narrow streets as shouts of happiness and shouts of glee echo against buildings that are lit by a June afternoon’s bright sunshine. There is a palpable beat of anticipation. There is a tremor of excitement as the people are carrying pikes, pots, sticks, and drums. The smell of meat roasting on open spits mixes with a more immediate and pungent smell of sweat… this is a carnival of death and the gathering men, women and children are vying for the best view, the best seats, and the quickest way toward the merchants selling ale and bread before the main attraction begins. There is a glint of sun catching the guillotine’s blade; it is a crescent blade, and sharp, and is already stained red from the previous day’s festivities. Hundreds of pairs of eyes are drawn toward the guillotine, raised atop its own platform… here is the “Razor,” the “Madam Scythe,” and below, being marched toward their death, a group of white-clad prisoners who are also squinting against the bright sun. This is an Era in French History that included the French Revolution and Robespierre’s own “Reign of Terror” – I think it’s interesting to look at the instrument of this terror, the Guillotine, and try to understand what its original purpose was meant to be. Of course, it is a pretty cool little contraption that chopped off a person’s head whenever someone else thought this should have to happen, you know, but it was originally designed with a more humanitarian slant (sorry) in mind.
Before the invention of the guillotine, political prisoners (and thieves and brigands and such) were being put to death in a variety of painful ways. A man could be drowned, strangled, hanged, put to the wheel (too ghastly to even go into) or burned at the stake. The method of decaptitation involved an executioner with what was sometimes a dull sword or a dull axe, and it was necessary to repeatedly “chop” at a person’s neck. This often resulted in suffocation from a crushed windpipe or the loss of blood… it was also made worse if a person flinched or moved just before the strike fell.
Influenced by the “Enlightenment,” in which a man’s ability to “Reason” an “Rationalize” gave rise to new methods in Science and Philosophy -– it would be a French physician who set out to eliminate cruel and inhumane forms of punishment. Antoine Louis (primarily) would develop an easel-like structure which would allow victims to lie on their stomachs, face-down, while above them a crescent-shaped blade was being moved upward by a series of pulleys. The blade would fall quickly, severing a person’s head, and within 10 seconds they could be pronounced dead. Oh, wait. I forgot that a basket was nearby to catch the fallen (um, decapitated) head. This was important. And, in an Enlightened effort, this new tool was tested on animals, more animals, humans, and then more humans.
The guillotine was opposed by many intellectuals of the time who feared the growing power of the state; interestingly, Robespierre was himself an opponent to the tool. Others, like the artist Marat, (you know him, he was murdered in his bathtub) approved of the state’s right to use the threat of death against its enemies. I guess Robespierre, architect of the “Reign of Terror,” came to agree with him – between the summers of 1793 and 1794, the guillotine was dispatching nearly a hundred people every day.
What is interesting is that the guillotine was intended to become a humane tool used for executions. It was certainly a more humane method than dropping a rock-bound person in water or burning them at a stake, don’t you think? Unfortunately, the guillotine, in war-torn France, became a grim machine that symbolized all that the repressive and violent revolution had become. During Robespierre’s “Reign of Terror” as many as fifty thousand people would lose their lives to the constantly falling blade. That included King Louis XIV and his (perhaps) dim-witted wife, Marie Antoinette. The nobility, however, constituted only a slim fraction of those who were killed. It was more likely that the blade would find a member of the new “burgeoise,” or a worker, or a half-starved peasant… possibly those same people who found themselves in the early summer crowds.
