(1/17) A thread on DECAPITATION👇: I once heard a story about a man who attended a friend's execution during the French Revolution. Seconds after the guillotine fell, he retrieved the severed head & asked questions to test consciousness. Was this an 18th-century urban legend? 
(2/17) The physician Joseph-Ignace Guillotin proposed to the National Assembly that capital punishment should take the form of swift decapitation "by means of a simple mechanism.” Thus, the guillotine was instated in France in 1791.
(3/17) Shortly after, debates broke out over how “humane" decapitation really was. When Charlotte Corday was executed in 1793, witnesses observed that her "eyes seemed to retain speculation for a moment or two, and there was a look in the ghastly stare."
(4/17) Some people began to worry that a person retained feeling and consciousness shortly after being decapitated, and soon, experiments followed.
(5/17) During the French Revolution, Dr Séguret subjected a number of guillotined heads to a series of experiments by exposing their eyes to the sun. He observed that they "promptly closed, of their own accord, and with an aliveness that was both abrupt and startling.”
(6/17) Was this my urban legend? Right century, wrong story. The trail went cold, until I came across the story of Jean Baptiste Vincent Laborde [pictured here] nearly a hundred years later.
(7/17) In 1884, French authorities supplied Laborde with severed heads of condemned criminals. He ran an electrical current through them. One prisoner opened an eye, as if "he sought to figure out where he was and what sort of strange locality hell had turned out to be.”
(8/17) As interesting as Laborde & his twisted experiments were, this still wasn’t the story I had hoped to find. That’s when I came across a newspaper clipping dated 4 July 1892 entitled: "Being Decapitated: An Interesting Question that May Never be Answered.”
(9/17) Prior to his death, a condemned murderer Louis Anastay [pictured here] entreated his brother to attend his execution and solve a mystery which had been plaguing doctors for a century.
(10/17) He wrote: "I believe there is a survival of about an hour [after decapitation]. Come, then, Leon, be present at my execution and insist that my head be given to you. Call me with your voice and my eyes will reply to you.”
(11/17) Surely, this is the tale that had been recounted to me endless times?! Yet, further follow-up led disappointingly to the realisation that Anastay’s brother never did attend the execution, as there is no mention of this in subsequent newspaper clippings from the period.
(12/17) Now thinking that the tale was a conflation of several stories, I was about to give up the search. I had already reached the end of the 19th century. Experiments involving decapitation couldn’t possibly have gone into the 20th century, right? WRONG.
(13/17) That was when I stumbled across Dr Gabriel Beaurieux. In 1905, he arranged to attend the execution of the murderer, Henri Languille (pictured here). Shortly after the blade severed Languille’s head, Beaurieux noted a frightening observation.
(14/17) "[T]he eyelids and lips of the guillotined man worked in irregularly rhythmic contractions for about five or six seconds...I called in a strong, sharp voice: “Languille!” I saw the eyelids slowly lift up, without any spasmodic contractions.”
(15/17) Fascinated, Beaurieux called out the victim’s name again, and again, Languille’s "eyelids lifted and undeniably living eyes fixed themselves on mine with perhaps even more penetration than the first time." On the third attempt, there was no response.
(16/17) Did you know that the last execution in France by guillotine took place in 1977, the same year that Star Wars premiered in theaters? France abolished capital punishment in 1981.
(17/17) So, next time you find yourself in conversation about decapitation, remember the name Henri Languille! If you enjoy my content, you can support me by purchasing a copy of my book #TheButcheringArt: amzn.to/2S4nR5I, or simply RT my stories!
