Who Buys a Guillotine? Someone Who Wants an ‘Amusing Acquisition’

Christophe Février, a businessman and father of four from the small town of Château-Gontier in northwest France, decided in 2014 that there was something he must have: a guillotine.

He had seen one offered at auction in Paris. It was 10 feet tall, with an oak frame and a few dents in the blade, and had the French words for “Armies of the Republic” etched into its metal plates. It had not actually been used to execute people during the French Revolution, but it had historical value: It was made in the mid-19th century, around the time France’s monarchy was abolished for a second time.

Lady Gaga tried to buy the guillotine in 2011, said Février, 48, in an email. But she lost out to a Russian collector, who paid 223,000 euros, or about $260,000 at current exchange rates.

The Russian faced a problem, however: France does not allow the export, or import for that matter, of instruments of torture. So the guillotine stayed in its long-term home, a Paris jazz club called Le Caveau des Oubliettes, where it continued to surprise tourists.

This month, the device came up for auction again after the club went bankrupt. Bidding lasted just two minutes. Février won, paying 8,000 euros — a bargain, some might say.

Despite the low price and the fact the guillotine is a replica, the sale caused controversy. A press officer for the regulator overseeing auctions in France told the newspaper Le Parisien that it had warned the seller that the sale would be in poor taste, although the organization had no means to stop it.

Guillotine were used to execute about 4,600 people in France before the death penalty was abolished there in 1981. The last person to be executed was Hamida Djandoubi, a North African immigrant convicted of torturing and murdering a woman, in 1977.

Explaining his purchase, Février said that he was not interested in the guillotine’s “symbolism of death,” but that he viewed it “as a historic symbol tied to the common heritage of humanity.”

“This object occupies a unique place in the history of my country and of the world as a whole,” he added. “It is indefinitely linked to French identity.”

“We are free to buy what we like,” Février said. “I don’t forbid myself from imagining acquiring certain objects deemed ‘off limits.'” He added that he was interested in buying a car once owned by Pablo Escobar, the Colombian drug kingpin.

What type of person buys a guillotine? Février said his purchase had nothing to do with any kind of fetish — “I’m not into that scene at all” — and that he was just interested in collecting unique objects, such as “rare pieces of art and race cars with exceptional track records.”

“Aside from work, I like art, traveling, races, being surprised and surprising others,” he replied when asked to describe himself.

He said he had yet to decide where to put his new purchase. “As a father of four, I don’t want to exhibit it in a family setting,” he added.

“Friends and colleagues were mostly surprised and intrigued when I bought it,” Février said, adding that they had soon conceded that the purchase suited his personality and that many had said they were looking forward to seeing it.

“I think it’s an amusing acquisition,” he said.