The Guillotine: Does death by decapitation equal instant death?

A R T LR K

On the 17th of June 1939, Eugen Weidmann, a convicted murderer, was guillotined in Versailles outside Saint-Pierre prison. He was the last person to be guillotined in public. Since then, until the 10th of September 1977 and the last ever execution by guillotine performed on Hamida Djandoubi, all executions by guillotine were done in private. The description of the execution published in LIFE magazine on the 10th of July 1939, left no doubt that this kind of spectacle, evoking rath...