Adultery, especially in the women, is wery vigorously punished in many places of France. In Poictou, as Mr. Daillé informed, they ignominously drag them after the taile of a mule thorow the streits, the hangman convoying them, then they sett them in the most publick part of the toune bound be a stake, wt their hands behind their backs, to be a obiect of mockery ther to all that pleases.
They that commits any pitty roobery or theifte are whipt thorow the toune and stigmatized wt a hote iron marked wt the flower de lis on the cheik or the shoulder. If any be taken after in that fault having the mark, theirs no mercy for them under hanging.
Every province almost hath its sundry manner of torturing persones suspected for murder or even great crimes to extort from them a confession of the truth. At Paris the hangman takes a serviet, or whiles a wool cloath (which I remember Cleark in his Martyrologie discovering the Spanish Inquisition also mentioned), which he thrustes doune the throat of him as far as his wery heart, keiping to himselfe a grip of one end of the cloath, then zest wt violence pules furth the cloath al ful of blood, which cannot be but accompanied wt paine. Thus does the burreau ay til he confesses. In Poictou the manner is wt bords of timber whilk they fasten as close as possibly can be both to the outsyde and insyde of his leg, then in betuixt the leg and the timber they caw in great wedges[166] from the knee doune to the wery foot, and that both in the outsyde and insyde, which so crusheth the leg that it makes it as thin and as broad as the loafe[167] of a mans hand. The blood ishues furth in great abondance. At Bourdeaux, the capital of Guienne, they have a boat full of oil, sulfre, pitch, resets, and other like combustible things, which they cause him draw on and hold it above a fire til his leg is almost all brunt to the bone, the sinews shrunk, his thigh also al stretched wt the flame.
[166] The torture of the boot was apparently new to Lauder, but from his later MSS., it appears to have been in use in Scotland.
[167] Loof, palm.
On a tyme we went to sie the charlatan at the Marcher Vieux, who took occasion to show the spectators some vipers he had in a box wt scalves[168] in it, as also to refute that tradition delivered by so many, of the young vipers killing their mother in raving[l69] her belly to win furth, and that wt the horrid peine she suffers in the bringing furth her young she dies, which also I have heard Mr. Douglas—preaching out of the last of the Acts about that Viper that in the Ile of Malta (wheir they are a great more dangerous then any wheir else) cleave to Pauls hand—affirme at least as a thing reported by naturalists, the etymon of the Greek word [Greek: hechidnae] seiming to make for this opinion, since it comes [Greek: apo ton echein taen odunaen][170] a habendo dolorem. Yet he hath demonstrated the falshood of that opinion: for he showed a black viper also spooted wt yellow about the lenth of a mans armes, about the grossenesse of a great inkhorne wholly shappen like a ell[171] save only its head wt its tongue, which was iust like a fork wt 2 teeth, wheir its poison mainly resydes, that had brought furth 2 young ones that same very day, which he showed us wt some life in them just like 2 blew, long wormes that are wrinkled; and notwtstanding the mother was on life and no apparence of any rupture in hir belly. To let us sie whow litle he cared for it he took hir and wrapt it that she might not reach him wt hir head, and put it in his mouth and held it a litle space wt his lipes; which tho the common peaple looked on as a great attempt, yet surely it was nothing, since their is no part of the Viper poisonnable save only its head and its guts. As for the flech of it, any man may eat it wtout hazard, for the same very charlatan promised that ere we left the toune, having decapitated and disbowelled it, he sould eat the body of it before all that pleased to look on, which he might easily do. For as litle as he showed himself to care for it, yet he having irritate and angred it, either by his brizing[172] it in his mouth or by his unattentive handling of it (for such is the nature of the Viper that tho its poison be a great deall more subtil, percing and penetrating, and consequently in some account more dangerous then that of the hideous coleuure or serpent, yet it wil not readily sting or bit except they be exasperate, when the others neids no incitations, but wil pershew a man if they sy him), when he was not taking heid, it snatcht him by the finger, he hastily shakt it of on the stage and his finger fell a blooding. He was not ordinarly moved at this accident, telling us that it might endanger the losse of his finger. He first scarified the flech that was about the wound, then he caused spread some theriac (one of the rarest contrepoisons, made mainly of the flech of the Viper) on a cloath which he applied to it. About a halfe hower after he looked to it in our presenc, and his finger was also raisen in blay[173] blisters. He said he would blood himselfe above a hower, to the end to reid himselfe of any blood already poisoned and infected, lest by that circulation that the blood makes thorow al the body of a man once of the 24 howers the blood infected sould communicate itselfe to much. Also he sayd that he had rather bein stung in the leg, the thigh, or many other parts of the body then the finger, by reason of the great abondance of nerves their, and the sympathy the rest of the body keips wt them, which renders the cure more difficile.
[168] Shelves.
[169] Riving, tearing.
[170] Mistake for [Greek: hodunaen]. The etymology is fanciful and incorrect.
[171] Eel.