Guillotine

The guillotine is undoubtedly the most potent image of revolutionary France, the tool whereby a whole society was 'redesigned'. Yet, what came to be seen as an instrument of terror was, paradoxically, introduced as the result of the humanitarian feelings of men intent on revising an ancient and barbaric penal code. Robert Frederick Opie takes us on a fascinating and sometimes terrifying journey through the narrow streets of eighteenth-century Paris and beyond. Initially scorned by the revolution