In France, the executioner, otherwise called the King’s Sworn Tormentor, was the lowest of the officers of justice.  His letters of appointment, which he received from the King, had, nevertheless, to be registered in Parliament; but, after having put the seal on them, it is said that the chancellor threw them under the table, in token of contempt.  The executioner was generally forbidden to live within the precincts of the city, unless it was on the grounds where the pillory was situated; and, in some cases, so that he might not be mistaken amongst the people, he was forced to wear a particular coat, either of red or yellow.  On the other hand, his duties ensured him certain privileges.  In Paris, he possessed the right of havage, which consisted in taking all that he could hold in his hand from every load of grain which was brought into market; however, in order that the grain might be preserved from ignominious contact, he levied his tax with a wooden spoon.  He enjoyed many similar rights over most articles of consumption, independently of benefiting by several taxes or fines, such as the toll on the Petit-Pont, the tax on foreign traders, on boats arriving with fish, on dealers in herrings, watercress, &c.; and the fine of five sous which was levied on stray pigs (see previous chapter), &c.  And, lastly, besides the personal property of the condemned, he received the rents from the shops and stalls surrounding the pillory, in which the retail fish trade was carried on.

It appears that, in consequence of the receipts from these various duties forming a considerable source of revenue, the prestige of wealth by degrees dissipated the unfavourable impressions traditionally attached to the duties of executioner.  At least, we have authority for supposing this, when, for instance, in 1418, we see the Paris executioner, who was then captain of the bourgeois militia, coming in that capacity to touch the hand of the Duke of Burgundy, on the occasion of his solemn entry into Paris with Queen Isabel of Bavaria.  We may add that popular belief generally ascribed to the executioner a certain practical knowledge of medicine, which was supposed inherent in the profession itself; and the acquaintance with certain methods of cure unknown to doctors, was attributed to him; people went to buy from him the fat of culprits who had been hung, which was supposed to be a marvellous panacea.  We may also remark that, in our day, the proficiency of the executioner in setting dislocated limbs is still proverbial in many countries.

[Illustration:  Fig. 344.—­Amende Honorable before the Tribunal.—­Fac-simile of a Woodcut in J. Damhoudere’s “Praxis Rerum Criminalium:”  in 4to, Antwerp, 1556.]

More than once during the thirteenth century the duties of the executioner were performed by women, but only in those cases in which their own sex was concerned; for it is expressly stated in an order of St. Louis, that persons convicted of blasphemy shall be beaten with birch rods, “the men by men, and the women by women only, without the presence of men.”  This, however, was not long tolerated, for we know that a period soon arrived when women were exempted from a duty so little adapted to their physical weakness and moral sensitiveness.