Towards the end of his life, a man who bore what, in his own opinion, the “monstrous” name of Guillotin, turned to the authorities of Napoleonic France with a request to change the name of the terrible execution device of the same name, but his request was rejected. Then the nobleman Joseph Ignace Guillotin, mentally asking for forgiveness from his ancestors, thought about how to get rid of the once respectable and respectable family name …
It is not known for certain whether he managed to accomplish this, but the descendants of Guillotin disappeared forever from the field of view of historians.
Joseph Ignace Guillotin was born on May 28, 1738 in the provincial town of Saint in the family of a not very successful lawyer. And nevertheless, from an early age, he absorbed a certain special sense of justice transmitted to him by his father, who for no money would not agree to defend the accused, if he was not sure of their innocence. Joseph Ignace allegedly himself persuaded his parent to give him up to the Jesuit fathers, suggesting to put on the clerk's cassock until the end of his days.
It is not known what turned the young Guillotin away from this venerable mission, but at a certain time he unexpectedly even for himself turned out to be a student of medicine, first at Reims, and then at the University of Paris, which he graduated with outstanding results in 1768. Soon his lectures on anatomy and physiology could not accommodate everyone: portraits and fragmentary memories depict the young doctor as a small, well-cut man with graceful manners, possessing a rare gift of eloquence, in whose eyes a kind of enthusiasm shone.
Joseph-Ignace Guillotin. Birthday: 1738-28-05. Place of birth: Saint, France. Died: 1814. Citizenship: France
One can only wonder how radically the views of those who once claimed to be a minister of the church have changed. Both Guillotin's lectures and his inner convictions revealed in him a complete materialist. The great doctors of the past, such as Paracelsus, Agrippa of Nettesheim, or father and son van Helmont, had not yet been forgotten, it was still difficult to abandon the idea of the world as a living organism. However, the young scientist Guillotin has already questioned Paracelsus's assertion that “nature, space and all its given are one great whole, an organism where all things are consistent with each other and there is nothing dead. Life is not only movement, not only people and animals live, but also any material things. There is no death in nature - the extinction of any given, there is immersion in another womb,dissolution of the first birth and the formation of a new nature."
All this, according to Guillotin, was pure idealism, incompatible with the fashionable, new materialistic convictions of the Age of Enlightenment striving to dominate. He, as it should be for young natural scientists of his time, was incomparably more admired by his acquaintances - Voltaire, Rousseau, Diderot, Holbach, Lamerti. From his medical department, Guillotin, with a light heart, repeated the new spell of the era: experience, experiment - experiment, experience. After all, a person is, first of all, a mechanism, it consists of screws and nuts, you just need to learn how to tighten them - and everything will be all right. Actually, these thoughts belonged to Lamerti - in his work "Man-Machine" the great enlightener asserted ideas, which are very recognizable even today, that man is nothing more than a complexly organized matter. Those who believeas if thinking presupposes the existence of an incorporeal soul - fools, idealists and charlatans. Who has ever seen and touched this soul? The so-called "soul" ceases to exist immediately after the death of the body. And this is obvious, simple and clear.
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Therefore, it is quite natural that the doctors of the Paris Medical Academy, to which Guillotin belonged, were so unanimously indignant when in February 1778 the Austrian physician Franz Anton Mesmer appeared in the capital, widely known for having discovered the magnetic fluid and was the first to use hypnosis for treatment. Mesmer, who developed the ideas of his teacher van Helmont, empirically discovered the mechanism of psychic suggestion, but believed that a special fluid circulates in the healer's body - a "magnetic fluid" through which celestial bodies act on the patient. He was convinced that gifted healers could pass these vibes on to other people and thus heal them.
… On October 10, 1789, the members of the Constituent Assembly made a lot of noise and did not want to leave the meeting. Monsieur Guillotin introduced the most important law concerning the death penalty in France. He stood before the legislators solemn, inspired and spoke, spoke. His main idea was that the death penalty should also be democratized. If until now in France the method of punishment depended on the nobility of origin - common criminals were usually hanged, burned or quartered, and only nobles were honored with the honor of beheading with a sword - now this ugly situation should be radically changed. Guillotin hesitated for a second and looked at his notes.
- To be convincing enough today, I spent a lot of time talking with Monsieur Charles Sanson …
At the mention of this name, a mute silence instantly fell in the hall, as if everyone were suddenly speechless at the same time. Charles Henri Sanson was the hereditary executioner of the city of Paris. The Sansons family held, so to speak, a monopoly on this occupation from 1688 to 1847. The position was passed in the Sanson family from father to son, and if a girl was born, then her future husband was doomed to become the executioner (if, of course, there was one). However, this work was very, very highly paid and required absolutely exceptional skill, so the executioner began to teach his "art" to his son, as soon as he was fourteen.
Guillotin, in fact, often visited Monsieur Sanson's house on the Rue Château d'Eau, where they talked and often played a duet: Guillotin played well the harpsichord, and Sanson played the violin. During the conversations, Guillotin asked Sanson with interest about the difficulties of his work. I must say that Sanson rarely had the opportunity to share his worries and aspirations with a decent person, so he didn't have to pull his tongue for a long time. This is how Guillotin learned about the traditional methods of mercy of the people of this profession. When, for example, a convict is erected to the fire, the executioner usually puts a gaff with a sharp end to stir the straw, just opposite the victim's heart - so that death overtakes him before the fire begins to devour his body with agonizing slow relish. As for the wheel, this torture of unprecedented cruelty, then Sanson admittedthat the executioner, who always has poison in the house in the form of tiny pills, as a rule, finds an opportunity to slip it unnoticed into the unfortunate person in between tortures.
- So, - continued Guillotin in the ominous silence of the hall, - I propose not only to unify the method of the death penalty, because even such a privileged method of killing as decapitation with a sword also has its drawbacks. “It is possible to complete a case with a sword only if the three most important conditions are met: the operability of the instrument, the dexterity of the performer and the absolute calmness of the condemned,” the deputy Guillotin continued to quote Sanson. executions becomes problematic (there were cases that it was possible to chop off the head almost on the tenth attempt). If you have to execute several at once, then there is no time for sharpening, which means that stocks of "inventory" are needed - but this is not an option either, since the convicts, forced to watch the death of their predecessors,slipping in pools of blood, they often lose their presence of mind and then the executioner with his assistants has to work like butchers in a slaughterhouse …"
- Enough about that! Have listened! - suddenly a voice jumped up nervously, and the meeting suddenly became agitated - those present hissed, whistled, hissed.
“I have a radical solution to this terrible problem,” he shouted, interrupting the noise.
And in a clear, clear voice, as in a lecture, he informed those present that he had developed a blueprint for a mechanism that would instantly and painlessly separate the head from the body of the convict. He repeated - instantly and completely painlessly. And triumphantly shook some papers in the air.
At that historic meeting, it was decided to consider, research and clarify the project of the "miraculous" mechanism. In addition to Guillotin, three more people came to grips with it - the king's physician surgeon Antoine Louis, the German engineer Tobias Schmidt and the executioner Charles Henri Sanson.
… Contemplating to bless humanity, Dr. Guillotin carefully studied those primitive mechanical constructions that were used for the deprivation of life ever before in other countries. As a model, he took an ancient device used, for example, in England from the end of the 12th to the middle of the 17th century - a chopping block and something like an ax on a rope … Something similar existed in the Middle Ages both in Italy and in Germany. Well, then - he went headlong into the development and improvement of his "brainchild".
Historical reference: it is believed that the guillotine was not invented in France. Actually a guillotine from Halifax, Yorkshire. The "gallows from Halifax" consisted of two five-meter wooden posts, between which was an iron blade, which was fastened to a crossbar filled with lead. This blade was controlled with a rope and a gate. The original documents show that at least fifty-three people were executed with this device between 1286 and 1650. The medieval city of Halifax lived off the cloth trade. Huge cuts of expensive cloth were dried on wooden frames near the mills. At the same time, theft began to flourish in the city, which became a big problem for him and traders needed an effective deterrent. This and a device like him, called "The Maiden" or "Scottish Maiden",it may well have inspired the French to borrow the main idea and give it their own name.
In the spring of 1792, Guillotin, accompanied by Antoine Louis and Charles Sanson, came to Louis in Versailles to discuss the finished draft of the execution mechanism. Despite the threat hanging over the monarchy, the king continued to consider himself the head of the nation, and it was necessary to get his approval. The Palace of Versailles was almost empty, echoing, and Louis XVI, usually surrounded by a noisy, lively retinue, looked absurdly lonely and lost in it. Guillotin was visibly worried. But the king made only one single melancholy, but astonishing remark for everyone: “Why the semicircular shape of the blade? - he asked. "Does everyone have the same neck?" Then, absentmindedly sitting down at the table, he personally replaced the semicircular blade with an oblique one on the drawing (later Guillotin made an important amendment: the blade should fall on the convict's neck exactly at an angle of 45 degrees). Howbeit,but Louis accepted the invention.
And in April of the same 1792 Guillotin was already bustling about on the Place de Grève, where the first beheading device was installed. A huge crowd of onlookers gathered around.
- Look, what a beauty, this Madame Guillotine! - some impudent quipped.
So, from one evil language to another, the word "guillotine" was firmly established in Paris.
Historical note: Later, Guillotin's proposal was revised by Dr. Antoine Louis, who served as secretary at the Academy of Surgery, and it was according to his drawings in 1792 that the first guillotine was made, which was given the name "Louison" or "Louisette". And the people began to call it affectionately "Louisette".
Guillotin and Sanson made sure to test the invention first on animals and then on corpses - and, I must say, it worked perfectly, like a clock, while requiring minimal human participation.
The Convention finally passed the "Law on the Death Penalty and the Methods of Its Execution", and henceforth, for which Guillotin advocated, the death penalty ignored class differences, becoming one for all, namely - "Madame Guillotine".
The total weight of this machine was 579 kg, while the ax weighed more than 39.9 kg. The process of cutting off the head took a total of a hundredth of a second, which was a matter of special pride for the doctors - Guillotin and Antoine Louis: they had no doubt that the victims did not suffer. However, the "hereditary" executioner Sanson (in one private conversation) tried to disbelieve Dr. Guillotin in his pleasant delusion, claiming that he knows for certain that after the head is cut off, the victim continues to remain conscious for several minutes, and these terrible minutes are accompanied by an indescribable pain in the severed part of the neck.
- Where did you get this information? Guillotin wondered. - This is absolutely contrary to science.
Sanson, on the other hand, was skeptical about the new science in the depths of his soul: in the depths of his many things in his life, who had seen a family, all sorts of legends were kept - his father, grandfather and brothers more than once had to deal with witches, and with sorcerers, and with warlocks - they are all managed to tell the executioners before the execution. Therefore, he allowed himself to question the humanity of advanced technology. But Guillotin looked at the executioner with regret and not without horror, thinking that, most likely, Sanson was worried that from now on he would be deprived of his job, since anyone could operate the Guillotin mechanism.