Guillotine

From Citizendium
Revision as of 00:19, 28 April 2011 by imported>Derek Hodges (A machine which makes a Frenchman shrug his shoulders with good reason. - Ambrose Bierce)
Jump to navigation Jump to search
This article is a stub and thus not approved.
Main Article
Discussion
Related Articles  [?]
Bibliography  [?]
External Links  [?]
Citable Version  [?]
 
This editable Main Article is under development and subject to a disclaimer.

The guillotine is a device developed by Doctor Joseph-Ignace Guillotin, a French physician as a humane device for execution.

It became the symbol of the Reign of Terror in the French Revolution where the Jacobins and the mob (mostly sans culottes) seized the government and through Committees of Public Safety drew up lists of people for execution. The radical leader of the Jacobins, Maximilien Robespierre, saw "swift, severe, indomitable justice" exacted against the enemies of the people the only way to preserve the revolution and be "the Salvation of the People."