During the Reign of Terror, those who did not have the means to bribe their jailers were placed at the bottom of the day’s execution list.
Being among the last to be executed of the day was an unenviable thing for the following reason.
The blade was sharpened every night. Executions began around 10 a.m., with royalty and aristocrats being executed first, when the crowds were largest.
In the morning the blade was still very sharp and death was instantaneous. But as the executions continued, the blade became duller and duller.
Sometimes she had to be pulled up and dropped a second and sometimes a third time onto the neck of the same unfortunate man.
To spare the crowd the sight of the condemned writhing in pain and agony, someone finally invented a way to gradually add small weights to the blade’s wooden casing. Which solved the problem.