How Did The Guillotine Impact The French Revolution

The French Revolution was a period in history where French citizens uprooted the political landscape and altered the relationship between the rulers and their citizens. It was a revolution against starvation, extreme famine, and, at the end of the day, death itself. Thousands of people were beheaded by the guillotine throughout the French Revolution, with it being the preferred method of execution. The most prolific use of the machine, though, occurred from the summer of 1793 to the summer of 1794, during a period in French history known as the Terror. Though the device was created in order to be a tool that would make the death penalty more humane, it would soon grow to be a key character in the revolution. The impact the guillotine had on

Oftentimes, executions would be botched, taking multiple swings of the sword or axe just for the beheading to be complete. As you can imagine, this would cause extreme agony for the receiver and also leave the executioner with a heavy conscience. Eventually, this would lead to the creation of a machine with more accuracy, but that machine was not the Guillotine. Though the guillotine is one of the most prominent devices when it comes to tools used for the death penalty, it is not the only beheading device in our history. On the contrary, most historians place guillotine-like devices all the way back to antiquity, but our first look at a proto-guillotine comes around 1300. Named the Halifax gibbet, it worked similarly to a guillotine, a tall wooden tower that held a blade that was wedged into a block of wood. When the rope that held the block was cut, it would fall down, beheading the prisoner, who would be tied with rope and placed under the blade. However, it didn't so much as slice the head off; instead, it crushed the neck, with the blade just creating a cut. Not quite the guillotine yet, in the mid-1500s, in Scotland, a redesigned Halifax Gibbet was built, named the Scottish Maiden. Instead of using the wood block to which the blade was attached to weigh it down, the Scottish Maiden instead made its blade out of the dense lead. It also forced the prisoner to

I do think that the French Revolution would have occurred, as the guillotine was not introduced until two years into the revolution, and was used well after the revolution until 1977, but I don’t think the reign of terror nor the increase in deaths or capital punishment would have occurred if the guillotine was never invented. The revolution might have been more focused on storming the government, using their muskets and knives, and possibly multiple versions of the Boston massacre would have occurred throughout the 1790s, but not near the same amount of bloodshed would occur if it was not for the guillotine. The guillotine had a unique control over history and the citizens of France, and even people today. Over 200 years later here we are, with the guillotine used throughout pop culture, or even in political conversations as the gap between the wealthy and the poor continues to grow in modern-day America. Let’s just hope Madame Guillotine stays in