Unintended consequences

Weird History 101 by John Richard Stephens, page 111.

Theoretical thinking so often seems to be plagued by wretched ideas clothed in good intentions. I wonder if someone has ever compiled a dictionary of iron clad laws which could serve as a filter for "good" ideas. In this case the known law that if you make something cheaper and easier it will be used more. Much misery might be avoided.

One of the more memorable symbols of the French Revolution and the Reign of Terror that followed is the guillotine. This instrument of execution is named for a member of the Revolutionary assembly, Dr. Joseph Guillotin, who in 1789, lobbied the French government for the adoption of a humanitarian form of capital punishment. However, he did not invent the contraption that came to bear his name, nor even design it. Earlier versions had been occasionally used in Scotland, England, Germany, Italy, and Southern France from the thirteenth century through the mid-seventeenth century. . . . The well-known French version was actually developed by Dr. Antoine Louis at the behest of the Legislative Assembly, who ordered him to come up with an apparatus that would meet Dr. Guillotin's criteria. The result was initially called the louisette and la petite louison, but guillotine eventually won out.

Prior to the advent of the guillotine, decapitation was a privilege reserved for the aristocracy. At Guillotin's encouragement, this relatively painless method of execution was adopted for all criminals as something of a democratic killing device. It was adopted in 1792 - just in time for the Reign of Terror during which 35,000 to 40,000 people lost their lives, including Queen Marie Antoinette. The architect and and mastermind behind the Terror, was Robespierre, who wanteed to eliminate the corrupt and aristocratic elements from French Society. All this backfired on himwhen other government leaders began to feel death breathing down their necks. Robespierre and his supporters were sent to the guillotine and were among the last to die in the Reign of Terror that they created.

Madame Ducrest, in her book, Secret Memoirs of the Court of the Empress Josephine, mentions how Guillotin also came to regret his creation, saying:

M. Guillotin, a learned physician, had invented . . . the instrument of death which he deemed best calculated to abridge the sufferings of the culprits condemned to forfeit their lives by the sentence of severe but just laws. His invention was laid hold of for the purpose of dispatching a greater number of victims. That was the expression used by a member of the Convention.

M. Guillotin, whom I have known in his old age was inconsolable for what he considered as an involuntary blemish in his existence. His venerable countenance bore the impress of a settled gloom, and his hair of snow whiteness afforded a clear indication of his mental sufferings. He had aimed at relieving the sorrows of human nature, and he unintentionally contributed to the destruction of a greater number of human beings. Had they been been put to death in a less expeditious manner, the people might have been soon wearied out by those executions, which they showed the same eagerness to behold as they would have done a theatrical representation.