the first to experience it.  The guillotine is, besides, very accurately described in the “Chronicles of Jean d’Auton,” in an account of an execution which took place at Genoa at the beginning of the sixteenth century.  Two German engravings, executed about 1550 by Pencz and Aldegrever, also represent an instrument of death almost identical with the guillotine; and the same instrument is to be found on a bas-relief of that period, which is still existing in one of the halls of the Tribunal of Luneburg, in Hanover.

[Illustration:  Decapitation of Guillaume de Pommiers.

[Illustration:  Fig. 347.—­Public Executions.—­Fac-simile of a Woodcut in the Latin Work of J. Millaeus, “Praxis Criminis Persequendi:”  small folio, Parisis, Simon de Colines, 1541.]

And his Confessor, at Bordeaux in 1377, by order of the King of England’s Lieutenant. Froissart’s Chronicles. No. 2644, Bibl. nat’le de Paris.]

Possibly the invention of such a machine was prompted by the desire to curtail the physical sufferings of the victim, instead of prolonging them, as under the ancient system.  It is, however, difficult to believe that the mediaeval judges were actuated by any humane feelings, when we find that, in order to reconcile a respect for propriety with a due compliance with the ends of justice, the punishment of burying alive was resorted to for women, who could not with decency be hung up to the gibbets.  In 1460, a woman named Perette, accused of theft and of receiving stolen goods, was condemned by the Provost of Paris to be “buried alive before the gallows,” and the sentence was literally carried out.

Quartering may in truth be considered the most horrible penalty invented by judicial cruelty.  This punishment really dates from the remotest ages, but it was scarcely ever inflicted in more modern times, except on regicides, who were looked upon as having committed the worst of crimes.  In almost all cases, the victim had previously to undergo various accessory tortures:  sometimes his right hand was cut off, and the mutilated stump was burnt in a cauldron of sulphur; sometimes his arms, thighs, or breasts were lacerated with red-hot pincers, and hot oil, pitch, or molten lead was poured into the wounds.

[Illustration:  Fig. 348.—­Demons applying the Torture of the Wheel.—­Fac-simile of a Woodcut in the “Grand Kalendrier ou Compost des Bergers:”  small folio, Troyes, Nicholas le Rouge, 1529.]

After these horrible preliminaries, a rope was attached to each of the limbs of the criminal, one being bound round each leg from the foot to the knee, and round each arm from the wrist to the elbow.  These ropes were then fastened to four bars, to each of which a strong horse was harnessed, as if for towing a barge.  These horses were first made to give short jerks; and when the agony had elicited heart-rending cries from the unfortunate man, who felt his limbs being dislocated without being broken, the four horses were