when was the guillotine first used in france
Guillotine Laquiante, an officer of the Strasbourg criminal court,[11] designed a beheading machine and employed Tobias Schmidt, a German engineer and harpsichord maker, to construct a prototype.[12] Antoine Louis is also credited with the design of the prototype. The memoirs of the official executioner claim that King Louis XVI (an amateur locksmith) recommended that an oblique blade be used instead of a crescent blade, lest the blade not fit all necks (ironically, the king's own was offered up discreetly as an example).[13] The first execution by guillotine was performed on highwayman Nicolas Jacques Pelletier[14] on 25 April 1792.[15][16][17] He was executed in front of what is now the city hall of Paris (Place de l'hÃ´tel de ville). All citizens deemed guilty of a crime punishable by death were from then on executed there, until the scaffold was moved on 21 August to the Place du Carrousel.
History of France In August–September 1793, militants urged the Convention to do more to quell the counter-revolution. A delegation of the Commune (Paris city council) suggested to form revolutionary armies to arrest hoarders and conspirators.[65] Bertrand Barère, member of the Committee of Public Safety—the de facto executive government—ever since April 1793,[68] among others on 5 September reacted favorably, saying: let's "make terror the order of the day!"[65] On 17 September, the National Convention passed the Law of Suspects, a decree ordering the arrest of all declared opponents of the current form of government and suspected "enemies of freedom". This decree was one of the causes for 17,000 death sentences until the end of July 1794, reason for historians to label those 10½ months 'the (Reign of) Terror'.[69][70]
Guillotine The guillotine remained Franceâ€™s standard method of judicial execution until the abolition of capital punishment in 1981.[3] The last person to be executed in France was Hamida Djandoubi, who was guillotined on 10 September 1977.
Guillotine The guillotine remained Franceâ€™s standard method of judicial execution until as recently as the abolition of capital punishment in 1981.[2] The last person to be executed in France was Hamida Djandoubi, who was guillotined on 10 September 1977.