They were not satisfied with burning the living, they also delivered to the flames the bodies of those who had died a natural death before their execution could be carried out, as if an anticipated death should not be allowed to save them from the punishment which they had deserved. It also happened in certain cases, where a person's guilt was only proved after his decease, that his body was disinterred, and carried to the stake to be burnt.

The punishment by fire was always inflicted in cases of heresy, or blasphemy. The Spanish Inquisition made such a constant and cruel use of it, that the expression auto-da-fé (act of faith), strangely perverted from its original meaning, was the only one employed to denote the punishment itself. In France, in the beginning of the fourteenth century, fifty-nine Templars were burned at the same time for the crimes of heresy and witchcraft. And three years later, on the 18th March, 1314, Jacques Molay, and a few other dignitaries of the Order of the Templars, also perished in the flames at the extremity of the island of Notre Dame, on the very spot where the equestrian statue of Henry IV. now stands.

Every one is acquainted with the fact that judges were found iniquitous enough to condemn Joan of Arc to death by fire as a witch and a heretic. Her execution, which took place in the market-place of Rouen, is remarkable from a circumstance which is little known, and which had never taken place on any other occasion. When it was supposed that the fire which surrounded the young heroine on all sides had reached her and no doubt suffocated her, although sufficient time had not elapsed for it to consume her body, a part of the blazing wood was withdrawn, "in order to remove any doubts from the people," and when the crowd had satisfied themselves by seeing her in the middle of the pile, "chained to the post and quite dead, the executioner replaced the fire...." It should be stated in reference to this point, that Joan having been accused of witchcraft, there was a general belief among the people that the flames would be harmless to her, and that she would be seen emerging from her pile unscathed.

The sentence of punishment by fire did not absolutely imply death at the stake, for there was a punishment of this description which was specially reserved for base coiners, and which consisted in hurling the criminals into a cauldron of scalding water or oil.

We must include in the category of punishment by fire certain penalties, which were, so to speak, but the preliminaries of a more severe punishment, such as the sulphur-fire, in which the hands of parricides, or of criminals accused of high treason, were burned. We must also add various punishments which, if they did not involve death, were none the less cruel, such as the red-hot brazier, bassin ardent, which was passed backwards and forwards before the eyes of the culprit, until they were destroyed by the scorching heat; and the process of branding various marks on the flesh, as an ineffaceable stigma, the use of which has been continued to the present day.

In certain countries decapitation was performed with an axe; but in France, it was carried out usually by means of a two-handed sword or glave of justice, which was furnished to the executioner for that purpose ([Fig. 346]). We find it recorded that in 1476, sixty sous parisis were paid to the executioner of Paris "for having bought a large espée à feuille," used for beheading the condemned, and "for having the old sword done up, which was damaged, and had become notched whilst carrying out the sentence of justice upon Messire Louis de Luxembourg."

[Fig. 346.]--Beheading.--Fac-simile of a Miniature on Wood in the "Cosmographie Universelle" of Munster: in folio, Basle, 1552.

Originally, decapitation was indiscriminately inflicted on all criminals condemned to death; at a later period, however, it became the particular privilege of the nobility, who submitted to it without any feeling of degradation. The victim--unless the sentence prescribed that he should be blindfolded as an ignominious aggravation of the penalty--was allowed to choose whether he would have his eyes covered or not. He knelt down on the scaffold, placed his head on the block, and gave himself up to the executioner ([Fig. 347]). The skill of the executioner was generally such that the head was almost invariably severed from the body at the first blow. Nevertheless, skill and practice at times failed, for cases are on record where as many as eleven blows were dealt, and at times it happened that the sword broke. It was no doubt the desire to avoid this mischance that led to the invention of the mechanical instrument, now known under the name of the guillotine, which is merely an improvement on a complicated machine which was much more ancient than is generally supposed. As early as the sixteenth century the modern guillotine already existed in Scotland under the name of the Maiden, and English historians relate that Lord Morton, regent of Scotland during the minority of James VI., had it constructed after a model of a similar machine, which had long been in use at Halifax, in Yorkshire. They add, and popular tradition also has invented an analogous tale in France, that this Lord Morton, who was the inventor or the first to introduce this kind of punishment, was himself the first to experience it. The guillotine is, besides, very accurately described in the "Chronicles of Jean d'Auton," in an account of an execution which took place at Genoa at the beginning of the sixteenth century. Two German engravings, executed about 1550 by Pencz and Aldegrever, also represent an instrument of death almost identical with the guillotine; and the same instrument is to be found on a bas-relief of that period, which is still existing in one of the halls of the Tribunal of Luneburg, in Hanover.

[Decapitation of Guillaume de Pommiers.]

And his Confessor, at Bordeaux in 1377, by order of the King of England's Lieutenant. Froissart's Chronicles. No. 2644, Bibl. nat'le de Paris.