Page:Discipline in school and cloister (1902).djvu/39

 punishment so vigorously that elected bodies thought it not beneath their dignity to pick up the rods which had fallen from the hands of too-indulgent teachers. And yet as a general thing, there was little consideration shown for either age or condition, as the following episode related by Saint Simon of the oldest son of the Marquis de Boufflers will show.

This boy was fourteen years old, almost a young man, handsome, well-built, clever, and very promising. He was a boarder with the jesuits, along with the two sons of d'Argenson.

The fathers wished to show that they feared and favoured nobody, so they flogged the boy, though as a matter of fact they had nothing to fear from the Marquis. They were careful however not to touch the other two, for they were liable to be called to account any day by d'Argenson, lieutenant of police. Boufflers was so dismayed and oppressed that he fell sick, and died in four days. There was a universal outcry, but nothing happened.

In a society where the birch was looked on as an indispensable teaching aid, indignation was unlikely to be long-lived, and