Memorials of Human Superstition / being a paraphrase and commentary on the Historia Flagellantium of the Abbé Boileau, Doctor of the Sorbonne

by Jean Louis de Lolme

Of this love of justice inherent in Women, a singular instance occurs in the Greek History. I mean to speak of the flagellations which Ladies, in Lacedæmon, who had reached a certain age without finding husbands, used to bestow, before the altar of Juno, upon such Men as continued past a certain time of life, to live in an unmarried state. These flagellations the unmarried Lacedæmonian Ladies (no doubt through the long use they had made of them) had at last converted into an express right; and the ceremony was performed every year, during a certain solemnity established for that purpose. Whether they flagellated all the unmarried Men without exception, who came within the words of the regulation on that subject, Historians have neglected to inform us: perhaps they served in that manner only a certain number, in order to shew the right they had of flagellating all the rest.

Nor have Women of modern times less distinguished themselves than the Greek Ladies, by their love of justice, or paid less regard to elegance in their choice of the means they have employed to avenge the insults they may have received.

In fact, we have seen in the present Chapter, that the persons who have raised the fabric of the Catholick Church, or rather Creed, persons who certainly were good observers of the manners of Mankind, have given the same inclination and the same attributes, to their female inhabitants of Paradise, as the Ancients had given to their Goddesses. And conclusions to the same effect may be derived from the works of imagination of a number of respectable modern Authors, who have all given to the Ladies of whom they had occasion to speak, the same elegant dispositions we mention, and made them act, when offended, upon the same principles as the Ladies in Lacedæmon: these works I do not scruple to mention as weighty authorities; for though they may be, as I said, works in appearance of imagination merely, yet it is well known that such great Authors, when they relate any stories, always allude to certain facts of which they have either been eye-witnesses, or received assured information.

And to quote one or two on the subject, we find that the celebrated La Fontaine, in one of his Tales which he has entitled The Pair of Spectacles, makes certain Nuns, who, as they thought, had had a great affront put upon their Monastery, have immediate recourse to the elegant method of revenge here alluded to. The story is as follows.

Several Nuns, in a certain Convent, were found to be in a situation which, though pretty natural for Women to be in, yet was not quite so with Women who were supposed to have constantly lived inclosed in the same walls with other Women, and made the Abbess judiciously conclude that some male Nun was harboured among them, or, as it was expressed, that some wolf lay hidden among the sheep: a suspicion which, by the by, was well grounded; for a young Man, who had as yet no beard, had found means to introduce himself into the Convent, where he lived, dressed like the Sisters, and was reckoned one among them. In order both to ascertain such suspicion, and discover so dangerous a person, all the Nuns were ordered into one room, and there made to strip themselves stark naked; when the Abbess, with her spectacles on her nose (whence the Tale has received its name) inspected them all, one after another, carefully. To relate how the young Man, notwithstanding the ingenious precautions he had taken, came to be found out, and how the Abbess’s spectacles were thrown from her nose and broken, is foreign to our subject: let it here suffice to say that the young Man was really found out; and that the Nuns, except those who had been concerned with him, who were previously locked up in a safe place,—that the Nuns, I say, laid hold of him, led him into a wood that stood close to their Convent, and there tied him to a tree, naked as he was, in order to make him atone for his audaciousness by a smart flagellation. Having forgotten to supply themselves with the necessary instruments of correction, they ran back to the Convent to fetch them, and whether from the mislaying of a key, or some other accident, were detained a little time. In the mean time a Miller, riding upon his Ass, went through the wood; and seeing the young Man in the abovementioned plight, stopped, and asked him the reason of it: to which the latter made answer, that it was those wicked Nuns who had put him in that situation, because he would not gratify their wanton requests; that he had rather die than be guilty of such thing. The Miller then cast upon him a look of the utmost contempt ... but it will be better to refer the Reader to the abovementioned Author himself, for the inimitable Dialogue that passed between the young Man and the Miller: here it will be enough to say, that this latter proposed to the other to put himself in his place, and warranted him he would behave in quite a different manner, and much more to the satisfaction of the Nuns than he had done. The young Man had no need of much encouragement to accept the proposal: after the Miller had released him, and stripped himself, he tied him fast to the same tree, and had just time enough to steal away, and hide himself behind some neighbouring bush, when the Nuns rushed again out of the same door at which they had got in, armed with all the disciplines and besoms they had been able to find in the Convent. They immediately marched up to the person who was tied to the tree, and without minding the broad shoulders and brawny limbs which were now offered to their view, began to use their disciplines with great agility. In vain did the Miller expostulate with them on their using him so ill: in vain did he remonstrate that he was not the Man whom they took him to be; that he was not that beardless stripling, that milk-sop simpleton, with whom they had formerly had to do, that woman-hater who had given them so just a cause of dissatisfaction; that they ought to try him before they entertained so bad an opinion of him:—in vain did he even at last, in the extremity of pain, apply to the utmost powers of his native language, to convey to them the clearest ideas he could, both to those wishes he supposed in them, and of his great abilities to gratify them: the more loudly and clearly he spoke, the more unmercifully they laid on, and only left him when they had worn out their disciplines.

Cervantes likewise, whose authority is equal to that of any Author, and who has moreover thrown a great light upon the subject of flagellations, has introduced a fact which greatly serves to confirm the observations we are discussing here. I mean to speak of what happened in that memorable night in which the Senora Rodriguez paid a visit to the valorous Don Quixote, in his bed. That Gentlewoman having, in the course of the conversation she had with the Knight, dropped several reflections of a very bad kind on the Duchess and the fair Altisidora, who were at that very instant listening at the door, these two Ladies, though justly and greatly offended at the liberty that was thus taken with their character, recurred to no expedient of a coarse and rough kind to avenge the insult; but they immediately applied to the summary, yet smart,—genteel, yet effectual, mode of correction here alluded to, namely, a flagellation. And here the Author we mention has taken an opportunity of giving a singular instance of the readiness of wit of the fair Sex, and of the quickness with which they usually extricate themselves out of the seemingly most perplexing difficulties. The Duchess and Altisidora were entirely destitute of the necessary instruments to inflict the chastisement they had resolved upon; but they had the great presence of mind to think of using their slippers for that purpose: they presently pulled them off their feet; bounced the door open; ran to the Senora Rodriguez; in the twinkling of an eye made her ready for flagellation, and immediately began to exert their new weapons with great dexterity. Thence, still in the dark, they passed to the astonished Knight, who lay snug in his bed, and who, by his listening to the stories of the Senora, and also by his questions, had encouraged her to proceed in her reflections (a thing which he might full as well have avoided doing) and bestowed upon him a few of those favours they had so plentifully heaped upon the above Gentlewoman.

At this place might also be mentioned, as being extremely well in point to the subject we are treating, the kind of satisfaction required by Dulcinea, from Sancho, and that which the Lady introduced by Butler, prescribed to the renowned Hudibras, while he was in the stocks; though, I confess, it might be said that the corrections here alluded to, were only advised, not inflicted, by the above Ladies. But it will suffice to mention, as a conclusion of these quotations from great Authors, the manner in which Lazarillo de Tormes, the notorious Spanish Cheat, was served by his four Wives. Having found out the place of his abode, they immediately agreed among themselves to serve him with the elegant kind of chastisement here mentioned; and having all together surprized him one morning, while he was asleep, they tied him fast to his bed, and served upon him one of the most dreadful flagellations that ever were inflicted, since the use of them has been contrived, as we are told in the History of the Life of the said Lazarillo; a Book which is still in repute in Spain, it being written with humour, and containing true pictures of the manners of that Country, and being even, as some say, founded on real facts.

Nor are true and well-authenticated instances wanting, to confirm the same observations. None, however, can be mentioned, that sets in a stronger light the love of justice inherent in the female Sex, and their constant attention to make choice of expedients of an elegant kind to express their resentment, than the custom that prevails in France and Italy, and perhaps in other Countries, according to which, Ladies use to flagellate their acquaintances, while they are yet in bed, on the morning of the day of the festival of the Innocents; whence this flagellatory custom is called “giving the Innocents” (dar gli Innocenti): the word Innocent, we may observe, has, in both the Italian and French languages, besides the English signification of it, that of fool, or simpleton; hence the words, the Day of the Innocents, seem also to signify in those two languages, the Fools day, or the day of the Unwary.

Nay, so well established is the custom we mention, that Women, in those parts, look upon that day, as a day of general justice and retribution, or an Assize or Sessions day, to which they refer taking satisfaction for the slight offences they may receive in the course of the year, especially from their male friends. They even will sometimes, when the latter hesitate too much in granting their requests, or misbehave in any manner, hint to them the fatal consequences that may ensue from such a conduct, and plainly intimate to them, that a certain day in the year is to come on which every thing is to be atoned for.