The New Orleans crescent. [volume] (New Orleans, La.) 1866-1869, 1868-06-07


renee In the East, where the punishment has been
prsctced beyond memory TO this extent, the am
pu'stion of half the organ, and where those who
have fortitude enough to encounter the pain and
risk attending total excelsior, recover the powers
of 81 czech lost by the former operation.
England, we rejoice to write, offers fewer ex-
ample OF these sb0miDations than any other
country though, we hope, not exactly for the rea-
sons assigned by that excellent lawyer, Sir
Thomas Smith, who writing in the reign of Eliza
BETH tells us that 'it Is the nature of the English
man to abide no torment, and that, therefore, be
will confess himself rather to have done anything.
yea, 10 have killed his own father than TO suffer
torment.' Nevertheless. this old island has wit
messed too much evil OF the kind. Our kings, GER
tany, did not go quite so far In defining treason
as Dionysius, who included dreams In the cata-
logue, Of capital otienses, but some Of them ct.
fected avery close spproximation-notably that of
Achilles, Edward Nv, who put one man 10 death
for jest and another for apetulaat remark. And
il is with anything rather than the self satisfaction
Of Britons that we perused that passage OF Sir
Edward Coke's which explains hanging, drowning,
and disemboweliDg on scriptural principles, and
justiies them by patriarchal precedent, or certain
statutes of BlUf Hsrry's," or those pages Of our
history which tell as how one Of our kings placed
a family under the scatfold that they might be
wetted by their fathers blood; how another, and
a hero, allowed the gallant Lord Gotham to unite
in bis death the various penalties decreed against
treason and herssy; and how a third permitted
the previously unheard.of punishment OF boiling
alive 10 be inflicted on the cook of SANITY
Fisher"
All this infamous variety of torture aud death
was at the unlimited disposal Of every one of the
thousand tyrants whose mad within was law 10 the
terrible Middle Ages. And an untimely display of
virtue, valor or selfrespect was far more certain
than outrageous villainy to bring their ven.
gesnce down. Alain Blanchard was beheaded by
Henry Y for his heroic defense of his native city,
Rouen four hundred of the Englisgh arrison were
tied in couples and drowned in the Seine for their
stubborn resistance at Pontoise; Albert Bieling
ennobed the murderous squabbles of the " Hooks
and Codfsh" by his conduct when doomed to be
buried alive; sentence having been pronounced,
he asked and obtained, not mitigation, but
months respite TO take leave of his family, and
returned at the expiration of the period to ul-
dergo his fate. One of the Raugrafs of Harden
burgh qusrreled with the abbot OF a neighb bring
monastery, made him prisoner, set his abbey on
fire, and carrying the captive churchman to the
battemenJs of his castle, took care thathe should
not avert his eyes from the unpleasant spectacle
by building his head into the wall The monks of
Glastonbury. having yexed their abbot, r0ustain,
by obstnately refusing to learn a new chant, the
latter at last added the persussions Of band Of
menatarms to his own, and these gentlemen
soon managed to make the monks change their
tune by Strengthening eighteen Of them. T" Take
care of him." said Charles the Mad, nodding
toward knight, who appeared to pass him on the
high road with some diminution OF respect, and
Immediately the gentleman was pursued, tied up
in a sack, and thrown into the next river. And
the same fate, but rather more justly, was in
ficted on the Bastard Of Bourbon, by Charles the
Wise. John Gofredi, who abandoned the Office
of bishop to earn the title of the Devil of
Arras" performed the following hdeous exploit
at the instigation of Louis XI: The count of
Armagnac, man OF many crimes, sought shelter
from the vengeance of his king Ia the strong
castle of Lect0ur. But the Devil of Arras got In
by swearing solemnly to a capitulation. Breaking
his oath the next moment, he stabbed the count
in the of his wife, poisoned the latter, and,
10 destroy all evidence Of his perfdy, extermnated
the inhabitants of the district. That same Louis
was in the habit of ornamenting the approaches
10 his castle of Plessis les Tours by long rows of
bodies suspended from the trees. Nor was this
an exclusively royal pastime. Ia troublous times
almost any petty captain could indulge in it. Out
side of Meaux stood, until very recently, the
stump of q tree much patrOnized in the days of
long ago by one of those amisbe cavaliers, called
the Bastard of Vaurus. This gentle knight was
accustomed to dispose of his captives among the
branches of this tree, and from one Of these same
branches he finally dangled himself, by the just
sentence of our Henry v. 1.-THE Oak of Reforma-
tion,'' too, at Norwich, was similarly and largely
used by Roman Catholic, rebel and Protestant
avengers in the days of Edward vi.
Favorites, brothers, wives, and husbands, were
variously destroyed without exciting any great
sensation. The Countess Jane of Flanders crowned
lie of profigacy and reign of terror by
deneunciDg her own father as an imposter, and
putting him TO a shameful death after the infic
ton OF exquisite torture. The Duke of Albany
starved his nephew. Joan Of Naples had the hrst
of her four husbands smothered between two
mattresses and suffered similar fate. Louis lie
Hutin had his queen, Margaret, strsngled with a
napkin. But the list is endless, and as we have
DO desire to compile mere catalogue of horror,
with one more specimen We shall gladly take
leave of these enormous perversions of justice.
Francis l. of Brittany, was worthy of the era that
produced Louis XII Richard of Glou lester, the
Devil of ATras, and Oliver lie Dam; and so was
bis minister. Arthur de Montaubn. The last was
probably the most odiously wicked man of his
dau lint at n taking
orders, nor from dying quietly an archbishop.
This miniou quaIreled with Prince GILES, younger
brother Of the duke, because the heiress of
Dinsnt had preferred the prince to himself. H.
cited by his favorite, the duke imprisoned his
brother and endeavored to do him legally to
death. False witnesses in plenty were not want
ing; but the case was one of those that no " and
then take strong hold OF the public; and besides
Giles had powerful friends. and, what was much
the same thing, Montaubin inveterate enemies;
so no tribunal could be tempted or threatened
into pronounciDg capital sentence. The duke
then transferred his brother secretly from prison
to prison, and thus baffied sympathy, until, by the
end of the third year, it had pretty nearly subsi.
ded. Judging the proper time TO have come the
duke instructed the castelar, Of Hardoyinage the
princes last jalOr, to put bis prisoner to death.
That worthy, Olivier de Mel by name, first tried
starvation. But unfortunately for the success OF
this plan the window Of the dungeon looked into
the castle ditch, where woman gathering sticks
was attracted by the princes groans, and dscov-
cred his eltualOn. she ola al she could Ior nim
without endapgering him-supplied him stealthiy
and under cover of night with little coarse
bread and water, and brought priest as poor as
herself to administer spiritual comfort through
the grating. Astonished after the lapse OF many
weeks that the prisoner did not die, the TAILOR next
tried poison, and that, too, proving Intellectual, as
last recourse he had the prince smotherei be-
tween two mattresses, and then announced that
he had died from apoplexy. The duke was be-
sieging Avranches when informed of his brothers
aakhT ordf bn aura drov In az 20 bf1
quarters. On his way thither he was arrested by
The friar who had acted as the princes eonfess0r
Laying his hand on the dukes bride and raising
bis voice to its loudest pitch. the priest SOL
dered man, to appear within forty days before
the judgment seat Of God, and there answer for
his crime. Smitten by the terrible summons, the
duke put his house in order, appointed his re-
naming brother TO succeed him, and died within
the time specified. This is the record.
similar appeals were addressed-one 10 1872, to