ABSTRACT
Flagellation has always occupied a comparatively insignificant place in the penal code of France. In early times the punishments for even trivial crimes were generally death, mutilation, or banishment. In domestic life, however, and in schools, the Rod flourished with the greatest vigour. Monsieur and Madame Croquemitaine, who took charge of naughty children, had plenty of work. In the Maisons de Correction, in the lunatic asylums, and in the prison hospitals of Bicêtre and La Salpétrière, girls and women were frequently scourged: in all these places, whipping was more or less practised during the last century, and anecdotes and reminiscences of the Rod are abundant. Madame de-Genlis, in her memoirs, records the fact that her mother applied the Rod with great severity, and that she first became concerned for her parent’s health when she found that she was unable to wield the birch with her former strength and vigour. In Maisons de Correction, or female reformatories, refractory girls were punished by whipping, but not without the consent of the government authorities, and the instrument used was the martinet, a scourge of leather thongs.
