The Revolution Itself: Part Two
Shortly before the execution of the king in 1793, and lasting through 1794, the Reign of Terror unfolded. This event of the French Revolution was rightly named. Simply speaking, everyone in France would have been (or should have felt) terrified. This was because no matter what side somebody was on, there was a risk of them being killed. The revolutionaries were afraid of being killed by those still loyal to the traditional French government, and the loyalists were afraid of being executed by the revolutionaries. Even the pacifists and those who were neutral were at risk of being killed by either of these two groups for not choosing a side.
The Revolutionaries were infamous for their use of the guillotine (I once had to compose a very detailed paper on this, so I am looking forward to writing the next few paragraphs). While this was not a very new invention, it was greatly improved shortly before the French Revolution. Earlier in history, the Germans had invented something similar to the guillotine that we are familiar with today: it differed only in that the blade was of a half-circle shape. But the French guillotine had a more knife-like blade. It was invented in 1792 by Antoine Louis, a French leading surgeon (1723-1792). He originally wanted to create a device that would be humane in that it would kill a prisoner in a way that involved a quick death and, therefore, as little pain as possible. However, Louis and his family soon grew disgusted by the device, and even changed their name so that it could not be associated with them (a common nickname for the guillotine at the time was the “Louisette”).
Thankfully for Louis, another individual (who also hated the death penalty but wanted to create a sane way for prisoners to be executed), Dr. Joseph-Ignace Guillotin (1738-1814), received more credit for the invention. In fact, one of the individuals associated with the invention of the device was supposedly killed by it (one would assume that it was Antoine Louis, as he died in 1792, but that was technically before the Reign of Terror. The real victim is credited to be Tobias Schmidt). Regardless, this little method of execution would become very widespread in a very short time.
A few years prior, in 1789, Guillotin himself (who had been a member of the National Assembly) had managed to pass a law requiring that all executions were to be conducted by “means of a machine.” This was done so that those prisoners who had less money would only suffer a painless execution (as, traditionally, those with less money would be unable to afford a simple beheading, and thus were often tortured to death. Because, I guess that that’s somehow less expensive than simply whacking someone in the neck with a sword. Although, it does make sense for money-procuring purposes).
The guillotine quickly began to be utilized by the revolutionaries, and they were pretty infamous for executing even members of their own revolution. There are actually records of individuals being executed for incredibly menial “crimes,” such as: owning too much bread, telling a simple joke, and even so much as looking suspicious. One woman was executed because she cried when her husband was beheaded. That was the only reason she was killed, because she cried. The revolutionaries took that as a sign that she did not support the revolution, so they plucked her out of the crowd, strapped her to the guillotine, let the knife hang high above her, but did not let it fall right away. Instead, they let her husband’s blood drip upon her for some time while she stared at his severed head, and then, without warning, they let the blade fall upon her own neck. Essentially, the revolutionaries would execute someone on a whim, as long as at least one person, in most cases, thought that such-and-such individual looked suspicious in some way.
Of course, the revolutionaries loved it when people cheered for the beheadings, because that meant that those individuals were likely supporters of the revolution (either that, or they had a rather warped idea of what an entertainment event was). Of course, if someone cheered for the beheadings, the loyalists would know that they were supporters of the revolution and likely kill them. It was the Reign of Terror: no one was safe.
Still, though, the guillotine gradually made its way into French culture in a variety of ways. Some of the first restaurants had miniature guillotines that guests could use to slice bread. Even some children were given small guillotines that they could behead their toy dolls with (so the next time you are shopping for presents, why not get your three-year-old son, who you don’t even trust with a butter knife, something that they can chop the heads of their toys off with?). Scientists would even conduct experiments on the heads of the decapitated, trying to figure out how long one could remain conscious when their head is chopped off.
As I stated in an earlier chapter of this book, many Enlightenment thinkers and scientists met their demise during the French Revolution. One such man was Antoine Lavoisier (1743-1794). He was a fantastic scientific mind, but unfortunately was condemned to death by means of decapitation under the guillotine because he was caught selling watered-down tobacco products. Before he died, he told his assistant that he would blink after his head was chopped off, and he wanted his assistant to count the seconds until it took him to stop blinking. That timeframe, he argued, would be the time it took for the mind to lose consciousness after decapitation. Well, Lavoisier’s assistant was astonished to find that the scientist managed to blink rapidly for (as based on some accounts) as much as thirty seconds after decapitation. Of course, now, most scientists today are pretty sure that this was a simple muscle reflex, and not evidence that the poor intellectual was still alive.
However, there were many other experiments done, as well. Sometimes individuals would pick up the head of a decapitation victim and slap it across the face to see if there was a reaction. Sometimes when this was done, crowds would report seeing the face grow red with anger (I fail to see how this could be possible, given the amount of blood that would have fled from the face through the severed neck). Another popular tactic was for a scientist to pick up a severed head, hold it in front of them, and ask: “can you hear me? Three blinks yes; two blinks no.” The idea was that either way they would receive a response if the person was still alive.
And in case anyone is wondering, more-recent studies on decapitated organisms reveals that a human may, in fact, retain consciousness for as long as twenty seconds after decapitation. That is a lot of time for one to realize that their head has just been severed from their body. The guillotine was responsible for a great many…Um…Interesting social and scientific developments, indeed.
Unfortunately for the revolutionaries, this method of execution still had some major drawbacks. For one, there was hair. Hair is actually pretty strong, and they found that if an individual had long hair, it could stop the blade just enough so that the execution could not be conducted properly. That meant that each prisoner’s hair had to be cut to a certain extent so that they could be killed properly (at least you would get to show off your stylish new looks to a crowd before your death). Then there was the fact that, well, cutting off people’s heads involves a lot of blood, and the wicker baskets that the heads fell into were not the most water-tight. In many places with a guillotine that was in constant use, blood would literally flow through the streets, getting into market places and seeping into homes. That, as one can imagine, was very unsanitary and created a lot of health problems for local inhabitants.
And one of the main drawbacks of using the guillotine was that, despite how swiftly it killed prisoners (it may have been responsible for as many as sixteen thousand deaths during the French Revolution alone), it was still not swift enough, apparently. Thus, the revolutionaries resorted to hanging or drowning prisoners as an alternative. Sometimes (and this was actually not too rare), they would line condemned prisoners up and discharge cannons at them (oddly enough, my main concern is for the individuals whom would have to clean up the mess that resulted).
There were also quite a few notable casualties during the Reign of Terror. One such death was that of the accused failed assassinator of Robespierre, Cécile Renault (1774-1794). Her death was heavily pursued by Robespierre, who claimed that she had intended to murder him with two hand-held knives.
The two most ironic deaths, however, are arguably those of Georges Danton and Maximilien Robespierre. These two individuals greatly helped to inspire the revolution. Georges Danton was executed in early 1794 (which was largely due to Robespierre’s pursuit of Danton’s downfall, oddly enough). Danton reportedly was in a humorous mood when being led to the guillotine, and when one woman in the crowd called him ugly (he really was not too physically appealing, to say the least), he replied something along the lines of “why should you be telling me now? I shan’t be ugly much longer!” He is even said to have predicted Robespierre’s death, as reportedly, one of his main regrets was that he should face execution before Robespierre.
Then, on July 27, 1794, Maximilien Robespierre met his end. Before this date, he had made a number of poor political decisions and conducted several actions that did not make him appear the most deserving of his position, so to speak. It all came to a head in the National Convention itself, when both the Girondins and the Mountain shouted him down so much that he could scarcely utter a word in his defense. Then, someone brought up the fact that he had been largely responsible for Danton’s death (“the blood of Danton chokes him!”), at which Robespierre is reported to have shouted in response: “is it Danton you regret?...Cowards! Why didn’t you defend him?!”
The day of (or the day following, it is difficult to discern) Robespierre’s execution marked the end of the Reign of Terror. Before it ended, however, there began something known as the Vendean (Vendee) Rebellion (1793-1796). There were many loyalists, anti-revolutionaries, and pacifists around the Vendean area, and the farmers there saw the new revolutionary government’s abolition of serfdom as more of a threat rather than a reform. When the National Convention called for a draft of three hundred thousand troops, that was the last straw.
The Vendean militia and many civilians attempted to fight off the revolutionaries in a very bloody countermovement. This rebellion was actually very large and involved a number of battles. In fact, many of the Vendee were nobles, and as a result were very skilled in warfare (as, under the French monarchy, nobles were often made into generals). The whole ordeal would ultimately fail on the Vendees part, and the numbers of deaths (let me be clear: deaths, not all casualties) could have been as high as two hundred thousand. Let me state that again: the Vendean Rebellion could have resulted in as many as 200,000 deaths (not wounded or missing; deaths).
The Reign of Terror (which, excluding the Vendean Rebellion, had over fifty thousand killed) would have a lasting impact on France, and it really proved that the Revolutionaries could not very well control the results of countless grievances of those from all sides of the quarrel. But the revolution was not concluded. There were still thousands who would be killed throughout the years to come. But already, the French Revolution seemed to have passed its climax of terror.