in 1792, france popularized the use of this execution device
On the edge of this platform, arise two vertical parallel spars of wood exactly similar to a pile-driving machine, and in grooves along the two inner surface of the spars runs the knife, as the driving weight does in the pile driver. Après la chute de Robespierre en 1794, un nouveau régime est institué : le Directoire. Google's free service instantly translates words, phrases, and web pages between English and over 100 other languages. I think, from the personal sensations I have experienced on such occasions, that the effect of an execution, on the spectators, is much stronger in the case of beheading than in hanging. … Such devices had been used in various parts of Europe for centuries before the French Revolution. It is interesting that the crowds were not satisfied with the performance because the guillotine was too quick and painless. Thus ended the affair of Venturi….. Not more than three or four other executions occurred at Rome, during the whole period of the French dominion. The guillotine remained France's number one method of execution for the next 189 years. For the information of those who have never seen a guillotine, or the use of one, I will just describe the instrument and the process in as few words as possible: The base of the guillotine is a hollow cube of boards, about twelve feet square, supported on wheels, which are concealed by the planking, the top forming the floor of the scaffold, which is attained by steps and bannisters from the ground. Many people turned up at Place de Grève (now place de l’Hotel de Ville, Paris) out of curiosity on April 25, 1792 to witness the first public execution using the new mechanized device. It consisted of a tall upright frame from which a blade was suspended. Gesu! As a first step towards the full abolition of the death penalty, he saw the introduction of painless method of its execution. The French Revolutionary Wars turned into the Napoleonic Wars. I have read accounts that poor Louis XVI neck was so fat the blade did not cut off his head on the first blow and the poor king suffered miserably. Several known decapitation devices such as the Italian Mannaia, the Scottish Maiden, and the Halifax Gibbet are well documented and may pre-date the use of the French guillotine by as much as 500 years. During the last public guillotine execution in France, ... introduced into France in 1792. Article L241-1 du code des assurances. 30 April – 1 May – War of the Pyrenees: Second Battle … 10 Interesting Facts about Napoleon Bonaparte, Drinking cold water & other 19th century causes of death, A Murder and Hanging in Louisiana in the 1820s. I haven’t come across those reports. “France did not invent this method of execution, but it altered the scale of operations, bringing death into the era of technical mass production,” writes Murat. The executioner was the well-known Charles Henri Sanson (also known for executing the King Louis XVI later). 25 March – The Legislative Assembly agrees that the guillotine should be used for judicial executions. Ce service gratuit de Google traduit instantanément des mots, des expressions et des pages Web du français vers plus de 100 autres langues. Thank you, Sol. Guillotin proposed that where the death penalty was imposed, the punishment should be decapitation by means of “a simple mechanism.” In 1791, the National Assembly adopted a change to the penal code in which every person condemned to death was to have their head cut off. The guillotine was a device used for carrying out executions by decapitation. Absolutely loving your blog – always happy to see a new item pop up in my LinkedIn email ! Although other governments employed the device, France has executed more people by guillotine than any other nation. Best known for its use during the French Revolution, the guillotine continued to be the primary method of judicial execution during Napoleon’s reign and during the Bourbon Restoration. In 1810 Napoleon Bonaparte issued a new criminal code that eradicated the eventual abolition of the death penalty. Here’s my tuppence. In a few seconds, it was ‘game over’, and they felt cheated out of a few hours of entertainment. And this is a briefer method than the strapping to the plank. The guillotine was first used on Nicolas Jacques Pelletier on 25 April 1792. The text says: So glad you’re enjoying the posts! Find out more on how we use cookies and how you can change your settings. VIDEO: The Guillotine See why this device was a preferred form of legal execution. It is less repugnant: no man’s hands will be tainted with the blood of his fellow being, and the worst of the ordeal for the condemned man will be his own fear of death, a fear more painful to him than the stroke which deprives him of life. The gendarme walked with a firm and quiet air, but Venturi was with difficulty supported by those who were endeavouring to console him. The Echo smart speaker line and embedded Alexa voice software have popularized the use of voice commands in the home. Napoleon’s successors, the Bourbon Kings Louis XVIII and Charles X, also retained the guillotine, even though it had taken the lives of their brother King Louis XVI and his wife Marie Antoinette. The official executioner, Charles-Louis Sanson, said: Today the machine invented for the purpose of decapitating criminals sentenced to death will be put to work for the first time. The new code affirmed that anyone condemned to death should be decapitated. Venturi kept screaming out ‘Gesu! Required fields are marked *. Wheatstone was appointed professor of experimental philosophy at King’s College, London, in 1834, the same year that he The instrument of judicial execution of the sentence of death, is in France the guillotine. France’s last guillotine execution only 40 years ago. This prison, run by Zebulon Brockway, used an early form of parole, as well as corporal punishment. Read my first chapter via a friend, I was totally absorbed, thank you. The eyewitness accounts of Louis XVI’s execution extracted on Wikipedia don’t mention this, although one witness refers to the blade going not through the king’s neck, but through the back of his head and the jaw: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Execution_of_Louis_XVI#Witness_quotes. The bodies, upon being deprived of the heads, made only one considerable motion, which was – from a kneeling bent down position, the legs and thighs stretch out behind, so as to place them in a straight line on their faces. January 1st: The Legislative Assembly declares the beginning of an “Era of Liberty”. (Normally public executions … The first guillotine was designed in 1792 by a German piano maker named Tobias Schmidt, and was first tested on animals and human corpses. However, I am an enemy to the punishment of death altogether, and cannot conceive how civilized beings can take such an atrocious pleasure in witnessing the dying agonies of their fellow creatures! ", What if Napoleon Bonaparte had escaped from St. Helena and wound up in the United States? Shannon Selin writes historical fiction and blogs about Napoleonic and 19th century history. Fragile et contesté, ce régime prend fin avec le coup d'Etat de Bonaparte en 1799. At the time, commoners were hanged, burned at the stake, or broken on the wheel, while nobles had the luxury of having their head chopped off by a sword. The execution went according to plan with his head being severed at the first stroke. April. (adsbygoogle = window.adsbygoogle || []).push({}); That device was named after Dr. Joseph Ignace Guillotin, a doctor who was actually very humane and opposed to the death penalty. The device claimed its first official victim in April 1792, and quickly became known as the “guillotine”—much to the horror of its supposed inventor. Thanks, Tuhin. Thanks, David. In 1789, as a deputy to France’s National Assembly, Guillotin argued that all capital criminals should be killed in the same fashion, and as swiftly and painlessly as possible. Pour affronter ces difficultés, la Terreur, menée par Robespierre, est instaurée. I’d never heard of this before. But why was it necessary to use a machine for beheading? February 9th: The Legislative Assembly decrees that the property of emigres now belongs to the nation. Perhaps someone more specialized in this area can comment. 19 April – Britain signs a treaty of alliance with Prussia and the Netherlands against France. The guillotine was used as a means of carrying out the death penalty for the first time in history on this day. People all across France, however, were calling for a less brutal and more dignified form of capital punishment. It was invented so that everyone could be killed in the same way, and more humanely. I can’t, off the top of my head, name a woman in France executed by Napoleon’s direct order. Other decapitation devices – the Diele in medieval Germany, the mannaia in 16th C Italy, the “Maiden” in Scotland, the Halifax gibbet in England – had existed for centuries. (1). Your e-mail address will not be published. The first criminal to be decapitated by a guillotine was Nicolas Pelletier, a thief and assaulter who was beheaded on April 25th, 1792…