The Guillotine and the Reign of Terror

Presentation Overview

• Capital Punishment

• Joseph Guillotin

• Guillotin’s proposal

• History of the National

Razor

• How it worked

• Phase IV: The Reign of

Terror

• Final thoughts

Capital Punishment

A. Various means to end

life

1. Hanging, Wheel,

Quartering, Rack,

Burning & Drowning

B. Beheading

1. Greeks & Romans - most

honorable death

2. Reintroduced into Europe

1000s

Joseph Guillotin

• 1738 - born• 1789 - National

Assembly• Seeks more

enlightened and egalitarian approach to public execution

1.Offences of the same kind will be punished by the same kind of penalty.

2.In all cases where the law imposes the death penalty on an accused person, the punishment shall be the same, whatever the nature of the offence of which he guilty; the criminal shall be decapitated; this will be done solely by means of a simple mechanism.

3.In view of the personal character of crime, no punishment of a guilty person shall involve and discredit to his family. The honor of those belonging to him shall be in no way soiled, and they shall continue to be no less admissible to any kind of profession, employment and public function.

4.No one shall reproach a citizen with any punishment imposed on one of his relatives. Whosoever ventures to do so shall be publicly reprimanded by the judge. The sentence imposed on him shall be written up on the offender's door. Moreover, it shall be written up on the pillory and remain there for a period of three months.

5.Confiscation of the condemned person's property shall in no case be imposed.

6.The corpse of an executed man shall be handed over to his family on their request. In every case, he shall be allowed normal burial and no reference shall be made on

the register to the nature of his death.

Guillotin’s Proposal

History of the National Razor

• 1300s

– England

– Farms

• Joseph Guillotin &

Tobias Schmidt

– work to perfect it

– Sheep & cadavers

– Louis XVI - advice

• 1792 - up and chopping

How it worked

• Blade

– 77 pounds

– Fell about 7 feet

– 1/30 second to sever neck

Flash Guillotine

“Look around! You've been betrayed! You're hungry, while there are a lot of goods in stores… Your government, ninnies and cowards, are afraid to set a revolutionary order. They've betrayed us to aristocrats, moneylenders, and profiteers… We'll clean ourselves! All parasites to the guillotine! That is the way to save the Revolution!”

John Marat 1792

Phase IV:The Reign of Terror (1793 - 94)

• Girondins (moderates) vs. Jacobins (extremists)– Robespierre = Jacobin

• Committee of Public Safety (1793)-controls France– Deal with internal & external enemies

• Reign of Terror 1793-`794– 20 - 50,000 executed– 85% peasants (Counter

Revolutionaries)– Ends with death (guillotine) of

Robespierre

“What constitutes a republic is the total destruction of

everything that stands in opposition to it.”

(Sant-Just - 1794)

Thee are “only two parties, the party of good citizens and the party of evil ones.” Maximillien Robespierre

During the Reign of Terror every citizen became a “potential customer for the

guillotine.”

Susan Dunn’s Sister Revolutions (92)

Final Thoughts• Adopted throughout world

• Nicknames – The widower

– The machine

– Madame Guillotine

– National Razor

• French history– 1939 - last public use

– 1965 - 1977 - 8 executions

– 1981 - Abolished capital punishment

Final Thoughts