On March 28, 1814, the funeral of Joseph Ignance Guillotin,
the namesake but not the inventor of the infamous execution device, takes place
outside of Paris, France. Guillotin, a member of the General Assembly had what he
felt were the purest motives for proposing the use of the device. The machine
was intended to show the intellectual and social progress of the French Revolution;
by killing aristocrats and journeymen the same way, equality in death was
ensured. The first use of the guillotine was on April
25 1792, when Nicolas Pelletier was put to death for armed robbery and
assault in Place de Greve. The newspapers reported that guillotine was not an
immediate sensation. The crowds seemed to miss the gallows at first. However,
it quickly caught on with the public and many thought it brought dignity back
to the executioner. However, the prestige of the guillotine fell precipitously
due to its frequent use in the French Terror following the Revolution. It
became the focal point of the awful political executions and was so closely
identified with the terrible abuses of the time that it was perceived as
partially responsible for the excesses itself. The association with the guillotine so embarrassed Dr. Guillotin's family
that they petitioned the French government to rename it; when the government
refused, they instead changed their own family name. By coincidence, a person
named Guillotin was indeed executed by the guillotine, he was J.M.V. Guillotin,
a doctor of Lyons. This coincidence may have contributed to erroneous
statements that Guillotin was put to death on the machine that bears his name; however,
in reality, Guillotin died in Paris on March 26, 1815 of natural causes, and was
buried at Pere Lachaise Cemetery. Still, it was used sporadically in
France into the 20th century.
His book can be purchased at Amazon through the
following link:
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