Over its almost two hundred years of history, the guillotine has decapitated tens of thousands of people, ranging from criminals and revolutionaries to aristocrats, kings and even queens. It's not just a disgustingly efficient killing machine: the Sainte Guillotine served as a symbol of the French Revolution and cast a shameful shadow over the 18th, 19th, and 20th centuries.
Some amazing facts about this instrument of death, once popularly called the "national razor" of France.
The history of the guillotine goes back to the Middle Ages
The name "guillotine" appears in the 1790s during the French Revolution, but by that time such execution tools had already been used for more than one century. A decapitation device called a "bar" was used in Germany and Flanders in the Middle Ages. The British had a so-called sliding ax, known as the "Halifax gallows", on which heads were chopped off in ancient times. The French guillotine evolved from two pre-existing tools: the "mannaia" from Renaissance Italy and the infamous "Scottish Maiden" that claimed the lives of over 120 people between the 16th and 18th centuries. There are also facts confirming the possibility of using primitive guillotines in France long before the start of the revolution.
In fact, the guillotine was invented as the most humane method of execution.
The invention of the French guillotine dates back to 1789, when Dr. Joseph-Ignace Guillotin proposed to the government a more humane method of execution. Although personally opposed to the death penalty, Guillotin argued that beheading with a lightning-fast machine would be less painful than beheading with a sword or axe. He later oversaw the development of the first prototype, an imposing machine designed by the French doctor Antoine Louis and built by the German inventor of the harpsichord, Tobias Schmidt. The first victim was executed on this machine in April 1792, the weapon quickly became known as the "guillotine", more to the dismay than to the credit of the man believed to be its inventor. Guillotin tried in every possible way to remove his name from this weapon during the guillotine hysteria in the 1790s, and in the early 19th century, his family unsuccessfully tried to petition the government to rename the death machine.
Execution on the guillotine became a mass spectacle for the people
During the reign of terror in the mid-1890s, hundreds of "enemies of the French Revolution" met death under the guillotine's blade. At first, some members of the public complained that the car was too fast, but soon such executions turned into real entertainment. People came in groups to Revolution Square to watch the machine do its terrible job. The guillotine was celebrated in numerous songs, jokes and poems. Spectators could buy souvenirs, read a program that listed the names of the victims, and even have a bite to eat at a nearby restaurant called Cabaret at the Guillotine. Some went to executions every day, especially the "Knitters" - a group of female fanatics who sat in the front rows right in front of the scaffold and knitted on knitting needles between executions. Such a terrible theatrical atmosphere extended to the convicts. Many made sarcastic remarks or bold last words before they died, some even danced their last steps up the scaffold steps. Admiration for the guillotine subsided towards the end of the 18th century, but public executions in France continued until 1939.
Popular toy for children
Children often went to executions and some of them even played at home with their own miniature models of the guillotine. An exact copy of the guillotine, about half a meter high, was a popular toy in France at that time. Such toys were fully functional, and children used them to cut off the heads of dolls or even small rodents. However, they were eventually banned in some cities as having a bad effect on children. Small guillotines also found a place on the dining tables of the upper classes, they were used to cut bread and vegetables.
Guillotine executioners were national celebrities
With the growing popularity of the guillotine, the reputation of the executioners also grew; during the French Revolution, they received great fame. Executioners were evaluated by their ability to quickly and accurately organize a large number of executions. Such work often became a family affair. From 1792 to 1847, the famed Sanson family served as state executioners for generations, bringing a blade to the necks of thousands of victims, including King Louis XVI and Marie Antoinette. In the 19th and 20th centuries, the role of the main executioners went to the Deibler family, father and son. They held this position from 1879 to 1939. People often praised the names of the Sansons and Deiblers on the streets, and the way they dressed on the scaffold dictated the fashion in the country. The underworld also admired executioners. According to some reports, gangsters and other bandits even stuffed tattoos with gloomy slogans like: "My head will go to Deibler."
Scientists conducted terrifying experiments on the heads of convicts
From the very beginning of the use of execution in the form of decapitation, scientists were interested in whether the consciousness of a severed head remains. The debate on the subject reached new heights in 1793, when the executioner's assistant struck the victim's severed head in the face, and onlookers claimed that the face was flushed with anger. Doctors later asked the condemned to try to blink or open one eye after the execution of the sentence to prove that they could still move. Some shouted the name of the executed person or burned their faces with a candle flame or ammonia to see the reaction. In 1880, a doctor named Dessie de Lignère even tried pumping blood into the severed head of a child killer to see if the head could come back to life and talk. The horrific experiments were stopped in the 20th century, but studies on rats still show that brain activity can continue for about four seconds after decapitation.
The guillotine was used for executions in Nazi Germany
The guillotine is mostly associated with the French Revolution, but it claimed just as many lives in Germany during the Third Reich. Adolf Hitler made the guillotine the state method of execution in the 1930s and ordered 20 machines to be installed in German cities. According to Nazi records, some 16,500 people were executed by guillotine, many of them resistance fighters and political dissidents.
The last time the guillotine was used was in the 1970s.
The guillotine remained the state method of execution in France almost until the end of the 20th century. Convicted murderer Hamida Djandoubi became the last person to meet his death under the "national razor" in 1977. However, the 189-year reign of the death machine officially ended only in September 1981, when the death penalty was abolished in France.
And finally:
Do you know that in France at the end of the 18th century, young aristocrats held the so-called "balls of victims" - original dances, which could only be attended by those who had lost one of their family members under the guillotine's blade. The invitees put on a red ribbon around their neck, symbolizing the mark from the blade, and performed a dance during which the head suddenly tilted down, simulating decapitation. Such crazy parties have become popular to the point that some even invent beheaded relatives in order to get there.
Museum sample, modern photo, design by Berger. To the right of the guillotine is Fernand Meissonier, one of the last executioners to carry out executions in Algiers.
Despite some differences in detail, the picture that Koestler sketches for nineteenth-century England is quite valid for eighteenth-century France. If in some narrow circles the influence of Beccaria and Voltaire was felt, the death penalty at that time was hardly called into question and for the majority its validity seemed self-evident. J.-J. Rousseau admits that the life of a citizen is only a "conditional gift" of the state. Montesquieu claims that the death penalty "flows from the nature of things, is drawn from the mind, from the sources of good and evil." For Diderot, "since life is the greatest of goods, everyone agrees that society has the right to deprive this good of one who would deprive others of it." In the next century, Benjamin Constant, strongly influenced by English liberalism, perceives the very reasoning that allowed the British authorities to maintain such a vast field for capital punishment and for such a long time:
I would prefer, he writes in Comments on Filangieri- a few despicable executioners, rather than a crowd of jailers, gendarmes, bloodhounds; I would rather see a few despicable agents transformed into death machines surrounded by the horror of the public, than that we see everywhere people who, for a beggarly pay, are reduced to the position of dogs with human understanding ...
As we can see, the theory of the preference of the executioner to the police did not hold out on the other side of the English Channel. But back to the pre-revolutionary era. The death penalty not only rested on the almost universal consent of its necessity, but in its application gave rise to all the abuses that Arthur Koestler exposes in his own country. It does not make sense here to return to the description of the crowds surrounding the gallows. To quote only the following famous words: when Damien was executed by molten lead, boiling oil and quartering, one of the members of the academy made great efforts to break through the crowd and get into the front row. The shoulder master spotted him and said, "Let him go, he's an amateur."
In addition to such "amateurs", the death penalty also had lawyers, which, fortunately, it no longer has. Such is the famous Servan, deputy prosecutor in the Parliament of Grenoble. It is useful to quote his 1766 speech on the administration of criminal justice:
Erect scaffolds, kindle bonfires, drag the culprit to the square among the public, call the people together with loud cries: you will hear his splashing in response to the announcement of your sentence, as to the announcement of peace and freedom; you will see how it flows to these terrifying disgrace, all the way to the solemn festival of laws; instead of these empty regrets, this idle pity, you will see how this joy and this courageous insensitivity triumph, which inspire a taste for the world and disgust for atrocities, and each, seeing his personal enemy in the guilty, instead of blaming the executor for the cruelest revenge, sees nothing here except the justice of the law. Everything will be fulfilled with these frightening pictures and saving thoughts, and each will be distributed
stray them in the depths of their own family; and here a long story, told with ardent ardor and listened to with equal attention, will reveal to the children who have gathered around the narrator, and imprint in their young memory the image of crime and retribution, love for the laws and for the fatherland, respect and trust for the authorities. Rural inhabitants, also witnesses of these examples, will sow the seeds of these around their huts, planting in the coarse souls of their inhabitants the love of virtue.
Of course, for such examples of eloquence, comments are not needed. Nevertheless, we cannot refrain from quoting one common-sense interpretation, which in 1827 is given by a certain Ducpecio, paraphrasing Beccaria in his work on the death penalty:
For the death penalty to be effective, it is necessary that the executions be repeated with a not too significant interval; but in order that the interval between executions should not be too great, it is necessary that violations of the laws be frequent enough; thus, the notorious effectiveness of capital punishment is based on the frequency of crimes committed, which it is designed to prevent.
Despite the efforts of the defenders of the death penalty, it was for the first time significantly limited precisely in the first years of the revolution. Limited scope - The 1791 Code reduces the number of crimes punishable by death to thirty-two, while the former legislation provided for one hundred and fifteen such cases. Another kind of restriction was also introduced, leaving only one way to carry out the execution.
Until the abolition of torture during the preliminary investigation by Louis XVI in 1780 - abolition
The ruling, which he reinforced by the ordinance in 1788, that the criminal procedure remained exactly as it had been approved by the ordinance of 1670, which can be said to have sanctioned an anachronistic and retrograde practice from the outset. But after all, Louis XVI, abolishing torture, did it not without hesitation:
We are very far from being able to decide with great ease to abolish the ancient laws and confirmed by long experience. It ought to be our wisdom not to afford easy opportunities for the introduction in all areas of a new law that would undermine the foundations and might gradually lead to dangerous innovations...
Thus, in order not to undermine the foundations in the least, the king only cancels the torture. On the contrary, the death penalty unshakably retains its position.
There were four ways to carry it out: beheading, hanging, wheeling and burning at the stake1. The ceremonial accompanying the condemnation - as a rule, the condemned were executed on the very day of the verdict - was so complicated that the doomed, if the maxim was pronounced at noon, had no chance of being executed until night or until the morning of the next day. All the time between the sentencing and execution was filled with numerous and complex formalities, which, of course, does not make sense to dwell on.
As for the methods of execution, they were determined by the judges depending on the crime committed and the personality of the offender.
The decapitation carried out with the sword - often completed with a hatchet - was intended
but for the nobility, at least when the sentence did not deprive the noble criminal of his privileges. The gallows was left for the commoners, if they did not deserve either the wheel or the fire. That is, for the most part, it punished crimes against property. In addition, it was the most common way of punishment for women who were not subjected to wheeling, so as not to offend the modesty of the audience. Here is the description of the execution on the gallows given by Ansel ( Crimes et Chatiments au XVIIIe siecle):
Having fastened three ropes around the neck of the victims, that is, two tortuses- pinky-thin ropes, and zhet, so named because its purpose is to throw the criminal down the stairs, the executioner first rises backwards and with the help of ropes helps the convict to rise. Then the confessor rises in the same order, and while he admonishes the victim, the executioner secures tortuses on the crossbar of the gallows; and while the confessor begins to descend, the executioner knees with the help of jeta causes the victim to push off the ladder, and it hangs in the air, and the sliding knots tortuz squeeze her neck. Then the executioner, holding on to the poles of the gallows with his hands, rises above the victim's bound hands and knees in the stomach and completes the execution with jerks. There are parliaments stipulating that the executioner, leaving longer tortuses, climbs on the shoulders of the victim and kicks the heels in the stomach, causing him to turn four times, finishes the execution more quickly.
Let us add that women, as a rule, had their faces covered with a veil, and that at the moment when the confessor descended from the stairs, the crowd gathered to participate in the spectacle began to sing Salve Regina. The executioner waited for the end of the anthem and then pushed the victim away from the stairs.
Usually the body remained on the gallows for one day, then it was taken to a dump, if special
the military definition of the sentence did not order to burn it, scatter the ashes to the wind, or expose the body on the road.
The wheel was intended for those guilty of premeditated murder, highway robbery, premeditated murder, and burglary. It was also applied to recidivists, to those guilty of violence against an unmarried girl. It was equally used to punish unsuccessful crimes - ambushes, slanderous denunciations, even if they were not given a move. It was a punishment for those deprived of the nobility, after their coats of arms were inked and smashed in front of the scaffold. It was also provided for the murderers of parents or wife, as well as for the murderers of priests. All these latter had to publicly repent, then their wheeled bodies were burned, no matter were they alive or not. This method of execution in France was in use until 1791. It was carried out in two stages; I also borrow a description from Ansel:
First stage: a scaffold is erected, in the middle of which the St. Andrew's cross is fixed flat, made of two bars connected at the intersection, where there are notches corresponding to the middle of the thighs, shins, lower and upper parts of the arms. The criminal, naked, in one shirt, is stretched on this cross, his face turned to the sky; the executioner, lifting his shirt on his hands and on his hips, ties him to the cross with ropes at all joints and lays his head on a stone. Then, taking a square iron rod, one and a half inches thick, with a rounded handle, he gives powerful blows to all the ligaments opposite each notch, and finishes the job with two or three blows to the stomach.
Second phase: ... the body of the criminal is transferred to a small wheel from the carriage, whose hub is sawn from the outside and
which is located horizontally on the axis. The executioner, bending his hips from below so that on the other side of the heel touches his head, firmly ties him to this wheel and leaves him for some time for everyone to see. Sometimes he is put up on the high road and abandoned there forever.
Consequently, the executioner struck the victim eleven blows with a rod: two on each limb and three on the body. Most often, the criminal was still alive when he was tied to the wheel and left to wait for the end. At least in cases where the verdict did not include burning alive after being wheeled as an additional punishment.
It also happened that the verdict suggested retentum in mente curiae, that is, a secret order, not communicated to the victim, according to which the executioner had to strangle the victim with a string during the execution. Of such kind retentum accurately determined the number of blows with a rod that had to be given to the victim before the execution was completed.
The last type of execution is the fire. Usually it was intended for parricides, poisoners, wife killers, sodomites and arsonists. After 1750, as we have seen, this punishment could be combined with the wheel or the gallows. In this last case, it was about burning a dead body, while in the first case, the doomed person could be both dead and still alive. It is very curious that this kind of combination was intended not so much to strengthen the first punishment, but to alleviate the second: by burning an already wheeled man, they reduced his fiery torment, which was considered more severe compared to wheeling.
The procedure used does not deserve lengthy descriptions. We only note that, in contrast to
Like most works depicting scenes of this kind, the convict in this case was placed not at the top of the fire, but in its center, his head barely protruded above the pile of brushwood, firewood and straw that made up the fire. A kind of trench was left free to the center, through which the convict was led to the pole, where he was tied. Then the fire was set on fire from the inside, that is, as close as possible to the victim, and the executioner left through the same trench, which he filled with straw and brushwood as he moved away.
According to Ansel, there is no evidence that the condemned man was wearing a gray-soaked shirt, nor that the firewood was tied with a boat hook, which the executioner plunged into the heart of the victim immediately after the fire was lit, as was sometimes said.
It is impossible not to note the special character that executions had in the pre-revolutionary era: they contained elements designed to complicate, if not completely destroy, the future life of the victim, as it was imagined by Catholics. Bodies thrown into a landfill, left on a highway, or burned were never, therefore, buried on consecrated ground. If the preservation of the corpse was not ensured, the resurrection from the dead became not so reliable. Thus, the punishment was total, it was not limited to earthly life and human society.
Contrary to the protests of lawyers - such as, for example, d "Aguesso - by the end of the pre-revolutionary era, therefore, there were four types of execution, determined not only by
by the crime committed, but sometimes by the personality of the offender.
Dr. Guillotin must be given his due: he was the first to protest before the National Assembly against this state of affairs. On October 9, 1789, he proposed six new articles to the "decree on the preliminary transformation of criminal procedure", the first of which sounded like this:
The same offenses are subject to the same type of punishment, regardless of the rank and type of activity of the perpetrator.
The following proposals were no less important:
In all cases where the law shall pass the death sentence on the accused, the punishment will be the same, whatever the nature of the offense of which he is guilty. The condemned will be executed by beheading.
Since the crime is personal in nature, the execution of the guilty person will not bring dishonor to his family. The honor of those who belong to it will not be tarnished in any way, and all of them will retain equal and full access to all kinds of professions, positions and titles.
Anyone who dares to reproach a citizen with the execution of one of his relatives will be punished ...
The confiscation of the property of the convicted person must in no way take place, and it cannot be sentenced to it in any case.
The body of the executed person will be handed over to his family, if they so request; in all cases, it will receive the usual burial, and there will be no mention of the manner of death in the register.
That day, Dr. Guillotin's proposal was put on hold. He resumes it on December 1st. In his speech, he proposes for the first time the use of the machine destined to bear his name. His speech was often interrupted by applause.
“Part of the Assembly, in great agitation, demands a decision to be taken immediately. The other, apparently, intends to prevent her" ( Archives parlementaires, lre serie, t. X, p. 346). At the insistence of the Duc de Liancourt, the first article put to the vote is adopted unanimously, in the form we have just reported above. But the last phrase, "the condemned will be executed by beheading," does not appear in the text.
Reopened on January 21, 1790, the project receives approval; as for the first four articles, they are accepted with some editorial amendments, but without mentioning the accepted uniform method of execution. Article proposed by Dr. Guillotin, where fine 2, which included the following provision - "the offender will be beheaded by a simple mechanism" - was postponed.
On May 30, 1791, Lepeletier de Saint-Fargeau, presenting the draft of the Criminal Code, opens his speech with the question: “Will the death penalty be retained? » The drafting committee is of the opinion that it should be retained. Thus begins a debate that will last for three days. Most of the speeches are worth quoting. In particular, Duport's speech from the first meeting confirms for us the fact that the criminal ordinance of 1670 was applied to the fullest extent almost two years after the storming of the Bastille:
“Your ears have just been struck by the noise from this horrific execution, the very thought of which makes you shudder; can you afford such a cruel thing,
wheel, still continued to exist? ( Arch, parl., 1re serie, t. XXVI, p. 618).
At the same meeting, Robespierre takes the floor and delivers a long speech, a mixture of murderous arguments and unbearable literature "in antique taste." Here is its completion:
The news was brought to Athens that in the city of Argos the citizens were sentenced to death, and everyone ran to the temples and began to conjure the gods to turn the Athenians away from such cruel and pernicious thoughts. I will pray, not to the gods, but to the legislators, who should be the organs and interpreters of the eternal laws prescribed by the deity to mankind, to erase from the French Code the bloody laws prescribing legal murder, which their morals and the new Constitution do not accept. I would like to prove to them: 1) that the death penalty is fundamentally unjust; 2. That it no more deters than other punishments, and that it multiplies crimes more than it prevents.
In spite of the Abbé Maury, who interrupted him with a cry (the argument is easily recognizable) that "Mr. Robespierre must be asked to go to preach his opinion in the Bond forest," Robespierre continues:
The death penalty is necessary, say the adherents of the ancient and barbarous routine; without it, there is no sufficiently reliable bridle for crime. Who told you this? Have you counted all the means by which criminal laws can affect human sensibility?
The legislator, who prefers death and the cruelty of punishments to the milder means that are in his power, strikes at public modesty, dulls the moral sense of the people whom he rules, like an inept teacher who, by frequent use of cruel punishments, makes the soul of his pet more rude and less exalted; finally, he exhausts and weakens the means of government, intending to use them with great effort and force.
Listen to the voice of justice and reason: it cries out to us that human judgments can never be true enough for society to put to death a man condemned by other people subject to error. Even if you invented the most just judicial procedure, even if you found the most incorruptible and enlightened judges, there would still be room for errors and prejudice.
The first duty of the legislator is to form and defend public mores, the source of all freedom, the source of all public welfare; when, in order to achieve some particular goal, he deviates from this general and fundamental goal, he commits the grossest and most fatal mistake. After all, it is necessary that the law constantly present to the peoples the purest example of justice and reason. If in place of this powerful, calm and moderate severity, which should become his hallmark, he puts anger and vengeance; if he sheds human blood, which he could save and which he has no right to shed; if he exposes scenes of cruelty and corpses mortified by torture to public disgrace, he reverses the ideas of justice and injustice in the souls of citizens; in the depths of society it gives way to germs of cruel prejudices, which, in turn, give birth to the following ... Man is no longer a shrine to another man. The idea of his dignity is diminished when the state authorities play with his life...
And Robespierre concluded his speech, demanding the abolition of the death penalty.
At the next day's meeting, Mougins de Roquefort, and in particular Brillat-Savarin (deli), spoke out in favor of keeping it. Then Duport, in an atmosphere of indifference and conversation in the hall, delivers a long speech, which he twice makes interrupted by the uproar, in favor of abolition. However, in the end, he manages to attract the attention of the Assembly, so much so that it decides to print his speech. On the same day, Mr. Jallet, curate, deputy for
Poitou, begins his speech against the death penalty with these startling words in their artless simplicity:
I think the death penalty is pointless and useless. I am convinced that legislators do not have the right to establish it; if it is a mistake, it is not dangerous, and may I be allowed to support my idea with an expression of feeling, which for me is the best of evidence.
Mr. Jallet's proposal included the abolition not only of the death penalty, but of any life sentence.
1 June The Assembly decides to retain the death penalty. Lepeletier de Saint-Fargeau proposes that it be reduced to a mere deprivation of life, but Gara demands that the parricide's hand be cut off. At the same time, Custine expresses the desire that it not only not be accompanied by torture, but also be carried out behind closed doors. Then the Assembly seizes something like insanity: Legrand demands that parricides, murderers of children, and regicides be exhibited for several days at the place of their execution; Dufault states that capital punishment, reduced to a mere deprivation of life, risks "losing its effectiveness as an example" and requires "impressive" accessories to accompany it. In the end, the meeting decides to introduce the principle according to which, "without burdening anyone with torment, the death penalty will have its degrees."
On June 3, Lepeletier de Saint-Fargeau seeks the adoption by the Assembly of the first two articles of the Criminal Code:
Art. 1. The punishments imposed on the accused, whom the jury finds guilty, are: the death penalty,
Art. 2. The death penalty will consist solely of deprivation of life, no torture will be applied to the convicts.
Article 3 was formulated as follows: "Every convicted person will be executed by beheading". This article has been the subject of a long discussion. Some, for reasons of humanism, suggested that the gallows be kept. The speaker interrupts the discussion to say: “a certain friend of mankind” has just given him an idea that “perhaps will reconcile opinions”, “it consists in tying the condemned man to a post and strangling him with the help of a gate”. For his part, the Duc de La Rochefoucauld-Liancourt speaks in favor of beheading, so as not to see people - he means nobles - hanged without trial, which could be encountered in recent times. Ultimately, this article was adopted, as was the following:
Art. 4. The execution must take place in a city square open to the public, where the jury is also invited.
One may wonder why, since the "mechanism" proposed by Dr. Guillotin had not yet been adopted, and the kind of execution of beheading by the sword seemed so cruel, the Assembly tried so hard to accept it. It must not be forgotten that such was the execution intended for noble criminals. The class that had come to power blindly demanded for itself the privileges it had hitherto been denied.
Zano: one of them had the right to die from a sword strike on the neck, and not on the gallows.
At the beginning of 1792, the Parisian executioner Sanson hands the Minister of Justice Duport "A note on the execution of the death penalty by cutting off the head, outlining the various inconveniences it presents, to which it is likely to be sensitive." This report insists on the kind of cooperation on the part of the victim that this type of execution requires:
In order for the execution to be carried out in accordance with the types of law, it is necessary that not the slightest obstacle be placed on the part of the condemned, the performer was very dexterous, the sentenced - very steadfast, without which it is impossible to execute this execution with a sword without dangerous scenes taking place (quoted by Ludovic Pichon, Code de la guillotine, p. 75).
By this time, the guillotine had not yet been built. Therefore, on March 3, 1792, Duport sent a letter to the National Assembly, where he states:
Under the death penalty, our new laws mean only deprivation of life. They accepted beheading as the punishment most consistent with these principles. In this respect they were deceived, or at least in order to achieve such a goal, it is necessary to find and put into general use a form that would correspond to this, and for enlightened mankind to perfect this method of putting to death.
On the same day, the Directory of the Paris Department also appealed to the National Assembly that, since the execution of the death sentence must be carried out, and the performer, "for lack of experience", could "turn the beheading into a terrible torture", a decree on the method of punishment under Article 3 must be adopted without delay. Criminal Code.
On March 13, 1792, the National Assembly considered "too deplorable" for public discussion the report presented by Dr. Louis, permanent secretary of the Academy of Surgery, and Duport's letters. It ordered the publication of the documents. Here is the conclusion of Dr. Louie's report:
Given the structure of the neck, where the central place is occupied by the spine, made up of many bones, whose joints overlap, so that the joint cannot be found, it is impossible to count on a quick and complete separation of the head, entrusting the work to the performer, whose dexterity and skill are subject to change from moral and physical reasons ; for the reliable execution of the procedure, it is necessary to make it dependent on immutable mechanical means, for which the calculation of force and efficiency is equally possible. Such conclusions were reached in England; there the body of the criminal is placed on the stomach between two pillars, connected from above by a transverse beam, from where an ax with a convex blade falls onto the neck with the help of a latch. The reverse side of the tool must be powerful and heavy enough to act effectively as an outboard piling hammer; it is known that his strength increases in the reasoning of the height to which he is raised.
It is easy to construct such a mechanism with the inevitable effect of action; the decapitation will be carried out instantly, in accordance with the spirit and wishes of the new legislation; it will be easy to test it on corpses and even on a live ram. Later it will become clear whether it will be necessary to clamp the patient's head with a horseshoe at the level of the base of the skull, so that the horns or extensions of this horseshoe can be fixed with a pin under the scaffold; this device, should there be a need for it, will not make an impression - it will hardly be noticed.
It is decided that Article 3 of Title I of the Criminal Code will be enforced in the manner indicated and in the manner
adopted in accordance with the conclusion signed by the indispensable secretary of the Academy of Surgery, which will be attached to this decree; by virtue of this, the executive power is given the power to pay the necessary expenses for carrying out this kind of execution, so that it is carried out uniformly throughout the kingdom.
When the decision was made, Roederer took the necessary steps to build such a mechanism. The first deal was with the carpenter Gidon, who supplied equipment for the administration of justice. He asked for 5,600 livres. This price was considered excessive, and therefore the care of the construction of the first guillotine was entrusted to the mechanic Tobbias Schmidt from Strasbourg, who was engaged in the manufacture of pianos. At first he asked for 960 livres, then he settled on a price of 812 livres.
The first experiment was carried out on three corpses in Bicêtre on April 17, 1792, “in the presence of a commission, which included Dr. Louis, Dr. Cabani, the executioner Charles-Henri Sanson, accompanied by his brother and two sons. Some changes were made: Dr. Louie proposed an oblique blade profile instead of a horizontal one; the architect Giraud, together with Monsieur Fouquet, having examined the mechanism, noted some shortcomings to be corrected ”(Ludovic Pichon, op. cit., p. 21).
On April 25, 1792, a certain Jacques Peletier, sentenced to death for highway robbery, was executed for the first time by guillotine. Then it was used non-stop.
We thought it necessary to give these details regarding the origins of the method of execution now used. As far as this area is concerned, we live by the decisions of the jurists and administrators of the Revolution, insofar as they withstood under Per-
howl of the Empire. Changes in the procedure for executing those sentenced to death since then have only concerned details, with one exception: since 1939, the guillotine has not been operated in public.
It is worth noting, however, that the Napoleonic Penal Code took a step back and allowed that, in some cases, deprivation of life could be accompanied by torture. Article 13 of the Criminal Code provided:
The guilty man, sentenced to death for parricide, is brought to the place of execution in a shirt, barefoot and with his head covered with a black veil. He stands on the scaffold while the bailiff reads the decision on the sentence to the people; then they cut off his right hand and immediately put him to death.
This article was amended April 28, 1832; chopping off the hand was abolished, branding and pillorying were also abolished.
Being sentenced to death, the prisoner becomes the subject of special vigilance on the part of the penitentiary authorities; it is necessary that he should not escape execution and that the deprivation of life - the punishment intended for him - should not be carried out of his own free will.
Instruction to the Prefects of the Minister of the Interior (Ludovic Pichon, op. cit., p. 61) defines the necessary measures, and in a style that deserves attention in itself:
For those on death row, generally accepted precautions should be provided, that is:
They are to be dressed in a straitjacket immediately after pronouncing the verdict;
It must be monitored constantly, day and night, either through changing guards, or through
police officers or agents appointed by whomever, at the request of the director or chief of the guard.
Drawing your attention to the preceding instructions, I have no need, Monsieur Prefect, to add that your duties are not limited to their strict execution. Not only by physical precautions, but also by moral influence on the detainees, you will be able to prevent the recurrence of the sad incidents that upset the authorities. Undoubtedly, the chamber must be examined and objects removed from it that might facilitate suicide; but first of all, one should study and not lose sight of the person. When disgust for existence, fear of punishment, or some kind of moral crisis replace or suppress the life-preserving instincts in him, it is good if he gathers in frequent conversations with persons whom the vigilance of the law has placed in close contact with him, the strength to distract himself from criminal attempts. Communication with the head of the guard, director, doctor, prison priest should be regular and constant. Nothing can overcome the suggestions of loneliness and despair better than their influence and exhortation. Challenge to the competition, encourage universal jealousy, in order to achieve a result, the progress of which everyone should take to heart.
Accept, etc.
Interior Minister La Valette
It is hard to imagine what punishment the constant wearing of a straitjacket represents for a prisoner. Here is what the person who experienced it, Armand Barbet, says about this:
The clothes in question are, as you know, a rough jacket made of thick linen, with an opening, unlike other types of clothes, from the back and equipped with long narrow sleeves, somewhat exceeding the edge of the palm. The opening at the back fastens with buckle straps, and the sleeves have several slits at the edges, which tailors call eyes; they have a rope threaded through them, enough to pull off the sleeve like a bag. After this is done, your hands are tied one on top of the other, then the rope is wrapped several times.
around the body and, passing it in the forearms, pull it together in a knot between the shoulder blades. A person who has undergone this operation can only move his legs. But what is most unpleasant of all - you can not find a tolerable position for sleeping. If you sit on your side, the weight of the body on the arm brings you to cramps; if on the back, the knot from the rope and the buckles of the belts dig into your body. For lack of a better place, I settled in this position; but the pain was too strong, and I could not sleep; after one or two fruitless attempts, I told myself that sleep was always a kind of preliminary death, and that since I had only a few hours to live, I should have used them to put my thoughts in order ( Deux jours de condamnation a mort, par le citoyen Armand Barbes, representative du peuple, Paris, s. d.).
Since that time, the use of the straitjacket has been abolished. Condemned to death, returning to prison after the verdict was passed, they were shackled in leg irons, dressed in droget uniforms and were day and night under the supervision of the guard stationed next to their cell. In this last one, the lights were never put out. Nevertheless, within a few months, the first exception to the rule was made: Gaston Dominici, although sentenced to death, was freed from shackles in respect of his age.
With the preparations immediately preceding the death penalty, the public got acquainted in detail in 1952 thanks to the film André Cayatta We are all killers. Let's take a look at how they do it.
In the early morning the prosecutor of the Republic, the secretary of the court and the lawyer of the convict, as well as several officials from the penitentiary authorities, gather in the prison. They go to the block of those sentenced to death and stop at the entrance so as not to wake anyone up with the sound of footsteps. Two guards take off their shoes and
approach the cell door. Through the window of the prison cell, they are convinced that the condemned man is sleeping. Then they open the door, rush at the prisoner, seize him, tie his hands behind his back and tangle his legs, regardless of whether he will resist or let them do their duty. Judges and officials, as well as the lawyer of the condemned, pass into the cell, and the prisoner is informed that his request for pardon has been rejected. Then - an episode with a cigarette and a glass of rum. The collar of the shirt is cut open, and the doomed man is carried out with tangled legs through the block of those sentenced to death; for the most part, these unfortunates protest against the execution. Then the convict is taken to the chapel, where he can listen to mass and receive communion. Then, still with his legs tangled - he is dragged by the executioner and his assistants - the prisoner is taken to the prison yard, where the guillotine is installed. Roger Grenier in his novel monsters(Gallimard), cites the diary of one of the Parisian executioners, which gives an accurate picture of the last moments of the execution:
In order to throw the stubborn prisoner directly onto the board, we carried him on outstretched arms. In Sante, it was possible to use the momentum of descending the stairs. Moreover, this descent also gave the advantage that it was possible to synchronize the steps of two assistants carrying a stubborn condemned man. Having approached the lower steps of the stairs, we had to make two swings. In this way, the inertia of the movement was set exactly to the hole, and as a result of a sharp throw, the sentenced person rolled along with the board right up to the edge of the frame. The position of the neck then had to be corrected extremely rarely. It is the combination of such minor details that ensures the speed and reliability of the execution. In his fetters, the condemned is capable of
move only in small steps. We usually tweak it a little. The rope restricts his movement. He begins to mince, and his last reflex, his attention is to keep from falling. This desire often prevents him from noticing the car, and he finds himself in front of the board, not having time to realize what actually happened. Throw - and he flies head over heels, getting into the hole almost always by himself. The executioner opens this hole, which then closes, and then he releases the knife. Hit and it's all over.
A few words about the executioner. The law of June 3, 1793, decreed that one executioner be appointed in each department of the Republic at the criminal courts. Their salaries were fixed at 2,400, 4,000 and 6,000 livres, according to the population of the towns where they performed their duties. Some additional benefits were granted to them by decree of 3 Frimer II.
In a message from the Directory dated September 21, 1796, a complaint is made about the lack of executioners in some departments and instructions are given on how to avoid it. Similarly, the Directory takes care of other things:
Sometimes they complain about the boundless impudence with which these servants of justice behave when carrying out executions. Would it not be possible in these cases, and also when they were found drunk, to give the Commissioner of the Executive Power the power to bring them to the corrective court, which would establish the act and impose on them a term of imprisonment, which cannot be less than three days and more than three months; during this time they would have to carry out executions, for which they would be released from the place of detention and taken back there for the period appointed in the judgment issued against them.
Royal Ordinance of October 7, 1832, considering the abolition of a number of
la punishments (pilgrimage, stigmatization), but without mentioning the main reason for the measure that he provided for (constant reduction in the number of executions), halved the number of executioners.
The decree of March 9, 1848, provided that each court of appeal would have only one chief executioner, as well as an assistant executioner in each department under the jurisdiction of this court of appeal. The assistants were abolished, except for the two departments of the Seine and the department of Corsica. The necessity of the presence of assistants was determined, it seems, not by the number of crimes committed on this island, but by the fact that the executioner could not, with the same ease as in other departments of the court of appeal, resort to the allowance of assistants in neighboring departments.
Decree of June 26, 1850, decides that there will be only one executioner in the office of the court of appeal, as well as an executioner with an assistant in Corsica. Finally, according to the decree of November 25, 1870, in France (except for Corsica and Algeria) there will be only one executioner and five assistant executioners. Additional arrangements were to be made regarding executioners in the colonies, and especially in Cayenne, the prison colony, where the guillotine had many occasions to operate while the convicts were sent there.
The 1670 ordinance provided for the death penalty for 115 crimes. We have seen that the Criminal Code of 1791 reduced the number of cases in which the death penalty was applicable to thirty-two. This decline in the death penalty continued throughout
XIX century, various measures gradually reduced its scope, while those that could lead to its expansion were of a limited nature (for example, the law of July 15, 1845 provided for the death penalty for those who caused an accident on the railway, leading to death). Indeed, the reduction in the number of death penalty did not stop from 1791 to 1939. Since 1939, there have been obvious signs of a movement in the opposite direction.
If the Code of 1791 provided for 32 more crimes for which the death penalty could be subjected, the Brumaire Code of the 4th year reduced this number to thirty, and the Napoleonic one to twenty-seven. In 1832, under the influence of Guizot, a revision of the Code led to the abolition of sixteen more cases of the death penalty. They remained 16 by 1848, when the decree of the provisional government, and then the Constitution in Article 5 abolished the death penalty for political crimes.
Moreover, the revision of the Criminal Code in 1832 allowed the introduction of the concept of mitigating circumstance into the law. That is, the court, regardless of the crime in question, now had the opportunity to avoid the death penalty. This provision, depriving the death sentence of an automatic character, was to serve as the basis for a consistent decrease in the number of death sentences, that is, the decline of the death penalty, due not to a change in the legislative system, but to law enforcement practice and, consequently, mores.
Except for the sentences that were pronounced in wartime, on the eve of 1914 the following crimes were punishable by death: parricide (Article 299 of the Criminal Code), murder (Article 302), poisoning (Article 301), constant child abuse practiced to cause their death (312), unlawful imprisonment with physical torture (434), perjury resulting in a death sentence (361). To this must be added the Railway Act of 1845.
While in the political field the death penalty had been abolished since 1848, and according to the Military Code, it was provided only for desertion to the enemy, the decree of 1939 - that is, issued on the eve of the war - restored it for attempts on the external security of the state, even in peacetime. time and even from civilians. This decree, which has not yet been repealed, marked the beginning of the restoration of the role of the death penalty, which we are witnessing to this day3.
After the appearance of this decree, other measures were taken: a law was adopted providing for the death penalty for robberies and thefts committed in dwellings and buildings abandoned during the war (September 1, 1939), the death penalty for serious economic offenses (law of October 4, 1946 of the year). In 1950, Mrs. Germaine Desgrones (Socialist) and Mr. Hamon (People's Republican Movement) made a proposal providing for the death penalty for child murderers, although Articles 312 and 434 seem to apply to this crime. But more than all-
His concern was caused by the adoption of the law of 23 October 1950, amending article 381 of the Criminal Code and providing for the death penalty for armed robbery; for almost a century, this was the first time that an attack on another's property, rather than human life, was considered a crime serious enough to warrant a death sentence.
Perhaps the number and violent nature of armed encroachments in the post-war period explain this decision; yet they are unable to justify it. To allow robbery in any form to be punishable by death is to restore to property that sacred character from which our morals and ideas have definitively departed during the past two centuries.
The scope of the death penalty, initially narrowing, then began to expand again; but the number of death sentences - especially those carried out - has been steadily decreasing for more than a hundred years. Here's what the statistics show.
From 1826 to 1830, an average of 111 death sentences per year are pronounced in France; from 1841 to 1845 - 48 each; from 1846 to 1850 - to 49; from 1856 to 1856 - to 53.
Number of sentencing
Number of sentences executed
Eugene Weidman was born in 1908 in Germany. He started stealing at a young age and eventually grew into a professional criminal.
He served five years in prison for robbery. While serving his sentence, he met his future accomplices - Roger Millen and Jean Blanc. After being released, they began to work together, kidnapping and robbing tourists in the vicinity of Paris.
The group robbed and murdered a young New York City dancer, a chauffeur, a nurse, a theater producer, an anti-Nazi activist, and a real estate agent.
As a result, the police found Weidman. The offender managed to wound them with a pistol, but he was still arrested.
December 21, 1937
Vaidman is taken away in handcuffs after being detained.
Photo: Keystone/Hulton Archive/Getty Images
June 17, 1938
Eugene Weidman shows the police the cave in the forest of Fontainebleau where he killed Jeanine Keller.
Photo: Horace Abrahams/Getty Images
March 24, 1939
Photo: Keystone-France/Gamma-Keystone/Getty Images
March 1939
Weidman at trial in France.
Photo: LAPI/Roger Viollet/Getty Images
March 1939
March 1939
Special telephone lines are installed in the courthouse.
Photo: Keystone-France/Gamma-Keystone/Getty Images
After a high-profile trial, Weidmann and Millen were sentenced to death, and Blanc to 20 months in prison. Millen's sentence was then commuted to life imprisonment.
On the morning of June 17, 1939, Weidmann was taken to the square in front of the Saint-Pierre prison, where a guillotine and a noisy crowd were waiting for him. Among the audience was the future legendary actor Christopher Lee, then he was 17 years old.
Weidmann was placed in the guillotine, and the chief executioner of France, Jules-Henri Defurneau, immediately lowered the blade.
The crowd reacted violently. Solemnly jubilant, many tried to break through to the decapitated body to soak handkerchiefs in Weidmann's blood as a souvenir. The scene was so horrifying that President Albert Lebrun banned public executions. He stated that instead of serving as a deterrent to crime, they awakened baser instincts in people.
The guillotine was originally conceived as a quick and relatively humane way to take a life. It continued to be used in closed executions until 1977. In 1981, the death penalty was abolished in France.
In June 1939
Weidman in court.
Photo: Keystone/Hulton Archive/Getty Images
June 17, 1939
Weidmann is led to the guillotine. He passes by the chest in which his body will be taken away.
Photo: Keystone-France/Getty Images
June 17, 1939
A crowd awaiting Weidmann's execution gathered around a guillotine near the Saint-Pierre prison.
Photo: AFP/Getty Images
June 17, 1939
Weidman in the guillotine a second before the blade drops.
Photo: POPPERFOTO/Getty Images.
Last public execution in France by guillotine November 5th, 2015
Some time ago, we studied in great detail with you, and now let's remember 1939, France. There, at that time, the last PUBLIC execution was carried out by cutting off the head.
Born in Germany in 1908, Eugène Weidmann began stealing from a young age and did not give up his criminal habits even as an adult. While serving a five-year sentence in prison for robbery, he met future partners in crime, Roger Millon and Jean Blanc. After their release, the three began working together, kidnapping and robbing tourists around Paris.
June 17, 1938. Eugène Weidmann shows the police the cave in the forest of Fontainebleau in France where he killed the nurse Jeanine Keller.
They robbed and murdered a young New York City dancer, a chauffeur, a nurse, a theater producer, an anti-Nazi activist, and a real estate agent.
The National Security Administration eventually got on Weidman's trail. One day, returning home, he found two police officers waiting for him at the door. Weidman fired a pistol at the officers, wounding them, but they still managed to knock the criminal to the ground and neutralize him with a hammer lying at the entrance.
France became the last of the EU countries, which at the level of the constitution banned the use of the death penalty.
In France, under the old regime, regicides were executed by quartering. Wheeling, hanging by the rib and other painful punishments were also widespread. In 1792, the guillotine was introduced, and in the future, most executions, except for the verdict of a military court (in this case, it was the usual execution), were carried out through the guillotine (in the French Criminal Code of 1810, article 12 says that “everyone sentenced to death is cut off head"). Already on January 21, 1793, Louis XVI was executed on the guillotine. This machine was not an original invention either by Dr. Guyotin, who proposed to introduce it as an instrument of capital punishment, or by his teacher, Dr. Louis; a similar machine was used before in Scotland, where it was called the "Scottish maid." In France, she was also called the Virgin or even the Forest of Justice. The purpose of the invention was to create a painless and quick method of execution. After the head was cut off, the executioner raised it and showed it to the crowd. It was believed that a severed head could see for about ten seconds. Thus, the head of a person was raised so that before death he could see how the crowd was laughing at him.
In the XIX-XX centuries, public executions took place on the boulevards or near prisons, where a large crowd always gathered.
March 1939. Weidman during the trial.
March 1939.
March 1939. Installation of special telephone lines for the court.
As a result of the sensational trial, Weidman and Millon were sentenced to death, and Blanc was sentenced to 20 months in prison. On June 16, 1939, French President Albert Lebrun rejected Weidmann's pardon and commuted Million's death sentence to life imprisonment.
June 1939. Weidman in court.
On the morning of June 17, 1939, Weidman met on the square near the Saint-Pierre prison in Versailles, where the guillotine and the whistle of the crowd were waiting for him.
June 17, 1939. A crowd gathers around the guillotine in anticipation of Weidmann's execution near the Saint-Pierre prison.
Among those wishing to watch the execution of the audience was the future famous British actor Christopher Lee, who at that time was 17 years old.
June 17, 1939. Weidman, on the way to the guillotine, passes by the box in which his body will be transported.
Weidmann was placed in the guillotine and the chief executioner of France, Jules Henri Defurneau, immediately lowered the blade.
The crowd present at the execution was very unrestrained and noisy, many of the spectators broke through the cordon to soak handkerchiefs in Weidman's blood as souvenirs. The scene was so horrifying that French President Albert Lebrun banned public executions altogether, arguing that instead of deterring crime, they help awaken people's base instincts.
This was the last public execution in France, because of the obscene excitement of the crowd and scandals with the press, it was ordered to continue to arrange executions in prison.
The last execution by cutting off the head with a guillotine took place in Marseille, during the reign of Giscard d'Estaing, on September 10, 1977 (only three people were executed during his seven-year term - 1974-1981). Executed, of Tunisian origin, the name was Hamid Jandoubi; he kidnapped and killed his former cohabitant, whom he had previously forced into prostitution, and tortured for a long time before his death. It was the last execution not only in France, but throughout Western Europe. François Mitterrand, shortly after taking office in 1981, introduced a complete moratorium on the death penalty, which was given the status of law.
Ideas about humanism in different eras of the development of human civilization differed very seriously. Now it is rather difficult to imagine, but such a “death machine” as the guillotine was born out of the most humane considerations.
Humane Doctor Guillotin
Meanwhile, the professor of anatomy and deputy of the revolutionary Constituent Assembly, Dr. Guillotin, has only an indirect relation to the guillotine.
Joseph Guillotin, a member of the Constitutional Assembly created during the French Revolution, was an opponent of the death penalty. However, he believed that in an era of revolutionary changes it was impossible to completely abandon its use. That is why Dr. Guillotin put forward the idea: if the death penalty still exists, let it at least be fast and the same for all segments of the population.
Portrait of Doctor Guillotin. Photo: Public Domain
By the end of the XVIII century in Europe there was a fairly rich choice of ways to kill criminals. For representatives of the upper strata of society, cutting off the head with a sword or ax was used, for unborn criminals - quartering, wheeling or hanging. The “execution without the shedding of blood” was applied to those who were angry with the spiritual authorities, that is, auto-da-fe - burning alive.
It was believed that the most humane of these methods is cutting off the head. But even here everything depended on the skill of the executioner. It is not so easy to cut off a person's head with one blow, so high-class executioners were worth their weight in gold.
If a certain nobleman managed to greatly anger the monarch, an ordinary soldier or another unprepared person could appear on the scaffold instead of a professional executioner, as a result of which the last minutes of the life of the disgraced nobleman turned into real hell.
Joseph Guillotin considered that the most humane method of execution in relation to those sentenced to death is beheading, so he proposed creating a mechanism that would deprive people of their heads and lives quickly and painlessly.
Are you going on a hike? Take the guillotine!
The National Assembly of France entrusted the development of such a machine to the famous for his work on surgery Dr. Antoine Louis. Dr. Louis created the outline drawings of the machine, and their implementation fell on the shoulders of the German mechanics by Tobias Schmidt, who was assisted by the famous Parisian executioner Charles Henri Sanson.
The main part of the guillotine was a heavy slanting knife, which, along guides from a height of 2-3 meters, fell on the neck of the condemned, fixed with a special device. The body of the victim was fixed on a special bench, after which the executioner pressed the lever, and the falling knife put an end to the life of the criminal.
The new machine was approved by the National Assembly of France as an instrument of execution on March 20, 1792.
The first execution using the guillotine took place in Paris on April 25, 1792, when he paid for his crimes with his head assassin Jean Nicolas Peltier.
Spectators who gathered to watch the new spectacle were disappointed by its transience. However, the era of revolutionary terror that began later generously compensated for the transience of the number of executions. At the peak of the revolutionary struggle, up to 60 people were executed a day. And the revolutionary army of France, setting out on a campaign to pacify the rebels, carried with them marching guillotines.
"Death Machine" conquers Europe
At the turn of the XVIII - XIX centuries, scientists believed that a severed head lives for another five to ten seconds. Therefore, the executioner took the severed head and showed it to the crowd so that the executed person could see the audience laughing at him.
Among those who ended their lives on the guillotine were King Louis XVI of France and his Marie Antoinette's wife, figures of the French Revolution Danton, Robespierre and Desmoulins, and even founder of modern chemistry Antoine Lavoisier.
Execution of Marie Antoinette. Photo: Public Domain
Contrary to legend, the initiator of the creation of the guillotine, Joseph Guillotin, was not guillotined, but died a natural death in 1814. His relatives tried for a long time to achieve the renaming of the guillotine, but failed, after which they preferred to change their surname.
Until the middle of the 19th century, the guillotine was little used in Europe, as it was associated with the French "revolutionary terror". Then, however, in many countries it was decided that the guillotine was cheap, reliable and practical.
Especially actively the guillotine was used in Germany. During the reign Hitler with its help, about 40 thousand members of the Resistance were executed. This was explained simply - since the Resistance fighters were not soldiers of the regular army, instead of being shot, they were subjected to "ignoble" execution as criminals.
The execution of the French revolutionary Maximilian Robespierre. Photo: www.globallookpress.com
It is curious that the guillotine as a means of execution was used in post-war Germany both in the FRG and in the GDR, and in the West it was abandoned in 1949, and in the East - only in 1966.
But, of course, the most "reverent" attitude towards the guillotine was preserved in France, where the procedure for execution on it did not change from the end of the era of "revolutionary terror" to the complete abolition of the death penalty.
Scheduled execution
Preparations for the execution began at 2:30 am. Within an hour, the executioner and his assistants brought the mechanism into working condition and checked it. An hour was allotted for this.
At 3:30 a.m., the director of the prison, a lawyer, a doctor and other officials went to the prisoner's cell. If he was asleep, the director of the prison woke him up and proclaimed:
Your request for pardon has been denied, get up, prepare to die!
After that, the convict was allowed to go to natural necessities, handed over a specially prepared shirt and jacket. Then, accompanied by two policemen, he was transferred to a room where he could write a farewell note to relatives or any other persons.
Then the condemned received a few minutes to communicate with the priest. As soon as he completed the ceremony, the police handed over the condemned to the hands of the executioner's assistants. They quickly removed the jacket from the "client", tied his hands behind his back and legs, and then put him on a stool.
While one of the executioner's assistants cut off the shirt collar with scissors, the condemned man was offered a glass of rum and a cigarette. As soon as these formalities were over, the assistants of the executioner picked up the victim and swiftly dragged him to the guillotine. Everything took a matter of seconds - the condemned was laid on a bench, his neck was fixed in the grooves, and the executioner, by pressing the lever, carried out the sentence. The body of the victim from the bench was immediately thrown into a prepared box with a substance that absorbs blood. Then the head was sent there.
The whole process was completed around 4 o'clock in the morning.
Guillotine in Pankrac Prison in Prague. Photo: www.globallookpress.com
How the President of France destroyed the labor dynasty
The last public execution in France was Eugen Weidmann, the killers of seven people, which took place on June 17, 1939 in Versailles. The execution was delayed in time and took place at 4:50 in the morning, when it was already dawn. This allowed stubborn newsreel operators to capture it on film.
The indecent behavior of the crowd and journalists during the execution of Weidmann forced the French authorities to abandon public executions. From that moment until the abolition of the death penalty in general, the procedure was carried out in closed courtyards of prisons.
The last person to be executed in France by guillotine was on October 10, 1977. Tunisian immigrant Hamida Jandoubi, sentenced to death for torturing his friend, 21-year-old Elizabeth Busquet.
In 1981 French President Francois Mitterrand signed a law abolishing the death penalty in the country.
Last French state executioner Marcel Chevalier passed away in 2008. It is interesting that Chevalier, who inherited the position of state executioner from his uncle, intended to subsequently transfer it to his son Eric, who worked as an assistant at the executions carried out by his father. However, the labor dynasty of the French executioners was interrupted due to the abolition of the profession.
