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| 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 |
| THE REVOLUTIONARY GUILLOTINE - 1792 |
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These guillotines were all of similar construction, built using Tobias Schmidt's principles but maybe not his actual design. They are, by and large, regarded 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), Ghent and Brugge (Belgium) as well as one stored in a history museum 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 dating 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, which may have been used as late as 1954, 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 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 lever on the left post. |
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The lever held down on a connecting rod, which in turn held a steel pivot arm at the top of the left post, blocking a horizontal steel bar projecting from the back of the mouton. When the handle was released from the post 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 as there are reports about 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 damaged after a few operations, which explains why machines, like the Brugge guillotine, were so extensively modified. |
| THE BRUGGE GUILLOTINE - 1862 |
| EXECUTION IN ARRAS - 1869 |
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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. |
| NEW CALEDONIA GUILLOTINE - 1910 |
| THE FIRST BERGER GUILLOTINE - 1868 |
| Alphonse Léon Berger was the executioner of Corsica and also a skilled carpenter and cabinetmaker. Learning of his unique talent combination, the French government ordered a new guillotine from him in 1868. This machine, while preserving the same operational functions as the 1792 model, was completely new from overall dimensions, to mechanical features, to appearance. The materials and construction style of the early industrial revolution are very apparent and Berger made extensive use of steel, brass, copper and zinc for his apparatus. There are some clear visual ties in the oak and steel construction to its American cousin, the electric chair. The most unique features of the new machine are the "spike and claw" release system housed inside the cross bar and the spring stops embedded in the uprights. The new machine is about 2 feet shorter than the old, a bit more compact in length, but wider due to a massive cross beam added to the base for lateral stability. The machine is also designed to be quickly disassembled for transportation to the locale of execution to eliminate the need for stationary machines in each province and town. The primary feature distinguishing |
| LA VEUVE DE SAINT-PIERRE 1889 |
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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 - 1897 TO 1910 |
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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. After the execution, it was also used to take the body away for medical examination and burial.
This picture is one of the earliest photos of a Berger guillotine but some even older ones exist, including one of the guillotine on a scaffold taken in Marseilles in 1868. See the photo on the website L'Art de Bien Couper (The art of cutting well). That picture is of too poor quality to determine if the guillotine is an 1868 Berger or the old revolutionary type, but I am guessing it is the latter. |
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A few other pictures of pre-1900 executions can be found on the same website. The 1897 picture does show 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 1909 the guillotine did not undergo any significant changes, if any at all. The only one that has been rumoured to have occurred is the addition of rollers to the mouton in 1899, however all the moutons I have been able to examine, including some from before 1899 had rollers. |
| THE BAGNE GUILLOTINE |
| LES CHAUFFEURS DE LA DROME - 1909 |
| THE GRIM REALITY |
| EUGENE WEIDMANN - 1939 |
| THE LAST GUILLOTINE - 1981 |
| THE HAMBURG FALLBEIL 1856-1933 |
| THE MUNICH FALLBEIL |
| 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 |
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| THE HANOI GUILLOTINES |