What did the guillotine symbolize during the period of the Republic (1790-1795) and how did they get to that point?
Introduction
The guillotine found lasting international renown from its involvement in the French Revolution. Its initial reason for being the chosen method of execution was its efficiency and humane method. Physician Joseph Ignace Guillotin, a Jacobin and friend of Robespierre, conceptualized the death machine in 1789 with these conditions in mind. The actual assembling of the contraption took much research and trial configurations before its first use on April 25, 1792. Inevitably, the guillotine itself became a symbol of the era. During its heavy use, before the bitter end of the Terror, people saw it as a mixture of two main representations: liberty/the republic and a new religion. This topic is historically important because the French society’s perception of the guillotine from 1790-1795 shows the state of their sociopolitical climate. We know that capital punishment was heavily used to protect the revolution from mostly imagined traitors, but what’s really interesting are the heavy religious overtones found when the people discussed the guillotine. It merits further thought when one remembers how the religion of the Old Regime, Catholicism, was thrown out because it didn’t serve the people. We often remember this time period as a cleanse of formal religion, but it really seems to be that the old religion was innovated to serve revolutionary purposes. To discuss my topic, I’ve gathered two primary sources, a carving and a written document, and three primary sources: two journal articles and a book.
Revolutionary Symbol
The invention of the guillotine served to cleanly separate two periods, the Ancien regime and the new republic, by turning capital punishment into a humane event instead of a tortuous spectacle. This separation was to usher in a new era of liberty and equality. Politicians at the forefront of the revolution wanted the guillotine to represent “the collapse of the Old Regime with its unequal privilege, its brutality and (for some) its suffocating stability; and the dominance of sentimentalist psychology, limning the threats to individual minds, the dangers of public gatherings and strong sensations, and the possibilities of a new social order,” (Imhotep, 17). The monarchy before was filled with darkness, hunger, and torture, which produced seemingly unending poverty and misery. Execution usually included some type of sword and lots of mess. The bodies would more often than not end up mutilated after multiple botched attempts were made. Now-citizens of France wanted a change, and they embraced the guillotine as a symbolic start. Fig. 1 shows a carving of a guillotine from 1791-95, and the engraved words translate to “good support for liberty”, clearly showing that the creator viewed the death contraption in a favorable light. Not only does the image imply favor, it suggests that the guillotine was seen as a protector of the revolutionary spirit. For the first time, the public’s opinion was enforceable and nearly untouchable; having the guillotine defend “the Revolution [through the homogenization produced from capital punishment] had in fact accelerated the trend toward social uniformity and the equality of conditions. Thus, it created a new type of society, in which everything was on the move and the power of public opinion had to be respected,” (Craiutu, 57). Public opinion, in Paris at least, consisted of ideals of equality amongst all citizens or reflected the opinions of politicians, which meant that those opposing the revolutionary ideology would be executed. What started out as just a more pleasant way to execute criminals became an overzealous movement; “Once upon a time…the people at least had the weakness at being moved at the sight of the guilty about to be put to death; they turned away at the moment the fatal blow was struck. Now full of republican energy, they looked at the guillotine with joy and greeted the spectacle with cries of ‘Long live the Republic!’” (Imhotep, 26).
Religious Symbol
The guillotine took on another meaning that was somewhat intertwined with the revolutionary one. With the revolution’s attack on Catholicism and non-French religions, a brief niche in belief systems was introduced. This lack of an accepted religion influenced some parts of society to, perhaps unconsciously, craft a new one, placing the guillotine as a holy item in said religion; “The Terror consisted very largely in the ritual repetition of this initial sacrifice and the guillotine, “ensign of so many a massacre”, in Cabanis’s words, was able to assume the status of the altar at which the new religion was celebrated,” (Arasse, 73). Biblical language was used when discussing the new republic and the guillotine’s placement in it. Montagnards, which were the Jacobin deputies in the National Convention, employed a messianic attitude to express their revolutionary spirit, which “could not help but leave its mark on the guillotine’s reputation, and the philosophical machine became the object of a cult, the wording and some of the external forms of which were quite deliberately stolen from the religion of the Ancien regime,” (Arasse, 74). The result? Saint Guillotine. People of France began to view the machine as a divine protector, proclaiming “‘It is only too true what they say … that saint alone can save us,’” (Arasse, 74) when another imagined plot to threaten the revolution was discovered. Songs were created to be sung at any time about their “saint” (both Arasse, 74):
(1) Saint Guillotine, protectress of patriots, pray for us;
Saint Guillotine, terror of the aristocrats, protect us;
Kindly machine, have pity on us.
Admirable machine, have pity on us.
Saint Guillotine, deliver us from our enemies.
(2) (To the air of the ‘Marseillaise’)
Oh heavenly guillotine,
You cut short kings and queens.
Through your celestial might
We have reconquered all our rights.
Defend our nation’s law
May you, O Proud device
Exist for evermore
Destroying the profane.
Sharpen your razor for Pitt and his agents
Fill your bag full with the heads of tyrants!
The chosen diction of the hymns, the inclusion of words such as "pray" and "heavenly", speak strongly to Catholic prayers that fixate on the transcendental divinity and mercy of God. The line "Saint Guillotine, deliver us from our enemies" is especially reminiscent of prayers written to gather God's protection. While this all clearly screams of religion, it’s important to remember that the religious symbol the guillotine came to be was within the importance to the revolutionary one; they’re not equal. This means that without the revolution’s persecution of Catholicism, “Saint Guillotine” wouldn’t exist. To support this reasoning, Arasse writes on page 75: “Analysis of the cult of the guillotine cannot, however, confine itself to the religious expressions used. The machine’s prestige during the Revolution rests fundamentally on the political theory of the revolutionary government.”
Conclusion
At every paradigm shift, there’s an attempt to redefine social attitudes and interactions. These transitions are made easier with the introduction of new practices. This can, and did, happen with the implementation of a new execution device, the guillotine. It started out as a brainchild of the sentimentalism movement, advocating for empathy and higher efficiency regarding capital punishment, but it ended up embodying the homogenization (politically, socially, and religiously) of a nation.
Works Cited
1. None Identified, “An Ordinary Guillotine,” LIBERTY, EQUALITY, FRATERNITY: EXPLORING THE FRENCH REVOUTION, accessed April 20, 2020, https://revolution.chnm.org/items/show/132.
2. John Gideon Millingen, Recollections of Republican France, from 1790–1801 (London: H. Colburn, 1848), 204–7, 221, accessed April 20, 2020, https://revolution.chnm.org/items/show/330.
3. Daniel Arasse, The Guillotine and the Terror (New York: Viking, 1990), 133-145, https://archive.org/details/guillotineterror00aras/page/134/mode/2up.
4. Aurelian Craiutu, “The Method of the French Doctrinaires” History of European Ideas, no. 4 (March 2004): 39-59, 21, http://web.a.ebscohost.com.ezproxy.csbsju.edu/ehost/detail/detail?vid=5&sid=8714959c-050b-46ff-9185-22de08063126%40sdc-v-sessmgr03&bdata=JnNpdGU9ZWhvc3QtbGl2ZSZzY29wZT1zaXRl#AN=12640719&db=hia.
5. Edward Jones-Imhotep, “The Unfailing Machine” History of the Human Sciences, no. 4 (October 2017): 11-31, 21, http://web.a.ebscohost.com.ezproxy.csbsju.edu/ehost/detail/detail?vid=3&sid=8714959c-050b-46ff-9185-22de08063126%40sdc-v-sessmgr03&bdata=JnNpdGU9ZWhvc3QtbGl2ZSZzY29wZT1zaXRl#AN=125395811&db=hia.
i never knew the Guillotine had ties to all aspects of France. I knew it was tied to the revolution and was a way to enforce the revolution, but I didn’t know it made it easier to kill people during that time. Since they needed to be mutilated to be killed, it made it cleaner and simpler which I find both mortifying and interesting.
Wow, i didn't know that the Guillotine was treated as a religious symbol of the era, even called a Saint with religious almost hymns written for it.