| |
from Michel Foucault, Discipline and Punish: The Birth of
the Prison.
On 1 March 1757 Damiens the regicide was condemned "to
make the amende honorable before the main door of the Church
of Paris", where he was to be "taken and conveyed
in a cart, wearing nothing but a shirt, holding a torch of
burning wax weighing two pounds"; then, "in the
said cart, to the Place de Grève, where, on a scaffold that
will be erected there, the flesh will be torn from his breasts,
arms, thighs and claves with red-hot pincers, his right hand,
holding the knife with which he committed the said parricide,
burnt with sulphur, and, on those places where the flesh will
be torn away, poured molten lead, boiling oil, burning resin,
wax and sulphur melted together and then his body drawn and
quartered by four horses and his limbs and body consumed by
fire, reduced to ashes and his ashes thrown to the winds"
(Pièces originales..., 372-4).
"Finally, he was quartered," recounts the Gazette
d'Amsterdam of 1 April 1757. "This last operation was
very long, because the horses used were not accustomed to
drawing; consequently, instead of four, six were needed; and
when that did not suffice, they were forced, in order to cut
off the wretch's thighs, to sever the sinews and hack at the
joints...
"It is said that, though he was always a great swearer,
no blashemy escaped his lips; but the excessive pain made
him utter horrible cries, and he often repeated: 'My God,
have pity on me! Jesus, help me!' The spectators were all
edified by the solicitude of the parish priest of St Paul's
who despite his great age did not spare himself in offering
consolation to the patient."
Bouton, an officer of the watch, left us his account: "The
sulphur was lit, but the flame was so poor that only the top
skin of the hand was burnt, and that only slightly. Then the
executioner, his sleeves rolled up, took the steel pincers,
which had been especially made for the occasion, and which
were about a foot and a half long, and pulled first at the
calf of the right leg, then at the thigh, and from there at
the two fleshy parts of the right arm; then at the breasts.
Though a strong, sturdy fellow, this executioner found it
so difficult to tear away the pieces of flesh that he set
about the same spot two or three times, twisting the pincers
as he did so, and what he took away formed at each part a
wound about the size of a six-pound crown piece.
"After these tearings with the pincers, Damiens, who
cried out profusely, though without swearing, raised his head
and looked at himself; the same executioner dipped an iron
spoon in the pot containing the boiling potion, which he poured
liberally over each wound. Then the ropes that were to be
harnessed to the horses were attached with cords to the patient's
body; the horses were then harnessed and placed alongside
the arms and legs, one at each limb.
"Monsieur Le Breton, the clerk of the court, went up
to the patient several times and asked him if he had anything
to say. He said he had not; at each torment, he cried out,
as the damned in hell are supposed to cry out, 'Pardon, my
God! Pardon, my Lord.' Despite all this pain, he raised his
head from time to time and looked at himself boldly. The cords
had been tied so tightly by the men who pulled the ends that
they caused him indescribable pain. Monsieur le [sic] Breton
went up to him again and asked him if he had anything to say;
he said no. Several confessors went up to him and spoke to
him at length; he willingly kissed the crucifix that was held
out to him; he opened his lips and repeated: 'Pardon, Lord.'
"The horses tugged hard, each pulling straight on a limb,
each horse held by an executioner. After a quarter of an hour,
the same ceremony was repeated and finally, after several
attempts, the direction of the horses had to be changed, thus:
those at the arms were made to pull towards the head, those
at the thighs towards the arms, which broke the arms at the
joints. This was repeated several times without success. He
raised his head and looked at himself. Two more horses had
to be added to those harnessed to the thighs, which made six
horses in all. Without success.
"Finally, the executioner, Samson, said to Monsieur Le
Breton that there was no way or hope of succeeding, and told
him to ask their Lordships if they wished him to have the
prisoner cut into pieces. Monsieur Le Breton, who had come
down from the town, ordered that renewed efforts be made,
and this was done; but the horses gave up and one of those
harnessed to the thighs fell to the ground. The confessors
returned and spoke to him again. He said to them (I heard
him): 'Kiss me, gentlemen.' The parish priest of St Paul's
did not dare to, so Monsieur de Marsilly slipped under the
rope holding the left arm and kissed him on the forehead.
The executioners gathered round and Damiens told them not
to swear, to carry out their task and that he did not think
ill of them; he begged them to pray to God for him, and asked
the parish priest of St Paul's to pray for him at the first
mass.
"After two or three attempts, the executioner Samson
and he who had used the pincers each drew out a knife from
his pocket and cut the body at the thighs instead of severing
the legs at the joints; the four horses gave a tug and carried
off the two thighs after them, namely, that of the right side
first, the other following; then the same was done to the
arms, the shoulders, the arm-pits and the four limbs; the
flesh had to be cut almost to the bone, the horses pulling
hard carried off the right arm first and the other afterwards.
"When the four limbs had been pulled away, the confessors
came to speak to him; but his executioner told them that he
was dead, though the truth was that I saw the man move, his
lower jaw moving from side to side as if he were talking.
One of the executioners even said shortly afterwards that
when they had lifted the trunk to throw it on the stake, he
was still alive. The four limbs were untied from the ropes
and thrown on the stake set up in the enclosure in line with
the scaffold, then the trunk and the rest were covered with
logs and faggots, and fire was put to the straw mixed with
this wood.
"...In accordance with the decree, the whole was reduced
to ashes. The last piece to be found in the embers was still
burning at half-past ten in the evening. The pieces of flesh
and the trunk had taken about four hours to burn. The officers
of whom I was one, as also was my son, and a detachment of
archers remained in the square until nearly eleven o'clock.
"There were those who made something of the fact that
a dog had lain the day before on the grass where the fire
had been, had been chased away several times, and had always
returned. But it is not difficult to understand that an animal
found this place warmer than elsewhere" (quoted in Zevaes,
201-14).
Eighty years later, Léon Faucher drew up his rules "for
the House of young prisoners in Paris":
"Art. 17. The prisoners' day will begin at six in the
morning in winter and at five in summer. They will work for
nine hours a day throughout the year. Two hours a day will
be devoted to instruction. Work and the day will end at nine
o'clock in winter and at eight in summer.
Art. 18. Rising. At the first drum-roll, the prisoners must
rise and dress in silence, as the supervisor opens the cell
doors. At the second drum-roll, they must be dressed and make
their beds. At the third, they must line up and proceed to
the chapel for morning prayer. There is a five-minute interval
between each drum-roll.
Art. 19. The prayers are conducted by the chaplain and followed
by a moral or religious reading. This exercise must not last
more than half an hour.
Art. 20. Work. At a quarter to six in the summer, a quarter
to seven in winter, the prisoners go down into the courtyard
where they must wash their hands and faces, and receive their
first ration of bread. Immediately afterwards, they form into
work-teams and go off to work, which must begin at six in
summer and seven in winter.
Art. 21. Meal. At ten o'clock the prisoners leave their work
and go to the refectory; they wash their hands in their courtyards
and assemble in divisions. After the dinner, there is recreation
until twenty minutes to eleven.
Art. 22. School. At twenty minutes to eleven, at the drum-roll,
the prisoners form into ranks, and proceed in divisions to
the school. The class lasts two hours and consists alternately
of reading, writing, drawing and arithmetic.
Art. 23. At twenty minutes to one, the prisoners leave the
school, in divisions, and return to their courtyards for recreation.
At five minutes to one, at the drum-roll, they form into workteams.
Art. 24. At one o'clock they must be back in the workshops:
they work until four o'clock.
Art. 25. At four o'clock the prisoners leave their workshops
and go into the courtyards where they wash their hands and
form into divisions for the refectory.
Art. 26. Supper and the recreation that follows it last until
five o'clock: the prisoners then return to the workshops.
Art. 27. At seven o'clock in the summer, at eight in winter,
work stops; bread is distributed for the last time in the
workshops. For a quarter of an hour one of the prisoners or
supervisors reads a passage from some instructive or uplifting
work. This is followed by evening prayer.
Art. 28. At half-past seven in summer, half-past eight in
winter, the prisoners must be back in their cells after the
washing of hands and the inspection of clothes in the courtyard;
at the first drum-roll, they must undress, and at the second
get into bed. The cell doors are closed and the supervisors
go the rounds in the corridors, to ensure order and silence"
(Faucher, 274, 82).
We have, then, a public execution and a time-table. They do
not punish the same crimes or the same type of delinquent.
But they each define a certain penal style. Less than a century
separates them. It was a time when, in Europe and in the United
States, the entire economy of punishment was redistributed.
It was a time of great "scandals" for traditional
justice, a time of innumerable projects for reform. It saw
a new theory of law and crime, a new moral or political justification
of the right to punish; old laws were abolished, old customs
died out. "Modern" codes were planned or drawn up:
Russia, 1769; Prussia, 1780; Pennsylvania and Tuscany, 1786;
Austria, 1788; France, 1791, Year IV, 1808 and 1810. It was
a new age for penal justice.
Among so many changes, I shall consider one: the disappearance
of torture as a public spectacle. Today we are rather inclined
to ignore it; perhaps, in its time, it gave rise to too much
inflated rhetoric; perhaps it has been attributed too readily
and too emphatically to a process of "humanization",
thus dispensing with the need for further analysis. And, in
any case, how important is such a change, when compared with
the great institutional transformations, the formulation of
explicit, general codes and unified rules of procedure; with
the almost universal adoption of the jury system, the definition
of the essentially corrective character of the penalty and
the tendency, which has become increasingly marked since the
nineteenth century, to adapt punishment to the individual
offender? Punishment of a less immediately physical kind,
a certain discretion in the art of inflicting pain, a combination
of more subtle, more subdued sufferings, deprived of their
visible display, should not all this be treated as a special
case, an incidental effect of deeper changes? And yet the
fact remains that a few decades saw the disappearance of the
tortured, dismembered, amputated body, symbolically branded
on face or shoulder, exposed alive or dead to public view.
The body as the major target of penal repression disappeared.
|
