Robespierre operating a guillotine. Artwork of the French revolutionary Maximilien Robespierre (1758- 1794) operating a guillotine. The guillotine was perfected and named after Joseph Ignace Guillotin, a French physician. The slanted blade, supported between two pillars, would fall and decapitate the prisoner. The device became infamous during the French Revolution (1789-1799), when it was used to behead over 15,000 people in the years 1792-1799. It became a cultural icon, seen as a revolutionary and humane killing machine. Robespierre, standing on the 1791 and 1793 constitutions, sent many to the guillotine during the Reign of Terror (1792- 1794). He himself was guillotined in 1794.