Exercises on the guillotine and revolutionary France

(UNIRIO)

Robespierre – What's going on here?

III Citizen – What could happen? It happens that those few drops of blood from August and September did not make the cheeks of the people blush. The guillotine walks very slowly. We need a good downpour!

I Citizen – Our wives and children cry out for bread; we want to feed them with the meat of the aristocracy. We will! Kill those who don't have a holey coat! All- Kill! Woods!

(BÜCHNER, Georg. The Death of Danton. Dramatic pictures from the time of the Terror in France. Trad. Mario da Silva, Clássicos de Bolso, Ed. Tecnoprint S.A. s/d)

The drama, written between 1834/35, portrays the moment of the French Revolution when the Jacobins are in power, trying to sweep the "traitors" of the Revolution from France. About the period portrayed, we can say that:

a) allowed the fulfillment of popular demands and preserved the privileges of the clergy and the nobility. b) guaranteed the permanence of the high bourgeoisie (gironda) and the nobility in alliance for the defense of the revolution.

c) preserved feudal rights and guaranteed the privileges of the French nobility reconciled with bourgeois advances.

d) preserved a liberal-style Constitution and defended the census vote, guaranteeing the political participation of the bourgeoisie.

e) was the most radical moment of the revolutionary process and had wide popular participation.

Although it was used most vehemently during the terror of the National Convention period, in the French Revolution, the guillotine continued to be, for a long time, the instrument of application of capital punishment in France. The end of the official use of the guillotine by the French State only occurred in:

a) 2011, under the government of Nicolas Sarkozy.

b) 1829, under the reign of Charles X.

c) 1947, under Charles de Gaulle.

d) 1981, under the government of François Mitterrand.

e) 1840, under the reign of Luís Filipe I.

(Cesgranrio)

Holy Guillotine, protector of patriots, pray for us;

Holy Guillotine, terror of the aristocrats, protect us.

Lovely machine, have mercy on us.

Admirable machine, have mercy on us.

Holy Guillotine, deliver us from our enemies.

(In:ARASSE, Daniel. The Guillotine and the Imaginary of Terror . São Paulo:Ática, 1989. p. 106-107. )

Reading the text refers to the period of the French Revolution known as the Terror, which can be identified as the moment:

a) of several revolts led by rural workers who claimed the right to land and against which the Girondin government used the guillotine indiscriminately.

b) popular measures, such as price controls and agrarian reform, under Jacobin leadership, during which the guillotine represented revolutionary justice for many.

c) the height of bourgeois rule, characterized by the creation of the Bank of France and the increase in French trade with European nations, during which the guillotine symbolized the elimination of feudal remnants.

d) the return of the nobility in a counterrevolutionary action, which eliminated the bourgeois and popular leaders who had started the revolutionary process and used the guillotine as protector of the threatened homeland.

e) resulting from the Fencing Law, which caused the expulsion of peasants from their lands and their summary execution, through the use of the guillotine.

One ​​of the main features of the instrument of capital punishment called the guillotine was:

a) not have been used against members participating in the French Revolution.

b) the beheading of the victim by means of a traditional Japanese sword.

c) was manufactured by a French doctor named Joseph-Ignace Guillotin.

d) not have been used against the French monarch of the occasion, Louis XVI.

e) hanging the victim using a silk rope.

Letter E

The application of the guillotine against those considered "enemies of the revolution" occurred in the so-called time of the Jacobin Terror, between the years 1793 and 1794. About 20 thousand people died in the guillotine in a single year at that time .

Letter D

French President François Mitterrand managed to decree the end of capital punishment and the consequent abolition of the use of the guillotine in 1981, after a long struggle against the death penalty in France.

Letter B

Under the leadership of the Jacobins, especially figures such as Marat, Saint-Just and Robespierre, the revolution that had begun in France in 1789 lived through its most terrible period, with an atmosphere of surveillance and constant accusations. . Anyone could easily be accused of being an enemy of the revolution and be beheaded by the guillotine.

Letter C

The guillotine was invented by Doctor Guillotine in the early 1790s with the intention of “humanizing” the process of executing a convict, making death faster and practically painless. The first application of this instrument took place on August 21, 1792.