Chapter 14 by Daymian Galvez

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Chapter 14

Published on Nov 21, 2015

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The guillotine made images of horrifying and bloody public executions during the French Revolution in the 18th century.
Many historians consider this device the first execution method that lessened the victim's pain and the first step in raising public attention of the death penalty.
It is difficult, however, to think of the guillotine as humane when descriptions of blood flowing in the streets of Paris paint such a bad picture.
The guillotine was used for a single purpose, decapitation.
The device releases a blade that falls about 89 in (226 cm).

With the combined weight of the blade and the mouton (a metal weight), the guillotine can cut through the neck in 0.005 seconds.
Expert craftsmen, such as carpenters, metal workers, and blacksmiths, made parts of the guillotine separately and then others assembled the parts at the site of the execution.
The guillotine was never mass-produced.
Although history links the guillotine to the French Revolution, an earlier version of a similar instrument was used as early as 1307 in Ireland.
In Italy and Southern France, another guillotine-like device called the mannaia was used in the sixteenth century, but only to execute nobility.

Dr. Joseph Ignace Guillotin was a physician and a deputy of the National Assembly of France, an early stage of the Revolutionary government.
He recognized and promoted the guillotine's use in 1789.
Dr. Guillotin believed this swift method of execution would reform capital punishment in keeping with human rights.
Other Assembly members rejected his championing of the guillotine with laughter.
In 1792, a public executioner named Charles-Henri Sanson recommended reconsideration of the guillotine and Dr. Antoine Louis (the secretary of the Academy of Surgeons) supported him.

On April 17, 1792, the executioner tested the prototype by decapitating sheep, calves, and corpses from the local poorhouse.
Later, the name changed to commemorate Dr. Guillotin, who—although he had never constructed a single instrument—came to resent this association.
In its earliest days, the guillotine was called the "louison" or "louisette" after Dr. Louis who had pressed it into service.
Most commonly, it was simply called "the machine."
The most famous victims of the guillotine were King Louis XVI and his queen, Marie-Antoinette.