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Autobiography
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Historical SummaryWHO has not at one time or another discussed with his friends the subject of "the easiest way to die?" This perennial problem was of great interest to the policy-makers of the French Revolution. There were going to be many executions, and some method had to be found to render death as swift and as painless as possible. Dr. Guillotin, a member of the Constituent Assembly, proposed on December 1, 1789, that "in all cases of capital punishment it shall be of the same kind—that is, decapitation—and it shall be executed by means of a machine," as he was convinced that this method was quicker and surer than an axe in the hands of an executioner. Similar contrivances had been used in several parts of Europe in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. The Assembly, convinced of its usefulness, submitted the scheme to the government carpenter, who demanded 5,000 francs for the work. A German named Schmidt offered to build it for a much smaller sum. Finally a bargain was struck at 824 francs, and Schmidt contracted to furnish eighty-three machines, one for each department of France. The decapitation machine, consisting of two upright posts between which a sharp knife rises and falls, was first tried on three corpses in the hospital at Bicêtre on April 18, 1792. It was pronounced satisfactory. Seven days later it was used publicly for the first time for the execution of the highwayman Pelletier. At first prisoners of the Revolution were sent to the machine in small batches, but eventually the number of executions reached a peak of several hundred a week. In the course of a few months during the Reign of Terror, Marie Antoinette, Charlotte Corday, Madame Roland, Madame du Barry, and the duke of Orléans, among many others, perished under the dreaded guillotine—in all some 2,500 persons were executed in Paris during that bloodbath and close to ten thousand in other parts of France. A controversy quickly arose among medical men as to the desirability of the guillotine as a mode of execution. One faction maintained heatedly that the machine worked too quickly and that sensation did not cease immediately after the head of the sufferer had been severed from the body. There was no way to prove or disprove this interesting conclusion. The first of these eyewitness accounts of the guillotine in action was written by an Irishman, Archibald Hamilton Rowan, who escaped in 1794 from a British prison in Dublin and who lived in Paris as an honored rebel against the British government. The second is by J. G. Millingen, an observant young Englishman. The last four accounts were written by a correspondent of the London Times. They tell the stories of four key executions, those of Louis XVI, Marie Antoinette, Mme. du Barry, and Maximilian Robespierre.
Key QuoteA London Times’ reporter sees Marie Antoinette, Madame du Barry, and Maximilian Robespierre go to their deaths.
A. H. Rowan
1840
Millingen, op. cit. The Vengeance of Dr. Guillotin
[1793]
IV
[The Times, London, October 23, 1793]
It is with sincere regret that we confirm the general report of yesterday respecting the fate of the unfortunate princess, Marie Antoinette, who suffered under the axe of the guillotine on Wednesday last the 16th inst; after having been condemned on the preceding day by the National Convention, as guilty of having been accessory to and having cooperated on different maneuvres against the liberty of France; of having entertained a correspondence with the enemies of the Republic; of having participated in a plot tending to kindle civil war in the interior of the Republic, by arming citizens against each other.
When the sentence of the National Convention was read to the widow of Capet, she cast down her eyes, and did not again lift them up. "Have you nothing to reply upon the determination of the law?" said the President to her. "Nothing," she replied. "And you, officious defenders?" "Our mission is fulfilled with respect to the widow Capet," said they.
The execution took place at half past eleven o’clock in the forenoon. The whole armed force in Paris was on foot, from the Palace of Justice to the Place de la Révolution. The streets were lined by two very dose rows of armed citizens. As soon as the
ci-devant Queen left the Conciergerie to ascend the scaffold, the multitude which was assembled in the courts and the streets cried out bravo, in the midst of plaudits. Marie Antoinette had on a white loose dress, and her hands were tied behind her back. She looked firmly around her on all sides. She was accompanied by the ci-devant Curate of St. Landry, a constitutional priest, and on the scaffold preserved her natural dignity of mind.
After the execution, three young persons dipped their handkerchiefs in her blood. They were immediately arrested.
Contents:
Chicago: A Correspondent of The London Times, "The Vengeance of Dr. Guillotin—IV," Autobiography, ed. A. H. Rowan in History in the First Person: Eyewitnesses of Great Events: They Saw It Happen, ed. Louis Leo Snyder and Richard B. Morris (Harrisburg, Pa.: Stackpole Co., 1951), Original Sources, accessed January 15, 2025, http://originalsources.com/Document.aspx?DocID=2K85U8S1M8HJJ89.
MLA: A Correspondent of The London Times. "The Vengeance of Dr. Guillotin—IV." Autobiography, edited by A. H. Rowan, in History in the First Person: Eyewitnesses of Great Events: They Saw It Happen, edited by Louis Leo Snyder and Richard B. Morris, Harrisburg, Pa., Stackpole Co., 1951, Original Sources. 15 Jan. 2025. http://originalsources.com/Document.aspx?DocID=2K85U8S1M8HJJ89.
Harvard: A Correspondent of The London Times, 'The Vengeance of Dr. Guillotin—IV' in Autobiography, ed. . cited in 1951, History in the First Person: Eyewitnesses of Great Events: They Saw It Happen, ed. , Stackpole Co., Harrisburg, Pa.. Original Sources, retrieved 15 January 2025, from http://originalsources.com/Document.aspx?DocID=2K85U8S1M8HJJ89.
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