Execution: A Guide to the Ultimate Penalty (27 page)

At 4 a.m. on 17 June 1939 the officials prepared Weidmann for his fatal appointment with Mme Guillotine. His hair was trimmed from the back of his neck, his shirt collar was cut away, a sip of rum and a last cigarette enjoyed. The execution had been timed to take place deliberately early in order to avoid undue publicity, but it was not to be. The square, the Place de Grève in Versailles, was packed with eager spectators who had spent the night drinking and carousing in the little cafés nearby, and a cheer went up when the condemned man was led out, the crowd surging forward to where the guillotine had been erected at ground level rather than, as in earlier centuries, on a scaffold.

Despite Desfourneaux’s expertise, things went wrong. The bascule, to which Weidmann was strapped, had been badly adjusted, and, on being pivoted horizontally, it was found that Weidmann’s neck was not aligned within the arc of the lunette. There was no alternative but for the assistant to bend and pull the condemned man’s head forward by the ears and hair. Instantly, Henri released the blade, the reverberating thud of its impact being followed by a gasp from the headless corpse as the last breath of air was expelled from its lungs, and the blood spurted across the pavement, women pushing forward to soak their handkerchiefs in it before the workmen could sluice it down the drains.

So appalled were the authorities at the spectacle that they wasted little time in acting; within a week a decree was passed, confining all future executions to the privacy of the prison yard.

Desfourneaux continued to officiate until 1951, to be succeeded by his nephew André Obrecht, who executed 30 criminals during his career. Death sentences became fewer, only eight executions being enacted between 1965 and 1977, the last one taking place in that year. Obrecht’s nephew, Marcel Chevalier, succeeded to the post in January 1978, but the position turned out to be a sinecure: by a decree of September 1981, capital punishment was abolished, Mme Guillotine’s services at last being dispensed with.

This entry should not be concluded without reference to the belief held by some who posed the hypothesis that life could still continue after the guillotine had severed a victim’s head, albeit perhaps for only a few seconds. In the last century, when medical science was rapidly progressing, among those pursuing unusual lines of investigation were several professors and doctors who argued that, unlike the axe, which stunned its victim by the very shock of its initial impact, rendering him unconscious, the razor-sharp guillotine blade sliced through flesh, nerves and tendons so rapidly that perhaps the life force continued to flow through the brain for an unknown length of time. Perhaps a victim actually saw the basket coming up to meet him; was aware of the triumphant shouts of the crowd; maybe even heard the gushing sound of his own blood pumping from his gaping neck and splashing on to the boards of the scaffold.

And because the severed vocal chords prevented him from speaking, perhaps if one were to conduct experiments at the very moment of decapitation, maybe the victim could indicate in some other manner that his brain still functioned.

This theory was investigated by, among others, a Dr Amirault who, in 1907, circulated blood from a living dog into the head of a dead criminal, Menesclou, later reporting that ‘the lips filled out, the eyelids twitched, and after two hours the dog’s heart had reactivated a living brain, and speech was a distinct possibility, for the lips contracted as if about to speak’. One wonders what it would have said, had it been able.

Another medical man, Marcoux, experimented on murderer Magret, whose head had opportunely fallen upright in the basket. Studying it, the worthy doctor described how he saw the muscles controlling the eyes and lips twitching spasmodically, the eyelids half-closed. He placed his lips close to the right ear and called Magret’s name in a clear but not too loud voice, whereupon the eyes immediately opened and ‘he looked at me, focusing for ten to fifteen seconds – not a glassy stare but one of deliberate attention. Then the eyelids closed, but when his name was called again, the eyes opened once more, following me as I moved around the basket. And then the eyes closed again, never to reopen.’

In a similar experiment doctors stopped the flow of blood immediately after decapitation, using styptics, while other doctors accurately repositioned the head back on the torso. Wasting no time, the join was expertly and tightly bandaged, and smelling-salts were held under the nose. It was reported that an expression passed across the face, and the eyelids twitched; the two parts of the victim were carefully carried to a nearby house, but no further indications were evident and it became obvious that all life had departed. No conclusions were ever reached as to whether the movements were deliberate or merely reflex contractions of the muscles after death.

A more technical and detailed explanation, though not one which necessarily solves the mystery, is provided by Dr Harold Hillman of the University of Surrey:

‘Death occurs due to the separation of the brain and spinal cord, after transaction of the surrounding tissues, and must cause acute and probably severe pain. It may be presumed that the subject becomes unconscious within a few seconds, but not immediately after, the spinal cord is severed.

The eyes of small rodents move for a few seconds after biochemists have guillotined them. Anaesthetised sheep lose the flash-evoked responses of their electrocorticographs about 14 seconds after
both
carotid arteries are severed, and 70 seconds after one carotid artery and one jugular vein are cut (
vide
Gregory and Wotton, 1984). Dogs become unconscious 12 seconds after the blood supply to their brains is occluded (Roberts, 1954). It has been calculated that the human brain has enough oxygen stored for metabolism to persist about seven seconds after the supply is cut off (McIlwain and Bachelard, 1985). However, the brain could well derive some of its energy from substrate in the scalp and facial and neck muscles (Geiger and Magnes, 1947). It may be presumed that a beheaded person dies from anoxia consequent upon haemorrhage.’

The calculation that about seven seconds’ supply of oxygen remains in the brain after being guillotined could well mean that the severed head could still see and hear after falling into the waiting basket; pending volunteers, however, the question seems unlikely ever to be resolved.

Apart from France, few countries other than Belgium and Germany adopted the guillotine; German executioners, expert with the axe, relinquished that instrument in favour of the good doctor’s device in the 1920s, one of the more notorious to die beneath its blade being Peter Kurten. In 1927 a series of crimes shocked the populace, their horrific nature being such that the unknown perpetrator was dubbed the ‘vampire of Düsseldorf’. The number of attacks and murders continued, all efforts to track and arrest the criminal being abortive, and it was not until 1931 that finally Peter Kurten was brought to trial, charged with no fewer than 12 murders and 18 other criminal offences, mostly rape and grievous bodily harm.

In court he expressed regret for his actions, saying that he sought neither to excuse nor justify himself. While in prison, he said, he had suffered a hundred times over the tortures of a condemned man, and had again and again imagined his own death. ‘I know,’ he went on, ‘that I shall be called upon to expiate my fault.’ And so he was, on the guillotine, in Cologne.

Germany continued to use the guillotine until the late 1940s, a question in the House of Commons on 5 December 1949 being answered by Mr Mayhew, the Foreign Undersecretary, who stated:

‘Eighty-seven death sentences imposed by Control Commission courts [the Commission was an authority set up by the British, Russian, French and Americans to oversee and control Germany in the aftermath of the war] were carried out by use of the guillotine in the period before the German authorities abolished the death penalty. There have been no executions by the guillotine since then, and its use has now been discontinued.’

GUNPOWDER

A quick if noisy death, execution by gunpowder was practised by the North American Indians in the eighteenth century: after torturing their victims, they would heap gunpowder on the victims’ heads and ignite it.

In France, at Montelus on 22 February 1704, the Protestants were attacked by the Catholic majority. During the atrocities that followed, some women were captured and, in the words of Alexander Dumas:

‘They were first violated, then had their hands tied and were tied between trees with their heads hanging and their legs apart; while they were in that position they opened up their bodies, placed their powder horns inside and, touching a match to the powder, blew them limb from limb.’

Similar atrocities were inflicted elsewhere in that country in 1655 during the massacre of the Waldenses, many being hacked to death, burned in their houses or mutilated. But none survived the worst death of all, their mouths being filled with gunpowder, their heads then being blown to atoms.