Off with their heads! France brings back the guillotine - but just in a museum as it's put on display for the first time



A guillotine has gone on show in France for the first time since the deadly contraption was made redundant three decades ago.



The device – complete with its razor sharp blade uniquely designed for separating heads from bodies – forms the centrepiece of a new ‘Crime and Punishment’ exhibition at the Orsay Museum in central Paris.



It was put there following requests from those who campaigned to abolish it prior to capital punishment being outlawed across the Channel in 1981.



A quick death? A 14ft tall guillotine has gone on show in the Crime and Punishment exhibition at the Orsay Museum in central Paris

There had been concerted efforts to get rid of the infamous ‘Madame Guillotine’ since the height of the French Revolution of the 1790s when it started its work killing thousands, from the former queen, Marie Antoinette, to post-war murderers.



Robert Badinter, the former justice minister who saw it outlawed, said: ‘The guillotine, this instrument of death, has become the object of a museum. What a symbol - what a victory for the supporters of abolition!’



In 1972 Badinter was an up-and-coming barrister when he witnessed his ‘old enemy slicing through the neck’ of Roger Bontems, a 27-year-old client, who had been sentenced to death.



Bloody retribution: Eugen Weidmann, a German who confessed to six murders, is executed by the guillotine outside of St Pierre Prison in Paris in the early morning of 17th June 1939. As the blade falls down, one of the executioners holds Weidmann's legs







The last victim: Convicted murderer Hamida Djandoubi was beheaded at Baumettes prison in Marseille in 1977

Created by a harpsichord maker and favoured tool of the Nazis: How the guillotine created terror for 200 years

The first machine was created by Tobias Schmidt, a German engineer and harpsichord maker employed for the purpose by Louis XVI.



The first execution by guillotine was performed on French highwayman Nicolas Jacques Pelletier on April 5, 1792.

It was named after Dr Guillotin, the Deputy of Paris, who made the original proposal that all condemned criminals be beheaded on the grounds of humanity and equality.

Since then, the guillotine has been the only legal execution method in France until the abolition of the death penalty in 1981 – apart from certain crimes against the security of the state, which resulted in execution by firing squad.

During the 13-month ‘Reign of Terror’, 1,225 people were executed in Paris and virtually the whole French aristocracy were sent to the guillotine during the French Revolution – including Queen Marie Antoinette.

The oldest guillotine victims during the French Revolution were two 92-year-old women. The youngest was just 14.

The guillotine was also used in Algeria, Belgium, Germany, Greece, Italy, Switzerland, Sweden, Tunisia and Vietnam.





The last guillotining in France took place as recently as 1977 when Hamida Djandoubi, a convicted murderer who had tortured and raped his victims, was beheaded at Baumettes prison in Marseille.



The method had not changed since the Revolution, when crowds including young children and old hags known as ‘tricoteuses’ because they were always knitting, used to build up in Paris squares to cheer and shout at the spectacle.

During the so-called ‘Reign of Terror’ lists would be published of all those due to die. The blood-thirsty events became so frequent that they became part of Gallic popular culture.



While Djanboubi was killed behind close doors, the last public guillotining took place in 1939 when Eugen Weidmann, who had been convicted of six murders, was cheered to his grisly end at a prison in Versailles, close to Paris.



Members of the crowd revelled in the slaughter, with one even filming the bloody event – prompting the authorities to review their execution methods.



They were also concerned that the guillotine used was not in perfect working order – ensuring a lingering, painful death rather than clinical, swift one.



Joseph-Ignace Guillotin, an anatomy professor from Paris medical school, had designed the device in 1791 as one which could end life without inflicting pain.



A unique mechanism involving a huge, slanted blade, pulleys and a hinged neck harness was effectively meant to cause instant death.



But this ‘humane’ approach was often called into question, with fears that the swift impact actually caused pain and suffering.



Decapitation was so swift, that the brain might take a few seconds to register decapitation, medics argued.



Post-mortems often revealed eyelids moving up and down, and that faces quivered.



It was not surprising, therefore, that some of the worst mass murderers in history went on to embrace the device, including Adolf Hitler.



His Nazi henchman ordered 20 from France in the 1930s, and went on to kill no less than 17,000 people with them up until the end of the Second World War.



The contraption on show at the Orsay is an 1872 model designed by Leon Alphonse Berger, and the last working model in mainland France.



Queen Marie Antoinette lost her head to the guillotine during the French Revolution - as did virtually the whole French aristocracy









