FOOTNOTES:
[64] A certain modern Latin Author, whose name I have forgot, has written a Treatise on the antiquity of the practice so much recommended above, of whipping boys at School. Had I been so happy as to have seen his Book, I would have been enabled to make, in this place, learned remarks on the subject; but as I have not had that advantage, I find myself unable to make any, and can only refer the Reader to the discovery of Uncle Thomas, as well as to the few other critical annotations that are contained in [p. 76, 77, 78], of this Work.
I could have likewise wished much to be able to add the names of some of those illustrious Characters who have distinguished themselves in the practice of flagellating School-boys, to those of the respectable Thwackum, and the plagosus Orbilius, mentioned in the above place; but though the History of great Schools, in this and other Countries, supplies numbers of such names, yet I have not been able to discover any of sufficient eminence to deserve a place in this Book; except indeed that of the great Doctor Tempête, who is mentioned by Rabelais as a celebrated flagellator of School-boys in the College of Montaigu, in Paris, and which I therefore insert in this place.
Neither should we neglect to mention here, the name of Buchanan, his pupil having afterwards been a King; and the more so, as he used, it seems, to make the flagellations bestowed by him on his royal disciple (the Anointed of the Lord) the subject of his jokes with the Ladies at Court[65].
The justice which is due to the Reverend Fathers Jesuits, also requires that we should, in a Book like this, give an account of the laudable regularity with which they used to inflict flagellations upon the young Men who pursued their studies in their Schools, as well as upon such Strangers as were occasionally recommended to them for that purpose. Among the different facts which may serve to prove both the spirit of justice that has constantly directed the actions of the Society, and the punctuality of their flagellations, the following is not the least remarkable.
It was, the Reader ought to know, an established custom in their Schools, to give prizes every year to such Scholars as had made the best Latin verses upon proposed subjects. One year it happened that the subject which had been fixed upon, was the Society of the Jesuits itself; and a Scholar took that opportunity, only by quibbling on the names of the two principal Schools belonging to the Fathers, to give them a smart stroke of satire. The name of the one of these two Schools, was the School of the Bow (le Collège de l’Arc), which was situated at Dôle, in Franche-Comté; and the other happened to be called, the School of the Arrow (la Flêche), it being situated near the Town of that name in Anjou, and was originally a Royal mansion which was given by the Crown to the Society, in the reign of King Henry the Fourth. The import of the distich made by the School-boy (or perhaps by somebody else for him) was this: “Dôle gave the Bow to the Fathers, mother France gave them the Arrow; who shall give them the String which they have deserved?” The following are the Latin verses themselves, which indeed are very beautiful.
Arcum Dôla dedit Patribus, dedit alma Sagittam
Gallia; quis funem quem meruere dabit?
The Reverend Fathers, struck with the merit of these lines, and, at the same time, unwilling to suffer a bon-mot made at their expence, and that was so likely to be circulated, to go unpunished, delivered the prize to the boy, and ordered him to be flagellated immediately after.
The celebrated Fathers of St. Lazare, in Paris, whose School was otherwise named the “Seminary of the good Boys” (des bons enfans) have no less recommended themselves by the regularity of the disciplines they inflicted, than the Reverend Fathers Jesuits. They were even superior to the latter, in regard to those recommendatory flagellations mentioned above, which were administered to such persons as were, by some means or other, induced to deliver letters to the Fathers for that purpose. Being situated in the metropolis, the Seminary carried on, a very extensive business in that way. Fathers or Mothers who had undutiful Sons, Tutors who had unruly Pupils, Uncles who were intrusted with the education of ungovernable Nephews, Masters who had wickedly-inclined Apprentices, whom they durst not themselves undertake to correct, applied to the Fathers of St. Lazare, and by properly seeing them, had their wishes gratified. Indeed the Fathers had found means to secure their doors with such good bolts, they were so well stocked with the necessary implements or giving disciplines, and had such a numerous crew of stout Cuistres to inflict them, that they never failed to execute any job they had engaged to perform, and without minding either age, courage, or strength, were at all times ready to undertake the most difficult flagellations. So regular was the trade carried on, by the good Fathers in that branch of Business, that letters of the above kind directed to them, were literally notes of hand payable on sight; and provided such notes did but come to hand, whoever the bearer might be, the Fathers were sure to have them discharged with punctuality.
This kind of business, as it was carried on, for a number of years, frequently gave rise to accidents, or mistakes, of rather a ludicrous kind. Young men who had letters to carry to the House of St. Lazare, the contents of which they did not mistrust, would often undesignedly charge other persons to carry the same for them, either on account of their going to that part of the town, or for some other reason of a like kind: and the unfortunate bearer, who suspected no harm, had no sooner delivered the dangerous letter with which he had suffered himself to be intrusted, than he was collared, and rewarded for his good-nature by a severe and unexpected flagellation.
Ladies, it is likewise said, who had been forsaken, or otherwise ungenteelly used, by their Admirers, when every other means of revenge failed, would also recur to the ministry of the Fathers of St. Lazare. Either by making interest with other persons, or using some artfully-contrived scheme, the provoked Fair-one endeavoured to have the Gentleman who caused her grief, inveigled into the House of the Seminary: at the same time she took care to have a letter to recommend him, sent there from some unknown quarter, with proper fees in it; for that was a point that must not be neglected: and when the Gentleman came afterwards to speak with the Fathers, he was no sooner found by them, either from the nature of the business he said he came upon, or other marks, to be the person mentioned in the letter they had before received, than they shewed him into an adjoining-room, where this treacherous and deceitful Lover was immediately seized, mastered, and every thing in short was performed that was requisite to procure ample satisfaction to the fair injured Lady.
It is also said (for a number of stories are related on that subject, and the Seminary of St. Lazare was become for a while an object of terror to all Paris) that schemes of the most abusive kind were in latter times carried on, through the connivance which the Fathers began to shew at the knavery of certain persons: and this indeed seems to be a well-ascertained part of the story. Abuses of the same kind as those which once prevailed in the Mad-houses established in this country, were at last practised in the Seminary. Men possessed of estates which some near relations wanted to enjoy, or whom it was the interest of other persons to keep for a while out of the way, were inveigled into the House of St. Lazare, where they were detained, and large sums paid monthly for their board. Though they might be full-grown persons, they were boldly charged with having been naughty, or such-like grievous guilt; and the Fathers, in order to shew that they meant to act a perfectly honest part in the affair, ordered them to be flagellated with more than common regularity.
Nor was it of any service for the unfortunate boarders to expostulate with the Fathers, to insist that it was unlawful to detain them by force in a strange house, and use them in the manner they were used, that they had important affairs which they must go and settle, that they were no boys, after all, or to offer other equally pertinent arguments: the Fathers continued to be well paid; they cared for no more; and all the complainants got by raising objections like these, were cold negative answers, and fresh flagellations. Abuses of the kind we mention, came at last to the knowledge of the Government, which interposed its authority, and the Seminary was abolished.
[65] King James the First.—See Dr. Berkenhout’s Biographia Literaria.