I went to the Châtelet, or prison, where a malefactor was to have the question, or torture, given to him, he refusing to confess the robbery with which he was charged, which was thus: they first bound his wrist with a strong rope, or small cable, and one end of it to an iron ring made fast to the wall, about[Pg 261] four feet from the floor, and then his feet with another cable, fastened about five feet further than his utmost length to another ring on the floor of the room. Thus suspended, and yet lying but aslant, they slid a horse of wood under the rope which bound his feet, which so exceedingly stiffened it, as severed the fellow's joints in miserable sort, drawing him out at length in an extraordinary manner, he having only a pair of linen drawers on his naked body. Then, they questioned him of a robbery (the lieutenant being present and a clerk that wrote), which not confessing, they put a higher horse under the rope, to increase the torture and extension. In this agony, confessing nothing, the executioner with a horn (just such as they drench horses with) stuck the end of it into his mouth, and poured the quantity of two buckets of water down his throat and over him, which so prodigiously swelled him, as would have pitied and affrighted any one to see it; for all this, he denied all that was charged to him. They then let him down, and carried him before a warm fire to bring him to himself, being now to all appearance dead with pain. What became of him, I know not; but the gentleman whom he robbed constantly averred him to be the man, and the fellow's suspicious pale looks, before he knew he should be racked, betrayed some guilt; the lieutenant was also of that opinion, and told us at first sight (for he was a lean, dry, black young man) he would conquer the torture; and so it seems they could not hang him, but did use in such cases, where the evidence is very presumptive, to send them to the galleys, which is as bad as death.
There was another malefactor to succeed, but the spectacle was so uncomfortable, that I was not able to stay the sight of another. It represented yet to me the intolerable sufferings which our Blessed Savior must needs undergo, when his body was hanging with all its weight upon the nails on the cross.