{"id":132189,"date":"2018-12-31T13:00:30","date_gmt":"2018-12-31T18:00:30","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/?p=132189"},"modified":"2018-12-18T18:06:39","modified_gmt":"2018-12-18T23:06:39","slug":"the-bloody-family-history-of-the-guillotine-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2018\/12\/31\/the-bloody-family-history-of-the-guillotine-2\/","title":{"rendered":"The Bloody Family History of the Guillotine"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><i>We\u2019re away until January 2, but we\u2019re reposting some of our favorite pieces from 2018. Enjoy your holiday!<\/i><\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/04\/576cb32f05aae_louisette.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter size-full wp-image-123885\" src=\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/04\/576cb32f05aae_louisette.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"868\" height=\"600\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/04\/576cb32f05aae_louisette.jpg 868w, https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/04\/576cb32f05aae_louisette-300x207.jpg 300w, https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/04\/576cb32f05aae_louisette-768x531.jpg 768w\" sizes=\"auto, (min-width: 62.5em) 67vw, 100vw\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p>In 1788, a French blacksmith named Mathurin Louschart was killed in his home by a single blow to the head. The act was committed in the blink of an eye, but the feud motivating it had festered for months. Earlier that year, the deeply conservative Mathurin had apparently taken offense at his son Jean\u2019s newfangled ideas about liberty and equality. Jean was vocal about his beliefs, which were stoking the fires of radicalism throughout France. Not content with throwing his son out of the family home, Mathurin attempted to punish him further by arranging to marry Jean\u2019s girlfriend, Helen. Helen\u2019s family was only too pleased to palm off their daughter to a vaunted member of the community, but Helen herself despaired at the prospect of being wrenched from Jean and shackled to a brooding old ogre for the rest of her life. Jean hatched a plan: he arrived one night at his father\u2019s house to rescue Helen and ride off into the egalitarian sunset. But Mathurin interrupted their escape, and a fight ensued. Jean lashed out with a hammer. It struck Mathurin flush on the forehead, and the old man died instantly.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2018\/04\/06\/the-bloody-family-history-of-the-guillotine\/\">Read more &gt;&gt;<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>We\u2019re away until January 2, but we\u2019re reposting some of our favorite pieces from 2018. Enjoy your holiday! In 1788, a French blacksmith named Mathurin Louschart was killed in his home by a single blow to the head. The act was committed in the blink of an eye, but the feud motivating it had festered [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":695,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[44292],"tags":[33623,33622,17022,33625,18246,33621,33618,33624,33620,33617,33619,1153],"class_list":["post-132189","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-best-of-2018","tag-dr-antoine-louis","tag-dr-joseph-ignace-guillotin","tag-french-revolution","tag-georges-danton","tag-guillotine","tag-j-w-croker","tag-mathurin-louschart","tag-nicolas-jacques-pelletier","tag-public-executions","tag-sanson","tag-storming-of-the-bastille","tag-torture"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO Premium plugin v25.4 (Yoast SEO v25.4) - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>The Bloody Family History of the Guillotine<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"The French Revolution and the invention of the guillotine allowed Charles-Henri Sanson, whose family had been executioners for generations, to become a hero\u2014but the glory was brief.\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2018\/12\/31\/the-bloody-family-history-of-the-guillotine-2\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"The Bloody Family History of the Guillotine by Edward White\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"December 31, 2018 \u2013 We\u2019re away until January 2, but we\u2019re reposting some of our favorite pieces from 2018. Enjoy your holiday! In 1788, a French blacksmith named Mathurin\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2018\/12\/31\/the-bloody-family-history-of-the-guillotine-2\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"The Paris Review\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:publisher\" content=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/parisreview\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2018-12-31T18:00:30+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/04\/576cb32f05aae_louisette.jpg\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:width\" content=\"868\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:height\" content=\"600\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:type\" content=\"image\/jpeg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Edward White\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:creator\" content=\"@parisreview\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:site\" content=\"@parisreview\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"Edward White\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"1 minute\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"Article\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2018\/12\/31\/the-bloody-family-history-of-the-guillotine-2\/#article\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2018\/12\/31\/the-bloody-family-history-of-the-guillotine-2\/\"},\"author\":{\"name\":\"Edward White\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/#\/schema\/person\/55542c8c993339f2274d4fecb214aa5c\"},\"headline\":\"The Bloody Family History of the Guillotine\",\"datePublished\":\"2018-12-31T18:00:30+00:00\",\"mainEntityOfPage\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2018\/12\/31\/the-bloody-family-history-of-the-guillotine-2\/\"},\"wordCount\":224,\"publisher\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/#organization\"},\"image\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2018\/12\/31\/the-bloody-family-history-of-the-guillotine-2\/#primaryimage\"},\"thumbnailUrl\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/04\/576cb32f05aae_louisette.jpg\",\"keywords\":[\"Dr. Antoine Louis\",\"Dr. Joseph-Ignace Guillotin\",\"French revolution\",\"Georges Danton\",\"guillotine\",\"J. 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