Guillotine: Symbol Of The Terror (The French Revolution S02E03)

🚨 NEXT EPISODE IN THE SEASON:    • The Fall Of The French Monarchy (French Re...   🚨 🚨 PART ONE FOR NEW VIEWERS:    • How the French Revolution Descended Into B...   🚨 Playlist of the whole season here:    • The French Revolution: The Violence Begins...   Join this channel to get access to perks:    / @restishistorypod   Join Tom and Dominic in the third part of our second season of the French Revolution, as they look at gruesome methods of execution under the French monarchy and how the Guillotine came to loom so large over the fate of so many. In this episode, Tom and Dominic explore the transformation of executions. During the "Ancien Regime", royal executioners held an unholy status, and would strike up fear in the crowds as they walked the streets of Paris. But with the Revolution, the role of executioners in society was reformed, and whilst they lost some of their privileges, they were ushered into to a new, universalist France. And as the Revolution brought forward more and more enemies of the state, executioners were faced with more victims than the axe could handle. This, combined with an ever growing debate around the humanity and dignity of executions, would lead to the invention of a killing machine still used by the French state more than 150 years later… 00:00 Introduction 03:45 How the French see the guillotine 05:45 Guillotine as the symbol of the revolution 09:00 Violence’s role in the revolution 12:05 The role of the executioner in French society 19:50 Execution as a religious Christian ritual 23:00 The most notorious public execution in the Ancien Regime 33:50 The invention of the guillotine 41:53 Reforms to the death penalty during the French Revolution 52:49 The first execution with the guillotine 54:20 How the guillotine built up a mythology of being the symbol of the revolution 57:49 Summing up LIVE SHOWS The Rest Is History LIVE in the U.S.A. If you live in the States, we've got some great news: Tom and Dominic will be performing throughout America in November, with shows in San Francisco, L.A., Chicago, Philadelphia, Washington D.C., Boston and New York. Twitter: @TheRestHistory @holland_tom @dcsandbrook Producer: Theo Young-Smith Video Editor: Jack Meek Social Producer: Harry Balden Assistant Producer: Tabby Syrett Executive Producers: Jack Davenport + Tony Pastor