A device consisting of a heavy blade held aloft between upright guides and dropped to behead the victim below.
An instrument, such as a paper cutter, similar in action to a guillotine.
tr.v., -tined, -tin·ing, -tines.
To behead with a guillotine.
To cut with or as if with a guillotine.
[French, after Joseph Ignace Guillotin (1738–1814), French physician.]
WORD HISTORY“At half past 12 the guillotine severed her head from her body.” So reads the statement containing the first recorded use of guillotine in English, found in the Annual Register of 1793. Ironically, the guillotine, which became the most notable symbol of the excesses of the French Revolution, was named for a humanitarian physician, Joseph Ignace Guillotin. Guillotin, a member of the French Constituent Assembly, recommended in a speech to that body on October 10, 1789, that executions be performed by a beheading device rather than by hanging, the method used for commoners, or by the sword, reserved for the nobility. He argued that beheading by machine was quicker and less painful than the work of the rope and the sword. In 1791 the Assembly did indeed adopt beheading by machine as the state's preferred method of execution. A beheading device designed by Dr. Antoine Louis, secretary of the College of Surgeons, was first used on April 25, 1792, to execute a highwayman named Pelletier or Peletier. The device was called a louisette or louison after its inventor's name, but because of Guillotin's famous speech, his name became irrevocably associated with the machine. After Guillotin's death in 1814, his children tried unsuccessfully to get the device's name changed. When their efforts failed, they were allowed to change their name instead.
Louis-Auguste (Duke of Berry) was born August 23, 1754. He was the third son of Louis the dauphin, heir to the throne of Louis XV. After the death of his brothers and father, in 1765 Louis became the sole heir. In 1770 he married Marie Antoinette, and in 1774 Louis XVI became king of France.
Louis restored the powers of the Parliament, but he was indecisive, easily influenced, and lacked the strength to support reformation against opposition whose positions were threatened by change. By 1788, France was on the verge of bankruptcy. Pressure mounted to invoke the Estates General to handle the fiscal crisis. In May 1789, the Estates General met at Versailles, opening the French Revolution. A Parisian crowd forced the court to move from Versailles to Paris, where it could be controlled more easily. In June 1791, Louis sought to escape from Paris to eastern France. However, at Varennes the royal party was recognized and forced to return to Paris, where Revolutionaries had lost all confidence in the monarchy.
In September 1791, the National Assembly adjourned and was succeeded by the Legislative Assembly, On April 20, 1792, France declared war on Austria, which was soon joined by Prussia. France was incensed by the manifesto of the Prussian commander, the Duke of Brunswick, threatening punishment on Paris if the royal family were harmed. On August 10, 1792, the crowd forced the Legislative Assembly to suspend Louis, who—with the royal family—became prisoner of the Commune of Paris. The National Convention, which succeeded the Legislative Assembly, abolished the monarchy and tried "Citizen Capet," as Louis was now called, for treason. He was found guilty, sentenced to death, and on January 21, 1793, guillotined.
Background
The guillotine evokes images of horrifying and bloody public executions during the French Revolution in the eighteenth century. Many historians consider this device the first execution method that lessened the victim's pain and the first step in raising public awareness of the morality 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 gruesome 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.
History
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. In April 1792, Tobias Schmidt (a German piano maker) built the first working model in less than a week. On April 17, 1792, the executioner tested the prototype by decapitating sheep, calves, and corpses from the local poorhouse. On April 25, Nicolas Pelletier (a thief who viciously assaulted his victims) entered the history books as the first criminal beheaded by the guillotine.
In its earliest days, the guillotine was called the "louison" or "louisette" after Dr. Louis who had pressed it into service. Later, the name changed to commemorate Dr. Guillotin, who—although he had never constructed a single instrument—came to resent this association. Most commonly, it was simply called "the machine."
The most famous victims of the guillotine were King Louis XVI and his queen, Marie-Antoinette. The King was convicted by the Revolutionary government in 1793 for treason. He was decapitated on January 21, 1793. His wife, Marie-Antoinette, was imprisoned for nine months after the King's death until she was also executed by the machine's blade. Charles-Henri Sanson executed the King and his son, Henri, dispatched the Queen.
Estimates of the number of lives taken by the guillotine during the French Revolution range from 17,000 to 40,000 citizens. It is thought that three-quarters of the executed were innocent. In its "glory" days, the guillotine took 3,000 lives in one month. Paris was responsible for only 16% of executions; in cities with many counter revolutionaries, like Lyons, many more faced the blade. The locations of public executions were moved frequently. After beheadings, blood continued to pump out of the bodies, overtopping the gutters, and running down the streets. In France, the guillotine remained the official execution device until the last use of the "national razor" in 1977. French President François Mitterand abolished the death penalty in 1981.
Raw Materials
The platform, posts, déclic for the rope, crossbar, the bascule (bench supporting the body), and the lunette (the device holding the head) were made of hard wood. The mouton was the metal weight to which the blade was attached. The extra weight ensured a swift, clean cut. The blade itself was made of steel, and the heavy-duty rope was cotton. Leather straps restrained the victim's body around the arms and to the bench around the back and legs. A leather bag or basket was also used to catch the falling head.
Design
Very few design changes occurred during the history of the guillotine. The primary modification was the adaptation of the size and weight of the machine to a horse-drawn cart when portability was needed to increase the efficiency of the machine. These moveable guillotines were mounted on horse-drawn carts that were also made of wood with wooden wheels strapped with iron. Wood braces were attached to the wheels when the guillotine was used to keep it motionless.
The Manufacturing Process
Guillotines were hand crafted locally and were relatively simple to make because they were without ornamentation or refined finishes. The craftsmen were very experienced with wood construction and the honing (shaping and sharpening) of the steel for the blade.
Construction of the guillotine began with the platform or scaffold. A skilled carpenter cut the lumber for the major pieces including post supports, interconnecting beams, the floorboards, and the steps for the stairway underneath the platform. The stairs bottomed at one open end of the scaffold (on the front side of the guillotine) and opened in an entry or hatch near the other end of the platform at the back of the guillotine. The platform also had an open railing around three sides of the scaffold; the side without the railing was toward the front of the machine and the bottom of the stairs.
The supports and beams were all nailed together to form a base. The floor was either built as a separate unit with an underside of wood sheets, much like modern rough-grade plywood, and a top face of long, thin floorboards. The two layers reduced weathering and other damage. The unit could then be lifted in place and nailed to the edges and cross beams of the scaffold.
If the guillotine was constructed at the execution site, construction of the platform continued by adding the side rails. The stairway was built while the platform was being constructed by making a four-sided base with interior braces for strength. One side was the front face of the first stair, the back extended from the ground up to form the back of the top stair, and the two identical sides had bottom and back edges forming a 90° angle. Both sides were cut to hold the tops and backs of the set of stairs.
While the platform was being constructed, work began on the steel blade and mouton. The width between the posts and the maximum thickness of the blade were provided to the forger or blacksmith. This specialist made a mold for the blade. The cutting edge angled up from one side of the blade (in an oblique angle) to the opposite post. The angle allowed the blade to cut more quickly and cleanly; a blade with an even edge (parallel with the upper cross beam) would have encountered more friction as it tried to cut through the wider back of the neck. Molten steel was poured into the mold. The craftsman sharpened the cutting tip by repeated filing, hammering, and reheating. Worn blades were also resharpened this way. The steel blade generally weighed about 15 lb (7 kg).
The mouton was manufactured the same way. The craftsman would melt the metal down and pour it into a mold. After the mold cooled, it would be taken out. The mouton typically weighed 66 lb (30 kg).
Workers would then screw the blade to the mouton with three bolts, two in the bottom corners and one in the middle. The bolts would then be welded into place.
When the platform was complete or if other carpenters were available, construction of the machine frame began. A small-diameter tree for each post was cut to create a four-sided post, then a groove was cut out on the inside of each post and chiseled so the falling blade would drop smoothly. At the base of the machine, the posts were mounted in a wide crossbar. The blade and mouton were fitted in the post grooves, and a crossbar at the top that was exactly the width between the side posts was fitted in place. The upper crossbar also had a hole in the top for the rope and a groove along the top and side to guide the rope. Metal rings were fixed to the outside of the top crossbar and one or two points down the post to guide the rope. Wood braces were fitted to the outsides of the posts and extended down at angles to the base crossbar for added strength.
On the back side, where the victim and the executioner stood, another crossbar was mounted to hold the lunette, which consisted of two separate pieces of relatively thin wood with a hole big enough for the victim's neck. Half of the hole was in the bottom section of the lunette, and the matching half-moon was in the top portion. The upper half was hinged on the post so it could be raised for the prisoner's head. The machine as a separate piece was complete and could be hauled on a cart to the site.
The bascule was carved out of wood by a carpenter and transported to the site of the execution. The end of the bascule nearest the blade had leather straps to restrain the victim's arms, and straps crossing the bench kept the back and legs tied down.
The déclic was a wooden handle that opened the grooves in the posts. It was attached to the outside of one of the vertical posts so that the executioner could easily release the blade.
The rope was is made from natural fibers and twisted into yarn. The yarn is then woven and twisted rope. The rope is tied securely to the top of the mouton, through the hole in the upper crossbar, through the rings, and wrapped around the déclic. In the early days of the guillotine, the executioner cut the rope with a sword to drop the blade, but it became too time-consuming to readjust the rope so they changed the design to incorporate the déclic.
Quality Control
The executioner usually owned the guillotine and accessories. Executioners in major cities owned several guillotines and cycled them in and out of use for repair. Quality control of construction and maintenance were entirely the executioner's responsibility.
The executioner also maintained a fleet of eight to 10 tumbrels for transporting the victims from the prison to the guillotine. A coach maker constructed and repaired the tumbrels and carts for hauling the guillotine's pieces, but the executioner had to approve the work.
With this particular product, quality control was also required for the execution process. Five to eight assistants helped the executioner lead the victim to the machine, remove any clothing around the neck, and cut the victim's hair. They strapped the victim down, placed the victim's head across the lunette, and lowered the top of the lunette around the victim's neck in a series of smooth motions. The executioner released the déclic, the head and body were separated in a split second by the weight of the blade and mouton, and the head fell into a leather bag or lined basket. An assistant raised the head for the crowd's approval, and several other assistants took the head and body back down the stairs where they were thrown into carts for disposal. Heads of well-known victims had the added distinction of being impaled on poles.
The Future
The guillotine has been relegated to history and lore and is no longer used for executions. In isolated cases, craftsmen make guillotines for entertainment (films and television), but these are built with sophisticated safety systems and often as models. There are books and kits available to make models of the guillotine.
The guillotine has since been replaced by other so-called humane ways of executing criminals, such as lethal injection, hanging, gas chambers, a firing squad, and the electric chair. Thirty-eight of the United States apply the death penalty, but Texas leads the number of executed criminals with a total of 253 as of January of 2001.
Where to Learn More
Books
Banfield, Susan. The Rights of Man, The Reign of Terror: The Story of the French Revolution. New York: J. B. Lippincott, 1989.
Doyle, William. The Oxford History of the French Revolution. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1989.
Guillon, Edmund Vincent. Build Your Own Guillotine: Make A Model That Actually Works. New York: Putnam, 1982.
Schama, Simon. Citizens: A Chronicle of the French Revolution. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1989.
Vallois, Thirza. Around and About Paris. Vol. 1. London: Iliad Books, 1999.
Lawday, David. "The Heirs of Madame Guillotine: The Descendants of France's Dynasty of Executioners Today Ponder the Paradoxes of the Revolution." U.S. News & World Report 107, no. 3 (17 July 1989): 46-49.
Machine that cuts large stacks of paper, before or after printing, to a desired size; also called paper cutter; power cutter. Oversized reply forms may be guillotined before being processed by a fulfillment operation to make them easier for key entry clerks to handle and store or to make them feed through OCR (optical character recognition) scanners faster. Printers and binders use guillotines to cut sheets prior to printing, to cut printed sheets prior to folding or die-cutting (see die cut), to cut folded sheets into individual pages for binding, and/or to separate printed 2-up or 4-up sheets. Guillotines are powerful and dangerous machines, and the safety of the operator is a crucial consideration in guillotine design and usage.
Term adopted in the United Kingdom and the United States in the late nineteenth century to describe the enforced closure of parliamentary debate, by analogy with the revolutionary guillotine of France. Formally an ‘allocation of time motion’ in the United Kingdom, a guillotine regulates the amount of time the House of Commons devotes to debate on a particular bill, either on the floor of the house or in committee. A guillotine was first used to manage debates in the House of Commons in 1881, when Irish MPs tried to filibuster the Coercion Bill.
Instrument for inflicting capital punishment by decapitation. A minimal wooden structure, it supported a heavy blade that, when released, slid down in vertical guides to sever the victim's head. It was introduced in France in 1792 in the French Revolution, though similar devices had been used in Scotland, England, and other European countries, often for executing criminals of noble birth. The name derived from a French physician and member of the National Assembly, Joseph-Ignace Guillotin (1738 – 1814), who was instrumental in passing a law requiring all sentences of death to be carried out "by means of a machine," so that execution by decapitation would no longer be confined to nobles and executions would be as painless as possible. The last execution by guillotine in France took place in 1977.
A machine designed for beheading people quickly and with minimal pain. The guillotine, which used a large falling knife blade, was devised by a physician, Joseph Guillotin, during the French Revolution and was used as the official method of execution in France until the twentieth century.
A machine which makes a Frenchman shrug his shoulders with good reason.
In his great work on Divergent Lines of Racial Evolution, the learned Professor Brayfugle argues from the prevalence of this gesture -- the shrug -- among Frenchmen, that they are descended from turtles and it is simply a survival of the habit of retracing the head inside the shell. It is with reluctance that I differ with so eminent an authority, but in my judgment (as more elaborately set forth and enforced in my work entitled Hereditary Emotions -- lib. II, c. XI) the shrug is a poor foundation upon which to build so important a theory, for previously to the Revolution the gesture was unknown. I have not a doubt that it is directly referable to the terror inspired by the guillotine during the period of that instrument's activity.
Historic replicas (1:6 scale) of the two main types of French guillotines: Model 1792, left, and Model 1872 (state as of 1907),
right
The guillotine is a device used for carrying out executions by
decapitation. It consists of a tall upright frame from which a heavy blade is suspended. This blade is raised with a rope and then allowed to drop, severing the victim's head from his
body. The device is noted for long being the main method of execution in France and, more
particularly, for its use during the French Revolution. The guillotine also "became a
part of popular culture, celebrated as the people's avenger by supporters of the Revolution and vilified as the preeminent symbol
of the Terror by opponents."[1]
Development
The guillotine became infamous (and acquired its name) in France at the time of the French Revolution; however, guillotine-like
devices, such as the Halifax Gibbet and ScottishMaiden seen on the right, existed and were used for executions in several
European countries long before the French Revolution. The first documented use of The Maiden was
in 1307 in Ireland,[2] and there are accounts of similar devices in Italy and
Switzerland dating back to the 15th century.
Nevertheless, the French developed the machine further and became the first nation to use it as a standard execution method.
In August 1788 France’s High Executioner Charles-Henri Sanson, while attempting
to execute a prisoner by breaking on the wheel, was assaulted by a mob who freed the
prisoner and destroyed and burned the wheel. Sensing the growing discontent Louis
XVI banned the use of the wheel.[3] In 1791 as
the French Revolution progressed, the National
Assembly (at the suggestion of Assembly member Dr. Joseph-Ignace
Guillotin) sought a new method to be used on all condemned people regardless of class. Their concerns contributed to the
idea that capital punishment’s purpose was the ending of life instead of the infliction of pain.[3] A committee was formed under Dr. Antoine
Louis, physician to the King and Secretary to the Academy of Surgery.[3] Dr. Joseph-Ignace Guillotin, a professor of anatomy at the facility of medicine in Paris, was also
on the committee. The group was influenced by the Italian Mannaia (or Mannaja), the Scottish
Maiden, and the Halifax Gibbet. While these prior instruments usually crushed the
neck or used blunt force to take off a head, their device used a crescent blade and used a lunette (a hinged two part yoke to
immobilize the victim’s neck).[3] An apocryphal story
claims that King Louis XVI (an amateur locksmith) recommended a triangular blade with a beveled edge be used instead of a
crescent blade.[3] On April 25, 1792 the first victim
of the device was a thief and assassin named Jacques Nicolas Pelletier. The crowds marveled at the machine’s speed and
precision.[3]
The basis for the machine's success was the belief that it was a humane form of
execution, contrasting with the methods used in pre-revolutionary, ancien régime
(old regime) France. In France, before the guillotine, members of the nobility were beheaded
with a sword or axe, while commoners were usually hanged, a form of death that could take minutes or longer - other more gruesome
methods of executions were also used, such as the wheel, burning at the stake, etc. In the case of decapitation, it also sometimes took repeated blows to
sever the head completely. The condemned or the family of the condemned would sometimes pay the executioner to ensure that the
blade was sharp in order to provide for a quick and relatively painless death.
The guillotine was thus perceived to deliver an immediate death without risk of misses. Furthermore, having only one method of
execution was seen as an expression of equality among citizens. The guillotine was adopted as the official means of execution on
March 201792. 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.
Although Guillotin actually contributed little to the machine’s design, it was his name that it would carry throughout
history.[3]Antoine
Louis (1723–1792), member of the Académie Chirurgicale, developed the concept put forward by Guillotin, and 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.
When Guillotin himself died, it wasn't on his namesake as legend would have it, but instead of natural causes on
May 26, 1814.
In France
The Reign of Terror
The period from June 1793 to July 1794 in France is known as the Reign of Terror or
simply "the Terror". The upheaval following the overthrow of the monarchy, fear of invasion by
foreign monarchist powers and fear of counterrevolution from pro-monarchy parties
within France all combined to throw the nation into chaos and the government into frenzied paranoia. Most of the democratic
reforms of the revolution were suspended and wholesale executions by guillotine began. The first political prisoner to be
executed was Collenot d'Angremont of the National Guard, followed soon after by the King's trusted collaborator in his ill-fated
attempt to moderate the Revolution, Arnaud de Laporte, both in 1792. Former
King Louis XVI and Queen Marie
Antoinette were executed in 1793. Maximilien Robespierre became one of the
most powerful men in the government, and the figure most associated with the Terror. The Revolutionary Tribunal sentenced thousands to the guillotine. Nobility and commoners, intellectuals, politicians and prostitutes,[citation needed] all were liable to be executed on
little or no grounds; suspicion of "crimes against liberty" was enough to earn one an appointment with "Madame Guillotine" (also
referred to as "The National Razor"). Estimates of the death toll range between 15,000 and 40,000.[citation needed] In July 1794, Robespierre himself
was guillotined.
At this time, Paris executions were carried out in the Place de la Revolution (former Place Louis XV and current Place de la Concorde) (near the
Louvre); the guillotine stood in the corner near the Hôtel Crillon where the statue of Brest can
be found today.
For a time, executions by guillotine were a popular entertainment that attracted great crowds of spectators. Vendors would
sell programs listing the names of those scheduled to die. Regulars would come day after day and vie for the best seats. Parents
would bring their children. By the end of the Terror the crowds had thinned drastically. Excessive repetition had staled even
this most grisly of entertainments, and audiences grew bored.
The guillotine retired
The last public guillotining was of Eugène Weidmann, who was convicted of six
murders. He was beheaded on June 171939, 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, and an incorrect assembly of the apparatus, 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. Jules-Henri Desfourneaux, the presiding "number one" executioner at this time was variously reported as slow, possibly
drunk and indecisive, certainly a far cry from his well regarded immediate predecessor Anatole Deibler. He was also prone to
arguing with his cousin and "number two" Andre Obrecht which led to the latter's resignation on two separate occasions, the last
involving a fist-fight between the pair after an execution.
The guillotine remained the official method of execution in France until France abolished the death penalty in 1981. The last
guillotining in France was that of torture-murderer Hamida Djandoubi on September 10,
1977.
Outside France
German Fallbeil of 1854, Munich
Historic replica 1:6 scale
Just as there were guillotine-like devices in countries other than France before 1792, similarly other countries, especially
in Europe, employed this method of execution into modern times.
A notable example is Germany, where the guillotine is known in German as Fallbeil
("falling axe"). It has been used in various German states since the 17th century, becoming the usual method of execution in
Napoleonic times in many parts of Germany. Guillotine and firing squad were the
legal methods of execution in German Empire (1871-1918) and Weimar Republic (1919-1933).
The original German guillotines resembled the French Berger 1872 model but eventually evolved into more specialised machines
largely built of metal with a much heavier blade enabling shorter uprights to be used. Accompanied by a more efficient blade
recovery system and the eventual removal of the tilting board (or bascule) this allowed a quicker turn-around time between
executions, the victim being decapitated either face up or down depending on how the executioner predicted they would react to
the sight of the machine. Those deemed likely to struggle were backed up from behind a curtain to shield their view of the
device.
In 1933 Hitler had a guillotine constructed and tested. He was impressed enough to order 20 more constructed and pressed into
immediate service.[3] Nazi records indicate that
between 1933 and 1945 16,500 people were executed in Germany by this method.[3] In Nazi Germany beheading by guillotine was the usual method of executing convicted criminals as
opposed to political enemies, who were usually either hanged or shot. An exception would be the six members of the
White Rose anti-Nazi resistance organization, who were beheaded in 1943. The last execution in Germany, other than in East Germany, occurred on
11 May1949, when 24 year old Berthold Wehmeyer was beheaded for
murder and robbery in Moabit prison in West Berlin. When
West Germany was formed in 1949, its constitution forbade the death penalty; East Germany abolished it in 1987
and Austria in 1968. In Sweden, where beheading was the mandatory method of execution, the
guillotine was used for its last execution in 1910 in Långholmen prison,
Stockholm. Although the guillotine has never been used in the United States as a legal method of execution (it had been considered in the 19th century before
introduction of the electric chair), in 1996 Georgia state legislator Doug Teper proposed
the guillotine as a replacement for the electric chair as the state's method of execution
to enable the convicts to act as organ donors. The proposal was not adopted.
Living heads
From its first use, there has been debate as to whether the guillotine always provided as swift a death as Dr Guillotin hoped.
With previous methods of execution, there was little concern about the suffering inflicted. But where the guillotine was invented
specifically to be "humane," the issue was seriously considered. Furthermore, there is the possibility that the very swiftness of
the guillotine only prolonged the victim's suffering. The blade cuts quickly enough so that there is relatively little impact on
the brain case, and perhaps less likelihood of immediate unconsciousness than with a more violent decapitation, or long-drop
hanging.
Execution of Languille in 1905
Audiences to guillotinings told numerous stories of blinking eyelids, moving eyes, movement of the mouth, even an expression
of "unequivocal indignation" on the face of the decapitated Charlotte Corday when her
cheek was slapped. Anatomists and other scientists in several countries have tried to perform more definitive experiments on
severed human heads as recently as 1956. Inevitably the evidence is only anecdotal. What appears to be a head responding to the
sound of its name, or to the pain of a pinprick, may be only random muscle twitching or automatic reflex action, with no
awareness involved. At worst, it seems that the massive drop in cerebral blood pressure would cause a victim to lose
consciousness in several seconds.[4]
The following report was written by a Dr. Beaurieux, who experimented with the head of a
condemned prisoner by the name of Henri Languille, on June 281905:[5]
“
Here, then, is what I was able to note immediately after the decapitation: the eyelids and lips of the guillotined man worked
in irregularly rhythmic contractions for about five or six seconds. This phenomenon has been remarked by all those finding
themselves in the same conditions as myself for observing what happens after the severing of the neck...
I waited for several seconds. The spasmodic movements ceased. [...] It was then that I called in a strong, sharp voice:
'Languille!' I saw the eyelids slowly lift up, without any spasmodic contractions – I insist advisedly on this peculiarity – but
with an even movement, quite distinct and normal, such as happens in everyday life, with people awakened or torn from their
thoughts.
Next Languille's eyes very definitely fixed themselves on mine and the pupils focused themselves. I was not, then, dealing
with the sort of vague dull look without any expression, that can be observed any day in dying people to whom one speaks: I was
dealing with undeniably living eyes which were looking at me. After several seconds, the eyelids closed again[...].
It was at that point that I called out again and, once more, without any spasm, slowly, the eyelids lifted and undeniably
living eyes fixed themselves on mine with perhaps even more penetration than the first time. Then there was a further closing of
the eyelids, but now less complete. I attempted the effect of a third call; there was no further movement – and the eyes took on
the glazed look which they have in the dead.
^ R. Po-chia Hsia, Lynn Hunt, Thomas R. Martin, Barbara H. Rosenwein, and
Bonnie G. Smith, The Making of the West, Peoples and Culture, A Concise History, Volume II: Since 1340, Second Edition
(New York: Bedford/St. Martin’s, 2007), 664.
^ Robertson, Patrick The Book of Firsts Clarkson Potter, 1974.
^ abcdefghi Executive Producer Don
Cambou. (2001). Modern Marvels: Death Devices. A&E Television Networks.
Dansk (Danish)
n. - guillotine, faldøkse, skæremaskine, metode til begrænsning af taletid v. tr. - guillotinere
Nederlands (Dutch)
guillotine, papiersnijmachine, het vaststellen van tijdstip voor stemming (parlement), onthoofden, toepassen van guillotine methode (parlement)
Français (French) n. - guillotine, massicot (pour papier), (Pol) clôture par tranches v. tr. - guillotiner, massicoter, (Pol) appliquer la clôture par tranches
Deutsch (German) n. - Guillotine, Fallbeil, Papierschneidemaschine, Schlagschere, Begrenzung der Beratungszeit v. - enthaupten, guillotinieren
Ελληνική (Greek) n. - γκιλοτίνα, λαιμητόμος, καρμανιόλα v. - καρατομώ, αποκεφαλίζω
Italiano (Italian) ghigliottinare, ghigliottina
Português (Portuguese) n. - guilhotina (f)
Русский (Russian) гильотина, резальная машина, гильотинировать, обрезать, срывать парламентскую дискуссию
Español (Spanish) n. - guillotina v. tr. - guillotinar, decapitar, descabezar
Svenska (Swedish) n. - giljotin, diskussionsspärr (parl.), skärmaskin (för papper) v. - giljotinera, tidsbegränsa (parl.)
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