when was the guillotine first used in france
Guillotine Laquiante, an officer of the Strasbourg criminal court,[11] designed a beheading machine and employed Tobias Schmidt, a German engineer and harpsichord maker, to construct a prototype.[12] Antoine Louis is also credited with the design of the prototype. The memoirs of the official executioner claim that King Louis XVI (an amateur locksmith) recommended that an oblique blade be used instead of a crescent blade, lest the blade not fit all necks (ironically, the king's own was offered up discreetly as an example).[13] The first execution by guillotine was performed on highwayman Nicolas Jacques Pelletier[14] on 25 April 1792.[15][16][17] He was executed in front of what is now the city hall of Paris (Place de l'hÃ´tel de ville). All citizens deemed guilty of a crime punishable by death were from then on executed there, until the scaffold was moved on 21 August to the Place du Carrousel.