THE "NATIONAL RAZOR."
The _Rue de l'Arbre Sec_--Dr. Guillotin--Dr. Louis--The Guillotine--The
First Political Execution.
The street in which Mme. de Saint-Huberty lived, besides suggesting her
fatal end, is connected with a whole series of tragedies. The Street of
the Dry Tree--Rue de l'Arbre Sec--recalls, by its picturesque name, the
fact that here at one time stood the tree from which hung, as fruit, the
bodies of capital offenders. In ancient days, and until the great epoch
of the Revolution, hanging was the ordinary punishment in France for
felony, though an exception was made in favour of high-born criminals,
whose aristocratic origin entitled them to be decapitated. The modern
method, indeed, of execution in France is primarily due to a Republican
determination not to recognise inequalities, even in the manner of
the death-punishment. It is certain that Dr. Joseph-Ignace Guillotin,
in introducing the too-celebrated invention which is named after him,
was actuated by a spirit of impartiality in the first instance, and by
humanity in the second.
With the legend, perhaps, of Phalaris and his bull running in their
heads, many Frenchmen persist, even to this day, in believing that the
inventor of the guillotine was the first victim to fall beneath its
blade. As a matter of fact, he survived for upwards of twenty years the
introduction of that machine which earned for him so odious a reputation
that in the autobiography he left behind not a word, significantly
enough, is said about the guillotine.
We have seen that under the ancient _régime_ one of the privileges of
the nobleman was, in case of execution, to have his head chopped off--a
method of punishment held to be more honourable than hanging, which,
reserved for plebeian offenders, lent to the execution a character of
infamy. To die at the end of a rope was not only a blot on the memory of
the offender, but involved his whole family in lasting disgrace.
The principle of equality in the eye of the law, which came beneath the
consideration of the Assembly in 1789, naturally included the equality
of criminal punishment; which ought to vary according to the offence,
but not according to the social rank of the offender. On the 10th of
October in the year mentioned Dr. Guillotin moved in the Assembly, where
he sat as one of the representatives for Paris, that the executioner
should be rendered an impartial functionary, putting all his victims to
death in the same fashion and by means of some mechanical apparatus.
When he had put this motion he went on to propose the idea of a machine,
rapid in action, which would diminish the sufferings of capital
offenders. His motion was carried unanimously; but the suggestion as
to the machine was reserved for future discussion. It was during this
debate that Dr. Guillotin, vehemently advocating the instrument of death
which hitherto existed only in his own mind, exclaimed, in an unguarded
moment: "With my machine I will cut your head off in a twinkling, and
without your suffering a twinge." There was a general roar of laughter.
But the hilarity of the Assembly seems tragic enough when we remember
how many of those who laughed were destined to perish by that insatiable
weapon which as yet had neither name nor form.
As a matter of fact, the worthy doctor, a man already at this time
famed for his philanthropy, did not invent, but only suggested, the
guillotine. By the expression, "my machine," he simply meant such
a machine as the authorities, if they profited by his vague idea,
would cause to be constructed. He had proposed nothing more than the
principle of decapitation, whilst indicating in general terms the
various instruments anciently employed for the purpose in different
countries. Nevertheless, the whole nation was soon laughing at him, his
exclamation being made the text of endless pleasantries. People were
intensely amused at this notion of cutting off one's head in a twinkling
from philanthropy. The instrument was christened long before it had
been invented, and with the name of the unhappy doctor. A clever song
was dashed off at the time, telling how a certain M. Guillotin, doctor
and politician, woke up one fine morning and discovered that the custom
of hanging was unpatriotic; how he immediately hit upon a method of
punishment which, without rope or stake, would be so effective as to
throw the executioner out of employment; and how the machine which the
doctor indicated could bear no fitter name than the guillotine.
[Illustration: RUE DE LE VRILLIÈRE.]
It was this song, perhaps, which really fixed the name of the deadly
weapon. So far, however, the Assembly, as we have seen, had come to
no decision on the subject, having simply decreed the principle of
equality in criminal punishments. The question of the mode of execution
was entrusted for discussion to a special committee. On the 21st of
September, 1791, after lengthy debate, the Assembly adopted the new
penal code, of which one clause provided that every criminal sentenced
to death should have his head cut off. The method of decapitation now
remained to be decided. Hitherto the instrument employed had been the
sword or the axe. This ghastly operation had been performed on a block,
and clumsiness or emotion on the part of the executioner had sometimes
caused the victim indescribably horrible tortures. Instances had
occurred in which the criminal's head had not been severed from his body
till the sixth or seventh stroke.
This question greatly preoccupied the Assembly. Ministers openly
expressed the horror with which decapitation by the sword inspired them;
and the executioner himself published, in reference to the disadvantages
of this method, a number of observations tinged with similar abhorrence.
At length the Committee of Legislation called upon the celebrated
surgeon Louis to draw up a report on the subject, indicating the fittest
methods for cutting off a person's head rapidly and according to the
principles of science.
The witty Sophie Arnould, meeting once, as she walked through a wood,
some physician of her acquaintance, with a gun under his arm, inquired
of him: "Do you not find your prescriptions sufficient?" and it seems
droll enough that, whilst the mission of doctors is, theoretically at
least, to preserve life, a surgeon should have been selected by the
Assembly to prescribe the fastest method of taking it. Yet, after all,
the selection was prompted by humanity; for the infliction of death is
a sufficiently sad necessity of State without the addition of needless
torture. Dr. Louis in any case drew up his report, and presented it to
the Assembly on the 20th of March, 1792. He set forth, in the first
place, that cutting instruments are in reality nothing but saws of a
more or less fine description, having very little effect when they
strike perpendicularly, and that it was consequently necessary in
executions to apply them in an oblique and gliding fashion. Adopting,
therefore, the idea propounded by Guillotin--whom he did not even name
in the report--he maintained that decapitation, in order to be surely
effected, must be the direct act, not of a man, but of a machine, the
adoption of which he now recommended. He mentioned a machine then
employed in England which was, in fact, a rude sort of guillotine, and
suggested several improvements in connection with it. Nor, indeed, was
the notion of such an instrument by any means new. Some very old German
prints exist representing executions performed in a similar fashion. The
Italians employed in the sixteenth century, for the beheading of noble
criminals, a machine called the _mannaja_, consisting of two upright
posts, between which was fixed a sliding knife or cleaver, of great
weight, designed to descend with enormous force and velocity on the neck
of the prisoner leaning over a block below.
Dr. Louis did not content himself with preparing this report. He hired
a German mechanician, named Schmidt, to construct at his directions
a machine which, after a succession of improvements, was definitely
adopted. The first experiments were made at Bicêtre, on animals--which
reminds one inevitably of Mr. W. S. Gilbert's executioner, who
resolved first to practise on inferior beasts, and then to work his
way up through the whole of animate creation until he was artist
enough to behead a king. Schmidt, by the way, charged the State 824
livres (francs) for constructing those earliest machines, undertaking,
moreover, to superintend their installation in the various departments.
Originally the new instrument was sometimes called the Louisette, after
the name of its actual creator. But guillotine was already the common
title, and it soon became universal, as well as technical and official.
Dr. Guillotin seems never to have protested against this appellation,
though it is probable that during the troubles which were so close at
hand he would fain have divested himself of the infamy which enshrouded
him. As to Dr. Louis, he was fortunate enough not to witness a single
political execution, for he died on the 20th of May, 1792.
The guillotine took its first human life on the 25th of April, 1792.
The subject was a highwayman named Nicolas-Jacques-Pelletier. The
_Chronique de Paris_ said next day of this execution:--"The novelty of
the execution had considerably enlarged that crowd of people whom a
barbarous pity is wont to draw to these sad spectacles. The new machine
has been justly preferred to the old methods of execution. It does not
stain any man's hand with the murder of his fellow, and the promptitude
with which it strikes the criminal is in the spirit of law, which may
often be severe, but ought never to be cruel."
The first political execution took place on the night of 21st August,
1792, at ten o'clock, to the flare of torches. The victim was Louis
David Collenot d'Agremont, put to death for having been seen amongst
the enemies of the people on the eventful day of the 10th August. This
execution marked the commencement of an era of relentless and bloody
feuds; but it was not until the establishment of the revolutionary
tribunal, on 7th April, 1793, that the guillotine began to ply its
deadly blade in such fearful earnest. From that moment to the 28th July
the total number of persons executed was 2,625.
The earliest political executions had for their scene the Place du
Carrousel, whilst ordinary criminals continued to be decapitated on the
Place de Grève. On the 10th May, 1793, the Convention, sitting then
at the Tuileries, just opposite the ugly guillotine, called upon the
Executive Council to choose another site. The Commune selected the Place
de la Révolution (Concorde), where the guillotine was in operation until
the 12th June, 1794. It was then erected in the Place du Trône. Some
persons had suggested the Bastille; but in the eyes of the people this
was a place which had acquired an almost sacred character. Under the
Empire and the Restoration the guillotine stood on the Place de Grève,
and under Louis Philippe at the Barrière St. Jacques, whilst to-day it
is transferred to the Place de la Roquette.
During the Reign of Terror the French nation was so familiarised with
the idea of violent death that executions did not produce the same
feeling of horror as at ordinary times. And now the real character
of the Frenchman began to assert itself. In the gaols it became a
favourite diversion with the prisoners to "play at the guillotine."
People gave burlesque names to the horrible machine, such as "national
razor," etc. It is even said that ear-rings in the shape of miniature
guillotines were now largely worn by fashionable ladies. Within their
Paris mansions aristocrats were accustomed to kill the time by means
of a toy guillotine, which was placed on the table during dessert.
Beneath this instrument were passed in succession several puppets,
whose heads, representing those of leading Paris magistrates, liberated
from the hollow trunk, as they rolled off the block, a red liquid like
blood. All present, and especially the ladies, thereupon saturated their
handkerchiefs with the fluid, which contained a highly agreeable scent.
Under the Government of the Commune of Paris, the mob seized the
guillotine and burnt it in the open street. Of late years the Paris
executioner has distinctly improved the instrument. The scaffold, which
was once an adjunct to it, has quite disappeared, and the criminal has
no longer to climb a rude staircase before placing himself beneath the
knife.