The True Story of Father Girard and Miss Cadière.
One day Girard informed his penitent that she was to be favoured by a remarkable vision, during which she would (by spiritual agency) be drawn up into the air, he alone, as her spiritual Father would be permitted to witness this manifestation; but Miss Cadière, at the appointed time, was not in a willing mood, in spite of the Holy man’s threats and entreaties. She resisted the spiritual influence, held fast to her chair, and would not permit herself to be drawn up. Finding his expostulations useless, the Father quitted the room in a rage, and sent Guiol to rebuke his pupil. Although Miss Cadière, when in a calmer mood the same evening, asked pardon and promised future obedience, Girard determined that her crime should be expiated by a heavy penance.
The next morning, accordingly, he visited her and, flourishing a discipline, said: ‘God demands in his justice that you, having refused to allow yourself to be invested with His gifts, should now, in punishment for your sins, undress yourself and be chastised. Truly have you deserved that the whole Earth should witness this infliction on you; but God has graciously permitted that only I and this wall (which cannot speak) should be witnesses of your shame. But beforehand, swear to me an oath of fidelity, for both you and I would be plunged into ruin if the secret was discovered.’
Girard had his desire, Miss Cadière humbly submitted to discipline, and the scene which followed we must leave the reader to imagine.
The Knout applied to an Empress.
When the Empress Eudoxia was sentenced by her husband, Peter the Great, to undergo the punishment of the knout on a charge of infidelity, she no sooner saw the dreadful apparatus than, to avoid torture, she readily confessed every species of criminality they were inclined to lay to her charge. She owned every amorous intrigue with which she was accused, and of which, to all appearance, till that horrible moment, she never had the least idea. She was however condemned to undergo the discipline, which was administered by two ecclesiastics in full chapter.
The King of Fiji and his Wives.
In a recent work on Fiji and the Fijians there is a graphic account of the marriage ceremony or contract as observed in this savage region. The misery of the woman begins directly after the ceremony. If she be young and pretty the old big-fisted wives turn their venom against her and do all they can, by mauling and ill-treatment, to render her as unsightly as themselves. If she be of the brawny sort, as well able to give as to take a thrashing, then she is hated, and all sorts of secret means are used to work her ruin. As may be easily imagined, these domestic brawls occasionally interfere with the peace of the lord of the establishment. What does the despotic husband do in such a case? Does he go out and reason with the rowdies? Does he use gentle persuasion? Does he! He has by him a stout stick kept for the purpose, and he lays about him till order is restored.
The staff used by the king for this purpose was inlaid with ivory, but did not on that account give less pain.