[1] The word, however, seems to be cognate with or derived from the
Welsh and Manx _Guillem_, or _Gwilym_ as Pennant spells it. The
association may have no real meaning, but one cannot help comparing
the resemblance between the French _guillemot_ and _Guillaume_ with
that between the English willock (another name for the bird) and
William.
GUILLOCHE, a French word for an ornament, either painted or carved,
which was one of the principal decorative bands employed by the Greeks
in their temples or on their vases. Guilloches are single, double or
triple; they consist of a series of circles equidistant one from the
other and enclosed in a band which winds round them and interlaces. This
guilloche is of Asiatic origin and was largely employed in the
decoration of the Assyrian palaces, where it was probably copied from
Chaldaean work, as there is an early example at Erech which dates from
the time of Gudea (2294 B.C.). The ornament as painted by the Greeks has
almost entirely disappeared, but traces are found in the temple of
Nemesis at Rhamnus; and on the terra-cotta slabs by which the timber
roofs of Greek temples were protected, it is painted in colours which
are almost as brilliant as when first produced, those of the Treasury of
Gela at Olympia being of great beauty. These examples are double
guilloches, with two rows of circles, each with an independent
interlacing band and united by a small arc with palmette inside; in both
the single and double guilloches of Greek work there is a flower in the
centre of the circles. In the triple guilloche, the centre row of
circles comes half-way between the others, and the enclosing band
crosses diagonally both ways, interlacing alternately. The best example
of the triple guilloche is that which is carved on the torus moulding of
the base and on the small convex moulding above the echinus of the
capitals of the columns of the Erechtheum at Athens. It was largely
employed in Roman work, and the single guilloche is found almost
universally as a border in mosaic pavements, not only in Italy but
throughout Europe. In the Renaissance in Italy it was also a favourite
enrichment for borders and occasionally in France and England.
GUILLON, MARIE NICOLAS SYLVESTRE (1760-1847), French ecclesiastic, was
born in Paris on the 1st of January 1760. He was librarian and almoner
in the household of the princess de Lamballe, and when in 1792 she was
executed, he fled to the provinces, where under the name of Pastel he
practised medicine. A man of facile conscience, he afterwards served in
turn under Napoleon, the Bourbons and the Orleanists, and became canon
of St Denis, bishop of Morocco and dean of the Sorbonne.
Among his many literary works are a _Collection des brefs du pape Pie
VI_ (1798), _Bibliotheque choisie des peres grecs et latins_ (1822, 26
vols.) and a French translation of Cyprian with notes (1837, 2 vols.).
GUILLOTINE, the instrument for inflicting capital punishment by
decapitation, introduced into France at the period of the Revolution. It
consists of two upright posts surmounted by a cross beam, and grooved so
as to guide an oblique-edged knife, the back of which is heavily
weighted to make it fall swiftly and with force when the cord by which
it is held aloft is let go. Some ascribe the invention of the machine
to the Persians; and previous to the period when it obtained notoriety
under its present name it had been in use in Scotland, England and
various parts of the continent. There is still preserved In the
antiquarian museum of Edinburgh the rude guillotine called the "maiden"
by which the regent Morton was decapitated in 1581. The last persons
decapitated by the Scottish "maiden" were the marquis of Argyll in 1661
and his son the earl of Argyll in 1685. It would appear that no similar
machine was ever in general use in England; but until 1650 there existed
in the forest of Hardwick, which was coextensive with the parish of
Halifax, West Riding, Yorkshire, a mode of trial and execution called
the gibbet law, by which a felon convicted of theft within the liberty
was sentenced to be decapitated by a machine called the Halifax gibbet.
A print of it is contained in a small book called _Halifax and its
Gibbet Law_ (1708), and in Gibson's edition of Camden's _Britannia_
(1722). In Germany the machine was in general use during the middle
ages, under the name of the _Diele_, the _Hobel_ or the _Dolabra_. Two
old German engravings, the one by George Penez, who died in 1550, and
the other by Heinrich Aldegrever, with the date 1553, represent the
death of a son of Titus Manlius by a similar instrument, and its
employment for the execution of a Spartan is the subject of the
engraving of the eighteenth symbol in the volume entitled _Symbolicae
quaestiones de universo genere_, by Achilles Bocchi (1555). From the
13th century it was used in Italy under the name of _Mannaia_ for the
execution of criminals of noble birth. The _Chronique de Jean d'Anton_,
first published in 1835, gives minute details of an execution in which
it was employed at Genoa in 1507; and it is elaborately described by
Pere Jean Baptiste Labat in his _Voyage en Espagne et en Italie en
1730_. It is mentioned by Jacques, viscomte de Puysegur, in his
_Memoires_ as in use in the south of France, and he describes the
execution by it of Marshal Montmorency at Toulouse in 1632. For about a
century it had, however, fallen into general disuse on the continent;
and Dr Guillotine, who first suggested its use in modern times, is said
to have obtained his information regarding it from the description of an
execution that took place at Milan in 1702, contained in an anonymous
work entitled _Voyage historique et politique de Suisse, d'Italie, et
d'Allemagne_.
Guillotine, who was born at Saintes, May 28, 1738, and elected to the
Constituent Assembly in 1789, brought forward on the 1st December of
that year two propositions regarding capital punishment, the second of
which was that, "in all cases of capital punishment it shall be of the
same kind--that is, decapitation--and it shall be executed by means of a
machine." The reasons urged in support of this proposition were that in
cases of capital punishment the privilege of execution by decapitation
should no longer be confined to the nobles, and that it was desirable to
render the process of execution as swift and painless as possible. The
debate was brought to a sudden termination in peals of laughter caused
by an indiscreet reference of Dr Guillotine to his machine, but his
ideas seem gradually to have leavened the minds of the Assembly, and
after various debates decapitation was adopted as the method of
execution in the penal code which became law on the 6th October 1791. At
first it was intended that decapitation should be by the sword, but on
account of a memorandum by M. Sanson, the executioner, pointing out the
expense and certain other inconveniences attending that method, the
Assembly referred the question to a committee, at whose request Dr
Antoine Louis, secretary to the Academy of Surgeons, prepared a
memorandum on the subject. Without mentioning the name of Guillotine, it
recommended the adoption of an instrument similar to that which was
formerly suggested by him. The Assembly decided in favour of the report,
and the contract was offered to the person who usually provided the
instruments of justice; but, as his terms were considered exorbitant, an
agreement was ultimately come to with a German of the name of Schmidt,
who, under the direction of M. Louis, furnished a machine for each of
the French departments. After satisfactory experiments had been made
with the machine on several dead bodies in the hospital of Bicetre, it
was erected on the Place de Greve for the execution of the highwayman
Pelletier on the 25th April 1792. While the experiments regarding the
machine were being carried on, it received the name _Louisette_ or _La
Petite Louison_, but the mind of the nation seems soon to have reverted
to Guillotine, who first suggested its use; and in the _Journal des
revolutions de Paris_ for 28th April 1792 it is mentioned as _la
guillotine_, a name which it thenceforth bore both popularly and
officially. In 1795 the question was much debated as to whether or not
death by the guillotine was instantaneous, and in support of the
negative side the case of Charlotte Corday was adduced whose
countenance, it is said, blushed as if with indignation when the
executioner, holding up the head to the public gaze, struck it with his
fist. The connexion of the instrument with the horrors of the Revolution
has hindered its introduction into other countries, but in 1853 it was
adopted under the name of _Fallschwert_ or _Fallbeil_ by the kingdom of
Saxony; and it is used for the execution of sentences of death in
France, Belgium and some parts of Germany. It has often been stated that
Dr Guillotine perished by the instrument which bears his name, but it is
beyond question that he survived the Revolution and died a natural death
in 1814.
See Sedillot, _Reflexions historiques et physiologiques sur le
supplice de la guillotine_ (1795); Sue, _Opinion sur le supplice de la
guillotine_, (1796); Reveille-Parise, _Etude biographique sur
Guillotine_ (Paris, 1851); _Notice historique et physiologique sur le
supplice de la guillotine_ (Paris, 1830); Louis Dubois, _Recherches
historiques et physiologiques sur la guillotine et details sur Sanson_
(Paris, 1843); and a paper by J. W. Croker in the _Quarterly Review_
for December 1843, reprinted separately in 1850 under the title _The
Guillotine, a historical Essay_.
GUILT, a lapse from duty, a crime, now usually the fact of wilful
wrong-doing, the condition of being guilty of a crime, hence conduct
deserving of punishment. The O. Eng. form of the word is _gylt_. The
_New English Dictionary_ rejects for phonetic reasons the usually
accepted connexion with the Teutonic root _gald_-, to pay, seen in Ger.
_gelten_, to be of value, _Geld_, money, payment, English "yield."
GUIMARAES (sometimes written _Guimaraens_), a town of northern Portugal,
in the district of Braga, formerly included in the province of
Entre-Minho-e-Douro; 36 m. N.E. of Oporto by the Trofa-Guimaraes branch
of the Oporto-Corunna railway. Pop. (1900) 9104. Guimaraes is a very
ancient town with Moorish fortifications; and even the quarters which
are locally described as "new" date partly from the 15th century. It
occupies a low hill, skirted on the north-west by a small tributary of
the river Ave. The citadel, founded in the 11th century by Count Henry
of Burgundy, was in 1094 the birthplace of his son Alphonso, the first
king of Portugal. The font in which Alphonso was baptized is preserved,
among other interesting relics, in the collegiate church of Santa Maria
da Oliveira, "St Mary of the Olive," a Romanesque building of the 14th
century, which occupies the site of an older foundation. This church
owes its name to the legend that the Visigothic king Wamba (672-680)
here declined the crown of Spain, until his olive wood spear-shaft
blossomed as a sign that he should consent. The convent of Sao Domingos,
now a museum of antiquities, has a fine 12th-13th century cloister; the
town hall is built in the blend of Moorish and Gothic architecture known
as Manoelline. Guimaraes has a flourishing trade in wine and farm
produce; it also manufactures cutlery, linen, leather and preserved
fruits. Near the town are Citania, the ruins of a prehistoric Iberian
city, and the hot sulphurous springs of Taipas, frequented since the 4th
century, when Guimaraes itself was founded.
GUIMARD, MARIE MADELEINE (1743-1816), French dancer, was born in Paris
on the 10th of October 1743. For twenty-five years she was the star of
the Paris Opera. She made herself even more famous by her love affairs,
especially by her long liaison with the prince de Soubise. She bought a
magnificent house at Pantin, and built a private theatre connected with
it, where Colle's _Partie de chasse de Henri IV_ which was prohibited in
public, and most of the _Proverbes_ of Carmontelle (Louis Carrogis,
1717-1806), and similar licentious performances were given to the
delight of high society. In 1772, in defiance of the archbishop of
Paris, she opened a gorgeous house with a theatre seating five hundred
spectators in the Chaussee d'Antin. In this Temple of Terpsichore, as
she named it, the wildest orgies took place. In 1786 she was compelled
to get rid of the property, and it was disposed of by lottery for her
benefit for the sum of 300,000 francs. Soon after her retirement in 1789
she married Jean Etienne Despreaux (1748-1820), dancer, song-writer and
playwright.
GUIMET, JEAN BAPTISTE (1795-1871), French industrial chemist, was born
at Voiron on the 20th of July 1795. He studied at the Ecole
Polytechnique in Paris, and in 1817 entered the Administration des
Poudres et Salpetres. In 1828 he was awarded the prize offered by the
Societe d'Encouragement pour l'Industrie Nationale for a process of
making artificial ultramarine with all the properties of the substance
prepared from lapis lazuli; and six years later he resigned his official
position in order to devote himself to the commercial production of that
material, a factory for which he established at Fleurieux sur Saone. He
died on the 8th of April 1871.
His son EMILE ETIENNE GUIMET, born at Lyons on the 26th of June 1836,
succeeded him in the direction of the factory, and founded the Musee
Guimet, which was first located at Lyons in 1879 and was handed over to
the state and transferred to Paris in 1885. Devoted to travel, he was in
1876 commissioned by the minister of public instruction to study the
religions of the Far East, and the museum contains many of the fruits of
this expedition, including a fine collection of Japanese and Chinese
porcelain and many objects relating not merely to the religions of the
East but also to those of Ancient Egypt, Greece and Rome. He wrote
_Lettres sur l'Algerie_ (1877) and _Promenades japonaises_ (1880), and
also some musical compositions, including a grand opera, _Tai-Tsoung_
(1894).
GUINEA, the general name applied by Europeans to part of the western
coast region of equatorial Africa, and also to the gulf formed by the
great bend of the coast line eastward and then southward. Like many
other geographical designations the use of which is controlled neither
by natural nor political boundaries, the name has been very differently
employed by different writers and at different periods. In the widest
acceptation of the term, the Guinea coast may be said to extend from 13
deg. N. to 16 deg. S., from the neighbourhood of the Gambia to Cape
Negro. Southern or Lower Guinea comprises the coasts of Gabun and Loango
(known also as French Congo) and the Portuguese possessions on the
south-west coast, and Northern or Upper Guinea stretches from the river
Casamance to and inclusive of the Niger delta, Cameroon occupying a
middle position. In a narrower use of the name, Guinea is the coast only
from Cape Palmas to the Gabun estuary. Originally, on the other hand,
Guinea was supposed to begin as far north as Cape Nun, opposite the
Canary Islands, and Gomes Azurara, a Portuguese historian of the 15th
century, is said to be the first authority who brings the boundary south
to the Senegal. The derivation of the name is uncertain, but is probably
taken from Ghinea, Ginnie, Genni or Jenne, a town and kingdom in the
basin of the Niger, famed for the enterprise of its merchants and dating
from the 8th century A.D. The name Guinea is found on maps of the middle
of the 14th century, but it did not come into general use in Europe till
towards the close of the 15th century.[1]
Although the term Gulf of Guinea is applied generally to that part of
the coast south of Cape Palmas and north of the mouth of the Congo,
particular indentations have their peculiar designations. The bay formed
by the configuration of the land between Cape St Paul and the Nun mouth
of the Niger is known as the Bight of Benin, the name being that of the
once powerful native state whose territory formerly extended over the
whole district. The Bight of Biafra, or Mafra (named after the town of
Mafra in southern Portugal), between Capes Formosa and Lopez, is the
most eastern part of the Gulf of Guinea; it contains the islands
Fernando Po, Prince's and St Thomas's. The name Biafra--as indicating
the country--fell into disuse in the later part of the 19th century.
The coast is generally so low as to be visible to navigators only within
a very short distance, the mangrove trees being their only sailing
marks. In the Bight of Biafra the coast forms an exception, being high
and bold, with the Cameroon Mountains for background. At Sierra Leone
also there is high land. The coast in many places maintains a dead level
for 30 to 50 m. inland. Vegetation is exceedingly luxuriant and varied.
The palm-oil tree is indigenous and abundant from the river Gambia to
the Congo. The fauna comprises nearly all the more remarkable of African
animals. The inhabitants are the true Negro stock.
By the early traders the coast of Upper Guinea was given names founded
on the productions characteristic of the different parts. The Grain
coast, that part of the Guinea coast extending for 500 m. from Sierra
Leone eastward to Cape Palmas received its name from the export of the
seeds of several plants of a peppery character, called variously grains
of paradise, Guinea pepper and melegueta. The name Grain coast was first
applied to this region in 1455. It was occasionally styled the Windy or
Windward coast, from the frequency of short but furious tornadoes
throughout the year. Towards the end of the 18th century, Guinea pepper
was supplanted in Europe by peppers from the East Indies. The name now
is seldom used, the Grain coast being divided between the British colony
of Sierra Leone and the republic of Liberia. The Ivory coast extends
from Cape Palmas to 3 deg. W., and obtained its name from the quantity
of ivory exported therefrom. It is now a French possession. Eastwards of
the Ivory coast are the Gold and Slave coasts. The Niger delta was for
long known as the Oil rivers. To two regions only of the coast is the
name Guinea officially applied, the French and Portuguese colonies north
of Sierra Leone being so styled.
Of the various names by which the divisions of Lower Guinea were known,
Loango was applied to the country south of the Gabun and north of the
Congo river. It is now chiefly included in French Congo. Congo was used
to designate the country immediately south of the river of the same
name, usually spoken of until the last half of the 19th century as the
Zaire. Congo is now one of the subdivisions of Portuguese West Africa
(see ANGOLA). It must not be confounded with the Belgian Congo.
Few questions in historical geography have been more keenly discussed
than that of the first discovery of Guinea by the navigators of modern
Europe. Lancelot Malocello, a Genoese, in 1270 reached at least as far
as the Canaries. The first direct attempt to find a sea route to India
was, it is said, also made by Genoese, Ugolino and Guido de Vivaldo,
Tedisio Doria and others who equipped two galleys and sailed south along
the African coast in 1291. Beyond the fact that they passed Cape Nun
there is no trustworthy record of their voyage. In 1346 a Catalan
expedition started for "the river of gold" on the Guinea coast; its fate
is unknown. The French claim that between 1364 and 1410 the people of
Dieppe sent out several expeditions to Guinea; and Jean de Bethencourt,
who settled in the Canaries about 1402, made explorations towards the
south. At length the consecutive efforts of the navigators employed by
Prince Henry of Portugal--Gil Eannes, Diniz Diaz, Nuno Tristam, Alvaro
Fernandez, Cadamosto, Usodimare and Diego Gomez--made known the coast as
far as the Gambia, and by the end of the 15th century the whole region
was familiar to Europeans.
For further information see SENEGAL, GOLD COAST, IVORY COAST, FRENCH
GUINEA, PORTUGUESE GUINEA, LIBERIA, &c. For the history of European
discoveries, consult G. E. de Azurara, _Chronica de descobrimento e
conquista de Guine_, published, with an introduction, by Barros de
Santarem (Paris, 1841), English translation, _The Discovery and
Conquest of Guinea_, by C. R. Beazley and E. Prestage (Hakluyt Society
publications, 2 vols., London, 1896-1899, vol. ii. has an
introduction on the early history of African exploration, &c. with
full bibliographical notes). L. Estancelin, _Recherches sur les
voyages et decouvertes des navigateurs normands en Afrique_ (Paris,
1832); Villault de Bellefond, _Relation des costes d'Afrique appellees
Guinee_ (Paris, 1669); Pere Labat, _Nouvelle Relation de l'Afrique
occidentale_ (Paris, 1728); Desmarquets, _Mem. chron. pour servir a
l'hist. de Dieppe_ (1875); Santarem, _Priorite de la decouverte des
pays situes sur la cote occidentale d'Afrique_ (Paris, 1842); R. H.
Major, _Life of Prince Henry the Navigator_ (London, 1868); and the
elaborate review of Major's work by M. Codine in the _Bulletin de la
Soc. de Geog._ (1873); A. E. Nordenskiold, _Periplus_ (Stockholm,
1897); _The Story of Africa_, vol. i. (London, 1892), edited by Dr
Robert Brown.