and then to be hanged, for having torn the face and arm of a child and caused its death. Here we have a strict application of the lex talionis. The sow was dressed in man's clothes and executed on the public square, near the city hall, at the expense to the state of ten sous and ten deniers, besides a pair of gloves to the hangman. The executioner was provided with new gloves in order that he might come from the discharge of his duty with clean hands, thus indicating that, as a minister of justice, he incurred no guilt in shedding blood. He was not a common butcher of swine, but a public functionary, a " master of high works" (maltre des hautes oeuvres), as he was officially styled. In 1 394, a pig was found guilty of "having killed and murdered a child in the parish of Roumaygne, in the county of Mortaing, for which deed the said pig was condemned to be drawn and hanged by Jehan Pettit, lieutenant of the bailiff." The bill presented by the deputy bailiff of Mantes and Mcullant, and dated March 15, 1403, contains the following items of expense incurred for the incarcera tion and execution of a sow: — Item, cost of keeping her in jail, six sols parisis. "Item, to the master of high works, who came from Paris to Meullant to perform the said exe cution by command and authority of our said master, the bailiff, and of the procurator of the king, fifty-four sols parisis. "Item, for a carriage to take her to justice, six sols parisis. "Item, for cords to bind and hale her, two sols eight deniers parisis. "Item, for gloves, two deniers parisis." This account was examined and approved by the auditor of the court, Do Baudemont, who, " in confirmation thereof affixed to it the seal of the Chatellany of Meullant, on the 24th day of March in the year 1403." There is also extant an order issued by the magistracy of Gisors in 1405, command ing payment to be made to the carpenter who had erected the scaffold on which an
ox had been executed "for its demerits." Brute and human criminals were confined in the same prison and subjected to the same treatment. Thus " Toustain Pincheon, keeper of the prisons of our lord the king in the town of Pont de Larche," acknowl edges the receipt of "nineteen sous six de niers tournois for having found the king's bread for the prisoners detained, by reason of crime, in the said prison." The jailer gives the names of the persons in custody, and concludes the list with the " item " of "one pig, kept from the 24th of June, 1408, inclusive, till the 17th of July," when it was executed for " the crime of having murdered and killed a little child." For the pig's board he charges two deniers tournois a day, the same as for boarding a man. He also puts into account " ten deniers tournois for a rope found and delivered for the purpose of tying the said pig that it might not escape." A peculiar custom is referred to in the proees verbal of the prosecution of an infanticidal porker, dated May 20, 1572. The murder was committed within the jurisdiction of the monastery of Moyen-Montier, where the case was tried and the accused was sentenced to be " hanged and strangled on a gibbet." The prisoner was then bound with a cord and conducted to a cross near the cemetery, where it was formally given over to an executioner from Nancy. " From time immemorial " we are told, " the justi ciary of the Lord Abbot of Moyen-Montier has been accustomed to consign to the provost of Saint-Diez, near this cross, con demned criminals, wholly naked, that they may be executed; but inasmuch as this pig is a brute beast, he has delivered the same bound with a cord without prejudicing or in any wise impairing the right of the lord abbot to deliver condemned criminals wholly naked." The pig must not wear a rope, un less the right to do without it be expressly reserved, lest some human culprit, under similar circumstances, might claim to be en titled to raiment.
