Refinements of Penal Cruelty.--Tortures for different Purposes.--Water, Screw-boards, and the Rack.--The Executioner.--Female Executioners.--Tortures.--Amende Honorable.--Torture of Fire, Real and Feigned.--Auto-da-fÉ.--Red-hot Brazier or Basin.--Beheading.--Quartering.--Wheel.--Garotte.--Hanging.--The Whip.--The Pillory.--The Arquebuse.--Tickling.--Flaying.--Drowning.--Imprisonment.--Regulations of Prisons.--The Iron Cage.--The Leads of Venice.

"It is very sad," says the learned M. de Villegille, "to observe the infinite variety of tortures which have existed since the beginning of the world. It is, in fact, difficult to realise the amount of ingenuity exercised by men in inventing new tortures, in order to give themselves the satisfaction of seeing their fellow-creatures agonizing in the most awful sufferings."

In entering upon the subject of ancient modes of punishment, we must first speak of the torture, which, according to the received phrase, might be either previous or preparatory: previous, when it consisted of a torture which the condemned had to endure previous to capital punishment; and preparatory, when it was applied in order to elicit from the culprit an avowal of his crime, or of that of his accomplices. It was also called ordinary, or extraordinary, according to the duration or violence with which it was inflicted. In some cases the torture lasted five or six consecutive hours; in others, it rarely exceeded an hour. Hippolyte de Marsillis, the learned and venerable jurisconsult of Bologna, who lived at the beginning of the fifteenth century, mentions fourteen ways of inflicting torture. The compression of the limbs by special instruments, or by ropes only; injection of water, vinegar, or oil, into the body of the accused; application of hot pitch, and starvation, were the processes most in use. Other means, which were more or less applied according to the fancy of the magistrate and the tormentor or executioner, were remarkable for their singular atrocities. For instance, placing hot eggs under the arm-pits; introducing dice between the skin and flesh; tying lighted candles to the fingers, so that they might be consumed simultaneously with the wax; letting water trickle drop by drop from a great height on the stomach; and also the custom, which was, according to writers on criminal matters, an indescribable torture, of watering the feet with salt water and allowing goats to lick them. However, every country had special customs as to the manner of applying torture.

In France, too, the torture varied according to the provinces, or rather according to the parliaments. For instance, in Brittany the culprit, tied in an iron chair, was gradually brought near a blazing furnace. In Normandy, one thumb was squeezed in a screw in the ordinary, and both thumbs in the extraordinary torture. At Autun, after high boots made of spongy leather had been placed on the culprit's feet, he was tied on to a table near a large fire, and a quantity of boiling water was poured on the boots, which penetrated the leather, ate away the flesh, and even dissolved the bones of the victim.

At Orleans, for the ordinary torture the accused was stripped half naked, and his hands were tightly tied behind his back, with a ring fixed between them. Then by means of a rope fastened to this ring, they raised the poor man, who had a weight of one hundred and eighty pounds attached to his feet, a certain height from the ground. For the extraordinary torture, which then took the name of estrapade, they raised the victim, with two hundred and fifty pounds attached to his feet, to the ceiling by means of a capstan; he was then allowed to fall several times successively by jerks to the level of the ground, by which means his arms and legs were completely dislocated (Fig. 340).

At Avignon, the ordinary torture consisted in hanging the accused by the wrists, with a heavy iron ball at each foot; for the extraordinary torture, which was then much in use in Italy under the name of veglia, the body was stretched horizontally by means of ropes passing through rings riveted into the wall, and attached to the four limbs, the only support given to the culprit being the point of a stake cut in a diamond shape, which just touched the end of the back-bone. A doctor and a surgeon were always present, feeling the pulse at the temples of the patient, so as to be able to judge of the moment when he could not any longer bear the pain.

At that moment he was untied, hot fomentations were used to revive him, restoratives were administered, and, as soon as he had recovered a little strength, he was again put to the torture, which went on thus for six consecutive hours.

In Paris, for a long time, the water torture was in use; this was the most easily borne, and the least dangerous. A person undergoing it was tied to a board which was supported horizontally on two trestles. By means of a horn, acting as a funnel, and whilst his nose was being pinched, so as to force him to swallow, they slowly poured four coquemars (about nine pints) of water into his mouth; this was for the ordinary torture. For the extraordinary, double that quantity was poured in (Fig. 341). When the torture was ended, the victim was untied, "and taken to be warmed in the kitchen," says the old text.

At a later period, the brodequins were preferred. For this torture, the victim was placed in a sitting posture on a massive bench, with strong narrow boards fixed inside and outside of each leg, which were tightly bound together with strong rope; wedges were then driven in between the centre boards with a mallet; four wedges in the ordinary and eight in the extraordinary torture. Not unfrequently during the latter operation the bones of the legs were literally burst.

The brodequins which were often used for ordinary torture were stockings of parchment, into which it was easy enough to get the feet when it was wet, but which, on being held near the fire, shrunk so considerably that it caused insufferable agony to the wearer.

Whatever manner of torture was applied, the accused, before undergoing it, was forced to remain eight or ten hours without eating. DamhoudÈre, in his famous technical work, called "Practique et Enchiridion des Causes Criminelles" (1544), also recommends that the hair should be carefully shaved from the bodies of persons about to undergo examination by torture, for fear of their concealing some countercharm which would render them insensible to bodily pain. The same author also recommends, as a rule, when there are several persons "to be placed on the rack" for the same deed, to begin with those from whom it would be most probable that confession would be first extorted. Thus, for instance, when a man and a woman were to suffer one after the other, he recommended that the woman be first tortured, as being the weaker of the two; when a father and son were concerned, the son should be tortured in presence of the father, "who naturally fears more for his son than for himself." We thereby see that the judges were adepts in the art of adding moral to physical tortures. The barbarous custom of punishment by torture was on several occasions condemned by the Church. As early as 866, we find, from Pope Nicholas V.'s letter to the Bulgarians, that their custom of torturing the accused was considered contrary to divine as well as to human law: "For," says he, "a confession should be voluntary, and not forced. By means of the torture, an innocent man may suffer to the utmost without making any avowal; and, in such a case, what a crime for the judge! Or the person may be subdued by pain, and may acknowledge himself guilty, although he be not so, which throws an equally great sin upon the judge."

After having endured the previous torture, the different phases of which were carried out by special tormentors or executioners, the condemned was at last handed over to the maistre des haultes oeuvres--that is to say, the executioner--whose special mission was that of sending culprits to another world (Fig. 342).

The executioner did not hold the same position in all countries. For whereas in France, Italy, and Spain, a certain amount of odium was attached to this terrible craft, in Germany, on the contrary, successfully carrying out a certain number of capital sentences was rewarded by titles and the privileges of nobility (Fig. 343). At Reutlingen, in Suabia, the last of the councillors admitted into the tribunal had to carry out the sentence with his own hand. In Franconia, this painful duty fell upon the councillor who had last taken a wife.

In France, the executioner, otherwise called the King's Sworn Tormentor, was the lowest of the officers of justice. His letters of appointment, which he received from the King, had, nevertheless, to be registered in Parliament; but, after having put the seal on them, it is said that the chancellor threw them under the table, in token of contempt. The executioner was generally forbidden to live within the precincts of the city, unless it was on the grounds where the pillory was situated; and, in some cases, so that he might not be mistaken amongst the people, he was forced to wear a particular coat, either of red or yellow. On the other hand, his duties ensured him certain privileges. In Paris, he possessed the right of havage, which consisted in taking all that he could hold in his hand from every load of grain which was brought into market; however, in order that the grain might be preserved from ignominious contact, he levied his tax with a wooden spoon. He enjoyed many similar rights over most articles of consumption, independently of benefiting by several taxes or fines, such as the toll on the Petit-Pont, the tax on foreign traders, on boats arriving with fish, on dealers in herrings, watercress, &c.; and the fine of five sous which was levied on stray pigs (see previous chapter), &c. And, lastly, besides the personal property of the condemned, he received the rents from the shops and stalls surrounding the pillory, in which the retail fish trade was carried on.

It appears that, in consequence of the receipts from these various duties forming a considerable source of revenue, the prestige of wealth by degrees dissipated the unfavourable impressions traditionally attached to the duties of executioner. At least, we have authority for supposing this, when, for instance, in 1418, we see the Paris executioner, who was then captain of the bourgeois militia, coming in that capacity to touch the hand of the Duke of Burgundy, on the occasion of his solemn entry into Paris with Queen Isabel of Bavaria. We may add that popular belief generally ascribed to the executioner a certain practical knowledge of medicine, which was supposed inherent in the profession itself; and the acquaintance with certain methods of cure unknown to doctors, was attributed to him; people went to buy from him the fat of culprits who had been hung, which was supposed to be a marvellous panacea. We may also remark that, in our day, the proficiency of the executioner in setting dislocated limbs is still proverbial in many countries.

More than once during the thirteenth century the duties of the executioner were performed by women, but only in those cases in which their own sex was concerned; for it is expressly stated in an order of St. Louis, that persons convicted of blasphemy shall be beaten with birch rods, "the men by men, and the women by women only, without the presence of men." This, however, was not long tolerated, for we know that a period soon arrived when women were exempted from a duty so little adapted to their physical weakness and moral sensitiveness.

The learned writer on criminal cases, Josse DamhoudÈre, whom we have already mentioned, and whom we shall take as our special guide in the enumeration of the various tortures, specifies thirteen ways in which the executioner "carries out his executions," and places them in the following order:--"Fire"--"the sword"--"mechanical force"--"quartering"--"the wheel"--"the fork"--"the gibbet"--"drawing"--"spiking"--"cutting off the ears"--"dismembering"--"flogging or beating"--and the "pillory."

But before entering upon the details of this revolting subject, we must state that, whatever punishment was inflicted upon a culprit, it was very rare that its execution had not been preceded by the amende honorable, which, in certain cases, constituted a distinct punishment, but which generally was but the prelude to the torture itself. The amende honorable which was called simple or short, took place without the assistance of the executioner in the council chamber, where the condemned, bareheaded and kneeling, had to state that "he had falsely said or done something against the authority of the King or the honour of some person" (Fig. 344). For the amende honorable in figuris--that is to say, in public--the condemned, in his shirt, barefooted, the rope round his neck, followed by the executioner, and holding in his hand a wax taper, with a weight, which was definitely specified in the sentence which had been passed upon him, but which was generally of two or four pounds, prostrated himself at the door of a church, where in a loud voice he had to confess his sin, and to beg the pardon of God and man.

When a criminal had been condemned to be burnt, a stake was erected on the spot specially designed for the execution, and round it a pile was prepared, composed of alternate layers of straw and wood, and rising to about the height of a man. Care was taken to leave a free space round the stake for the victim, and also a passage by which to lead him to it. Having been stripped of his clothes, and dressed in a shirt smeared with sulphur, he had to walk to the centre of the pile through a narrow opening, and was then tightly bound to the stake with ropes and chains. After this, faggots and straw were thrown into the empty space through which he had passed to the stake, until he was entirely covered by them; the pile was then fired on all sides at once (Fig. 345).

Sometimes, the sentence was that the culprit should only be delivered to the flames after having been previously strangled. In this case, the dead corpse was then immediately placed where the victim would otherwise have been placed alive, and the punishment lost much of its horror. It often happened that the executioner, in order to shorten the sufferings of the condemned, whilst he prepared the pile, placed a large and pointed iron bar amongst the faggots and opposite the stake breast high, so that, directly the fire was lighted, the bar was quickly pushed against the victim, giving a mortal blow to the unfortunate wretch, who would otherwise have been slowly devoured by the flames. If, according to the wording of the sentence, the ashes of the criminal were to be scattered to the winds, as soon as it was possible to approach the centre of the burning pile, a few ashes were taken in a shovel and sprinkled in the air.

They were not satisfied with burning the living, they also delivered to the flames the bodies of those who had died a natural death before their execution could be carried out, as if an anticipated death should not be allowed to save them from the punishment which they had deserved. It also happened in certain cases, where a person's guilt was only proved after his decease, that his body was disinterred, and carried to the stake to be burnt.

The punishment by fire was always inflicted in cases of heresy, or blasphemy. The Spanish Inquisition made such a constant and cruel use of it, that the expression auto-da-fÉ (act of faith), strangely perverted from its original meaning, was the only one employed to denote the punishment itself. In France, in the beginning of the fourteenth century, fifty-nine Templars were burned at the same time for the crimes of heresy and witchcraft. And three years later, on the 18th March, 1314, Jacques Molay, and a few other dignitaries of the Order of the Templars, also perished in the flames at the extremity of the island of Notre Dame, on the very spot where the equestrian statue of Henry IV. now stands.

Every one is acquainted with the fact that judges were found iniquitous enough to condemn Joan of Arc to death by fire as a witch and a heretic. Her execution, which took place in the market-place of Rouen, is remarkable from a circumstance which is little known, and which had never taken place on any other occasion. When it was supposed that the fire which surrounded the young heroine on all sides had reached her and no doubt suffocated her, although sufficient time had not elapsed for it to consume her body, a part of the blazing wood was withdrawn, "in order to remove any doubts from the people," and when the crowd had satisfied themselves by seeing her in the middle of the pile, "chained to the post and quite dead, the executioner replaced the fire...." It should be stated in reference to this point, that Joan having been accused of witchcraft, there was a general belief among the people that the flames would be harmless to her, and that she would be seen emerging from her pile unscathed.

The sentence of punishment by fire did not absolutely imply death at the stake, for there was a punishment of this description which was specially reserved for base coiners, and which consisted in hurling the criminals into a cauldron of scalding water or oil.

We must include in the category of punishment by fire certain penalties, which were, so to speak, but the preliminaries of a more severe punishment, such as the sulphur-fire, in which the hands of parricides, or of criminals accused of high treason, were burned. We must also add various punishments which, if they did not involve death, were none the less cruel, such as the red-hot brazier, bassin ardent, which was passed backwards and forwards before the eyes of the culprit, until they were destroyed by the scorching heat; and the process of branding various marks on the flesh, as an ineffaceable stigma, the use of which has been continued to the present day.

In certain countries decapitation was performed with an axe; but in France, it was carried out usually by means of a two-handed sword or glave of justice, which was furnished to the executioner for that purpose (Fig. 346). We find it recorded that in 1476, sixty sous parisis were paid to the executioner of Paris "for having bought a large espÉe À feuille," used for beheading the condemned, and "for having the old sword done up, which was damaged, and had become notched whilst carrying out the sentence of justice upon Messire Louis de Luxembourg."

Originally, decapitation was indiscriminately inflicted on all criminals condemned to death; at a later period, however, it became the particular privilege of the nobility, who submitted to it without any feeling of degradation. The victim--unless the sentence prescribed that he should be blindfolded as an ignominious aggravation of the penalty--was allowed to choose whether he would have his eyes covered or not. He knelt down on the scaffold, placed his head on the block, and gave himself up to the executioner (Fig. 347). The skill of the executioner was generally such that the head was almost invariably severed from the body at the first blow. Nevertheless, skill and practice at times failed, for cases are on record where as many as eleven blows were dealt, and at times it happened that the sword broke. It was no doubt the desire to avoid this mischance that led to the invention of the mechanical instrument, now known under the name of the guillotine, which is merely an improvement on a complicated machine which was much more ancient than is generally supposed. As early as the sixteenth century the modern guillotine already existed in Scotland under the name of the Maiden, and English historians relate that Lord Morton, regent of Scotland during the minority of James VI., had it constructed after a model of a similar machine, which had long been in use at Halifax, in Yorkshire. They add, and popular tradition also has invented an analogous tale in France, that this Lord Morton, who was the inventor or the first to introduce this kind of punishment, was himself the first to experience it. The guillotine is, besides, very accurately described in the "Chronicles of Jean d'Auton," in an account of an execution which took place at Genoa at the beginning of the sixteenth century. Two German engravings, executed about 1550 by Pencz and Aldegrever, also represent an instrument of death almost identical with the guillotine; and the same instrument is to be found on a bas-relief of that period, which is still existing in one of the halls of the Tribunal of Luneburg, in Hanover.

Possibly the invention of such a machine was prompted by the desire to curtail the physical sufferings of the victim, instead of prolonging them, as under the ancient system. It is, however, difficult to believe that the mediÆval judges were actuated by any humane feelings, when we find that, in order to reconcile a respect for propriety with a due compliance with the ends of justice, the punishment of burying alive was resorted to for women, who could not with decency be hung up to the gibbets. In 1460, a woman named Perette, accused of theft and of receiving stolen goods, was condemned by the Provost of Paris to be "buried alive before the gallows," and the sentence was literally carried out.

Quartering may in truth be considered the most horrible penalty invented by judicial cruelty. This punishment really dates from the remotest ages, but it was scarcely ever inflicted in more modern times, except on regicides, who were looked upon as having committed the worst of crimes. In almost all cases, the victim had previously to undergo various accessory tortures: sometimes his right hand was cut off, and the mutilated stump was burnt in a cauldron of sulphur; sometimes his arms, thighs, or breasts were lacerated with red-hot pincers, and hot oil, pitch, or molten lead was poured into the wounds.

After these horrible preliminaries, a rope was attached to each of the limbs of the criminal, one being bound round each leg from the foot to the knee, and round each arm from the wrist to the elbow. These ropes were then fastened to four bars, to each of which a strong horse was harnessed, as if for towing a barge. These horses were first made to give short jerks; and when the agony had elicited heart-rending cries from the unfortunate man, who felt his limbs being dislocated without being broken, the four horses were all suddenly urged on with the whip in different directions, and thus all the limbs were strained at one moment. If the tendons and ligaments still resisted the combined efforts of the four horses, the executioner assisted, and made several cuts with a hatchet on each joint. When at last--for this horrible torture often lasted several hours--each horse had drawn out a limb, they were collected and placed near the hideous trunk, which often still showed signs of life, and the whole were burned together. Sometimes the sentence was, that the body should be hung to the gibbet, and that the limbs should be displayed on the gates of the town, or sent to four principal towns in the extremities of the kingdom. When this was done, "an inscription was placed on each of the limbs, which stated the reason of its being thus exposed."

The wheel is the name applied to a torture of very ancient origin, but which was applied during the Middle Ages to quite a different torture from that used in olden times. The modern instrument might indeed have been called the cross, for it only served for the public exhibition of the body of the criminal whose limbs had been previously broken alive. This torture, which does not date earlier than the days of Francis I., is thus described:--The victim was first tied on his back to two joists forming a St. Andrew's cross, each of his limbs being stretched out on its arms. Two places were hollowed out under each limb, about a foot apart, in order that the joints alone might touch the wood. The executioner then dealt a heavy blow over each hollow with a square iron bar, about two inches broad and rounded at the handle, thus breaking each limb in two places. To the eight blows required for this, the executioner generally added two or three on the chest, which were called coups de grÂce, and which ended this horrible execution. It was only after death that the broken body was placed on a wheel, which was turned round on a pivot. Sometimes, however, the sentence ordered that the condemned should be strangled before being broken, which was done in such cases by the instantaneous twist of a rope round the neck.

Strangling, thus carried out, was called garotting. This method is still in use in Spain, and is specially reserved for the nobility. The victim is seated on a scaffold, his head leaning against a beam and his neck grasped by an iron collar, which the executioner suddenly tightens from behind by means of a screw.

For several centuries, and down to the Revolution, hanging was the most common mode of execution in France; consequently, in every town, and almost in every village, there was a permanent gibbet, which, owing to the custom of leaving the bodies to hang till they crumbled into dust, was very rarely without having some corpses or skeletons attached to it. These gibbets, which were called fourches patibulaires or justices, because they represented the authority of the law, were generally composed of pillars of stone, joined at their summit by wooden traverses, to which the bodies of criminals were tied by ropes or chains. The gallows, the pillars of which varied in number according to the will of the authorities, were always placed by the side of frequented roads, and on an eminence.

According to prescribed rule, the gallows of Paris, which played such an important part in the political as well as the criminal history of that city, were erected on a height north of the town, near the high road leading into Germany. Montfaucon, originally the name of the hill, soon became that of the gallows itself. This celebrated place of execution consisted of a heavy mass of masonry, composed of ten or twelve layers of rough stones, and formed an enclosure of forty feet by twenty-five or thirty. At the upper part there was a platform, which was reached by a stone staircase, the entrance to which was closed by a massive door (Fig. 349). On three sides of this platform rested sixteen square pillars, about thirty feet high, made of blocks of stone a foot thick. These pillars were joined to one another by double bars of wood, which were fastened into them, and bore iron chains three feet and a half long, to which the criminals were suspended. Underneath, half-way between these and the platform, other bars were placed for the same purpose. Long and solid ladders riveted to the pillars enabled the executioner and his assistants to lead up criminals, or to carry up corpses destined to be hung there. Lastly, the centre of the structure was occupied by a deep pit, the hideous receptacle of the decaying remains of the criminals.

One can easily imagine the strange and melancholy aspect of this monumental gibbet if one thinks of the number of corpses continually attached to it, and which were feasted upon by thousands of crows. On one occasion only it was necessary to replace fifty-two chains, which were useless; and the accounts of the city of Paris prove that the expense of executions was more heavy than that of the maintenance of the gibbet, a fact easy to be understood if one recalls to mind the frequency of capital sentences during the Middle Ages. Montfaucon was used not only for executions, but also for exposing corpses which were brought there from various places of execution in every part of the country. The mutilated remains of criminals who had been boiled, quartered, or beheaded, were also hung there, enclosed in sacks of leather or wickerwork. They often remained hanging for a considerable time, as in the case of Pierre des Essarts, who had been beheaded in 1413, and whose remains were handed over to his family for Christian burial after having hung on Montfaucon for three years.

The criminal condemned to be hanged was generally taken to the place of execution sitting or standing in a waggon, with his back to the horses, his confessor by his side, and the executioner behind him. He bore three ropes round his neck; two the size of the little finger, and called tortouses, each of which had a slip-knot; the third, called the jet, was only used to pull the victim off the ladder, and so to launch him into eternity (Fig. 350). When the cart arrived at the foot of the gallows, the executioner first ascended the ladder backwards, drawing the culprit after him by means of the ropes, and forcing him to keep pace with him; on arriving at the top, he quickly fastened the two tortouses to the arm of the gibbet, and by a jerk of his knee he turned the culprit off the ladder, still holding the jet in his own hand. He then placed his feet on the tied hands of the condemned, and suspending himself by his hands to the gibbet, he finished off his victim by repeated jerks, thus ensuring complete strangulation.

When the words "shall be hung until death doth ensue" are to be found in a sentence, it must not be supposed that they were used merely as a form, for in certain cases the judge ordered that the sentence should be only carried out as far as would prove to the culprit the awful sensation of hanging. In such cases, the victim was simply suspended by ropes passing under the arm-pits, a kind of exhibition which was not free from danger when it was too prolonged, for the weight of the body so tightened the rope round the chest that the circulation might be stopped. Many culprits, after hanging thus an hour, when brought down, were dead, or only survived this painful process a short time.

We have seen elsewhere (chapter on Privileges and Rights, Feudal and Municipal) that, when the criminal passed before the convent of the Filles-Dieu, the nuns of that establishment were bound to bring him out a glass of wine and three pieces of bread, and this was called le dernier morceau des patients. It was hardly ever refused, and an immense crowd assisted at this sad meal. After this the procession went forward, and on arriving near the gallows, another halt was made at the foot of a stone cross, in order that the culprit might receive the religions exhortations of his confessor. The moment the execution was over, the confessor and the officers of justice returned to the ChÂtelet, where a repast provided by the town awaited them.

Sometimes the criminals, in consequence of a peculiar wording of the sentence, were taken to Montfaucon, whether dead or alive, on a ladder fastened behind a cart. This was an aggravation of the penalty, which was called traÎner sur la claie.

The penalty of the lash was inflicted in two ways: first, under the custode, that is to say within the prison, and by the hand of the gaoler himself, in which case it was simply a correction; and secondly, in public, when its administration became ignominious as well as painful. In the latter case the criminal was paraded about the town, stripped to the waist, and at each crossway he received a certain number of blows on the shoulders, given by the public executioner with a cane or a knotted rope.

When it was only required to stamp a culprit with infamy he was put into the pillory, which was generally a kind of scaffold furnished with chains and iron collars, and bearing on its front the arms of the feudal lord. In Paris, this name was given to a round isolated tower built in the centre of the market. The tower was sixty feet high, and had large openings in its thick walls, and a horizontal wheel was provided, which was capable of turning on a pivot. This wheel was pierced with several holes, made so as to hold the hands and head of the culprit, who, on passing and repassing before the eyes of the crowd, came in full view, and was subjected to their hootings (Fig. 351). The pillories were always situated in the most frequented places, such as markets, crossways, &c.

Notwithstanding the long and dreadful enumeration we have just made of mediÆval punishments, we are far from having exhausted the subject; for we have not spoken of several more or less atrocious punishments, which were in use at various times and in various countries; such as the Pain of the Cross, specially employed against the Jews; the Arquebusade, which was well adapted for carrying out prompt justice on soldiers; the Chatouillement, which resulted in death after the most intense tortures; the Pal (Fig. 352), flaying alive, and, lastly, drowning, a kind of death frequently employed in France. Hence the common expression, gens de sac et de corde, which was derived from the sack into which persons were tied who were condemned to die by immersion.... But we will now turn away from these horrible scenes, and consider the several methods of penal sequestration and prison arrangements.

It is unnecessary to state that in barbarous times the cruel and pitiless feeling which induced legislators to increase the horrors of tortures, also contributed to the aggravation of the fate of prisoners. Each administrator of the law had his private gaol, which was entirely under his will and control (Fig. 353). Law or custom did not prescribe any fixed rules for the internal government of prisons. There can be little doubt, however, that these prisons were as small as they were unhealthy, if we may judge from that in the Rue de la Tannerie, which was the property of the provost, the merchants, and the aldermen of Paris in 1383. Although this dungeon was only eleven feet long by seven feet wide, from ten to twenty prisoners were often immured in it at the same time.

Paris alone contained twenty-five or thirty special prisons, without counting the vade in pace of the various religious communities. The most important were the Grand ChÂtelet, the Petit ChÂtelet, the Bastille, the Conciergerie, and the For-l'EvÊque, the ancient seat of the ecclesiastical jurisdiction of the Bishop of Paris. Nearly all these places of confinement contained subterranean cells, which were almost entirely deprived of air and light. As examples of these may be mentioned the Chartres basses of the Petit ChÂtelet, where, under the reign of Charles VI., it was proved that no man could pass an entire day without being suffocated; and the fearful cells excavated thirty feet below the surface of the earth, in the gaol of the Abbey of Saint Germain des PrÉs, the roof of which was so low that a man of middle height could not stand up in them, and where the straw of the prisoners' beds floated upon the stagnant water which had oozed through the walls.

The Grand ChÂtelet was one of the most ancient prisons of Paris, and probably the one which held the greatest number of prisoners. By a curious and arbitrary custom, prisoners were compelled to pay a gaol fee on entering and going out of this prison, which varied according to their rank, and which was established by a law of the year 1425. We learn from this enactment the names by which the various places of confinement composing this spacious municipal prison were known. A prisoner who was confined in the Beauvoir, La Mate or La Salle, had the right of "having a bed brought from his own house," and only had to pay the droit de place to the gaoler; any one who was placed in the Boucherie, in the Beaumont, or in the Griseche, "which are closed prisons," had to pay four deniers "pour place;" any one who was confined in the Beauvais, "lies on mats or on layers of rushes or straw" (gist sur nates ou sur couche de feurre ou de paille); if he preferred, he might be placed au Puis, in the Gourdaine, in the Bercueil, or in the Oubliette, where he did not pay more than in the Fosse. For this, no doubt, the smallest charge was made. Sometimes, however, the prisoner was left between two doors ("entre deux huis"), and he then paid much less than he would in the Barbarie or in the Gloriette. The exact meaning of these curious names is no longer intelligible to us, notwithstanding the terror which they formerly created, but their very strangeness gives us reason to suppose that the prison system was at that time subjected to the most odious refinement of the basest cruelty.

From various reliable sources we learn that there was a place in the Grand ChÂtelet, called the Chausse d'Hypocras, in which the prisoners had their feet continually in water, and where they could neither stand up nor lie down; and a cell, called Fin d'aise, which was a horrible receptacle of filth, vermin, and reptiles; as to the Fosse, no staircase being attached to it, the prisoners were lowered down into it by means of a rope and pulley.

By the law of 1425, the gaoler was not permitted to put more than two or three persons in the same bed. He was bound to give "bread and water" to the poor prisoners who had no means of subsistence; and, lastly, he was enjoined "to keep the large stone basin, which was on the pavement, full of water, so that prisoners might get it whenever they wished." In order to defray his expenses, he levied on the prisoners various charges for attendance and for bedding, and he was authorised to detain in prison any person who failed to pay him. The power of compelling payment of these charges continued even after a judge's order for the release of a prisoner had been issued.

The subterranean cells of the Bastille (Fig. 354) did not differ much from those of the ChÂtelet. There were several, the bottoms of which were formed like a sugar-loaf upside down, thus neither allowing the prisoner to stand up, nor even to adopt a tolerable position sitting or lying down. It was in these that King Louis XI., who seemed to have a partiality for filthy dungeons, placed the two young sons of the Duke de Nemours (beheaded in 1477), ordering, besides, that they should be taken out twice a week and beaten with birch rods, and, as a supreme measure of atrocity, he had one of their teeth extracted every three months. It was Louis XI., too, who, in 1476, ordered the famous iron cage, to be erected in one of the towers of the Bastille, in which Guillaume, Bishop of Verdun, was incarcerated for fourteen years.

The ChÂteau de Loches also possessed one of these cages, which received the name of Cage de Balue, because the Cardinal Jean de la Balue was imprisoned in it. Philippe de Commines, in his "MÉmoires," declares that he himself had a taste of it for eight months. Before the invention of cages, Louis XI. ordered very heavy chains to be made, which were fastened to the feet of the prisoners, and attached to large iron balls, called, according to Commines, the King's little daughters (les fillettes du roy).

The prison known by the name of The Leads of Venice is of so notorious a character that its mere mention is sufficient, without its being necessary for us to describe it. To the subject of voluntary seclusions, to which certain pious persons submitted themselves as acts of extreme religious devotion, it will only be necessary to allude here, and to remark that there are examples of this confinement having been ordered by legal authority. In 1485, RenÉe de Vermandois, the widow of a squire, had been condemned to be burnt for adultery and for murdering her husband; but, on letters of remission from the King, Parliament commuted the sentence pronounced by the Provost of Paris, and ordered that RenÉe de Vermandois should be "shut up within the walls of the cemetery of the Saints-Innocents, in a small house, built at her expense, that she might therein do penance and end her days." In conformity with this sentence, the culprit having been conducted with much pomp to the cell which had been prepared for her, the door was locked by means of two keys, one of which remained in the hands of the churchwarden (marguillier) of the Church of the Innocents, and the other was deposited at the office of the Parliament. The prisoner received her food from public charity, and it is said that she became an object of veneration and respect by the whole town.