This model is a closer reproduction of the second generation guillotine, the one that probably was used in the French Provinces from 1792 onward. Tobias Schmidt's first two machines, built for Paris and Versailles, were strongly criticized by architect Giraud in an official letter to the Justice Ministry. Schmidt immediately offered an improved machine with many of the changes suggested by Giraud but still lost the bidding to a carpenter named Clairin, a friend of Giraud. This did not prevent Schmidt from going directly to the Provincial governments and selling his improved machine around the Ministry. Since he was prepared to build them immediately he appears to have outmanoeuvered Clairin. There is strong evidence that most of the regional guillotines from the 1792-1794 period did come from Schmidt contrary to common belief.
Original 1792 documents from the archives of the Ministere de la Justice give many details of the Schmidt machines through his own hand-written proposals. From these and from recent photos of the Luxembourg guillotine, a machine that dates back to that same period, I have been able to reconstruct this "portrait" of a 1794 guillotine.
The ballast weight on the mouton of this machine is cast from actual lead musket balls fired in battles of the French Revolution.
The model was built for best-selling Swiss author Claude Cueni.
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