[66] Num. XII. “_Disciplinam lubens habeat, metuens imponat._”
[67] The Abbé Boileau, after the manner of the Learned of former
times, has added to his quotations on the flagellations of Vestals,
a string of names of Writers who have also occasionally mentioned
that custom; such as _Rosinus_ on the Roman Antiquities, _Fortunius
Licetus_ on the Lamps of the Ancients, _Josephus Laurens_ of Lucca,
_Polymathias_ in his Dissertations, and _Jacobus Ghuterius_ on the
rights of the ancient Pontiffs. These Writers, as far as I can
perceive, have neglected to inform us of an important circumstance,
which is, of what kind those _disciplines_ were, that were inflicted
upon Vestals; whether _upper_ or _lower_ disciplines. However,
they have informed us of a fact about which the Reader, no doubt,
particularly wishes to be satisfied; which is, that a great regard
was paid to decency in the above flagellations; and that, as the
correction was inflicted in an open place, and by the hands of a
Priest, the guilty Vestal was wrapped in a veil during the ceremony.
The flagellations which persons who live in Convents, are upon
different occasions made to undergo, the obligation they are under,
of receiving such corrections before the whole Brotherhood or
Sisterhood, together with the companions which the holy Founders of
religious Orders have made of them with naughty children, have drawn
numerous jests upon them; but such jests can only come from persons
who have not paid a sufficient attention to the subject.
Politicians inform us, that it is absolutely necessary that, in all
States, there should be Powers of different kinds, established to
maintain the general harmony of the whole, and that Legislative,
Executive, Military, and Judicial Powers, for instance, should be
formed, and lodged in different hands. Hence we may conclude, that
some power analogous to these, ought to exist in every numerous
Society either of Men or Women, for the preservation of good Order,
and that it is necessary that, in such Societies, a power of
flagellation should be lodged somewhere.
Nor are we to think that Convents are the only Societies in which
some authority of this kind takes place. In the Eastern Seraglios,
for instance, Societies which are by no means contemptible, and may
very well bear a comparison with Convents, we are not to doubt, a
power of occasionally inflicting flagellations, exists: nay, we are
expressly informed that Empresses themselves are not always exempt
from them. Thus M. de Montesquieu, in the 26th Chapter of the
Book XIX. of his Spirit of Laws, relates, after the Historian of
Justinian the Second, that the Empress, Wife of the Emperor, ‘was
threatened, by the great Eunuch, with that kind of chastisement with
which children are punished at School:’ a treatment certainly very
severe, and from which one should be tempted to judge that Empresses,
at least, ought to be exempt, if it were not that the advantages of
peace and good order are such, as ought to supersede every other
consideration.
In the Palaces of the Western Sovereigns, though they have constantly
borne a very different appearance either from Convents or Seraglios,
we find that disciplines like those abovementioned were found
extremely useful about two centuries ago (a time when Men had notions
of decorum much superior to ours) and were in consequence employed as
common methods of preserving good order, without much distinction of
rank or sex.
Of the above fact we have a proof, in the misfortune that befel
Mademoiselle de Limeuil, at the Court of France, where she was a Maid
of Honour to the Queen, Wife to King Henry II. as we find in the
_Mémoires de Brantôme_: for my respect for the Reader induces me to
offer him only such anecdotes as are supported by good authorities.
Mademoiselle de Limeuil, as Brantôme relates, was a very witty
handsome young Lady, extremely ready at her pen, and related to
the best families in the Kingdom. She was placed at Court in the
capacity of Maid of Honour to the Queen; and she had been there but
a few months, when she tried her wit at the expence of the Gentlemen
and Ladies at Court, and wrote a copy of verses, or Pasquinade, in
which few Characters were spared. As these verses were ingeniously
written, they spread very fast; and people were very curious to know
who had composed this piece of satire: at last, it was found out
that Mademoiselle de Limeuil was the Author of it; and as the Queen,
besides being a person of a serious temper, was grown disgusted with
the great licence of writing that had of late prevailed at Court,
and had determined at least to prevent any satire, or lampoon, from
originating in her own Houshold, orders were given in consequence
of which Mademoiselle de Limeuil was rewarded for her verses by a
flagellation; and those young Ladies in the suite of the Queen, who
had been privy to the composition of the Pasquinade, were likewise
flagellated.
The instances of flagellations just now related, from which, neither
the beauty, nor the birth, nor the rank of the Culprits, nor the
brilliancy of their wit, their readiness at their pen, nor happy turn
for Satire, could screen them, clearly shew how much flagellations
were in esteem in the times we speak of, and how much efficacy they
were thought to possess, for insuring those two great advantages,
good order and decorum. There is no doubt therefore, but that they
were still more strictly used for the improvement of the morals of
those swarms of unruly young Men, who then filled the Houses of
Kings, or of the Great, and went by the name of Pages. Indeed we find
that the Gentlemen, or Equerries, whose care it was to superintend
their conduct, were invested with a very extensive power of
inflicting flagellations; and so frequent were the occasions in which
they found it necessary to use corrections of this kind, that the
words _flagellation_, and _Page_, are become as it were essentially
connected together, and it is almost impossible to mention the one,
without raising an idea of the other: I shall therefore forbear to
relate any instances of such corrections; and flagellations of Pages,
like those of School-boys, are too vulgar flagellations to have a
place in this Book.
Nor were disciplines like those we mention, imposed only upon
those persons who expressly made part either of the Royal of Noble
Housholds, for the edification of which they were inflicted; but
wholesome corrections of the same kind were also occasionally
bestowed upon such Strangers as happened to infringe the rules of
decorum, or in any other manner, offended against the respect that
was owing to the Royal or Noble Proprietor of the House.
Of this we have an undeniable proof in the Story of that Reverend
Father Jesuit, who was flagellated at Vienna, as Brantôme relates, by
command of a Princess of the Austrian House, whose displeasure he had
incurred.
The Princess here alluded to, was daughter to the Emperor Maximilian
II. She had been formerly married to Charles IX. King of France; and
after the death of that Prince, by whom she had had no children, she
retired to Vienna in Austria. Philip II. King of Spain, having about
that time lost his wife, sent proposals of marriage to the Princess
we mention, who was at the same time his Niece; and the Mother of
the Princess, a Sister to Philip II. was very pressing to induce
her to accept the above proposals; which the Princess Elizabeth
(such was her name) otherwise Queen-Dowager of France, persevered
in refusing. The Empress, and the King of Spain, then thought of
employing the agency of a Father Jesuit, a learned smooth-tongued
Man, who was to persuade the Princess to accept the offers of Philip;
but the endeavours of the Father having proved ineffectual, he at
last desisted from importuning the Princess any more, and retired.
The King of Spain then sent new letters to the Princess concerning
the same subject, and the Jesuit was sent for a second time, and
injoined to exert again all his efforts to make the affair succeed.
In consequence of these orders, the Jesuit resumed his function;
but the Princess, whom Brantôme represents as having been a person
of much merit, and who certainly must have had some, since she
resolutely persevered in refusing to marry that abominable Tyrant,
Philip the Second, the Princess, I say, grew much displeased with the
importunities of the Jesuit; and at last spoke very harshly to him,
and plainly threatened him, if he dared to mention a word more to her
on the subject, with an immediate flagellation (_de le faire fouetter
en sa cuisine_).
To the above account Brantôme adds, that some say that the Jesuit
having been so imprudent as to renew afterwards his solicitations,
actually received the chastisement he had been threatened with. But
though himself is rather inclined to disbelieve the fact, yet he does
not, we are to observe, alledge any reasons for so doing, that are
drawn, either from the impropriety of flagellations in general, or
from the inability he supposes in them to repress bold intrusion,
to put a stop to teazing importunities, or to confute captious
arguments: by no means; he only says that the Princess in question
was of too gentle a temper to have made good her threats to the
Jesuit; besides that she generally bore great respect to Men of his
cloth.
To the above remarkable instances of flagellations performed in the
Palaces of the Great, I will add another which is not less pregnant
with interesting consequences. I mean to speak of the Story of that
Court Buffoon, who, upon a certain occasion, was flagellated at the
Court of Spain.
The fact is related in the same Memoirs of Brantôme, in a Chapter the
subject of which is, that ‘_Ladies ought never to be disrespectfully
spoken to, and the ill consequences thereof._’
The name of the Buffoon in question was _Legat_, and he ventured
once to try his wit upon the Queen herself, Wife to Philip II. This
Queen, who was a Princess of France, and is the same whom Philip
was afterwards accused of having made away with, on account of the
love he supposed between her and his son Don Carlos, had taken a
particular fancy for two of the Country Houses belonging to the
King; and one day, being in convention with the Ladies at Court,
she mentioned her liking to the two seats in question, which were
situated, the one in the neighbourhood of Madrid, and the other of
Valladolid; and expressed a wish they were so near to each other,
that she might touch both at once with her feet: saying which, she
made a motion with her legs, which she opened pretty wide: the
Buffoon could not hold his tongue, and made rather a coarse remark
on the subject, which Brantôme has related at length in Spanish:
the consequence of which was, that he was instantly hurried out of
the room, and entertained with a sound flagellation. It may not,
however, be improper to add, that Brantôme tries in some degree to
excuse him, at least for thinking as he did; and he concludes with
saying, that the Queen (whom he had had several occasions of seeing)
was so handsome, and so civil to all, that there was no want of Men
disposed to love her, who were an hundred thousand times better than
the Buffoon[68].
All the facts above related, manifestly shew that flagellations have
been frequently used in the Palaces both of the Eastern Sovereigns,
and of the Princes of Europe; that they were employed for the
correction of the highest as well as the lowest personages, and for
the prevention of every kind of fault, from that of meddling in
State affairs (which we may suppose was the fault committed by the
Empress, though the Historian of Justinian II. says nothing about it)
down to wanton language and immodesty: now all these considerations
are wonderfully fit to confute the jests which are thrown upon Monks
and Nuns, for also making flagellations their usual means of self, or
mutual, correction.
It is, however, very important to observe, that though we are fully
informed of the different ceremonies with which flagellations are
imposed in Convents, we have not the same advantage in regard to
those which were inflicted in the Palaces of Princes, or Noble
Personages. We are, for instance, told by Authors, by Du Cange
among others, in one or two places of his Glossary, of the modesty
with which culprits upon whom a correction is to be inflicted in
Convents, are to strip off their clothes, and the silence which must
be observed by the whole Assembly during the operation; unless the
persons invested with the different dignities in the Convent, choose
to speak in behalf of the sufferer, and pray the Abbot, or Abbess,
to put an end to the flagellation. We are abundantly informed, in
different Books, of the various causes for which flagellations are to
be employed in Monasteries: and we moreover know that they are to be
inflicted in the presence of the whole Congregation; in the Convents
of Men, by the hands of a vigorous Brother; and in those of Nuns, by
those of an elderly morose Sister.
In regard to the corrections of the same kind that were served in
the Palaces of the Great, we have, I repeat it, no such compleat
informations as these. Though the instances of such corrections are
undeniable, we are much in the dark about the different rites and
solemnities that used to accompany them: yet it would be a very
interesting thing to be acquainted with these several circumstances,
and to know, at least, what particular place, in Palaces, was set
apart for the operations we mention. Concerning this latter object, I
will try to offer a few conjectures; for I do not think so meanly of
my Readers, as to rank them among that class of shallow readers, who
only mind the outward superficies of things.
In the first place, I do not think that there was any place so
expressly appropriated for flagellations, in the Palaces we speak
of, but that others might occasionally be used for the same purpose,
according to circumstances. Though Politicians lay it down as assured
maxims, that punishments are to be inflicted for the sake of example,
and that such examples ought to be public, yet, there were so great
differences between the dignities of the personages who were liable
to receive corrections of the kind we mention, that they must needs
have introduced exceptions in favour of some of them, at least with
regard to the places of the operations.
Thus, for instance, though in the Eastern Seraglios they may be fully
sensible of the truth of the above maxim, and of the expediency of
correcting Offenders in the presence of all, yet, we are not to
think, that when the Empress herself is to receive a flagellation,
such correction is served in a place absolutely public; for instance,
in the third, otherwise the outmost, inclosure of the Seraglio, in
which a swarm of _Icoghlans_, _Bostangis_, _Capigi-Bashis_, and
other officers of every kind are admitted. Neither is the ceremony
performed in the second, or the first inclosure of the Seraglio, nor
even in any common apartment in the inside of the Palace, in sight
of a croud of vulgar beauties, who have never been admitted to the
honour of the embraces, or even of the presence of the Monarch.
A flagellation served upon a personage of so much eminence as an
Empress, is an event sufficiently important of itself, for the bare
report of it, to produce all the good effects that are usually
expected from examples of that kind. The only essential thing,
is to ascertain such fact: this important point being obtained,
every proper regard ought to be shewn to the delicacy of the great
personage who is to receive the correction we mention; and whenever
an Empress, in the Eastern Seraglios, happens to be served with a
flagellation, we are to judge that the operation is performed in
the Empress’s own private Chamber, in the presence of two or three
favourite Sultanas.
Nor were prudential considerations of the same kind, less attended to
in the Palaces of the Western Princes. When Maids of Honour had the
misfortune to draw upon themselves the correction of a flagellation,
we are not to think that the persons charged with the superintendence
of the ceremony, adhered so blindly to those maxims which require
that examples of this kind should be public, as to have the operation
performed in a place literally public and open to all persons;
that they, for instance, chose for the scene of the ceremony, that
vast Yard, or Court, that lay before the Palaces of Kings, and was
continually filled with Grooms, Pages, Keepers of Hounds, Huntsmen,
and Servants of every denomination, some of whom blew the French
horn, others the trumpet, and, others played on other musical
instruments. No, such a place would have been in a high degree
improper: nor would any open apartment or office, within the Palace,
have been much more suitable for the occasion. The bare report of
a flagellation being served upon so interesting a person as a Maid
of Honour, was sufficient to produce all the good effects for which
such examples are commonly intended: there was no necessity rigidly
to adhere either to the above-mentioned maxim, or to the rule
laid down by Horace, who says, that mens’ minds are more strongly
affected by such objects as are laid before their eyes, than by
those of which they only receive on hearsay information. The report
well ascertained, of such an event, was fully sufficient to remind a
croud of unlucky Pages, and wanton Chambermaids, of their respective
duties, and engage them in a serious examination of their own
conduct. All that was necessary, was to put such fact beyond a doubt,
to prevent its being afterwards questioned by some, and flatly denied
by others: but these important ends being attained, there was no just
reason to refuse to shew the greatest tenderness for the delicacy of
the Lady who was to receive the above correction; and whenever one
or more Maids of Honour, therefore, have been so unfortunate as to
make it necessary that a flagellation should be inflicted upon them,
we are to conclude that the operation was performed in a private
apartment of the Palace, in which only the other Maids of Honour were
admitted, with a few Ladies of the Bedchamber.
In all the above reasonings, I have only meant to offer my
conjectures to the Reader, and have accordingly spoken with becoming
diffidence. But with respect to the flagellations that were inflicted
on persons of inferior rank, or on those Strangers, such as Fathers
Jesuits or others, who had given a just cause of displeasure to
the Noble Proprietor of the House, I am able to speak with more
certainty, and confidently to inform the Reader, that the place
appropriated for such corrections, was the Kitchen.
Nor do I found such an assertion only upon the conveniency of the
place in general, upon its being sheltered from both sun and rain,
upon its being plentifully stocked with the necessary implements
for serving corrections of the kind we mention, or possessing other
advantages of a like nature; but I ground it upon precise facts.
We see, for instance, that executions of a similar culinary kind,
are expressly founded upon the law of this Country, and are the
means provided by it for avenging the honour of the Sovereign, when
insulted in his own house. Thus, if a Man dares to strike another
in the King’s _Court_, or within two hundred feet from the Palace
Gate (which kind of offence has been always looked upon by Kings
as a great piece of insolence) all the different Officers in the
Kitchen are to co-operate in the Man’s punishment. The Serjeant of
the _Wood-yard_ is to bring a block of wood to fasten the Culprit’s
hands to: for the punishment is no less than to have it cut off.
The Yeomen of the _Scullery_, and of the _Poultry_, are likewise to
concur in the operation in one manner; the Groom of the _Saucery_
and the _Master Cook_ in another; the Serjeant of the _Ewry_, again
in another: even the concurrence of the Serjeant of the _Larder_
has been deemed necessary, and a proper share has been likewise
assigned him in the ceremony: nay, the chief Officers of the _Cellar_
and _Pantry_ are also ordered to lend their assistance; and their
allotted function is to solace the sufferer, when the sad operation
is over, by offering him a _cup of red wine_ and a _manchet_.
Another proof of the reality of the culinary executions we mention,
as well as of the great share which the people of the Kitchen bore
in former times, in supporting the dignity of Kings, is to be found
in the description of the manner in which the Knights of the Bath
are to be installed, according to the Statutes of the Order. The
installed Knight is, on that occasion, to receive admonitions, not
only from the Dean of the Order, but also from the Master Cook of
the Sovereign, who repairs purposely on that day to Westminster
Church; though the place be rather distant from his district. After
the different ceremonies of the installation, such as taking the
Oath, hearing the exhortation of the Dean, and the like, are over,
the installed Knight, invested with the _insignia_ of his dignity,
places himself on the one side of the door; the Cook, invested
with the _insignia_ of his own, viz. his white linen apron and his
chopping-knife, places himself on the other, and addresses the
Knight in the following eloquent speech: _Sir, you know what great
oath you have taken; which if you keep, it will be great honour to
you: but if you break it, I shall be compelled, by my office, to hack
off your spurs from your heels._
As the punishment that has been described above, is in itself of
a grave nature, the particular ceremony with which it is to be
inflicted, together with the respective shares allotted in the
ceremony to the different Officers of the Royal Kitchen, have been
carefully set down in writing. In regard to those flagellations
inflicted with a view to avenge any slighter disrespect shewn for the
presence or the orders of the Sovereign, as they were corrections
of a different, and, we may say, of a more paternal nature, such
accuracy has not been used; but there is no doubt that they were
performed in the same place in which the punishment above described
was to be executed, and by much the same hands; whether they were to
be bestowed in the Palaces of English, or of foreign Kings, or of the
great personages who were nearly related to them.
In fact, we are positively informed that the abovementioned Reverend
Father Jesuit was threatened, and according to others actually
served, with a flagellation in the _Kitchen_. The above Court Buffoon
was chastised for his impudence in the same place, and Brantôme
expressly says that he was smartly flagellated in the Kitchen (_il
fut bien fouetté à la Cuisine_). Nay, when great Men, who have
at all times been fond of aping Kings, have assumed in their own
Palaces, or Country Seats, the above power of flagellation, the
operation has also been constantly performed in their Kitchens. Of
this a number of instances might be produced; but I will content
myself with mentioning that which is related in the Tales of the
Queen of Navarre (_Contes de la Reine de Navarre_) of a wanton Friar
Capuchin, who frequented the House of a Nobleman in the Country,
and who wanted once to persuade a young Chambermaid in it, to wear,
by way of mortification, a hair-cloth upon her bare skin, which he
himself offered to put upon her: the young Woman mentioned the fact;
and the Nobleman who heard of it, grew very angry at the attempt, as
he thought, committed by the Friar in his House, and got him to be
soundly flagellated _in the Kitchen_. Nor that I mean, however, to
offer this fact to the Reader, as a fact for the truth of which I
vouch to him, in the same manner as I have done with respect to the
preceding ones; but though the above-quoted Book bears only the title
of _Tales_, yet, as it is undoubtedly an old Book, and has been in so
much esteem as to have been supposed to have been written by Queen
Margaret, Wife to Henry the Fourth, it is at least to be depended
upon with respect to those particular customs and manners it alludes
to[69].
That flagellations were, in not very remote times, much in use in the
Palaces of the Great, and were served in the Kitchen, are therefore
assured facts. With respect to our being so imperfectly informed of
the different ceremonies that usually accompanied such corrections,
it is owing to different causes; and first, to a kind of carelessness
with which, it must be confessed, the affair was commonly transacted.
The great Personages who gave orders in that respect, were not
sufficiently correct in their manner of giving them; nor did they
take sufficient care to confine themselves to any settled forms of
words for that purpose: whence it always proved an impossible thing
for the Masters of the Ceremonies to collect and set down in writing
any thing precise on that head. For here we are to observe, that the
Princes who gave such orders, did not give them in their capacity
of Trustees of the Executive, Legislative, Military, or Judicial
Powers in the Nation. Neither did the Great Men about them, order
corrections of the same kind in their own houses, in their capacity
of Admirals, Generals, or Knights of the Garter, or of the _St.
Esprit_. The flagellations in question, as hath been above observed,
were corrections of quite a paternal kind: they were commonly ordered
on a sudden, according as circumstances arose, _pro re natâ_, without
much ceremony or solemnity; and they may extremely well be compared
with those boxes on the ears which Queen Elizabeth would sometimes
bestow upon her Maids of Honour, or with those marks of attention
with which she honoured those who made their appearance in the
neighbourhood of her Palaces with high ruffs and long swords, who had
them immediately clipped or broken.
When the above great Personages were desirous that a flagellation
should be inflicted, a word from them, a gesture, an exclamation,
commonly proved sufficient. The numerous Servants who surrounded
them, through a zeal that cannot be too much praised, constantly
saved them the trouble of expressing themselves more at length on
the subject: they quickly laid hold of the person of the culprit;
hurried him down into the Kitchen; and without loss of time proceeded
to serve the prescribed flagellation, the conduct of which was now
intirely left to their discretion: only they took care to regulate
their actions upon what they had formerly seen practised on similar
occasions, or in cases of a more serious nature: they, for instance,
never forgot, when the flagellation was accomplished, to offer the
sufferers the abovementioned _cup of wine_ and _manchet_; nor are we
to think that the latter always refused to accept them.
And indeed it is no wonder, to conclude on this subject, that the
Kitchen had become the appropriated part of Palaces for serving
flagellations. The Kitchen was the place of the general resort of
those numerous bodies of Servants, who, in former times, filled the
Houses of the Great: it was the place in which they deliberated
upon every important occurrence; in which they kept their Archives;
and where their General Estates were continually assembled. There
Great Men were sure, upon every sudden emergency, to find a
sufficient _Posse_ of Servants, ready to do any kind of mischief
under the sanction of their Royal or Noble Master, and who were
never so pleased as when their assistance was requested to effect
a flagellation. When a Reverend Father Jesuit, or some saucy Friar
Capuchin, was to be the sufferer, the contentment was, no doubt,
much increased; but when the Buffoon himself, who commonly was the
most mischievous animal of the whole Crew, was to be flagellated,
then indeed we may safely affirm, that an universal joy and uproar
prevailed over the whole Royal or Noble mansion.
[68] Corrections of a flagellatory kind continue, in these days, to
be looked upon as excellent expedients for insuring good order, in
the houses of great people, in Russia, in some districts of Germany,
and especially in Poland, where most of the feudal customs that
prevailed two or three hundred years ago in other parts of Europe,
are still in full force: _lower_ disciplines are, in the latter
kingdom, the method commonly employed for mending the manners of
Servants of both sexes. A regulation was made, a few years ago, in
Poland, as it appeared from the foreign news-papers, with a view to
abridge the power assumed by Masters in regard to their Servants.
[69] The French word _Cuistre_, which is the common word to express
a flagellator, in a public School, was the old word for a Cook:
whence we may conclude, that, in large public Schools also, the
people of the Kitchen were supposed to possess peculiar abilities for
performing flagellations.