_Culprits torn by Horses_ (Vol. ii., p. 480.).--In reply to MR. JACKSON'S
question respecting culprits torn by horses, I beg to inform him that
Robert Francois Damiens was the last criminal thus executed in France. He
suffered on the 28th March, 1757, for an attempt on the life of Louis XV.
The awful penalty of the law was carried out in complete conformity with
the savage precedents of former centuries. Not one of the preparatory
barbarities of question, ordinary and extraordinary, or of the accompanying
atrocities of red-hot pincers, melted lead, and boiling oil, was omitted.
The agony of the wretched man lasted for an hour and a half, and was
witnessed, as Mercier informs us, by all the best company in Paris.
The men amused their leisure with cards, while waiting, as he says, for the
boiling oil; and the women were the last to turn their eyes from the
hideous spectacle. Your correspondent may be glad to be informed that the
same punishment was inflicted on Poltrot de Mere for the murder of the Duke
of Guise, in 1563; on Salcede, in 1582, for conspiring against the Duke of
Alencon; on Brilland, in 1588, for poisoning the Prince de Conde; on
Bourgoing, Prior of the Jacobins, as an accessory to the crime of Jaques
Clement, in 1590; and on Ravaillac, for the murder of Henry IV. in 1610.
These, with the case of Jean Chastel, are all of which I am aware. If any
of your readers can add to the list, I shall feel obliged.
As I am upon the subject of judicial horrors, I would ask, whether any of
your correspondents can supply me with a reference to the case of a {92}
woman executed, I think in Paris, and, if my recollection serves, for a
systematic series of infanticides.
She was put to death by being suspended over a fire in an iron cage, in
which a number of wild cats were shut up with her.
I read the story many years ago, and for some time have been vainly
endeavouring to recover it.