[Fig. 347.]--Public Executions.--Fac-simile of a Woodcut in the Latin Work of J. Millaeus, "Praxis Criminis Persequendi:" small folio, Parisis, Simon de Colines, 1541.

Possibly the invention of such a machine was prompted by the desire to curtail the physical sufferings of the victim, instead of prolonging them, as under the ancient system. It is, however, difficult to believe that the mediæval judges were actuated by any humane feelings, when we find that, in order to reconcile a respect for propriety with a due compliance with the ends of justice, the punishment of burying alive was resorted to for women, who could not with decency be hung up to the gibbets. In 1460, a woman named Perette, accused of theft and of receiving stolen goods, was condemned by the Provost of Paris to be "buried alive before the gallows," and the sentence was literally carried out.

Quartering may in truth be considered the most horrible penalty invented by judicial cruelty. This punishment really dates from the remotest ages, but it was scarcely ever inflicted in more modern times, except on regicides, who were looked upon as having committed the worst of crimes. In almost all cases, the victim had previously to undergo various accessory tortures: sometimes his right hand was cut off, and the mutilated stump was burnt in a cauldron of sulphur; sometimes his arms, thighs, or breasts were lacerated with red-hot pincers, and hot oil, pitch, or molten lead was poured into the wounds.

[Fig. 348.]--Demons applying the Torture of the Wheel.--Fac-simile of a Woodcut in the "Grand Kalendrier ou Compost des Bergers:" small folio, Troyes, Nicholas le Rouge, 1529.

After these horrible preliminaries, a rope was attached to each of the limbs of the criminal, one being bound round each leg from the foot to the knee, and round each arm from the wrist to the elbow. These ropes were then fastened to four bars, to each of which a strong horse was harnessed, as if for towing a barge. These horses were first made to give short jerks; and when the agony had elicited heart-rending cries from the unfortunate man, who felt his limbs being dislocated without being broken, the four horses were all suddenly urged on with the whip in different directions, and thus all the limbs were strained at one moment. If the tendons and ligaments still resisted the combined efforts of the four horses, the executioner assisted, and made several cuts with a hatchet on each joint. When at last--for this horrible torture often lasted several hours--each horse had drawn out a limb, they were collected and placed near the hideous trunk, which often still showed signs of life, and the whole were burned together. Sometimes the sentence was, that the body should be hung to the gibbet, and that the limbs should be displayed on the gates of the town, or sent to four principal towns in the extremities of the kingdom. When this was done, "an inscription was placed on each of the limbs, which stated the reason of its being thus exposed."

The wheel is the name applied to a torture of very ancient origin, but which was applied during the Middle Ages to quite a different torture from that used in olden times. The modern instrument might indeed have been called the cross, for it only served for the public exhibition of the body of the criminal whose limbs had been previously broken alive. This torture, which does not date earlier than the days of Francis I., is thus described:--The victim was first tied on his back to two joists forming a St. Andrew's cross, each of his limbs being stretched out on its arms. Two places were hollowed out under each limb, about a foot apart, in order that the joints alone might touch the wood. The executioner then dealt a heavy blow over each hollow with a square iron bar, about two inches broad and rounded at the handle, thus breaking each limb in two places. To the eight blows required for this, the executioner generally added two or three on the chest, which were called coups de grâce, and which ended this horrible execution. It was only after death that the broken body was placed on a wheel, which was turned round on a pivot. Sometimes, however, the sentence ordered that the condemned should be strangled before being broken, which was done in such cases by the instantaneous twist of a rope round the neck.

Strangling, thus carried out, was called garotting. This method is still in use in Spain, and is specially reserved for the nobility. The victim is seated on a scaffold, his head leaning against a beam and his neck grasped by an iron collar, which the executioner suddenly tightens from behind by means of a screw.

For several centuries, and down to the Revolution, hanging was the most common mode of execution in France; consequently, in every town, and almost in every village, there was a permanent gibbet, which, owing to the custom of leaving the bodies to hang till they crumbled into dust, was very rarely without having some corpses or skeletons attached to it. These gibbets, which were called fourches patibulaires or justices, because they represented the authority of the law, were generally composed of pillars of stone, joined at their summit by wooden traverses, to which the bodies of criminals were tied by ropes or chains. The gallows, the pillars of which varied in number according to the will of the authorities, were always placed by the side of frequented roads, and on an eminence.

[Fig. 349.]--The Gibbet of Montfaucon.--From an Engraving of the Topography of Paris, in the Collection of Engravings of the National Library.

According to prescribed rule, the gallows of Paris, which played such an important part in the political as well as the criminal history of that city, were erected on a height north of the town, near the high road leading into Germany. Montfaucon, originally the name of the hill, soon became that of the gallows itself. This celebrated place of execution consisted of a heavy mass of masonry, composed of ten or twelve layers of rough stones, and formed an enclosure of forty feet by twenty-five or thirty. At the upper part there was a platform, which was reached by a stone staircase, the entrance to which was closed by a massive door ([Fig. 349]). On three sides of this platform rested sixteen square pillars, about thirty feet high, made of blocks of stone a foot thick. These pillars were joined to one another by double bars of wood, which were fastened into them, and bore iron chains three feet and a half long, to which the criminals were suspended. Underneath, half-way between these and the platform, other bars were placed for the same purpose. Long and solid ladders riveted to the pillars enabled the executioner and his assistants to lead up criminals, or to carry up corpses destined to be hung there. Lastly, the centre of the structure was occupied by a deep pit, the hideous receptacle of the decaying remains of the criminals.