guillotine

Joseph-Ignace Guillotin was a French physician and member of the National Assembly during the Revolution. In 1789, he proposed that all executions be carried out by a 'simple mechanism' — a decapitation device — to replace the unequal and often botched methods then in use. Before the Revolution, French nobles were beheaded by sword (quick, if the swordsman was skilled) while commoners were hanged (slow and often agonizing). Guillotin's proposal was egalitarian: one method for all, as painless as possible.

The machine itself was designed by Antoine Louis, the Secretary of the Academy of Surgery, with the input of a German harpsichord maker named Tobias Schmidt. It was first called the louison or louisette, after Antoine Louis. But the public attached Guillotin's name to it instead — perhaps because he had been the most visible advocate for its adoption. The first person executed by guillotine was Nicolas Jacques Pelletier, on April 25, 1792, in Paris.

The guillotine became the instrument of the Reign of Terror. Between September 1793 and July 1794, an estimated 16,594 people were sentenced to death by revolutionary tribunals, many executed by guillotine. The machine that was proposed as humane became the symbol of state terror. Marie Antoinette, Louis XVI, Robespierre himself — the guillotine was indiscriminate. Guillotin, who survived the Revolution, spent the rest of his life trying to dissociate his name from the device.

France continued using the guillotine until 1977. The last person guillotined in France was Hamida Djandoubi, executed on September 10, 1977, in Marseille. France abolished the death penalty in 1981. The Guillotin family petitioned the French government to change the machine's name; when the request was denied, they changed their own family name instead. The doctor's name outlived his wishes, his family's name, and the machine itself.