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{{Short description|Apparatus designed for carrying out executions by beheading}}{{About|the device used to carry out executions by beheading|the paper slicing tool|Paper cutter|other uses|Guillotine (disambiguation)}}{{more citations needed|date=April 2017}}{{Use dmy dates|date=January 2020}}{{Use American English|date=September 2020}}File:Guillotine Luxembourg 01.jpg|thumb|The guillotine used in LuxembourgLuxembourgA guillotine ({{IPAc-en|ˈ|g|ɪ|l|É™|t|i:|n|,_|-|l|oÊŠ|-}} {{respell|GHIH|lÉ™|teen|,_|-|loh|-}}) is an apparatus designed for effectively carrying out executions by beheading. The device consists of a tall, upright frame with a weighted and angled blade suspended at the top. The condemned person is secured with a pillory at the bottom of the frame, holding the position of the neck directly below the blade. The blade is then released, swiftly and forcefully decapitating the victim with a single, clean pass; the head falls into a basket or other receptacle below.The guillotine is best known for its use in France, particularly during the French Revolution, where the revolution’s supporters celebrated it as the people’s avenger and the revolution’s opponents vilified it as the pre-eminent symbol of the violence of the Reign of Terror.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. While the name “guillotine” dates from this period, similar devices had been in use elsewhere in Europe over several centuries. Use of an oblique blade and the pillory-like restraint device set this type of guillotine apart from others. Display of severed heads had long been one of the most common ways European sovereigns exhibited their power to their subjects.JOURNAL, 10.2307/2928715, 2928715, Janes, Regina, Beheadings, Representations, 1991, 35, 21–51, The design of the guillotine was intended to make capital punishment more reliable and less painful in accordance with new Enlightenment ideas of human rights. Prior to use of the guillotine, France had inflicted manual beheading and a variety of methods of execution, many of which were more gruesome and required a high level of precision and skill to carry out successfully. After its adoption, the device remained France’s standard method of judicial execution until the abolition of capital punishment in 1981.{{in lang|fr}} Loi n°81-908 du 9 octobre 1981 portant abolition de la peine de mort {{webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20130731141543www.legifrance.gouv.fr/affichTexte.do?cidTexte=JORFTEXT000000319513&dateTexte=20090728 |date=31 July 2013 }}. Legifrance.gouv.fr. Retrieved on 2013-04-25. The last person to be executed by a government via guillotine was Hamida Djandoubi on 10 September 1977 in France.WEB, History of the guillotine, Fabricius, Jørn, guillotine.dk, 21 March 2022,guillotine.dk/pages/history.html,

History

Precursors

File:The Halifax Gibbet - geograph.org.uk - 350422.jpg|thumb|alt=photograph|A replica of the Halifax Gibbet on its original site in Halifax, West YorkshireHalifax, West YorkshireFile:The Maiden, National Museum of Scotland.jpg|thumb|The original Maiden, introduced in 1564 and used until 1716, now on display at the National Museum of Scotland in EdinburghEdinburghThe use of beheading machines in Europe long predates such use during the French Revolution in 1792. An early example of the principle is found in the Old French High History of the Holy Grail, dated to about 1210. Although the device is imaginary, its function is clear. The text says:}}The Halifax Gibbet in England was a wooden structure consisting of two wooden uprights, capped by a horizontal beam, of a total height of {{convert|4.5|m|0}}. The blade was an axe head weighing 3.5 kg (7.7 lb), attached to the bottom of a massive wooden block that slid up and down in grooves in the uprights. This device was mounted on a large square platform {{convert|1.25|m|ft|0}} high. It is not known when the Halifax Gibbet was first used; the first recorded execution in Halifax dates from 1280, but that execution may have been by sword, axe, or gibbet. The machine remained in use until Oliver Cromwell forbade capital punishment for petty theft.A Hans Weiditz (1495–1537) woodcut illustration from the 1532 edition of Petrarch’s De remediis utriusque fortunae, or “Remedies for Both Good and Bad Fortune” shows a device similar to the Halifax Gibbet in the background being used for an execution.Asset No. 1613536198, The British Museum Collection.Holinshed’s Chronicles of 1577 included a picture of “The execution of Murcod Ballagh near Merton in Ireland in 1307” showing a similar execution machine, suggesting its early use in Ireland.History of the guillotine {{webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20150906164403www.guillotine.dk/pages/history.html |date=6 September 2015 }}, The Guillotine Headquarters 2014.The Maiden was constructed in 1564 for the Provost and Magistrates of Edinburgh, Scotland and was in use from April 1565 to 1710. One of those executed was James Douglas, 4th Earl of Morton, in 1581, and a 1644 publication began circulating the legend that Morton himself commissioned the Maiden after he had seen the Halifax Gibbet.Maxwell, H Edinburgh, A Historical Study, Williams and Norgate (1916), pp. 137, 299–303. The Maiden was readily dismantled for storage and transport, and it is now on display in the National Museum of Scotland.WEB,www.nms.ac.uk/explore-our-collections/stories/scottish-history-and-archaeology/the-maiden/, The Maiden, National Museums Scotland, Nms.ac.uk, 2 August 2019,

France

Etymology

For a period of time after its invention, the guillotine was called a louisette. However, it was later named after French physician and Freemason Joseph-Ignace Guillotin, who proposed on 10 October 1789 the use of a special device to carry out executions in France in a more humane manner. A death penalty opponent, he was displeased with the breaking wheel and other common, more grisly methods of execution and sought to persuade Louis XVI of France to implement a less painful alternative. While not the device’s inventor, Guillotin’s name ultimately became an eponym for it. Contrary to popular myth, Guillotin did not die by guillotine but rather by natural causes.WEB, June 5, 2020, Origins of the Guillotine,www.snopes.com/fact-check/head-man/, Snopes.com, 4 September 2011,

Invention

French surgeon and physiologist Antoine Louis and German engineer Tobias Schmidt built a prototype for the guillotine. According to the memoir of the French executioner Charles-Henri Sanson, Louis XVI suggested the use of a straight, angled blade instead of a curved one.BOOK, Mémoires de Sanson, Sanson, Charles-Henri, 1831, Tôme 3, 400–408,

Introduction in France

File:Anonymous - Portrait de Joseph-Ignace Guillotin (1738-1814), médecin et homme politique. - P1052 - Musée Carnavalet (cropped).jpg|thumb|Portrait of Joseph-Ignace GuillotinJoseph-Ignace GuillotinOn 10 October 1789, physician Joseph-Ignace Guillotin proposed to the National Assembly that capital punishment should always take the form of decapitation “by means of a simple mechanism”.R. F. Opie (2003) Guillotine, Gloucestershire: Sutton Publishing Ltd, p. 22, {{ISBN|0750930349}}.Sensing the growing discontent, Louis XVI banned the use of the breaking wheel.VIDEO, Executive Producer Don Cambou, Modern Marvels: Death Devices, A&E Television Networks, 2001, In 1791, as the French Revolution progressed, the National Assembly researched a new method to be used on all condemned people regardless of class, consistent with the idea that the purpose of capital punishment was simply to end life rather than to inflict unnecessary pain.A committee formed under Antoine Louis, physician to the King and Secretary to the Academy of Surgery. Guillotin was also on the committee. The group was influenced by beheading devices used elsewhere in Europe, such as the Italian Mannaia (or Mannaja, which had been used since Roman times{{Citation needed|date=September 2022}}), the Scottish Maiden, and the Halifax Gibbet (3.5 kg).JOURNAL, Parker, John William, 26 July 1834

journal=The Saturday Magazine (magazine), The Saturday Magazine, 32, 132, While many of these prior instruments crushed the neck or used blunt force to take off a head, a number of them also used a crescent blade to behead and a hinged two-part yoke to immobilize the victim’s neck. Laquiante, an officer of the Strasbourg criminal court,BOOK, Croker, John Wilson, Essays on the early period of the French Revolution,archive.org/details/bub_gb_fQZoAAAAMAAJ, 21 October 2010, 1857, J. Murray, 549, designed a beheading machine and employed Tobias Schmidt, a German engineer and harpsichord maker, to construct a prototype.Edmond-Jean Guérin, “1738–1814 – Joseph-Ignace Guillotin : biographie historique d’une figure saintaise” {{webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110720164546www.histoirepassion.eu/spip.php?article1360|date=20 July 2011}}, Histoire P@ssion website, accessed 2009-06-27, citing M. Georges de Labruyère in le Matin, 22 Aug. 1907 Antoine Louis is also credited with the design of the prototype. France’s official executioner, Charles-Henri Sanson, claimed in his memoirs that King Louis XVI, an amateur locksmith, recommended that the device employ an oblique blade rather than a crescent one, lest the blade not be able to cut through all necks; the neck of the king, who himself died by guillotine years later, was offered up discreetly as an example.Memoirs of the Sansons, from private notes and documents, 1688–1847 / edited by Henry Sanson. pp 260–261. WEB,archive.org/stream/memoirsofsansons00sansuoft/memoirsofsansons00sansuoft_djvu.txt, Memoirs of the Sansons, from private notes and documents, 1688–1847 / Edited by Henry Sanson, 1876, 2014-05-09, live,archive.wikiwix.com/cache/20140511015142archive.org/stream/memoirsofsansons00sansuoft/memoirsofsansons00sansuoft_djvu.txt, 11 May 2014, dmy-all, accessed 28 April 2016 The first execution by guillotine was performed on a highwayman Nicolas Jacques PelletierWEB,www.crimemuseum.org/library/execution/guillotine.html, Crime Library, National Museum of Crime & Punishment, 13 June 2009, [I]n 1792, Nicholas-Jacques Pelletier became the first person to be put to death with a guillotine., dead,www.crimemuseum.org/library/execution/guillotine.html," title="web.archive.org/web/20090201092331www.crimemuseum.org/library/execution/guillotine.html,">web.archive.org/web/20090201092331www.crimemuseum.org/library/execution/guillotine.html, 1 February 2009, dmy-all, on 25 April 1792BOOK, Chase’s Calendar of Events 2007, 978-0-07-146818-3,archive.org/details/chasescalendarof00edit, registration, 2007, McGraw-Hill, New York, 291, BOOK, Ruth, Scurr, Fatal Purity, 978-0-8050-8261-6,books.google.com/books?id=yLxpgYt4dJcC&pg=PA222, 2007, H. Holt, New York, 222–223, BOOK, Jeffery, Abbott, What a Way to Go, 978-0-312-36656-8,archive.org/details/whatwaytogo00geof, registration, 2007, St. Martin’s Griffin, New York, 144, in front of what is now Place de l’Hôtel de Ville, the city hall of Paris. All citizens condemned to die were from then on executed there, until the scaffold was moved on 21 August to the Place du Carrousel.The machine was judged successful because it was considered a humane form of execution in contrast with more cruel methods used in the pre-revolutionary Ancien Régime. In France, before the invention of the guillotine, members of the nobility were beheaded with a sword or an axe, which often took two or more blows to kill the condemned. The condemned or their families would sometimes pay the executioner to ensure that the blade was sharp in order to achieve a quick and relatively painless death. Commoners were usually hanged, which could take many minutes. In the early phase of the French Revolution, prior to the guillotine’s adoption, the slogan À la lanterne (in English: To the lamp post!) symbolized popular justice in revolutionary France. The revolutionary radicals hanged officials and aristocrats from street lanterns and also employed more gruesome methods of execution, such as the wheel or burning at the stake.Having only one method of civil execution for all regardless of class was also seen as an expression of equality among citizens. The guillotine was then the only civil legal execution method in France until abolition of the death penalty in 1981,www.ladocumentationfrancaise.fr/dossiers/abolition-peine-mort/code-penal-dalloz.shtml" title="web.archive.org/web/20051020135642www.ladocumentationfrancaise.fr/dossiers/abolition-peine-mort/code-penal-dalloz.shtml">Pre-1981 penal code, article 12: “Any person sentenced to death shall be beheaded.” apart from certain crimes against the security of the state, or for the death sentences passed by military courts,Pre-1971 Code de Justice Militaire, article 336: “Les justiciables des juridictions des forces armées condamnés à la peine capitale sont fusillés dans un lieu désigné par l’autorité militaire.” which entailed execution by firing squad.www.ladocumentationfrancaise.fr/dossiers/abolition-peine-mort/code-penal-dalloz.shtml" title="web.archive.org/web/20051020135642www.ladocumentationfrancaise.fr/dossiers/abolition-peine-mort/code-penal-dalloz.shtml">Pre-1981 penal code, article 13: “By exception to article 12, when the death penalty is handed for crimes against the safety of the State, execution shall take place by firing squad.”. Reign of Terror File:Execution of Louis XVI.jpg|thumb|The execution of King Louis XVI ]]File:Exécution de Marie Antoinette le 16 octobre 1793.jpg|thumb|Queen Marie AntoinetteMarie AntoinetteFile:Execution robespierre, saint just....jpg|thumb|The execution of Maximilien Robespierre; the person who had just been executed in this drawing is Georges Couthon. Robespierre is the figure marked “10” in the tumbreltumbrelLouis Collenot d’Angremont was a royalist famed for having been the first guillotined for his political ideas, on 21 August 1792. During the Reign of Terror between June 1793 and July 1794 about 17,000 people were guillotined, including former King Louis XVI and Queen Marie Antoinette who were executed at the guillotine in 1793. Towards the end of the Terror in 1794, revolutionary leaders such as Georges Danton, Saint-Just and Maximilien Robespierre were sent to the guillotine. Most of the time, executions in Paris were carried out in the Place de la Revolution (former Place Louis XV and current Place de la Concorde); the guillotine stood in the corner near the Hôtel Crillon where the City of Brest Statue can be found today. The machine was moved several times, to the Place de la Nation and the Place de la Bastille, but returned, particularly for the execution of the King and for Robespierre.For a time, executions by guillotine were a popular form of entertainment that attracted great crowds of spectators, with vendors selling programs listing the names of the condemned. But more than being popular entertainment alone during the Terror, the guillotine symbolized revolutionary ideals: equality in death equivalent to equality before the law; open and demonstrable revolutionary justice; and the destruction of privilege under the Ancien Régime, which used separate forms of execution for nobility and commoners.BOOK, “The Guilloine and the Terror”, Arasse, Daniel, Penguin, 1989, London, 75–76, The Parisian sans-culottes, then the popular public face of lower-class patriotic radicalism, thus considered the guillotine a positive force for revolutionary progress.BOOK, “Goodness Beyond Virtue: Jacobins During the French Revolution ”, Higonnet, Patrice, Harvard, 2000, Cambridge, MA, 283, Retirement File:France - Public execution on Guillotine 1897.jpg|thumb|A 20 April 1897 public execution by guillotine in front of the prison of Lons-le-SaunierLons-le-SaunierAfter the French Revolution, executions resumed in the city centre. On 4 February 1832, the guillotine was moved behind the Church of Saint-Jacques-de-la-Boucherie, before being moved again, to the Grande Roquette prison, on 29 November 1851.In the late 1840s, the Tussaud brothers Joseph and Francis, gathering relics for Madame Tussauds wax museum, visited the aged Henry-Clément Sanson, grandson of the executioner Charles-Henri Sanson, from whom they obtained parts, the knife and lunette, of one of the original guillotines used during the Reign of Terror. The executioner had “pawned his guillotine, and got into woeful trouble for alleged trafficking in municipal property”.Leonard Cottrell (1952) Madame Tussaud, Evans Brothers Limited, pp. 142–43.On 6 August 1909, the guillotine was used at the junction of the Boulevard Arago and the Rue de la Santé, behind the La Santé Prison.The last public guillotining in France was of Eugen Weidmann, who was convicted of six murders. He was beheaded on 17 June 1939 outside the prison Saint-Pierre, rue Andre Mignot 5 at Versailles, which is now the Tribunal Judiciaire de Versailles. Numerous issues with the proceedings arose: inappropriate behaviour by spectators, incorrect assembly of the apparatus, and secret cameras filming and photographing the execution from several storeys above. In response, the French government ordered that future executions be conducted in the prison courtyard in private.WEB, 2014-04-01, The Last Public Execution by Guillotine, 1939, Rare Historical Photos,rarehistoricalphotos.com/last-public-execution-guillotine-1939/, 2024-04-22, en-US, Marie-Louise Giraud (17 November 1903 – 30 July 1943) was one of the last women to be executed in France. Giraud was convicted in Vichy France and was guillotined for having performed 27 abortions in the Cherbourg area on 30 July 1943. Her story was dramatized in the 1988 film Story of Women directed by Claude Chabrol.The guillotine remained the official method of execution in France until the death penalty was abolished in 1981. The final three guillotinings in France before its abolition were those of child-murderers Christian Ranucci (on 28 July 1976) in Marseille, Jérôme Carrein (on 23 June 1977) in Douai and torturer-murderer Hamida Djandoubi (on 10 September 1977) in Marseille. Djandoubi’s death was the last time that the guillotine was used for an execution by any government. Germany In Germany, the guillotine is known as Fallbeil (“falling axe“) or Köpfmaschine (“beheading machine“) and was used in various German states from the 19th century onwards,{{citation needed|date=September 2016}} becoming the preferred method of execution in Napoleonic times in many parts of the country. The guillotine and the firing squad were the legal methods of execution during the era of the German Empire (1871–1918) and the Weimar Republic (1919–1933).The original German guillotines resembled the French Berger 1872 model, but they eventually evolved into sturdier and more effective machines. Built primarily of metal instead of wood, these new guillotines had heavier blades than their French predecessors and thus could use shorter uprights as well. Officials could also conduct multiple executions faster, thanks to a more effective blade recovery system and the eventual removal of the tilting board (bascule). Those deemed likely to struggle were backed slowly into the device from behind a curtain to prevent them from seeing it prior to the execution. A metal screen covered the blade as well in order to conceal it from the sight of the condemned.Nazi Germany used the guillotine between 1933 and 1945 to execute 16,500 prisoners, 10,000 of them in 1944 and 1945 alone.BOOK, Robert Frederick Opie, Guillotine: The Timbers of Justice,books.google.com/books?id=ob87AwAAQBAJ&pg=PT131, 2013, History Press, 131, 9780752496054, WEB, According to Nazi records, the guillotine was eventually used to execute some 16,500 people between 1933 and 1945, many of them resistance fighters and political dissidents.,www.history.com/news/8-things-you-may-not-know-about-the-guillotine, 8 Things You May Not Know About the Guillotine, September 15, 2014, Andrews, Evan, HISTORY, Notable political victims executed by the guillotine under the Nazi government included Marinus van der Lubbe, a Dutch communist blamed for the Reichstag fire and executed by guillotine in January 1934. The Nazi government also guillotined Sophie Scholl, who was convicted of high treason after distributing anti-Nazi pamphlets at the University of Munich with her brother Hans, and other members of the German student resistance group, the White Rose.BOOK, Scholl, Inge, Inge Scholl, Schultz, Arthur R. (Trans.), 1983, The White Rose: Munich, 1942–1943, Wesleyan University Press, Middletown, CT, 978-0-8195-6086-5, 114,archive.org/details/whiterosemunich100scho/page/114, {{Citation needed|reason=The citation that backs this up does not specify a guillotine was used for the execution|date=May 2022}} The guillotine was last used in West Germany in 1949 in the execution of Richard SchuhBOOK, Rolf Lamprecht, Ich gehe bis nach Karlsruhe: Eine Geschichte des Bundesverfassungsgerichts – Ein SPIEGEL-Buch,books.google.com/books?id=1qIjNgNzVfwC&pg=PT55, 5 September 2011, Deutsche Verlags-Anstalt, 978-3-641-06094-7, 55, and was last used in East Germany in 1966 in the execution of Horst Fischer.BOOK, Jörg Osterloh, Clemens Vollnhals, Clemens Vollnhals, NS-Prozesse und deutsche Öffentlichkeit: Besatzungszeit, frühe Bundesrepublik und DDR,books.google.com/books?id=eztelZrK3cgC&pg=PA368, 18 January 2012, Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 978-3-647-36921-1, 368, The Stasi used the guillotine in East Germany between 1950 and 1966 for secret executions.BOOK, John O. Koehler, Stasi: The Untold Story of the East German Secret Police,books.google.com/books?id=waxWwxY1tt8C&pg=PA18, 5 August 2008, Basic Books, 18, 9780786724413, Elsewhere A number of countries, primarily in Europe, continued to employ this method of execution into the 19th and 20th centuries, but they ceased to use it before France did in 1977.In Antwerp, Belgium, the last person to be beheaded was Francis Kol. Convicted of robbery and murder, he received his punishment on 8 May 1856. During the period from 19 March 1798 to 30 March 1856, there were 19 beheadings in Antwerp.Gazet van Mechelen, 8 May 1956In Utrecht, the Netherlands, the first person to be beheaded was Anthony van Benthem, a criminal confined in a mental institution. He killed a cellmate after being called a sodomite. He was executed at Paardenveld on 27 July 1811. Back then, the Netherlands was part of the French Empire, Utrecht being in the Zuyderzée department.In Switzerland, it was used for the last time by the canton of Obwalden in the execution of murderer Hans Vollenweider in 1940.In Greece, the guillotine (along with the firing squad) was introduced as a method of execution in 1834; it was last used in 1913.In Sweden, beheading became the mandatory method of execution in 1866. The guillotine replaced manual beheading in 1903, and it was used only once, in the execution of murderer Alfred Ander in 1910 at LÃ¥ngholmen Prison, Stockholm. Ander was also the last person to be executed in Sweden before capital punishment was abolished there in 1921.WEB,popularhistoria.se/artiklar/affarside-vanskotsel-och-barnamord-anglamakerskan, Änglamakerskan, The angel maker, Populär Historia, 1 December 2015, sv, Bolmstedt, Ã…sa, 21 December 2006, LRF Media, live,popularhistoria.se/artiklar/affarside-vanskotsel-och-barnamord-anglamakerskan," title="web.archive.org/web/20171005050629popularhistoria.se/artiklar/affarside-vanskotsel-och-barnamord-anglamakerskan,">web.archive.org/web/20171005050629popularhistoria.se/artiklar/affarside-vanskotsel-och-barnamord-anglamakerskan, 5 October 2017, dmy-all, JOURNAL,www.hemmetsjournal.se/odenochaventyr/Artiklar/Reportage/Anglamakerskan-i-Helsingborg-drankte-atta-fosterbarn/, Änglamakerskan i Helsingborg dränkte Ã¥tta fosterbarn, The angel maker in Helsingborg drowned eight foster care children, Hemmets Journal, 1 December 2015, Rystad, Johan G., 1 April 2015, sv, Egmont Group, dead,www.hemmetsjournal.se/odenochaventyr/Artiklar/Reportage/Anglamakerskan-i-Helsingborg-drankte-atta-fosterbarn/," title="web.archive.org/web/20151208134759www.hemmetsjournal.se/odenochaventyr/Artiklar/Reportage/Anglamakerskan-i-Helsingborg-drankte-atta-fosterbarn/,">web.archive.org/web/20151208134759www.hemmetsjournal.se/odenochaventyr/Artiklar/Reportage/Anglamakerskan-i-Helsingborg-drankte-atta-fosterbarn/, 8 December 2015, dmy-all, In South Vietnam, after the Diệm regime enacted the 10/59 Decree in 1959, mobile special military courts were dispatched to the countryside in order to intimidate the rural population; they used guillotines, which had belonged to the former French colonial power, in order to carry out death sentences on the spot.BOOK, Nguyen Thi Dinh, Mai V. Elliott, No Other Road to Take: Memoir of Mrs Nguyen Thi Dinh, Cornell University Southeast Asia Program, 1976, 27, 0-87727-102-X, One such guillotine is still on show at the War Remnants Museum in Ho Chi Minh City.BOOK, Farrara, Andrew J., Around the World in 220 Days: The Odyssey of an American Traveler Abroad, Buy Books, 2004, 415, 0-7414-1838-X, In the Western Hemisphere, the guillotine saw only limited use. The only recorded guillotine execution in North America north of the Caribbean took place on the French island of St. Pierre in 1889, of Joseph Néel, with a guillotine brought in from Martinique.WEB,grandcolombier.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/12/zuzaregui.jpg, Archived copy, 2017-11-21, live,grandcolombier.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/12/zuzaregui.jpg," title="web.archive.org/web/20171201035012grandcolombier.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/12/zuzaregui.jpg,">web.archive.org/web/20171201035012grandcolombier.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/12/zuzaregui.jpg, 1 December 2017, dmy-all, In the Caribbean, it was used rarely in Guadeloupe and Martinique; its last use in the region was at Fort-de-France in 1965.NEWS,www.nytimes.com/1986/07/27/travel/a-bit-of-france-off-the-coast-of-canada.html?pagewanted=all, A Bit of France off the Coast of Canada, The New York Times, 27 July 1986, live,www.nytimes.com/1986/07/27/travel/a-bit-of-france-off-the-coast-of-canada.html?pagewanted=all," title="web.archive.org/web/20171201135933www.nytimes.com/1986/07/27/travel/a-bit-of-france-off-the-coast-of-canada.html?pagewanted=all,">web.archive.org/web/20171201135933www.nytimes.com/1986/07/27/travel/a-bit-of-france-off-the-coast-of-canada.html?pagewanted=all, 1 December 2017, dmy-all, Wren, Christopher S., In South America, the guillotine was only used in French Guiana, where about 150 people were beheaded between 1850 and 1945: most of them were convicts exiled from France and incarcerated within the “bagne”, or penal colonies. Within the Southern Hemisphere, it worked in New Caledonia (which had a bagne too until the end of the 19th century) and at least twice in Tahiti.In the United States in 1996, Georgia State Representative Doug Teper unsuccessfully sponsored a bill to replace that state’s electric chair with the guillotine.WEB,slate.com/news-and-politics/2013/11/guillotine-death-penalty-lethal-injection-is-cruel-and-unusual-punishment-slicing-off-the-head-is-the-better-way-to-go.html, Kruzel, John, November 1, 2013, Bring Back the Guillotine, Slate (magazine), Slate, January 30, 2020, WEB,www.legis.ga.gov/Legislation/Archives/19951996/leg/fulltext/hb1274.htm, Georgia House of Representatives – 1995/1996 Sessions HB 1274 – Death penalty; guillotine provisions, The General Assembly of Georgia, 2013-10-03, live,www.legis.ga.gov/Legislation/Archives/19951996/leg/fulltext/hb1274.htm," title="web.archive.org/web/20131004235314www.legis.ga.gov/Legislation/Archives/19951996/leg/fulltext/hb1274.htm,">web.archive.org/web/20131004235314www.legis.ga.gov/Legislation/Archives/19951996/leg/fulltext/hb1274.htm, 4 October 2013, dmy-all, In recent years, a limited number of individuals have killed themselves using self-constructed guillotines.NEWS,news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/tyne/2974083.stm, Guillotine death was suicide, 24 April 2003, BBC News, 26 September 2008, live,news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/tyne/2974083.stm," title="web.archive.org/web/20080927212352news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/tyne/2974083.stm,">web.archive.org/web/20080927212352news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/tyne/2974083.stm, 27 September 2008, dmy-all, NEWS,www.thenewsherald.com/articles/2007/09/16/localnews/20070916-archive6.txt, Man kills himself with guillotine, The News Herald, 16 September 2007, 11 September 2016, Sulivan, Anne, Tennessee, 19 August 2016,www.thenewsherald.com/articles/2007/09/16/localnews/20070916-archive6.txt," title="web.archive.org/web/20160819084547www.thenewsherald.com/articles/2007/09/16/localnews/20070916-archive6.txt,">web.archive.org/web/20160819084547www.thenewsherald.com/articles/2007/09/16/localnews/20070916-archive6.txt, dead, NEWS,content.usatoday.com/communities/ondeadline/post/2010/06/russian-suicide-homemade-guillotine/1, Russian engineer commits suicide with homemade guillotine, USA Today, 11 September 2016, Staglin, Douglas, NEWS,www.independent.co.uk/news/guillotine-used-for-suicide-1126857.html, Guillotine used for suicide, The Independent, 3 December 1999, 11 September 2016, Buncomber, Andrew, live,www.independent.co.uk/news/guillotine-used-for-suicide-1126857.html," title="web.archive.org/web/20170102072251www.independent.co.uk/news/guillotine-used-for-suicide-1126857.html,">web.archive.org/web/20170102072251www.independent.co.uk/news/guillotine-used-for-suicide-1126857.html, 2 January 2017, dmy-all, Controversy (File:Execution of Languille in 1905.jpg|thumb|A retouched photo of the execution of Languille in 1905 with foreground figures painted in over the original photo)Ever since the guillotine’s first use, there has been debate as to whether or not the guillotine provided as swift and painless a death as Guillotin had hoped. With previous methods of execution that were intended to be painful, few expressed concern about the level of suffering that they inflicted. However, because the guillotine was invented specifically to be more humane, the issue of whether or not the condemned experiences pain has been thoroughly examined and remains a controversial topic. Certain eyewitness accounts of guillotine executions suggest anecdotally that awareness may persist momentarily after decapitation, although there is no scientific consensus on the matter. Living heads The question of consciousness or awareness following decapitation remained a topic of discussion during the guillotine’s use.The following report was written by Dr. Beaurieux, who observed the head of executed prisoner Henri Languille, on 28 June 1905:I insist advisedly on this peculiarity{{snd}}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{{snd}}and the eyes took on the glazed look which they have in the dead.WEB, Can the head survive?, guillotine.dk,www.guillotine.dk/pages/30sek.html, 17 October 2020, live,www.guillotine.dk/Pages/30sek.html," title="web.archive.org/web/20100125022453www.guillotine.dk/Pages/30sek.html,">web.archive.org/web/20100125022453www.guillotine.dk/Pages/30sek.html, 25 January 2010, dmy-all, BOOK, Clinical Journal,books.google.com/books?id=nZc1AQAAMAAJ, 1898, Medical Publishing Company, 436, |author=|title=|source=}} Names for the guillotine During the span of its usage, the French guillotine has gone by many names, some of which include:{{div col|colwidth=30em}} La Monte-à-regret (The Regretful Climb)abbaye de monte-à-regret : définition avec Bob, dictionnaire d’argot, l’autre trésor de la langue {{webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20140314180326www.languefrancaise.net/bob/detail.php?id=8 |date=14 March 2014 }}. Languefrancaise.net. Retrieved on 2013-04-25.Joseph-Ignace GUILLOTIN (1738–1814) {{webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20121215173120medarus.org/Medecins/MedecinsTextes/guillotin.html |date=15 December 2012 }}. Medarus.org. Retrieved on 2013-04-25. Le Rasoir National (The National Razor) Le Vasistas or La Lucarne (The Fanlight)guillotine du XIVeme arrondissement {{webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20130908181922ktakafka.free.fr/F_GUILLOTINE.htm |date=8 September 2013 }}. Ktakafka.free.fr. Retrieved on 2013-04-25. La Veuve (The Widow) Le Moulin à Silence (The Silence Mill) Louisette or Louison (from the name of prototype designer Antoine Louis) Madame La GuillotineGuillotine {{webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20121004213743www.whonamedit.com/synd.cfm/2787.html |date=4 October 2012 }}. Whonamedit. Retrieved on 2013-04-25. Mirabelle (from the name of Mirabeau) La Bécane (The Machine) Le Massicot (The Paper Trimmer) La Cravate à Capet (Capet’s Necktie, Capet being Louis XVI) La Raccourcisseuse Patriotique (The Patriotic Shortener) La demi-lune (The Half-Moon) Les Bois de Justice (Timbers of Justice) La Bascule à Charlot (Charlot’s Rocking-chair) Le Prix Goncourt des Assassins (The Goncourt Prize for Murderers) {{div col end}} See also {{div col|colwidth=30em}} Bals des victimes Capital punishment in France Digitine Halifax Gibbet Henri Désiré Landru Rozalia Lubomirska Marcel Petiot Plötzensee Prison Jozef Raskin Use of capital punishment by nation Eugen Weidmann {{div col end}} References {{Reflist|30em}} Further reading Carlyle, Thomas. The French Revolution in Three Volumes, Volume 3: The Guillotine. Charles C. Little and James Brown (Little Brown). New York, NY, 1839. No ISBN. (First Edition. Many reprintings of this important history have been done during the last two centuries.) Q, Q19040187, BOOK, Gerould, Daniel, Guillotine; Its Legend and Lore, Blast Books, 1992, 0-922233-02-0,archive.org/details/guillotineitsleg00dani, External links {{commons}} The Guillotine Headquarters with a gallery, history, name list, and quiz. Bois de justice History of the guillotine, construction details, with rare photos {{in lang|en}} WEB, Fabricius, Jørn, The Guillotine Headquarters,guillotine.dk/, Does the head remain briefly conscious after decapitation (revisited)? (from The Straight Dope) Scientific American, “The Origin of the Guillotine”, 17 December 1881, pp. 392. {{Capital punishment}}{{Authority control}}