BLOG: A Brief History of Madame Guillotine

1brookallen
2 days ago
5 min read

While in college, I had a remarkable opportunity to study French in Paris in a summer program at La Sorbonne. Completely immersed and having made a promise among the rest of my team NOT to speak English, I found myself learning another language and at times--toward the end of my stay in France--even dreaming in it! I will ever be thankful to my parents who provided for this incredible experience. It was one of the most valuable summers I can remember.

Each afternoon, after classes, a fellow student from Brazil and I traversed Paris one historic site at a time. Le Louvre, Les Invalides, Musee de Cluny, le Tour Eiffel, and so many more. However, I was remiss in missing one particular site. I'm sure I saw the Place de la Concorde, but at no moment did I pause to read about its bloody history, and I certainly should have. It was there that both King Louis XVI and his wife, Marie Antoinette met their tragic ends. In fact, the most notorious of "Madame Guillotine's" victims met their fates in that busy, well-trafficked space.

This week, author J.R. Powell has shared a truly fascinating blog piece on Madame Guillotine, herself--her history, the men behind her invention, as well as the reasons for it. I'd like to welcome him to Brook's Journal and I invite readers to check out this impressive blog below. It's really interesting!

I will be taking a break from posting during Christmas week, however, I might post a review of my favorite book in 2025 in the week of the New Year. So in the meantime, READ ON!

A BRIEF HISTORY OF MADAME GUILLOTINE

J.R. Powell

Most of us, when we picture the French Revolution, find the same image slicing its way into our thoughts: the guillotine. Whether glimpsed in a faded painting, flickering across a screen, or encountered in waxy stillness at Madame Tussaud’s, that swift and methodical killing machine, with its towering height and falling blade, lurks somewhere in our imagination. It may be fair to say that, for many, especially beyond France, the guillotine has become shorthand for the Revolution itself. Yet, this instrument, merely a method of execution, carries a far more surprising history than we might expect.

The device was, in fact, conceived by the physician Antoine Louis, who designed the mechanism and oversaw the construction of its first working model by Tobias Schmidt, a German harpsichord maker whose craftsmanship proved unsettlingly adaptable. For a brief time, the machine bore Louis’s name – the louisette – before becoming more broadly known as the guillotine, after Joseph-Ignace Guillotin, a doctor advocating for a swift and universal method of execution. Before the National Assembly, he argued that justice, in an age proclaiming liberty and equality, should fall with the same blade on every neck, regardless of the condemned’s social status, sex, or wealth.

Before this innovation, France had indulged in a grim catalogue of punishments, including but not limited to burning, breaking on the wheel, drawing and quartering, and other theatrically inventive cruelties, each varying according to the individual’s status and misdeed. Against such rituals of suffering, the guillotine, with its stark simplicity, looked like a back-scratcher. Yet when it made its debut in Paris on the 25th of April 1792, the eager crowd found itself sorely disappointed. Its first victim, the highwayman Nicolas-Jacques Pelletier, lost his head in a fraction of a second. It was over before anyone could savour it – far too quick for an audience accustomed to prolonged torment. That all changed, however, when the guillotine began claiming the heads of celebrities, notably Louis XVI and Marie-Antoinette. The machine transformed into a morbid national obsession.

During the period known as the Terror, spanning roughly September 1793 to July 1794, an estimated 2,600 people were guillotined in Paris, nearly half of them in the frantic final months. These included big names of the time, including many of the Revolution’s own architects, such as Georges Danton, Camille Desmoulins, and, ultimately, Maximilian Robespierre. Across France, the number rose to about 17,000 official executions, as guillotines popped up in other cities. Small wonder, then, that the device acquired a litany of ominous nicknames – the National Razor, the People’s Avenger, the Widow-maker, the Timbers of Justice, even Louisette’s Necklace.

Execution by guillotine persisted in France well into the twentieth century; its final use came in 1977, the same year Star Wars: Episode IV – A New Hope premiered. Such was the machine’s efficiency that variants of it were adopted in other parts of Europe, including Belgium, Switzerland, Luxembourg, and Germany. The German model, the shorter, stockier Fallbeil, appeared in several German states from the nineteenth century and became an instrument of industrialised execution under Adolf Hitler’s rule. Between 1933 and 1945, some 16,500 prisoners were beheaded by Fallbeil, with nearly 10,000 of those deaths occurring in the final two years of the Second World War.

Yet, returning to the guillotine’s beginnings, Louis and Schmidt’s design was not an invention from nothing but the refinement of a long tradition of devices relying on the brutality of a falling blade. Medieval Italy employed the mannaia, an upright frame with a heavy, sliding axe head. Scotland wielded the Maiden, a wooden structure resembling an artist’s easel, which beheaded over 150 people between 1564 and 1716. And in Halifax, England, a device uncannily similar to the later guillotine – the Halifax Gibbet – claimed around 52 victims in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries; its original stone platform endures today.

ALL ABOUT THE BOOK

Exiled to a Caribbean island, Paoletta Cadoville and her family cling to the hope of one day returning to their Parisian home. But in a single, devastating moment, that dream is shattered. Alone and horrifically scarred, Paoletta embarks on a perilous quest to uncover the truth behind her family’s tragic fate, only to become entangled in a web of political intrigue, secret societies, and dangerous alliances.

In a Paris overshadowed by the guillotine, Paoletta must decide how much of her humanity she’s willing to sacrifice in pursuit of vengeance. Will she achieve justice for her family or lose herself to the darkness that threatens to consume her?

Paoletta – An Eye for an Eye is a gripping historical thriller set during the French Revolution and a stark reminder that in times of upheaval, innocence is the first to fall, and revenge demands a price paid in blood.

ALL ABOUT J.R.

Originally from the UK, J.R. Powell lives in Germany, where he works as a translator and editor.

His debut novel was published in 2024, marking the first instalment of a new historical thriller series. Paoletta – an Eye for an Eye follows Paoletta Cadoville, a young woman driven by vengeance after the murder of her family during the French Revolution.

Drawing inspiration from his time living in Paris, Powell immersed himself in the city’s rich and brutal history to craft a story that brings a lesser-explored period to life with the momentum and intensity of a gritty, modern thriller.

CONNECT WITH J.R.

Amazon Author Page

Goodreads