18. The Guillotine Was Still in Use in the 1970s
In A Tale of Two Cities, the guillotine was transformed by Charles Dickens into a semi-independent character, whose ever-present and ominous shadow dominated the story. Today, mention of the guillotine usually brings to mind images of the French Revolution, as its blade chopped through and culled the Ancien Regime’s aristocracy. In its 1790s heyday, it snipped the necks of historic figures such as the ultimate royalists, King Louis XVI and his wife Marie Antoinette. An equal opportunity instrument of death, the guillotine also chopped off the heads of the radical republicans who had executed the king and queen. In between those political extremes, tens of thousands lost their lives to the guillotine in is busiest stretch of usage, during the Reign of Terror.
So ubiquitous was the instrument in this period, that it became a quasi-symbol of Revolutionary France. So associated is the guillotine with the French Revolution, it is easy to forget that its use continued long after the 1789 upheaval came to an end. Indeed, the instrument, sometimes referred to by the French as “The National Razor”, continued to do its work well into the modern age. It serviced its last customer in the 1970s, during the Age of Disco, and after Star Wars was released on May 25th, 1977. Later that year, on September 10th, Hamida Djandoubi won the distinction of becoming the correct answer to the question: “who was the last person guillotined in France?“
