotine was initially baptized “Louisette” or “Louison” (inspired of the royal surgeon Antoine Louis) before taking its final name with the great despair of Doctor Guillotin!

During the French revolution, it was called the large “national Razor”, the “Mirabelle plum”, “the Abbey of Assemble-with-Regret”, the “Vasistas”, the “Widow” and the “ raccourcisseuse patriotic”.

At the 19th century, one called it the “Attic window” and at the 20th century the “Massicot” or the “Bike” (these two terms being employed by the Bourreau X), or the “Guillotine”.

The term of rocks in Charlot was also used in reference to the first executor to have employed it: Charles Sanson.

When the executions took place places Rocket, one called the guillotine “ the abbey of Saint-Pierre”, word game on the five stones in crosses which marked its site (and that one can always see).

Louis-Ferdinand Céline called the guillotine “the Goncourt price of the assassins”.

The assistants of the executioner were called “tuners of piano” (possible reference has Tobias Schmitt, creator of the first guillotine and which was a manufacturer of harpsichords?).

Here some popular expressions, relating to the guillotine and its use:

To achieve an action which inevitably will involve the capital punishment (i.e. to risk the capital punishment):

Y outward journey… (of the cigar, the mug, the gadin, lemon, cabbage,…) and, generally other substantives meaning the head.
To go… (like previously, accompanied by the same substantives), without “Y”, means: to undergo the supreme punishment.

Aller to its punishment is said:

To go… (with the hillock, the abbey of the Assemble-with-Regret, the razor, the hairdresser, the widow, to marry (or marry) the widow, to pass to cutting,…).

Subir the punishment is said:

To sneeze in the sawdust, the vat, the basin…
to be made shorten… of a head, of 30 centimetres…
to be made cut off the gargane, cut the whistle, or the kiki… (also gets busy “to be made cut the throat of”).
To put (or pass) the head (or another word of slang meaning head) in the glasses, with the counter…

to be made photograph… This expression comes owing to the fact that the assistance executor (that which draws the head from condemned through the glasses) is called the “photographer”.

Use abroad

The guillotine was introduced with the use during the time of the Revolution in other countries too. In Germany, the models used were the same ones as in France until the middle of the 19th century. From there, the machines with decapitation changed their appearance: Less height, more metal. The " Fallbeil" , as one called it in Germany, remained of use until abolition of the capital punishment in the Federal Republic of Germany (1949) and even longer in the German Democratic republic (up to 1968).

Internal bonds

External bonds

Historical of the guillotine and the guillotineurs
List of the guillotines of the French revolution
historical Details on Herodote.net
Guillotine on ladocfrancaise.gouv.fr
the Guillotine: history, details of construction, photographs rare (English)
Execution of Eugene Weidmann in front of the prison of Versailles, last public execution in France
Film of the execution of Eugene Weidmann
a guillotine with the Museum Maurice Dufresne, Azay-the-Curtain, Indre-et-Loire

Simple: Guillotine

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