2 Prior to the Reformation it was the custom, not only in France but throughout Europe, to whip children on the morning of Innocents’ Day (December 28), in order, says Gregory in his treatise on the Boy Bishop, “that the memory of Herod’s murder of the Innocents might stick the closer.”  This custom (concerning which see Haspinian, De Orig.  Festor, Christianor. fol. 160) subsequently degenerated into a jocular usage, so far as the children were concerned, and town-gallants and country-swains commonly sought to surprise young women in bed, and make them play the part of the Innocents, more frequently than otherwise to the loss of their virtue.  A story is told of a French nobleman who in taking leave of some ladies to join a hunting party, heard one of them whisper, “We shall sleep at our ease, and pass the Innocents without receiving them.”  This put the nobleman, a certain Seigneur du Rivau, on his mettle.  “He kept his appointment,” we are told, “galloped back twenty leagues at night, arrived at the lady’s house at dawn on Innocents’ Day, surprised her in bed, and used the privilege of the season.” (Bonn’s Heptameron, p. 301).  Verses illustrative of the custom will be found in the works of Clement Marot, Jannet’s edition, 1868, vol iii. p. 7, and in those of Cholieres, Jouaust’s edition, 1879, vol. i. p. 224-6.—­L. and Ed.

The poor woman, suspecting no harm, begged him to do execution upon the girl, confessing that she herself had neither strength nor heart for beating her.

The husband willingly accepted this commission, and, playing the part of a stern executioner, had purchase made of the finest rods that could be found.  To show, moreover, how anxious he was not to spare the girl, he caused these rods to be steeped in pickle, so that his poor wife felt far more pity for her maid than suspicion of her husband.

Innocents’ Day being come, the upholsterer rose early in the morning, and, going up to the room where the maid lay all alone, he gave her the Innocents in a different fashion to that which he had talked of with his wife.  The maid wept full sore, but it was of no avail.  Nevertheless, fearing lest his wife should come upon them, he fell to beating the bed-post with the rods which he had with him in such wise that he barked and broke them; and in this condition he brought them back to his wife, saying—­

“Methinks, sweetheart, your maid will remember the Innocents.”

When the upholsterer was gone out of the house, the poor servant threw herself upon her knees before her mistress, telling her that her husband had done her the greatest wrong that was ever done to a serving-maid.  The mistress, however, thinking that this merely had reference to the flogging which she believed to have been given, would not suffer the girl to finish, but said to her—­

“My husband did well, and only what I have for more than a month been urging him to do.  If you were hurt I am very glad to hear it.  You may lay it all at my door, and, what is more, he did not even do as much as he ought to have done.”