Reel splitter GIF

[Jon]

Like the device above, the guillotine often failed to deliver its punishment in a single blow, most famously when it needed multiple drops to execute King Louis XVI.

Interestingly, Louis XVI had popularized the guillotine as a more humane improvement on the previous standard, the torturous breaking wheel. People would be secured to a large wagon wheel, their bones would be smashed, and they would then be left to die in agony over days. If the condemned justified a merciful execution, the executioner would deliver a more fatal "blow of mercy", which has entered into popular culture as the term coup de grâce.

While the guillotine is now considered barbaric, the drastically worse breaking wheel makes a subtle appearance in various modern coats of arms and organizational symbols, all over the world.

Coat of arms of St. Catherine's College, of the University of Oxford:



Coat of arms of Goa, India (until 1961):



The symbol of the breaking wheel is often mistaken for a simple "wagon wheel". Such confusion is avoided in the coat of arms of the town of Molsheim, France: