His & Hearse Press<p><a href="https://c.im/tags/FuneralFactFriday" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#<span>FuneralFactFriday</span></a>: Joseph-Ignace Guillotin <br>Born May 28, 1738 (Saintes, France)<br>Died March 26 1814 (not executed)<br>Buried: Pere Lachaise Cemetery</p><p>Many assume that Monsieur Guillotin invented the guillotine. He did not!</p><p>He was actually a physician who OPPOSED the death penalty. Executions at that time were gruesome and prolonged: axes and swords (reserved for nobility) often took several blows, hanging (for commoners) relied on lengthy asphyxiation rather than instantly breaking the neck, and it was highly unpleasant to be boiled, dismembered, broken on a Catherine Wheel, or burned at the stake. His attempts to abolish capital punishment failed, so he instead proposed a more humane method: fast and painless decapitation by simple mechanism.</p><p>Guillotin wrote a six point proposal to encourage a fairer system (it also discouraged crowds from hungrily watching public executions by making them boring):</p><p>1) All punishments for the same class of crime shall be the same, regardless of the criminal (i.e., there would be no privilege for the nobility)</p><p>2) When the death sentence is applied, it will be by decapitation, carried out by a machine</p><p>3) The family of the guilty party will not suffer any legal discrimination</p><p>4) It will be illegal to anyone to reproach the guilty party's family about his/her punishment</p><p>5) The property of the convicted shall not be confiscated</p><p>6) The bodies of those executed shall be returned to the family if so requested</p><p>His proposals were accepted, becoming law in 1792. The beheading device was invented by the King's physician (Antoine Louis) and a German engineer (Tobias Schmidt). Use of the guillotine in France continued until its abolition in 1981, with the last execution having been performed in 1977.</p><p>A letter published in 1795 cast doubt on the effectiveness of the guillotine. It claimed that victims survived for several minutes after being beheaded, though the only evidence is anecdotal & not supported by medical science. Unfortunately, Guillotin suffered knowing that rumor & regretted sharing his name with the device. </p><p><a href="https://c.im/tags/HisAndHearsePress" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#<span>HisAndHearsePress</span></a> <a href="https://c.im/tags/Guillotine" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#<span>Guillotine</span></a> <a href="https://c.im/tags/History" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#<span>History</span></a> <a href="https://c.im/tags/FrenchRevolution" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#<span>FrenchRevolution</span></a> <a href="https://c.im/tags/Execution" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#<span>Execution</span></a> <a href="https://c.im/tags/CapitalPunishment" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#<span>CapitalPunishment</span></a> <a href="https://c.im/tags/Beheading" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#<span>Beheading</span></a> <a href="https://c.im/tags/FunFact" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#<span>FunFact</span></a></p>