One of the main causes of painful scrotal swelling is testicular torsion. This is an injury or an event that causes a testicle in the scrotal sac to twist and cut off blood circulation. This very painful injury could cause tissue death to the scrotum in a matter of hours. Medical conditions and diseases can also cause the scrotum to swell.
As said, credit and debit cards (cartes bancaires or cartes bleus) are widely used in France. This is also practical as automatic payments are common in France for things like train/metro tickets, parking, motorway tolls, etc.
Primitive ancestors of the guillotine were used in Ireland, England and Italy in the 14th and 15th Centuries. Several known decapitation devices such as the Italian Mannaia, the Scottish Maiden, and the Halifax Gibbet are well documented and may pre-date the use of the French guillotine by as much as 500 years. The following deals mostly with the modern guillotine from the late 18th Century until today.