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This article is about the execution machine. See paper guillotine for the office equipment. See Guillotine (metalwork) for the metal-working tool. See Guillotine (game) for the Wizards of the Coast card game, and cloture for the parliamentary motion.

The guillotine is a machine used for the mechanized application of capital punishment by decapitation. It consists of a tall upright frame from which is suspended a heavy trapezoidal blade (approx 40 kg). The blade is hauled to the top of the frame on a stout cord and held in place while the condemned has his/her head placed in a restraining bar. The cord is released and the heavy blade falls a distance of 2.3 m, severing the head. (Heights and weights are the French standards.)

Guillotine-like devices, ("the Maiden" as seen on the right), existed and were used for executions in Ireland and Scotland including the 1581 execution of the regent Morton, before the French Revolution. The first documented use of the "maiden" was in 1307 in Ireland^[1], and there are accounts of similar devices in Italy and Switzerland dating back to the 16th century. However, the French developed the machine further and became the first nation to use it as a standard execution method. On April 25, 1792, highwayman Nicolas J. Pelletier became the first person executed by guillotine.

Antoine Louis, member of Académie Chirurgical, took the first practical steps towards the creation of the guillotine. It was from his design that the first guillotine was built. The guillotine was first called "Louison" or "Louisette", but the press preferred Guillotine as it had a nicer ring to it. Antoine Louis was born in Metz 1723, and he died in Paris in 1792.

It takes its name from Joseph-Ignace Guillotin, a French doctor and member of the Revolutionary National Assembly, on whose suggestion it was introduced. Dr. Guillotin proposed the use of a mechanical device to carry out the death penalty. The descendants of Dr. Guillotin have since changed their surname because of the association with a method of execution. Guillotin died on the 26th of May in 1814, not on the guillotine, but of a carbuncle in his shoulder.

The basis for his recommendation is believed to have been his perception 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, or more gruesome methods of executions were used (the wheel, burning at the stake, etc.). In case of decapitation, sometimes it took repeated blows to completely sever the head. The family of the victim or the victim themselves would sometimes pay the executioner to ensure that the blade was sharp in order for a quick and relatively painless death. The guillotine was thus perceived to deliver an instantaneous death without risk of misses. Furthermore, having only one method of execution was seen as enforcing the value of equality between citizens. There is however some debate as to the humane nature of the guillotine, as some authorities believe that the victim can remain conscious for up to 30 seconds after decapitation.

During the Reign of Terror of the French Revolution, as many as 20,000 people may have been executed. In France, executions by guillotine were also regarded as a public entertainment that attracted great crowds of spectators. The guillotine was established in the Place du Carroussel, on August 21, 1792, and remained there until May 7, 1793.

The guillotine was from then on the only 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.

The last public execution was of Eugene Weidmann, who was convicted for five murders. His head was chopped off on June 17, 1939 at 4:32 in the morning outside the prison Saint-Pierre rue Georges Clemenceau 5 at Versailles, which is now the Palais de Justice. The allegedly scandalous behaviour of some of the onlookers on this occasion, 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. The last execution was of Hamida Djandoubi and took place on September 10, 1977 in Marseille.

The guillotine was not, however, a French invention — although Guillotin is often named as its inventor. This type of device also has had a history as a farm implement used for killing poultry in Germany, England, and Persia before being introduced as a method of capital punishment.

The guillotine is known in German as Fallbeil, "fall-axe", and it has been used in various German states since the 17th century, becoming the usual method of execution in Napoleonic times in many places in Germany. The Nazis employed it extensively: twenty guillotines were in use in Germany and (from 1938) in Austria. They added a unique twist: the condemned persons were executed face up, with their eyes forced open to watch the blade descend. This is similar to how French revolutionary leader Maximilien Robespierre was said to have been executed at the guillotine during the French Revolution. In Nazi Germany beheading by guillotine was the usual method of executing criminal convicts as opposed to political convicts, who were usually either gassed, hanged or shot. The Nazis have been estimated to have guillotined some 40,000 convicts; twice the number that were beheaded during the French Revolution; for an example see White Rose. The guillotine remained the method of execution in East Germany and Austria from World War II until the abolition of capital punishment. Also Sweden has used guillotine before the abolition of capital punishment in 1910.

Interestingly, a derivative of the guillotine known as a "Bagel Biter" (the name is a trademark) is commonly used for slicing bagels and other difficult-to-slice breads, and is often known colloquially as a guillotine. However, it uses a wedge-shaped blade instead of the trapezoid-shaped blade used by the real thing.

Pronunciation note

There is some conflict as to how the word guillotine should be pronounced. The word entered English from French in 1793, and since then authorities on pronunciation have debated, not whether guillotine should be pronounced [ˈgɪ.lə.tin] or [ˈgi.jə.tin], but whether it should be pronounced with a stress on the third syllable ([gɪ.ləˈtin]) or on the first.

Since, for several decades, stressing of the word's first syllable has held sway over stressing of the third, one question remains: is it the long-established [ˈgɪ.lə.tin] or the recently popular [ˈgi.jə.tin] which should be said? Pronunciation expert Charles Harrington Elster, in his Big Book of Beastly Mispronunciations, calls [ˈgi.jə.tin] "a pseudo-French affectation." Of course, English has no governing body and Elster's prescription is not authoritative. Most dictionaries give both pronunciations without comment. See also list of words of disputed pronunciation.

Notes

1. ^  Robertson, Patrick The Book of Firsts Clarkson Potter, 1974.

External links

• The Guillotine Headquarters with a gallery, history, name list, and quiz.
• L'art de bien couper a French site with a quite complete list of guillotined criminals, pictures, history.

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