The Parricide andJustice. gards the parricide, was still in vigor, but the difficulty of procuring the animals designated by the Roman law made it obli gatory to submit the criminal to other chastizements. They were often given over to wild beasts, but more commonly they were tied to a horse's tail or placed on a hurdle and were led in this detestable condition to the place of execution, where they were beheaded and then fixed to an elevated wheel. At the same time, their belongings were confis cated. It was even left to the initiative of the judge to increase the torture, if on ac count of the gravity or the circumstances at tending the crime, it was considered neces sary. Damhouder also tells us that the same penalty was applied in cases where death did not result from the criminal attempt, and even in those cases where there was only in tention on the part of the criminal without the commencement of the execution of the crime. It is quite curious to note that the accomplices, particularly the druggist or the physician who gave the poison to the parri cide for his crime, were also punished by the same sentence. On the other hand, anger or weakness of the mind were not admitted as excuses for the crime, but were considered as implying a condition of irresponsibility, in which case the sentence of death was replaced by im prisonment. The latter punishment was only the means employed for the prevention of similar acts being again undertaken by the criminal. Towards the end of the loth Century, a considerable progress will be found to have been made in the jurisprudence of the parri cide. In the 17th and 18th Centuries, the evolution which occurred in French society had its repercussion in the codes, and as a result it caused the barbarous antique laws to lose part of their influence, and it finally ended in the formation of the old French jurisprudence which was completely reno
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vated at the Revolution. The sentences were still numerous and varied according to the atrocity of the crime and the social standing of the culprit oí the parricide was always severely punished. In the first place, he was obliged to make an honorable attonement, and his right hand was cut off; then he was usually beaten until the blood ran; his body was burnt, and his ashes thrown to the winds. Oftentimes his lips were split open and his tongle cut out. Out of public decen cy, women were not submitted to punish ment by the wheel; they were either hung or burnt. A few years before the Revolution, the Marquise de Brinvilliers was beheaded and was then thrown into a fire. The terrible punishments and mutilations, old souvenirs of the ancient times, ceased to exist with the Revolution, and the death sen tence was abolished under the Republic from the day of the publication of general peace, a promise that the law of 1791 never real ized. The sentence of death was still retained, and was even increased by other chastizements. The criminal who was condemned to death for parricide was conducted to the place of execution in his shirt, his feet bare and head covered with a black veil. He was exposed on the scaffold, while a sergeant read the conclusions of the court relative to his sentence to the people and immediately afterward the condemned was executed If one examines the contemporary legis lation of various countries, it will be found that parricide is more rigorously punished than other crimes. It is evident that the leg islation in our own country, in England, Germany or Holland, have no special sen tence for the parricide, treating the case as one of voluntary homicide, or murder in the first degree, but numerous other countries, whose codes take into consideration the bonds which unite the son to the father, consider them as a cause of increase of the severity of the punishment. For example,
