HISTORY OF THE GUILLOTINE

Primitive ancestors of the guillotine were used in Ireland, England and Italy in the 14th and 15th Centuries. Several known decapitation devices such as the Italian Mannaia, the Scottish Maiden, and the Halifax Gibbet are well documented and may pre-date the use of the French guillotine by as much as 500 years. The following deals mostly with the modern guillotine from the late 18th Century until today. It is not meant to be a complete history or even a complete overview of the history as this would take hundreds of pages. Instead consider it a brief introduction to the subject highlighted by a few good pictures.

DOCTEUR GUILLOTIN

Contrary to popular belief, Doctor Joseph-Ignace Guillotin was not the inventor of the machine. He was a medical doctor and lawmaker who in 1790 proposed that the death penalty should be equal for all, regardless of social rank and nature of the crime. It would be carried out by a swift mechanical device to eliminate suffering. His idea was derided at first but later the National Assembly revived it and them adopted it in 1791.

The document making the death penalty "by mechanical decapitation" the law of the land in the Kingdom of France was signed both by Dr. Antoine Louis, secretary of the National Academy of Surgery, and by Louis the 16th., who was still King of France. Dr. Louis was the author of the technical portion of the document. He explained that this method was the only "humane" mode of execution which insured the condemned a swift and painless death. A copy of the law was distributed to all the provinces for immediate implementation. To the right are the four pages of an original 1792 copy of the law sent to the department of Orne and hand-marked as No 76.

The ministry of justice proceeded quickly following the enactment of the law. They assigned the task of designing and building Dr. Guillotin’s machine to Antoine Louis, who hired a German harpsichord maker named Tobias Schmidt to actually construct it from his design. This pair were the defacto inventors of the modern guillotine. The prototype built by Mr. Schmidt may or may not have had the characteristic angled blade. The machine was tested on animals and cadavers to insure its reliability. It was first used in the execution of Nicolas Pelletier, a common criminal, on the 25th of April 1792. The deadly machine quickly moved on to more famous victims such as Louis XVI, Marie-Antoinette, Charlotte Corday, Danton, Robespierre, and many others. Tobias Schmidt lost the contract for building additional machines, therefore we do not know the precise details and appearance of his original apparatus.

A great number of guillotines were manufactured in the following few years to meet the demands of the blood-thirsty Revolutionary Government. Guillotines were dispatched to every province and city in France and soon after to conquered neighboring countries as well.

THE REVOLUTIONARY GUILLOTINE - 1792

These guillotines were all of similar construction using Tobias Schmidt's principles but maybe not his actual design. They are usually referred to today as "The 1792 Model Guillotine". Due to the large number of these guillotines manufactured during the years of the great Terror (1793-1794), several machines from this early batch have survived to this day. Among the surviving “1792” machines are the ones displayed in museums in Venlo (Netherlands), Liege and Brugge (Belgium), as well as one stored in Musée national d'histoire et d'art in Luxembourg.

Newer versions of the 1792 design were built in the 1800s and can be seen in photos from New Caledonia, Reunion Island, and Senegal. These photos are dated from the early part of the 20th Century. The design of these machines is very similar to the oldest known 1792 version so they would fall under the general category of a 1792 model. The machine from Reunion Island may have been used as late as 1954. It was returned to France in 1984 and is currently stored in the basement of the Musee National des Prisons in Fontainebleau.

The picture on the left shows the typical design of an early 1792 machine. The vertical posts are 3.7 to 4.5 meters tall and made of oak. The grooves for the blade are carved into the wood and are not lined. The boards for locking the head in place (the “lunette”) were also made of oak and had no metal liner as on later machines. Only the front rails covering the lunette tracks were made of iron. There was no mechanism to hold the lunette open or to lock it in place when closed. The front and rear support braces were also made of wood and were pinned in place with dowels making the machine very difficult to disassemble. The bascule (teeter board) was shorter than on the modern machine but tilted and slid forward as on the newer version. The slide mechanism was made up of a wood carriage traveling in wood grooves. The triangular blade was secured to a heavy oak block which traveled up and down in the post grooves. The blade was hoisted up with a rope running over two small pulleys lodged in slots within the top crossbar. The visible asymmetry in the crossbar is the result of a pulley being fitted within the right overhang. Once aloft the mouton could be locked via a steel linkage mounted on the left post.

A release handle held down one end of a connecting rod. The other end of the rod was linked to a steel pivot arm at the top of the left post. This pivot arm extended under a fixed horizontal steel bar secured to the back of the mouton. When the handle was released from the post the pivot arm tilted and the blade fell to the end of the wooden grooves then stopped rather abruptly. The shortcoming of this design must have become apparent rather quickly. There are reports of stuffing the grooves with fabric or leather to cushion the fall. The wood-on-wood slides in the bascule and cutting assembly also caused problems resulting in recommendation to the executioners to grease the tracks with tallow on a regular basis.

It is likely that the early machines were frequently damaged after just a few operations. This explains why machines like the Brugge guillotine were so extensively modified.

THE BRUGGE GUILLOTINE - 1862

To the right is a close-up of the Brugge guillotine bascule and lunette. This machine was bought by the city of Brugge from France in 1796, four years after the first guillotine execution took place in Paris. The years 1793 and 1794 had seen an incredible number of guillotine executions under the "Terror". It is estimated that over 10,000 people lost their heads to the slanted blade in those two years. Lesser and lesser crimes became punishable by death as the struggling Revolutionary Government attempted to quell internal unrest while fighting a war against all the other European nations. The Revolutionary Tribunals around France first sentenced Royalists and counter-revolutionaries to death, then rebellious and rioting

citizens, then priests and nuns refusing to pledge allegiance to the new "Cult of the Supreme Being", then people trying to flee France and anyone helping them, then people expressing any disagreement with the government. As political intrigue infiltrated the Revolution, the Committee of Public Safety, its the defacto governing body, had rival factions within the movement executed. Hébert, Chaumette, Danton and Desmoulins are among those who ended on the guillotine as a result of this internal power struggle.
These purges also triggered the reaction from those who saw themselves as the next victims. The coup of 9 Thermidor (27 July 1794) removed Maximilien Robespierre, the head of the Committee, and his followers from power and swiftly sent them to join their victims.

In a final ironic twist, the prosecutor of the Revolutinary Tribunal, Fouquier-Tinville, as well as the judges and jurors were themselves guillotined to close the book on that dark period in French History.
The Terror finally ended and the "Directoire" took control of France before Napoleon's rise to power. At this time the guillotine returned to its roots as a tool of judicial enforcement. It also spread to neighboring states as a means of swift and merciful justice. This was the time when the city of Brugge purchased their guillotine from France, which must have had a large surplus after the dramatic decrease in executions. The entire machine is shown to the left and clearly ressembles the classic 1792 model seen above. Records show that the guillotine was purchased "damaged" and the current state of the machine shows a lot of "improvements" which were probably made in Brugge between 1796 and 1862 when its blade fell for the last time.

The nature of the improvements attests to the large number of design flaws which probably caused trouble over the years. The picture above shows that metal blade tracks were added extending all the way to the ground. Also notable is that the bascule was modified to tip down and the space between the support frame beams was carved out to allow dropping the body through a hole in the scaffold. The picture on the right shows that rollers were retrofitted to the sides of the bascule board and steel brace plates were attached to the front of the lunette board possibly to repair cracks. Several additional changes were made to the back side of the lunette (not shown). The lunette was also lined with metal as it is on later models. The boards could have arrived damaged, but more likely that the repeated soaking with water caused them to expand, crack or warp into the path of the blade.

Substantial bumpers were added at the end of the tracks. This improvement pre-dates the use of spring stops in the 1868 and 1872 guillotines but must have been a major area of concern. The blade assembly weighed about 90 lbs. with a terminal velocity in the range of 22-26 Feet/second. Stopping it in a few inches is not an easy problem to solve. Personally, I am not sure it was ever resolved very well as even the late 20th century guillotine was reported to have problems in that area. Fortunately for the executioners, the machine only had to function once or twice in most situations before it could be repaired.
There was also an additional steel plate on the back side of the lower lunette slightly offset towards the back. It provided a secondary support under the neck during the cutting. The blade would fall into the narrow slot between the two plates and stop when the wooden mouton landed on the stop blocks. The additional plate was probably the answer to the numerous reports of partially severed necks in early executions. Full metal tracks replaced the old wood grooves from top to bottom. The Brugge guillotine does give a lot of insight into many of the gradual developments that led to the modern guillotine.

To the left are pictures of the original mouton and lunette from one of the revolutionary guillotines which is said to have been used in Paris. It was purchased by Madame Tussaud from executioner Clement Sanson in 1858. The lunette appears to be made of stacked oak planks. The mouton has a very noticeable slanted lower edge which was used on many of the 1792 guillotines. The steel holding bar was secured to the back of the mouton and rested on a pivot attached to the left upright. The pivot turned when the hold bar was released allowing the blade to drop. The rope hook and the top-mounted lead weights are also visible in the photograph. These artifacts were later damaged in a 1925 fire at the museum.

EXECUTION IN ARRAS - 1869

The photo below was taken on "La Grande Place" in Arras, most probably on October 21th, 1869 just before the execution of Charles Carpentier. This execution was carried out by "Monsieur de Paris", Jean-Francois Heidenreich, assisted by the regional executioner from Amiens, Nicolas Roch. Both were soon to become head executioners for all of France. Heidenreich was nominated to the top position in late 1870 and Roch was chosen as his successor when he died in 1872.
The guillotine is visible and has the assymetrical chapiteau of an 1792 model. Two carriages are waiting at the foot of the guillotine and a white shadow is visible on the steps leading up to the machine. This could be the white shirt of the condemned blurred

by motion during the exposure of the plate. Carpentier was sentenced to death for the murder and robbery of a farmer coming home from the market with his earnings.
One remarkable thing about the picture is the use of an high scaffold, which was eliminated in 1870, at the same time as the Berger-designed guillotine was chosen to replace the old 1792 machine. From then on all executions were to take place at ground level to reduce the "spectacular" aspect of the events, which is clearly visible here. According to the local newspaper "l'Avenir", it took all night to erect the scaffold and the guillotine. This was the main reason it was eliminated when the guillotine and the executioner started to travel all over France.
Only once again, in 1923, did a French executioner operate on a scaffold, as Anatole Deibler was called to execute a German murderer in Sarrebruck, then occupied by France, and operated in full daylight on a scaffold as was the German tradition.
This photo was part of a pair of pictures sold for viewing on a stereoscope, a primitive 3-D optical device. I have not seen it published before so it is probably quite rare. It is one of a few surviving photographs of French guillotine executions on scaffolds. Here is a link to another one taken in Marseilles in 1868 found on the Art de Bien Couper website.

NEW CALEDONIA GUILLOTINE - 1910

The machine on the left is another strange hybrid derived from modifications of an older model. This machine operated in the "Bagne"(penal colony) in New Caledonia, which is in the south Pacific east of Australia. The Penal Colony was established in 1864 and consisted of three primary camps: Ile Nou for hardened criminals, the Ducos Peninsula for dangerous political deportees and Ile des Pins for deportees considered not dangerous but undesirable in France. The Penal Colonie Administration and main arrival camp were located in the town of Bourail.
Two large groups populated the Penal Colony: Survivors of the Paris Commune Insurrection deported from 1871 to 1874, and the survivors from the Algerian Kabyle Insurrection of 1871. The guillotine was used to punish violent crimes among the detainees. As in Guyana, the local population included a large contingent of former detainees who were liberated but not allowed to return to France. This resulted in high crime rates and a high number of death sentences.
The photo was probably taken at Ile Nou around 1910. The executioner, Macé (or Massé), a detainee himself, is claimed to have carried out at least 74 executions but he appears to be past retirement age in this photo. The machine is an 1800’s version of the 1792 model which had the narrow top crossbar and slightly lighter construction than the earlier machines. Unusual features of this machine include the addition of two improvised cross braces between the uprights as well as lateral braces extending to grade on both sides of the uprights. The improved 1872 model included both of these features and used bolted steel braces at both locations. We can conclude that prior to the improvements there must have been real problems keeping the oak posts aligned and the uprights vertical. This was possibly exacerbated by the tropical climate of the island. The mechanism on the left post is the classic 1792 design, although the top pivot should face the opposite direction.

A newer Berger-type guillotine was brought to New Caledonia in the early 1900s. Its design is identical to the guillotine sold to Sweden in 1903. Marcel Deschamps probably built both machines. At this time executions were moved from the isolation of Ile Nou to the town of Bourail, to the great dismay of the locals. The guillotine operated there through 1940 and also traveled to neighboring French-controlled areas such as Port-Vila in the New Hebrides Islands. Six "Tonkinese" slave laborers convicted of two murders were executed there on July 28, 1931. This guillotine can be seen in the Bourail Museum. Click the picture on the right to see the beautiful photographs of this guillotine by Patrice Morin.

THE FIRST BERGER GUILLOTINE - 1868

Alphonse Léon Berger was an assistant to the executioner of Corsica and also a skilled carpenter and cabinetmaker. He built a completely new guillotine in 1868 for the regional executioner in Agen. It is unclear how and when this machine ended up in Algeria but there is strong evidence that it was already in use there by 1870: A decree abolishing the position of regional executioner and eliminating the raised scaffold was issued on November 25, 1870. As part of this decree, Cremieux, Minister of Justice, ordered the construction of "two new guillotines based on the Algerian Model".

This machine preserved the same operational functions as the 1792 model yet was completely new in overall dimensions, mechanical features, and appearance. The materials and construction style of the early industrial revolution are very apparent in the concealed mechanisms, bolted connections, coil spring shock absorbers and cast bronze rollers. Berger made extensive use of steel, brass, bronze and zinc for his apparatus. There are many complex metal parts that were absent in the original machine. The new machine was designed to be quickly disassembled for transportation to the locale of execution. Its most unique features were the "spike and claw" release system housed inside the chapiteau and the spring stops embedded in the uprights. The new machine was similar in size to the old one except for the addition of a massive cross beam. It provided better lateral stability to a machine that would no longer be bolted to a scaffold.

Alphonse Léon Berger was also chosen to build the two machines for France's newly appointed National Executioner in 1870. The primary feature distinguishing the 1868 model from the new design that Berger created in the 1870-1871 period is the location

of the mechanism. In the 1868 version the mechanism was mounted on the front of the chapiteau which required the locking spike to overhang the upper half of the mouton. The mechanism itself worked flawlessly but its location was a problem. The open lunette was directly in the path of the metal spike protruding from the mouton. The spike would collide with the lunette as the blade fell if the lunette was left open. The flawed design was corrected in Berger's newer machines by relocating the mechanism to the back side of the chapiteau. The picture above shows the original 1868 Berger machine identified by the distinctive notched top lunette (where the spike would otherwise hit the lunette), the indented cross brace (to let the spike through) and the front mounted mechanism. Other noticeable differences from the 1870-1871 model include the oversized lunette hole, the lunette release mechanism located much higher on the left post, the round headed bolts holding down the chapiteau, the rectangular bascule board without the familiar semi-circular cut-out, and the box-like shield around the zinc tub. Less noticeable is the fact that the posts are about half a meter taller than on the later version of the machine. The model 1868 machine remained in use in Algeria until 1959 and was the only guillotine used in Tunisia, Algeria and Morocco from 1870 to 1957.

The two first improved Berger machines under construction in 1871 were seized in the rue Folie-Mericourt workshop by the "Communards" during the bloody uprising in Paris. They were "sentenced" to be destroyed then burned in a big public ceremony dedicated to the "New Freedom". The guillotine, symbol of equality and of the overthrow of the nobility during the Revolution of 1789, had become a symbol of government oppression just 82 years later. Two replacement machines were completed after the fall of the Commune and entered service in the fall of 1871.

The close-up photo of the machine (above) was probably taken in the Barbarossa prison courtyard around 1910. The two photos on the right were taken before an execution in Tunisia around 1920. In the top photo you can recognize executioner Pierre Lapeyre, the one with the black beard. He was held the position of "Monsieur d'Alger" between 1906 and 1928.

A number of machines based on the 1871 redesign have survived to this day. To my knowledge the Algerian machine is the only example of Berger's first design that still exists today. It is preserved in a museum in Algiers. I am convinced that the pictures shown in this section are all of this machine.

Many people have been credited by the press for the design of the new guillotine including Heidenreich, Roch, Anatole Deibler, and Leopold Desfourneaux. Some of these may have contributed minor alterations or supervised construction of some of the later built machines. However, there is little doubt that Léon Berger is the author of the original design. This is confirmed by hand-written notes left by his grandson, André Berger, who was the Algerian executioner from 1944 to 1956.

LA VEUVE DE SAINT-PIERRE 1889

The only time the guillotine was used in North America was on the 24th of August 1889 when Auguste Neel, a fisherman convicted of murdering another fisherman the year before, was executed in the French town of Saint-Pierre, located a few miles off the coast of Newfoundland. The events are loosely portrayed in the movie "La Veuve de Saint Pierre" which was released in 2000. To read about the real story and see pictures of the actual guillotine used in 1889 click here.

VARIOUS EXECUTIONS - 1891 TO 1914

This poorly framed picture was taken at the execution of François Onésime Baillet, in Douai, on the 28th of August 1891. I have included the picture, despite the fact that most of the machine and the head-executioner were cut off because it still is a great picture. The dynamic of the execution is clearly seen in the blurred outline of the assistant, wearing a top hat, and holding the condemned by the ankles as the bascule is tilted and rolled forward. On the side the gaping basket sits ready to swallow up the decapitated body. The blade is just a mere second or two away from falling as seen by the outstretched necks of the spectators, trying to catch a glimpse of the gory spectacle. The scene is just amazing in its' portrayal of human indignity. Its' exceptional sharpness lets us see the excitement in the faces of the people, adding to the sheer horror of the spectacle. In case you start feeling bad for the performer, Mr. Baillet, it may comfort you to know that he assassinated six people to get here...

This picture is said to have been taken on December 29, 1894 as Pierre Mazué, triple assassin, walks from the fourgon to the guillotine on a small square of Châlon-sur-Saône. Mazué was Anatole Deibler's 69th customer. He was still an assistant to his father at the time.
The picture is not of exceptionally good quality, but is a much better copy than those I have seen in the past. So, when I found it at the Police Museum in Paris, I felt I should make it available to others through this website.
There is some question in my mind as to the authenticity of the picture. Notice that there are just a couple of mounted gendarmes to the left and a few spectators standing in the street, unrestrained by the usual line of police or military. Contrary to all other execution photos, there are no spectators either in the windows of the building behind the machine. This may have a logical explanation but it still raises a suspicion that the photo may be staged. The two or three figures that are walking behind the guillotine are a bit sketchy but not as obviously fake as those that were added to the Languille photo of 1905. On the other hand, the guillotine and the fourgon appear to be real enough so if it is not a photo taken during the actual execution, it was most likely still taken on the day of the execution.

This old postcard was published in Colonial Algeria around 1900. The photo depicts the execution of Areski L'Bashir, a sort of Algerian "Robin Hood" or "Jesse James" character. Areski was born in Kabylia a region of eastern Algeria which was annexed by France in 1857. The region rebelled again in 1871 and the ensuing French repression sent many Kabyles to the bagne in New Caledonia. Around 1880 Areski rose against the injustices of the French colonial administration and led a band of over 300 rebels fighting a guerilla war against anyone supporting the French. The French regarded them as common "bandits" because they stole food, money and supplies in order to survive and often killed both the French colonists and their Algerian helpers, military or civilian. With his repeated success and the inability of the administration to capture him, he grew into a legend and a local hero. He became "the law" in the remote areas of

Kabylia, where the colonial power could not reach. In 1893 the Governor of Algiers decided he had to put an end to Areski's free reign. A large expedition was mounted against him and after being on the run for a month and a half he was finally captured. Some of his men fell in combat with the French while the rest dispersed and tried to evade capture. His trial in Algiers in January 1895 ended with death sentences for himself and 9 of his followers and deportation to New Caledonia for the remainder of his gang. He was transferred from the Barbarossa prison in Algiers to the Gendarmerie in Azazga in front of which he was executed together with five of his lieutenants on May 14, 1895.

This picture was taken in Lons-le-Saulnier in 1897, when murderer, Pierre Vaillat was executed by Louis Deibler assisted by his son, Anatole. The "fourgon" (Horse-drawn closed carriage), seen on the right, was used to transport the guillotine to the place of execution, sometimes as far as 500 miles from Paris where the machine was stored (until 1911) in a garage at 60bis Rue de la Folie-Regnault. After the execution, it was also used to take the body away for medical examination and burial.
The picture is detailed enough to show the outline of the top-mounted pulley, the distinctive 3-bolt mouton and the metal claw under the crossbar. The brass lined lunette, the body basket and the metal braces on the uprights are also visible. There are no visible differences between this guillotine and the ones seen below in newer pictures. It does appear that from 1872 to 1939 the guillotine did not undergo any significant changes, if any at all.

The improvements rumoured to have been made by Anatole Deibler, and reported in a few books, are the addition of rollers to the mouton (in 1899), the brass tracks, the rollers on the bascule and the spring buffers. All these claims are refuted by the fact that the guillotine from Saint-Pierre, which was stored on the remote island without being used from 1889 to 1990s, already had all the "Deibler improvements" and is in fact identical to the 1907-1909 guillotine. With those facts we can safely label the "Deibler rollers and other improvements" as yet another guillotine myth.

I have included this picture because it is of exceptional quality. It is taken in 1899 before the execution of Alois Zuckermeyer in Remiremont, located in the Vosges mountains of Northeastern France. This was Anatole Deibler's third execution as chief executioner, having replaced his father earlier that year. The photo gives a very clear picture of the scene and shows many details of the machine. The weather is rainy as indicated by the shiny pavement and the many umbrellas. This has not deterred the crowd of spectators piled up everywhere in sight of the Guillotine even on the slick wet roofs of every house. The military holds the crowd back as they await the arrival of the fourgon with Zuckermeyer and the executioners. Deibler may be standing to the right under the sign reading "SIMON". In most cases assistants fetched the condemned and made the trip in the carriage while Deibler waited for them at the machine. Zuckermeyer had raped and murdered a seven year old girl.

This newest picture of a French execution was taken in Toulouse on May 2nd 1901 as Jean Allières approaches the guillotine for his fatal meeting with Anatole Deibler. Allières had murdered his elderly handicapped mother with an axe just five months earlier... the justice system in France was rather swift. Being a "parricide" - one who had murdered one of his parents - Allières would have gone to the guillotine barefooted and worn a black veil over his head as he was considered unworthy of seeing the light of his last day. This veil was removed just before the execution. Prior to 1832 the Napoleonic judicial code followed this ritual by the axe-amputation of the condemned's right hand, followed immediately by his beheading. This horrible ritual was a left-over from a time, before the Revolution, when the death penalty was applied with various degrees of cruelty and torture to "fit the crime". A parricide was considered an especially vile criminal thus entitled to this extra attention.

This photo is a well known picture taken before the execution of Henri Languille, in Orléans, on June 28th, 1905. The picture was admittedly touched up by Photography Studio Joseph to add figures of Languille, his executioners and a priest because the photo they had taken during the actual execution did not turn out. The anecdote validates the widely circulated postcard photo, with the obviously fake handpainted figures, as having been taken before that execution.
Languille is famous for being the object of the "Beaurieux experiment", in which a doctor tried to establish whether there was survival of consciousness after decapitation. There has been much discussion about the veracity of his report and this photo adds to my suspicion that the reported experiment may never have taken place.

One will notice that the guillotine is properly set up, with the tub and shield ready to receive the head, no special provision for the experiment. Beaurieux precisely describes his interaction with the decapitated head: "...The head fell on the severed surface of the neck and therefore I did not have to take it up in my hands... ...I was not obliged even to touch it in order to set it upright... ...Next Languille's eyes very definitely fixed themselves on mine and the pupils focused themselves...". The fact that the head would have landed in the zinc bucket behind the shield makes it impossible for Beaurieux to make eye contact with Languille without picking up the head.
The second photo of the Languille execution below gave me some grief. Although it is obviously taken at the same location, I noticed that the guillotine is installed behind the lampost and not in front of it as in the picture above.

I could think of no reason why the machine would have been moved before the arrival of the condemned neither did I understand why the ladder was moved from laying down behind the lampost to leaning up against it between the photos. Finally, it appears that the row of soldiers holding back the crowd has moved significantly closer to the machine in the second photograph. All these inconsistencies lead to a bit more research and to the theory that the second picture may have been taken at the execution of Sylvain Laroche in 1910. Both executions were performed on Place Bel Air, in Orléans. Laroche was executed in late May, which would account for the lighter foliage on the trees while the 5 years time span explains why the trees are slightly taller in the second photo.

This new photograph was taken the 26th of January 1909 at Carpentras, where double-murderer, Rémy Danvers, is about to be executed. This occurred just two weeks after use of the death penalty resumed in France with the quadruple execution of the Pollet gang in Béthunes. From 1905 to 1909 president Fallieres systematically commuted every death sentence that came across his desk, until he was forced to relent by public opinion and a decisive vote (against abolition) in the Assembly.
The great public interest in the executions and associated pictures was deemed indecent by the government, which moved to prohibit the taking of pictures (movie or still) at all executions in 1909. This move was what led to the birth of movie censorship in France. After 1909 all pictures and films of executions were taken illegally.

The newspaper article on the left relates the execution of Henri Besse and Pierre Simorre in February 1909 at Albi in Southern France. The title states that "the assassins of guard Mouttet died with courage". The rest of the story, related in Sylvain Larue's book "Les Grandes Affaires Criminelles du Tarn", is that Besse and Simorre, both small time crooks, did not know eachother before they were sent to the Albi prison. Besse had been sentenced for burglary in 1908 and Simorre for rape that same year. They were both awaiting deportation to Guyana at the prison in Albi, when they connected. They decided that neither of them was ready to take the trip to the "dry guillotine", the Bagne, which, in those years, meant certain death for a high percentage of the deportees. They planned to escape by overpowering the guards who numbered only three for the entire small regional prison. They managed to overpower both guards on duty, but the third guard alerted the gendarmes who recaptured the two inmates within the prison walls. In the process, one of the guards, Mouttet, died from a blow to the head with a paving stone.
Besse and Simorre were sentenced to death on October 28th, 1908. The execution took place in front of the same prison where the murder was committed.

This photo of the guillotine being erected at the prison for the Besse and Simorre execution is not very well known. Note that the door and lantern above the door can also be seen in the newpaper photo above although the paper places the guillotine on the wrong side of the door.
In the photo the specially-built ladder, with the top cross bar and metal stakes, is leaning against the wall of the prison. It can often be seen in the background of execution photos. It was used to install the chapiteau and was designed to lock into two holes in the guillotine frame with the cross bar spanning the uprights so it was very stable when an assistant climbed up with the heavy chapiteau. Andre Obrecht makes a note about that exercise being quite dangerous and one of his assistants nearly breaking his neck in the process. He notes: "Petit George (Ribour) is a good butcher but a bad acrobat - avoid putting him on the ladder in the future".
The horse-drawn carriage in the foreground would have left the garage, Rue de la Folie-Regnault in Paris (where "les Bois de Justice" were stored until 1911) a day or two earlier and travelled by train to Albi. The travels and arrival of the guillotine was followed by the population always eager to discover the location and time of an upcoming execution. The carriage was a rather non-descript transport vehicle of the time and could easily be overlooked. Deibler tried his best to conceal his own arrival often travelling and registering under a false name. Nevertheless the attendance at these "events" grew larger and larger over the years.
Many thanks to Sylvain Larue for the information and newpaper clipping.

This is an undocumented (and unknown?) picture of the guillotine in a execution setting. Apparent from the thick line of spectators, the person hanging in the tree and the one laying on the roof is that this is taken before the execution. I am seeking information on this picture as to the date, location and the person(s) executed. If anyone has any of this information or recognizes the location, please E-mail me. I am pretty sure this photo was taken in France and in a smaller town. The advertizing painted on the building to the right refers to a "Gd Hotel de la Croix" (Grand Hotel of the Cross) and "Verde Soeurs" (? Sisters) in the second line. The caps worn by the Police/Gendarmes point to a timeframe of 1904-1916 before the stiff cylindrical "kepi" was introduced. One likely candidate would be the execution of Henri Riboulet in Montbrison on December 1, 1909.
The rest of the picture is typical of a "Deibler-era" execution. The guillotine assembly is almost complete. The person in the light suit appears to be working on something sitting on the bascule, possibly removing the blade from its case in order to install it. The basin and shield sit in front of the machine, to the right, waiting to be moved into place. The body basket is not visible in the picture, probably being unloaded from the fourgon outside the field of vision. The "pelerines" (ponchos) of the Gendarmes and the lack of leaves on the trees would point to spring or fall and the light suit of the guy working on the guillotine as well as the boater's straw hat worn by the man in the foreground would be more typical of a location in the South of France, but that is only speculation on my part.

This next photo is of the guillotine being dismantled in front of the prison main gate, in the city of Nevers, on July 11, 1914 after the execution of Robert Fabre who murdered a psychiatric hospital orderly in order to escape. Fabre was only 19 when he was executed but already had committed a great number of robberies and burglaries and had spent a lot of time in prison.
One of Deibler's assistants has been left behind to take the machine apart while the fourgon is away, carrying Fabre's body to the cemetery. All the familiar pieces of the machine can be seen stacked on the sidewalk or against the prison wall and door. A few onlookers are still hanging around the scene. According to the legend on the photo, the darker spots on the street, in front of the door, are blood from the execution. Other photos in the set confirm that the guillotine was installed there.
This was the last public execution in Nevers.

ANATOLE DEIBLER 1885-1939

Anatole Deibler was the head executioner for the French Republic from 1899 to 1939. Before that he was an assistant to his father Louis Deibler for eight years after spending 6 years learning the "family trade" with an uncle in Algeria. During his fifty-four year career he executed almost 400 criminals and is the quintessential French "bourreau". The following link takes you to a page where you can see many of Anatole's "clients" (All pictures taken when they were alive): Anatole's 400 heads.

THE CAYENNE GUILLOTINES

French Guyana was used as a deportation site for undesirables as early as the 1760s. During the French Revolution a number of royalists, disgraced republican politicians, and priests were also deported to Guyana. Deportations continued on a small scale in the first half of the 19th century until "Le Bagne" was officially created in 1854 prompted by the desire to close similar prison camps in metropolitan France. The word "Bagne" comes from Italian "bagno" or bath, the name of a prison in Rome which had formerly been a Roman bath. It designated any penitentiary used for the detention of criminals sentenced to hard labor. France systematically deported all hardened criminals to the three colonial bagnes in Guyana, New Caledonia and Indochina from 1854 to 1938. A large population of criminals under less tight supervision than in a conventional prison created the need for harsh discipline, including imposing the death penalty for severe crimes.

This picture shows one of the Berger guillotines that were sent to French Guyana between 1890 and 1900. One was used in the Bagne's Transportation Camp in St Laurent-du-Maroni, and the other on Ile Royale where the maximum security penitenciary camp was located. They replaced a 1792 type machine which had been in service since the Revolutionary years. The old machine was rumored, as were so many others, to be "the original one built by Tobias Schmidt" and "the one that decapitated Louis XVI".
The only evidence of the guillotines left today is two sets of concrete pedestals designed to support the machine found in the Camp in St Laurent and on Ile Royale. Information surrounding executions in Guyana is sparse and less reliable than information on executions in

France because of the secrecy surrounding the operation of the Bagne. A complete and detailed record exists of all executions in France between 1870 and 1977 while very little information about the bagnards executed in the same time frame has been kept.
It is estimated that around 200-250 prisoners were executed in French Guyana between 1890 and 1944. Most were sentenced to death for murdering fellow inmates or guards while in detention. These sentences were pronounced by a military court known as the "Tribunal Maritime Special", established by the decree of November 4, 1889. This tribunal exclusively handled disciplinary sentences against Bagne inmates during incarceration. It did not rule on guilt or innocence but only on the severity of the disciplinary action which ranged from limited confinement to total silent confinement to death.
The machine seen in these pictures is typical of the batch of Berger guillotines called the 1889 model by the workshop that built them. Chapiteau, mouton, release mechanism, pulley and bascule seen in this picture all match up to the 1907 and 1909 photos of the Parisian machine. Only the straps on the bascule are unique.
The machine was assembled on a set of raised concrete pads set in the ground. The aides seen assembling the machine in this photo and the one below are all convicts. They are identifiable by their striped suits and wide brim straw hats.
The bare-headed man in the photo appears to be Louis Ladurelle, the second to last executioner from the Bagne. Ladurelle held the job from 1923 to 1937.

The Bagne executioners were recruited among the prisoners themselves in both Guyana and in New Caledonia. Isidore Hespel (The Jackal) was the most famous of them all. He was a colorful character who took his job so seriously that he was called "Monsieur de St Laurent" by some. He executed 50 of his fellow prisoners between 1898 and 1921. He was ultimately freed long enough to murder a civilian and return to the penitenciary to be decapitated by his assistant, Ladurelle, on his own machine in 1923.
The words "Tribunal Maritime Special" can be seen in the background of the left photo on the mantel of the porch. This identifies the building as the place where the death sentences were pronounced.
Albert Londres, a famed journalist, started bringing the horrible conditions in the Bagne to the attention of the French public in 1923. Public pressure on the government rose over the next 15 years and in 1938 deportations to the Bagne ceased. But the Bagne wasn't closed immediately. In 1940 the Guyana colony found itself cut off from France by the war. Nearly half of the prisoners died of malnutrition and disease between 1940 and 1945. The Bagne was officially closed in 1946 and the last surviving prisoners returned to France in 1953.
Some have asserted that the guillotines were returned to France around 1953 but one machine still remains in Saint-Laurent. This machine was unpacked and photographed by journalist Yvan Marcou during a 1996 visit to Guyana.

Locals suggested it was the guillotine from the Civil Prison in Cayenne which had never been used, but the photos tell another story. A close comparison of the photos with the old B&W photos reveal a small fabrication error that identifies this guillotine as the old St Laurent guillotine.
From his 1996 aerial photo of the Saint-Laurent transportation camp, and the water tower visible in the background of the photo below, Yvan determined that the entire series of photos was taken right outside the camp at the rear entrance of the TMS building. This was the location where freed convicts, such as Isidore Hespel, were executed. Convicts sentenced while serving their detention time were executed inside the camp.
When the Bagne was closed in 1946, there was no guarantee that the guillotine would not be needed in Guyana for regular death penalty cases, so the machine was simply turned over to the Civilian justice system and became the Cayenne prison guillotine, which was never used after 1946.
These photographs, except the one at the top of the section, were all taken during a staged mock execution authorized by the Bagne administration. An article accompanying them states this fact and notes that it is illegal to photograph a real capital execution, thus this officially-sanctioned re-enactment.

I confirmed this recently but have always suspected it as the "atmosphere" and the "actors" seem much too relaxed for it to be a real execution. A small movie sequence was filmed at the same time and shown in the "March of Time" newsreel series. The photos were likely taken in the 1933-37 timeframe and the article was published in September 1939.
Another detail about this guillotine intrigued me. Contrary to all other known Berger guillotines the mouton on this machine was not painted. At first, I supposed it was a new machine that had never been painted, but this made no sense as it was fabricated in France by the same experienced team that made all the other Berger guillotines and they would not have shipped an unpainted mouton. The mouton was probably painted but then was stripped and polished by a man obsessed by "his" guillotine: Isidore Hespel. This obsession transpires in the account of his last day when he asked to assemble the machine for his own execution but was denied. His last words were to scold Ladurelle for having assembled it "as a pig".
The staged photo on the left, shows kneeling prisoners forced to witness the "execution". That scene was reconstructed for the execution in the famous Steve McQueen/Dustin Hoffman movie "Papillon". It appears to have been the standard protocol for executions at least until the early 1900s.

LES CHAUFFEURS DE LA DROME - 1909

The following group of photographs is probably the best set of pictures taken of a guillotine execution. They were taken in Valence (South eastern France) on the 22nd of September 1909. The triple execution took place much after sunrise contrary to protocol and the daylight gave the photographers a great picture opportunity. The condemned assassins, Pierre Berruyer, Octave David and Urbain Liottard ran the gang known as "Les Chauffeurs de la Drôme" (The "Heaters" from the Drôme region), named for their practice of burning their victim's feet to make them reveal where they had their money stashed. The first picture on the left shows Octave David being led up to the bascule by the two of Deibler's assistants, probably "Big" Louis Rogis and Léopold Desfourneaux. Anatole Deibler, with the very recognizable "bouc" (goatie) stands ready at the lever, while the last assistant, probably Marcel Deschamps, is waiting to pull the man's head into the open lunette. David wears the usual white shirt with the collar cut off and is tied up tight around the arms and legs so he is almost being dragged forward. During this period in French history the Guillotine was set up in a public area close to the prison, but often required a short ride in the horse drawn "fourgon" to the place of execution. In this case the guillotine was assembled right outside the Valence prison gates, on the streetcar tracks, and the condemned men were walked directly out of the prison gates. This nearly unknown picture shows David as he exits the prison gate.

In the next scene, the blade is down and soiled. Justice has been served! Deschamps is bending over handling the tin tub and preparing to transfer a severed head into the big zinc lined basket, where it will join the body. Deibler stands behind the basket and holds it open while the two other assistants are looking on. The splatter shield has been moved aside to retrieve the tub and sits on the ground to the right. The bare-headed officer in the foreground appears to be strolling casually over to look at the proceedings...

In the third shot, Deschamps and Deibler are cleaning the machine in preparation for the next "customer". Deibler has partially raised the mouton using the rope and pulley system while Deschamps is washing the blade with a sponge. This macabre ritual, using two buckets and a sponge, which left the surrounding area soaked in blood and water, has been recorded by witnesses to the French executions in several books and newspaper articles. Contrary to contemporary executions in other countries, the French did not do much to spare the condemned from the gruesome scene of preceding executions. The large basket was designed to hold four bodies and at this point there is already one body (or two) in it, which the next man will see as he prepares to meet the same fate.

In the last picture Deibler is unhooking the rope from the mouton after having locked it into position in the jaws of the mechanism. The rope will then be stored on hooks attached to the left upright so it won't interfere with the freefall of the blade. The assistant, Marcel Deschamps, is bending over and appears to be washing his hands in one of the water buckets, most likely after handling the nasty sponge washing job. The machine will soon be ready to dispense justice to the next assassin.

This set of pictures caused great outrage in French government circles as it was illegal to photograph executions. André Obrecht, nephew of Anatole Deibler and future chief executioner himself, recalls seeing these pictures as a child and having nightmares about his uncle cutting people's heads off.

THE GRIM REALITY

This picture depicts the real "work" of the guillotine. The body resting on the morgue slab is Albert Fournier, triple murderer and rapist, executed by Anatole Deibler, at Tours, in February 1920 . WARNING the picture is very graphic.

Here are some of the heads claimed by the guillotine over the years (Left to Right, Top to Bottom): Abel Pollet (1909), Canute Vromant (1909), Albert Fournier (1920), Jean Van de Bogaert (1905), Theophile Deroo (1909), Joseph Vacher (1898), Charles Swartewagher (1905), Auguste Pollet (1909), Lénard, Oillic, Thépaut and Carbucci (1866), Louis Lefevre (1915) - Lefevre's head underwent a brain autopsy after the execution, which explains the incision across the forehead (Not a botched execution as claimed by a French scandal newspaper) WARNING the pictures are very graphic.

Another pair of ugly pictures from the autopsy of the Pollet gang, executed in 1909 in Béthune. On the left Canute Vromant's decapitated body on the examination table. On the right the severed heads of the Pollet brothers taken just 15 minutes after the execution. This picture is much less known than the famous one that is found in nearly every guillotine book. WARNING the pictures are very graphic

EUGENE WEIDMANN - 1939

The picture to the left is probably the most famous picture of the guillotine ever taken. It is a photograph of the last public execution to take place in France. The date is June 17, 1939, the location is Versailles, southwest of Paris and Eugene Weidmann, six-time murderer, is about one second away from losing his head. The new chief-executioner, Henri Desfourneaux, is poised to pull the lever. His first assistant, later to become chief executioner himself, André Obrecht, has just stepped back from the lunette after positioning Weidmann's head between the uprights. The Berger guillotine in the picture is very similar to the 1909 model above but does have a sort of wood shield at the base of the bascule. This same arrangement can be seen in the pictures of the Gorguloff execution in 1932 and on the last pictures of the guillotine taken at Fresnes in 1981, but not on other execution pictures from before 1932, so it is probably a an add-on piece improvised by Deibler at the time. The execution took place later in the morning than scheduled giving the photographers plenty of time and light to get lots of pictures and even to shoot two motion pictures. One of these film clips can be downloaded here (WARNING: GRAPHIC CONTENT). The machine was improperly assembled and the bascule jammed when tilted to horizontal requiring the assistants, Georges Martin and Henri Sabin, to drag Weidmann forward on top of the jammed plank. This is clearly visible here as his feet lay on top of the board instead of hanging over the edge as they would normally. As the headless body was tipped in the basket the bascule board started tilting up and almost

caused the body to fall off.
This second photo of the execution taken by a photographer positionned directly behind André Obrecht shows Desfourneaux's hand still pulling down on the release lever. The mouton has just passed in front of Obrecht, the metal spike attached to its top is still visible right above his hat. Given the position of the blade the picture is in fact recording "the exact instant of death".
Henri Sabin, wearing the beret, is holding Weidmann's feet while Georges Martin is weighing down on his back ready to push the body into the basket. André Obrecht is standing far back from the machine, a move he probably made to avoid being splattered with blood. He has been criticized, by Fernand Meyssonnier among others, for not remaining at his post through the entire execution. This was Desfourneaux's third execution as chief, or fifth counting the two executions he performed as interim chief before being officially nominated, so it may only have been the fifth time Obrecht held the position of first assistant and photographer.

A huge crowd gathered the night before, but was kept out of the street by a police barrier so the larger view of the execution scene, on the right, shows only a half circle of a few hundred spectators, the ones with official passes, allowing them through the police blockade. The government downplayed the story and to this day the picture with the small crowd is still used to dispell the "myth" of the near-riot situation that occured that morning. The reality was that around 30-40,000 rowdy, drunken, screaming and singing "would-be" spectators spent the night partying in the surrounding streets. The photo below was taken at 1:30 am about 100 yards from where the guillotine would be set up. After the execution was over and the guillotine had been dismantled, this bloodthirsty crowd invaded the area. Reports of women dipping handkerchiefs in the bloody water on the sidewalk were, in fact, true.
It is not known if the crowd's undignified behavior, the illegal photography and filming, the flashy press coverage or the new executioner's apparent incompetence prompted it, but the government put an end to public executions by the following

month. All executions, through 1977, would take place behind the prison walls and beside a few pictures of the guillotine being dismantled after the 1946 Petiot execution, in the Sante prison courtyard, there are no known pictures or film of the French guillotine during that time period. The secrecy around the executions became such that the prison courtyards were ordered covered with a black tarp prior to the erection of the timbers of justice to prevent any viewing from above. At the time of the abolition of the death penalty, in 1981, there was a short relaxation of the rules allowing a few people, including Jean Ker, to view and photograph the instruments in Fresnes prison before the total blackout was reinforced. To this day, the exact whereabouts of the two last French guillotines is unknown and getting access to them has been impossible for years.

THE LAST GUILLOTINE - 1981

When Jules Henri Desfourneaux died in 1951, André Obrecht was chosen as the new chief executioner of France among 400 candidates for the job. He had been assistant to both Anatole Deibler (His uncle) and Desfourneaux, but had resigned twice, in 1943 and 1947, because of strong personal disagreements with the latter. During Obrecht's tenure not much was known about the guillotine and the executions hidden behind the prison walls. Obrecht's memoirs were only published after his death in 1985. In 1981, the public

got a brief glance at Obrecht's guillotine before the government ushered it away to secrecy. From the three 1981 pictures shown here (Taken at Fresnes) we can make a few observations: The machine is very old. The lateral metal supports have been drilled like swiss cheese. The blade has been widened to the point of almost touching the uprights.

But something else struck me: the strange assymetry in the blade bolts, with one bolt significantly offset to the right. This is particularly visible in the picture of the mouton (Left, Middle) when compared with the close-up picture of the 1907 mouton (Left, Bottom). At first I assumed this was part of the blade modifications made by Obrecht, but eventually I realized it made no sense for him to move the mounting holes in order to widen the blade. Then I came across the 1905 picture of a Berger blade (Right, Middle) with the same offset in the bolting pattern. The blade is authentic and has the keyed holes that prevented the bolts from turning when the nuts on the back of the mouton were tightened down. It has a center reinforcement strip, which was not used on all Berger blades, but... it fits the hole pattern in the 1981 mouton. Installed as shown in the 1905 picture it would have been visibly offset toward the side with the long edge, with a significant gap between the short side and the other upright, which may explain why Obrecht had a strip of steel welded to the short side, to "balance" the blade between the uprights.

Because the bolt pattern would be easy to spot even on a picture from far away and because the blade for the machine already existed in 1905, I searched through all my old guillotine pictures for a machine with offset bolts. I finally came across one picture (Right, Bottom), probably from the execution of Pierre Joseph Merger at Arras in 1891, showing the same bolt offset. The old picture confirms that the machine Obrecht and Chevalier used until 1977 was probably an older machine, pre-dating the 1907-1909 Deibler machine and different from the one used in 1939 (Weidmann) and 1946 (Petiot). Incidentally, these were two last executions from which photos are known to exist.

Both of the "Obrecht" modifications are mostly cosmetic and are the last known changes made to the 1872 Berger guillotine. I can only guess that his purpose may have been to leave "a mark" on his trade, a sort of "signature" to differentiate "his" guillotine from earlier (and later) ones. Note also that the assembly job for the Fresnes photos was botched: The lower C-brace and the bumper springs are missing so there is no way to operate the machine without causing serious damage.

THE HAMBURG FALLBEIL 1856-1933

The French guillotine spread to surrounding countries at the time of the Revolution, either through the spreading of French law to areas conquered by the armies of France or through the legal reform that the Revolution inspired. Despite the excesses of the Terror, many of the basic ideas of the Revolution were progressive and sound. Some areas of Germany embraced the legal reforms and adopted a uniform death penalty statute and the guillotine by the early 1800s. In German, the guillotine was renamed "Fallbeil", literally translated "Drop-Axe". Over the years the German Fallbeil evolved along its own path separately from its' French cousin. Early Fallbeils were identical to the 1792 guillotines that inspired them, but by the mid 1800s Prussia used mostly a short fallbeil constructed entirely of metal. The picture on the left is quite different. Although the machine is tall and made mostly of wood it is not a French design at all but a completely German design used in Hamburg from 1856 to 1933. The blade shape, release mechanism, U-shaped mouton, bascule frame extensions with the fabric funnel and the dual cross braces clearly separate it from the 1792 design. The permanent scaffold included a trap hatch allowing the body to be dropped into a box in the room below. In the background the tall prison walls can be seen, topped with cloth screens to prevent any viewing of the execution from the outside. The machine only was used in 18 executions from 1856 to 1917. After this time, the executions started becoming more frequent and when the Nazis took power in 1933 the Fallbeils started working around the clock claiming far more victims than the guillotine did during the Terror years of the French Revolution.

THE MUNICH FALLBEIL

This photo shows a much more characteristic German Fallbeil with the all-metal frame and mechanism. Only the bascule and support "table" of the machine are made of wood. The metal "sledge", a sort of gliding frame to which the blade is attached, is shaped like and upside down "U" and comes to rest at the base of the tracks in two boxes stuffed with felt and leather, thus dampening the impact of the 68 kg "drop axe". A winch with a hand crank (Laying on the floor under the machine) and a rope are used to raise the blade assembly. The condemned stepped on the footrest before being strapped, with two leather belts, to the cradle-shaped bascule. The upper lunette board was held open by a simple pin on a chain and the release was a vertical lever arm tilting the big curved "hook" which can be seen going through the hole in the top of the blade.
This machine was designed in 1854 and operated through 1945. It was used in Munich by both Franz Xaver and Johann Reichhart, the most well-known German executioners. This photo is most likely taken in 1926 in the courtyard of the Regensberg Prison. The man on the right, holding the lunette pin, has often been identified as Johann Reichhart but is in fact his assistant, Huber. The man in the top hat, at the execution lever, is actually Johann. The picture may have been taken to commemorate Johann's nomination as chief-executioner. The third man would be Donderer, the assistant who got Reichhart into trouble by getting a side job demonstrating the fallbeil at a wax museum in Munich.
Johann went on to become quite infamous for executing about 3,000 people, most of them political opponents of the Nazi regime, including members of the "White Rose" anti-nazi movement. After the Allied victory, he continued his grim trade for the other side by hanging Nazi War Criminals at the Landsberg prison.
This actual fallbeil may have been captured by the Soviets at the end of WWII and could be the one exhibited at the War Museum in Kiev.

THE HANOI EXECUTION VIDEO - APPROX 1915

A new incredible filmed document has surfaced in the last 5 years, documenting the guillotine execution of two men. The people who made the film public have asserted that it is the 1933 execution of Veteau and Martin, by Anatole Deibler, in the city of Angouleme. The film is of poor quality but an incredible document from a historical standpoint. As I viewed it, I came to the immediate realization that it could not be the execution it claims to be. The first issue is the type of the equipment used. The jerky pictures, grainy quality, wildly varying speed and exposure from frame to frame points to a hand-cranked camera of pre-1920 vintage not what would typically be used in 1933. The opening scene, pictured on the right, shows the guillotine in a brightly lit dirt venue in front of a prison gate. Deibler carefully notes in his "carnet" that Veteau and Martin were executed at 3:50AM on July 20th, in total darkness. The architecture of the prison, with the vertical slit wall openings, the arched gateway and the characteristic base stonework is near identical to the modern shot of the "Maison Centrale" in Tonkin (Hanoi) shown below. The first letter of the word "MAISON" can be discerned over the door inside the red circle. Click here for an older photo. The "Maison Centrale" later became known to captured US aviators as the "Hanoi Hilton". Other issues such as the clothing worn by the spectators and the unpaved city street do point to a colonial setting rather than to a 1933 French provincial town. The guillotine is definitely a real model 1872 Berger and there is little doubt about the authenticity of the footage itself. The following scene takes place right after the opening general scene above, before either of the two executions has been filmed. The camera has been moved closer and becomes completely stationary for the remainder of the sequence. This camera is obviously on a fixed tripod and not handheld by an amateur standing in the middle of a crowd of onlookers. There are no people between the movie camera and the guillotine. Considering the outrage caused by the

filming of the Weidmann execution in 1939 (Done secretly from an apartment window) it is impossible to imagine how a professional cinematographer could have been allowed to set up a fixed camera, practically overhanging the zinc tub, in France in 1933... This is the kind of thing that could only happen in a colonial setting far away from the eyes of the French government. The scene shows an aide leaning into the basket and also the blade in the dropped position. In the red circle we can clearly see that the blade is bloody, which is inconsistent with the fact that this scene precedes the first of the "two" executions. Immediately following this scene a bucket of water is thrown on the bascule and blade, obviously to wash off the blood of the first victim (before the "first" execution). Noteworthy also are the facts that the ropes are not "stored" on the hooks as they would normally be but instead are draped over the back of the bucket and also that there is no shield around the tub (Possibly an arrangement between the photographer and the executioner?). Such "sloppiness" is not likely from Deibler's well-trained team of professionals. After this, the first condemned man is brought forward and as he is "tilted" on the bascule one of the aides whips open the basket and reveals what we already suspected, the foot of a corpse in the basket (in the red circle). This is the final confirmation that we are dealing with a triple, not a double execution. Other notable facts are that the condemned men wear no shoes and that the executioner's aides wear loose fitting canvas uniforms similar to what was worn at the Bagne in Guyana. My best guess is that the film clip is from 1915 to 1920 and shows a triple execution of "forcats" at the Maison Centrale in Tonkin, Northern province of French Indochina. This does not lessen the historical value of the document in my view so I felt I should help set the record straight. A copy of the film clip can be downloaded here (WARNING: GRAPHIC CONTENT).

THE HANOI GUILLOTINES

From around 1900 to 1952 the French used guillotines in Indochina, both to punish common criminals, but also to execute political prisoners, which were causing unrest in the colony. There were at least three guillotines used in Indochina, one built in 1930 and used in Saigon until 1960 and two older machines used in Maison Centrale in Hanoi, later known as the "Hanoi Hilton" and "Hoa Lo Prison". The machine on the right has been known for a while. It is the one exhibited at Hoa Lo prison museum and probably the machine that is seen in the old film clip discussed above. It is in quite good condition although it is improperly assembled: The blade is installed backwards, the C-brace designed to surround the lower part of the posts is mounted at the mid height where the cross-brace should have been and the lateral and rear T-braces have been swapped, leaving both sets crooked.
This machine does have special retainer plates to hold the buffer springs in place and keep them from buckling. This is possibly a local fix to the ever present spring problem as these plates are not used on any other Berger guillotine. The machine is definitely a very close relative of the machines used in France, most probably being constructed by the same Paris shop that built the metropolitain machines.

The second guillotine from Maison Centrale is probably the one that is now being exhibited at the Revolutionary War Museum and shown in the photograph on the left. It is another Berger type machine, painted black or dark grey. It also has been improperly assembled, with the blade mounted backwards and the C-brace sitting in mid-air between the posts. This guillotine is much less known than the one at Hoa Lo Prison and I didn't discover its' existence until a few months ago. It is equipped with an unusually large head tub, which includes an elevated back wall and stepped sides which make the front part of the tub much wider than the spacing of the posts. This design would preclude the installation of the standard photographer's shield used in France. It is likely that the oversized tub with the high ledges was designed to completely replace the shield.
The machine also has the same spring buffer retainer plates as the one exhibited at Hoa Lo prison. The construction is otherwise typical of that of a standard 1900-era Berger model from France. The hinged sideboard is missing but the hinges are still visible on the side of the bascule support. The base frame is of the type with the transversal tension rods as all the older guillotines, visible on the picture below and to the right.
Other interesting details that can be seen are the embedded bolts holding the laminated posts together, visible on the photograph to the left.

The photograph on the left shows very good details of the mouton and spike construction. The spring retainer plates can be seen inside the post on the right side.
The photograph on the right, shows the bascule plank which appears not to have the semi circular cut-out of the later Berger models. It also gives a very clear picture of the three hinges lining up along the right side of the base frame. These hinges allowed the post and the front and rear brace to tilt outward as one unit. Whether this was used as a means of erecting the posts or just a way to install and remove the mouton is still a bit unclear although the design is clearly purposeful.
Visible on the left side of the frame is the steel ball, located at the end of the rear tensionning rod. A lever was inserted through the hole in the ball and used to turn the rod which pulled the frame together. This was particulary useful to take up slack as the wood aged and contracted over the years.