How Did The Guillotine Affect The French Revolution

The guillotine was invented in 1792. The person who created this invention was named Doctor Joseph Ignance-Guillotin. The invention was named after the inventor. The guillotine is a killing device used as a execution around the French Revolution. The guillotine’s first official victim was dated back to April of 1792. He was sent to execution with robbery and violence. According to history.com “On April 25, 1792, convicted felon Nicolas-Jacques Pelletier became the first person to be executed by the guillotine. While the guillotine became known as a ruthlessly efficient killing machine, its eponym was actually motivated by humanitarian impulses.”

The guillotine was used during the French Revolution as a device to behead victims of felony. The guillotine was used on several people such as Marie Antoinette, queen of France. Marie Antoinette was executed by the guillotine on October 16, 1793. Another individual of Monarch power that was executed by the guillotine was King Louis XVI. Though King Louis XVI claimed he was innocent, the people of France said otherwise and that the King brought France to a fall and he was executed for treason on

January 21, 1793 by guillotine. A quote from King Louis was said that “I die innocent of all the crimes laid to my charge; I pardon those who have occasioned my death; and I pray to God that the blood you are going to shed may never be visited on France”.
The guillotine was mainly used for “capital” punishment in France.

People were looking for a a more humane way to execute people, so Joseph Ignance-Guillotin came up with the idea of a more humane way of death. People who were criminals at the time were being executed in cruel ways such as being slowly hanged, broken on a wheel, or burnt at the stake. The invention was to create a device that made most executions less painful and just immediate death. The guillotine “It had two large uprights joined by a beam at the top and erected on a platform reached by 24 steps. The whole contraption was painted a dull blood red and the weighted blade ran in grooves in the uprights which were greased with tallow.” It was designed for the blade to be dropped by gravity and not slowly causing a more painful way of

execution.
During the Middle Ages the guillotine was a popular children's toy. During the 1790s children had attended the guillotine executions, being were “major spectator events”. Miniature guillotines were played with by the children of the 1700s. “Kids used the fully operational guillotines to decapitate dolls or even small rodents, and some towns eventually banned them out of fear that they were a vicious influence.”
Believe it or not guillotines were used for executions in Nazi Germany. The Nazis in Germany killed about 16,000 people by guillotine. The guillotine was found in a Munich cellar. Hitler’s top chief executioner had invented his own guillotine to execute people. His name was Johann Reichhart, according nypost.com he had recorded his victims which was 3,165 lives. After his invention of his own guillotine he was captured by American soldiers, Reichhart proved his usefulness by hanging Nazi officers and other German war criminals. The guillotine was used as one of the most “humane” way to end someone’s life.