GUILLOTINE, a new term introduced into the languages of Europe by the mournful effects of fanaticism in the holy cause of liberty. Our readers are not ignorant that this is the name given by the National Assembly of France to the engine of decapitation, which those usurpers of the legislative authority decreed to be the sole punishment of those condemned to death for their crimes. This decree was issued on March 20th 1792.
We do not imagine that the world will derive much useful instruction from a minute description of this terrible instrument of public justice; and therefore content ourselves with giving two figures of it, sufficiently expressive of its construction. It is only the revival of an instrument used in former times. The earliest accounts that we have of it is, that it was used in the barony of Halyfax in Yorkshire. It was also set up in Scotland; but we have no certain information that it has ever been used; and it is still shown as a sort of curiosity by the name of the Mayden. See MAIDEN, Encycl.
Eratosthenes could not think of a better way of handing down his name to future ages than by burning the temple of Diana at Ephesus; Dr Guillotin, physician at Lyons, and member of the self-named National Assembly of France, thought himself honoured by the decree which associated his name with this instrument of popular vengeance. It was indeed proposed by him as an instrument of mercy, in a studied harangue, filled with that sentimental flang of philanthropy, which costs so little, promises so much, and has now corrupted all the languages of Europe. His invention is indeed one of the most expressive specimens of Gallic philanthropy, whose tender mercies are cruel; and was accordingly received with loud applause, both from the house and from the galleries. To proceed, however, with imposing dignity, it was referred to the consideration of a committee, with injunctions to ask the opinion of able surgeons of its efficiency. Mr Louis, a celebrated surgeon of Paris, declared it well fitted for the task, in a long pedantic dissertation; in which he takes occasion to deliver, with academic coldness, a theory of the operation of cutting instruments; and says that he had examined the edge of the guillotine, and other such instruments, with a microscope, and had discovered that the finest edges were toothed like a saw. M. Guillotin, he said, had therefore with great judgment made the axe of his engine of death with a sloping edge, by which means il glissait d'une façon infiniment plus douce.
This dissertation was so much to the taste of the humane legislature, that they rewarded Mr Louis with 2000 livres, and published it in the Paris Journals. As to the inventor, he reaped all the benefit from it which he so kindly intended for the nation, by the trial of it on his own person, when he fell under the displeasure of Robespierre.
We acknowledge, that in as far as this instrument lessens the duration of the horrid conflict with the king of terrors, and probably diminishes the corporeal sufferance, it may be called merciful (alas! the day!); but we question much, whether the dreadful agitation of soul is not rather increased by the long train of preparatory operations. The hands of the convict are tied behind his back: he is then stretched along on his face on a strong plank, and his precise position adjusted to the instrument. When fastened to the plank, it is pushed forward into its place under the fatal edge, his neck adjusted to the block, and a basket placed just before his eyes (for the face of Louis XVI. was not covered) to receive his head. This must employ a good deal of time, and every moment is terrible.
The construction has received many alterations and refinements; and has at last been made so compendious and portable, as to become part of the travelling equipage of a commissioner from the National Assembly, sent on a provincial or special visitation. Thus did the sovereign people become terrible in majesty. So sensible was the Assembly of the advantages of this awful impression, or so intoxicated with the enjoyment of irresistible power, that they have thought their coins ornamented by this attribute of their supremacy: and as Jupiter is distinguished by his thunderbolt, so the majesty of the people is distinguished by the no less fatal axe. We have seen a piece of ten sous, struck at Mentz in 1793, and issued as current money, at the very time that they were planting the tree of liberty in that illuminated city by the hands of Culline and his troops. The device is the fasces and axe of ancient Rome, crowned with the red cap, and surrounded by a laurel wreath. The inscription is, Republique Française, 1793, an. 2d. Fully impressed with the same sentiments, Lequinio, the sentimental novelist of France, whom Mercier compares with the tender, the heart-touching Sterne—Lequinio, now commissioner, sent by the National Assembly to regenerate Normandy and Brittany, writes to his masters, that "he is very successful in conversations from superstition to found reason." He opposes to the Bible and the relics of the saints the constitution and the guillotine. "And you would wonder (says he) at my success—The wife (but they are few) give up their prejudices at once; but the multitude, the stupid worshippers of Notre Dame, look at our lady the guillotine; are silent, become serious, and their doubts vanish;—they are converted. This is your labarum—in hoc signo vinctes."