Among the punishments which it has been found necessary to re-establish is that of marking with a hot iron. Criminals, condemned to imprisonment in irons, are exposed for two hours on a scaffold in the middle of this square. They are seated and tied to a post, having above them a label with the words of their sentence. They are clad in woollen pantaloons and a waistcoat with sleeves, one half of each of which is white; the other, brown. After being exposed two hours, they are stripped, and to their shoulder is applied a hot iron, which there leaves the impression of the letter V, for voleur, thief. Women, not being condemned to imprisonment in irons; are exempt from the penalty of being marked. This punishment is said to produce considerable effect on the culprits, as well as on the spectators. Previously to its being revived, persons convicted of thieving were insolent beyond all endurance.
The Place de Grève is a parallelogram, one of the long sides of which is occupied by the ci-devant Hôtel de Ville, a tasteless edifice, begun in 1533, but not finished till 1605.
Before the revolution, the Place de Grève was alternately the theatre of punishments and rejoicings. On the same pavement, where scaffolds were erected for the execution of criminals, rose superb edifices for public festivals.
Here, when any criminal of note was to suffer, the occupiers of the adjoining houses made a rich harvest by letting their apartments. Every window that commanded a view of the horrid scene, was then hired at a most exorbitant price. Women of the first rank and fashion, decked in all the luxury of dress, graced even the uppermost stories. These weak-nerved females, who would have fainted at the sight of a spider mangling a fly, stood crowded together, calmly viewing the agonies of an expiring malefactor, who, after having been racked on the wheel, was, perhaps, denied the coup de grace which would, in an instant, have rid him of his miserable existence.
The death of a regicide was a sort of gala to these belles; while the lead was melting over the furnace, the iron pinchers heating in the fire, and the horses disposed for tearing asunder the four quarters of the victim of the laws, some of them amused themselves with an innocent game at cards, in sight of all these terrible preparations, from which a man of ordinary feeling would avert his looks with horror.
How happens it that, in all countries on the continent, ladies flock to these odious spectacles? Every where, I believe, the populace run to behold them; but that a female of superior birth and breeding can deliberately seek so inhuman a gratification is a mystery which I cannot explain, unless, indeed, on the principle of shewing themselves, as well as that of seeing the show.
"Spectatum veniunt, veniunt spectentur ut ipsæ."
[LETTER LXI.]
Paris, February 2, 1802.
Independently of the general organization of Public Instruction, according to the new plan, of which I have before traced you the leading features, there exist several schools appropriate to different professions, solely devoted to the Public Service, and which require particular knowledge in the arts and sciences. Hence they bear the generic name of