{"id":2721,"date":"2016-03-28T06:47:05","date_gmt":"2016-03-28T06:47:05","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/crunchlearning.com\/website_ec2cbfb0\/?p=2721"},"modified":"2026-02-23T09:20:20","modified_gmt":"2026-02-23T09:20:20","slug":"guillotine-and-the-french-revolution","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/crunchlearning.com\/website_ec2cbfb0\/guillotine-and-the-french-revolution\/","title":{"rendered":"Guillotine and the French Revolution: A Detailed Summary"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

The guillotine and the French Revolution<\/a> are symbolically tied together through history. In fact, the guillotine became the most infamous symbol of the French Revolution since it was used as the primary method of execution during the Reign of Terror<\/a>. Designed for quick and supposedly humane death, it was seen as a tool of justice and equality. Thousands, including King Louis XVI<\/a> and Queen Marie Antoinette<\/a>, were executed by guillotine during the events of the French Revolution.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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WHAT WAS THE GUILLOTINE?<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Europe had a long history of using execution devices\u00a0before the French Revolution<\/a>, but the guillotine came into widespread use during the years of the revolution.\u00a0 In general, the guillotine was a device that beheaded an individual with the use of a large blade.\u00a0 The blade would be pulled to the top of a large frame, under which the individual\u2019s head, neck and shoulders would be placed.\u00a0 The person would be held into place by stocks and the blade would be released to fall on their neck, decapitating the person.\u00a0 A basket was usually placed below the device to catch the head as it was removed from the body.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"Causes
Execution of King Louis XVI during the French Revolution.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
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GUILLOTINE AND THE FRENCH REVOLUTION – SUMMARY<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

The guillotine was introduced to France at the beginning of the French Revolution.\u00a0 French physician Joseph-Ignace Guillotine introduced the idea of the guillotine to the\u00a0National Assembly\u00a0in October of 1789 as a simple, yet effective means of execution.\u00a0 The National Assembly<\/a> established a committee to investigate a new execution method that would apply to all people regardless of their class in society.\u00a0 Traditionally, the French monarchy had used all sorts of forms of capital punishment, with beheading being reserved for the nobility. The goal was to end the tortuous of forms of capital punishment and instead, introduce a new method that executed the person with as little pain as possible while treating all in society as equals.\u00a0 This is why the guillotine earned the name of the \u201cNational Razor\u201d.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Eventually, the National Assembly adopted the guillotine as the only method of execution in France and a platform was constructed in Paris in order to carry out all public executions.\u00a0 Throughout the French Revolution, the guillotine would see widespread use, but was most notable during the Reign of Terror<\/a>.\u00a0 The Reign of Terror occurred from September of 1793 until July of 1794, and was a time period of extreme violence and paranoia during the French Revolution that resulted in the executions of tens of thousands of people.\u00a0 This time period caused the guillotine to be associated with the excesses of the revolution and some called for an end to all of the executions.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Regardless, the guillotine would continue to be used throughout the revolution and was still used in France until 1977 when the last French citizen was executed by the device.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"Reign
‘Execution on the future Place de la Concorde’ by Pierre-Antoine Demachy. (1793) The Reign of Terror in the French Revolution saw the execution of thousands.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The guillotine was introduced to France at the beginning of the French Revolution.\u00a0 French physician Joseph-Ignace Guillotine introduced the idea of the guillotine to the\u00a0National Assembly\u00a0in October of 1789 as a simple, yet effective means of execution.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":5566,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"iawp_total_views":27,"footnotes":""},"categories":[44],"tags":[87,15],"class_list":["post-2721","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-french-revolution","tag-french-revolution","tag-history"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/crunchlearning.com\/website_ec2cbfb0\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2721","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/crunchlearning.com\/website_ec2cbfb0\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/crunchlearning.com\/website_ec2cbfb0\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/crunchlearning.com\/website_ec2cbfb0\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/crunchlearning.com\/website_ec2cbfb0\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2721"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/crunchlearning.com\/website_ec2cbfb0\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2721\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5585,"href":"https:\/\/crunchlearning.com\/website_ec2cbfb0\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2721\/revisions\/5585"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/crunchlearning.com\/website_ec2cbfb0\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/5566"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/crunchlearning.com\/website_ec2cbfb0\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2721"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/crunchlearning.com\/website_ec2cbfb0\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2721"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/crunchlearning.com\/website_ec2cbfb0\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2721"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}