OCTOBER 29, 2021 – The other night I dreamt that along with alleged co-conspirators, I’d been sentenced to execution for political crimes. I’m unsure what triggered the dream, though I’ve been reading about the French Revolution and the Reign of Terror (mid-1793 to mid-1794). The guillotine was in active use back then—initially in France then elsewhere in Europe—but to my relief, not in the dream.
Nonetheless, my death sentence seemed grossly unjust. I was also angry at myself for not having eluded capture, though in a moment of dreamlike rationality, I realized attempted escape would’ve proven futile. Surprisingly, the dream didn’t feel like a nightmare. I was too deeply preoccupied with “what” and “why.” What were the charges against my co-conspirators, so-called, and me? What was the evidence? Why the death penalty? Why would our continued existence, inside or outside of prison, threaten the regime?
That method of execution was unclear, but it wasn’t to be by guillotine. Based on what I’d read about the invention, I was relieved to know I’d die with my head intact.
The guillotine, as it turns out, was named after a French physician—Joseph-Ignace Guillotin—who had no part in its invention. Dr. Guillotin was simply the guy who, in October 1789, argued before the National Assembly that capital punishment (which he opposed) should carried out more humanely than by the “breaking wheel,” roasting at the stake, or a dull ax head at the end of a pole wielded by an inept executioner.
Several people put their heads together, so to speak, to design the guillotine. One, ironically, was King Louis XVI, a future victim of the blade, the oblique shape of which was his refining contribution to the “joint” effort. As the Revolution unfolded, heads rolled—about 17,000 (nearly as many (20,000) people who died of cholera, the plague of Paris in 1832). In the capital of the Enlightenment, watching a head fall into a basket became a form of entertainment, but death by guillotine was also considered progress along the erratic course of liberté, egalité, et fraternité: aristocrats and commoners were now treated alike. Gone was the age of decadence when the family of a condemned aristocrat was allowed to pay-off the executioner to sharpen the ax blade—too often the initial blow wouldn’t sever head from body.
Dr. Guillotin lived to regret his advocacy for more humane decapitation than by a dull ax. He learned that quite possibly, a severed head might not lose consciousness for several minutes after its separation. His family was so scandalized by its association with the guillotine that years later they petitioned the French government to change the name of the killing machine. When the request was rejected, the family changed its name.
The guillotine was last used in 1977 in France, which abolished capital punishment altogether in 1981. In 1996, however, a bill was introduced in our own state of Georgia to replace the electric chair with the guillotine. The bill failed.
Call it all . . . progress.
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© 2021 by Eric Nilsson
