<P> Laquiante , an officer of the Strasbourg criminal court , designed a beheading machine and employed Tobias Schmidt , a German engineer and harpsichord maker , to construct a prototype . Antoine Louis is also credited with the design of the prototype . The memoirs of the official executioner claim that King Louis XVI ( an amateur locksmith ) recommended that an oblique blade be used instead of a crescent blade , lest the blade not fit all necks ( ironically , the king 's own was offered up discreetly as an example ) . The first execution by guillotine was performed on highwayman Nicolas Jacques Pelletier on 25 April 1792 . He was executed in front of what is now the city hall of Paris ( Place de l'hôtel de ville ) . All citizens deemed guilty of a crime punishable by death were from then on executed there , until the scaffold was moved on 21 August to the Place du Carrousel . </P>
<P> Laquiante , an officer of the Strasbourg criminal court , designed a beheading machine and employed Tobias Schmidt , a German engineer and harpsichord maker , to construct a prototype . Antoine Louis is also credited with the design of the prototype . The memoirs of the official executioner claim that King Louis XVI ( an amateur locksmith ) recommended that an oblique blade be used instead of a crescent blade , lest the blade not fit all necks ( ironically , the king 's own was offered up discreetly as an example ) . The first execution by guillotine was performed on highwayman Nicolas Jacques Pelletier on 25 April 1792 . He was executed in front of what is now the city hall of Paris ( Place de l'hôtel de ville ) . All citizens deemed guilty of a crime punishable by death were from then on executed there , until the scaffold was moved on 21 August to the Place du Carrousel . </P>
when was the guillotine first used in france
when was the guillotine first used in france
25 April 1792
25 April 1792