Page:History of Greece Vol VII.djvu/192

174 174 HISTORY OF GREECE. rake out and rigorously visit all such offenders, and thus ta display an earnest zeal for the honor of the gods, was accounted one auxiliary means of obtaining absolution from them for the recent outrage. Hence an additional public vote was passed, promising rewards and inviting information from all witnesses, citizens, metics, or even slaves, respecting any previous acts of impiety which might have come within their cognizance, 1 but at the same time providing that informers who gave false deposi- tions should be punished Capitally. 9 The Senate of Five Hundred were invested with full powers uf action ; while Diognetus, Peisander, Charikles, and others, were named commissioners for receiving and prosecuting inquiries, and public assemblies were held nearly every day to receive reports. 3 The first informations received, however, did not relate to the grave and recent mutilation of the Herman, but to analogous inci- dents of older date ; to certain defacements of other statues, accomplished in drunken frolic ; and above all, to ludicrous cer- emonies celebrated in various houses, 1 * by parties of revellers 1 Thucyd. vi, 27. 2 Andokidcs do Mystcriis, sect. 20. 3 Andokidus do Mystcriis, sects. 14, 15, 36 ; Plutarch, Alkibiad. c. 18. 4 Those who are disposed to imagine that the violent feelings and pro- ceedings at Athens by the mutilation of the Hermaa were the consequence of her democratical government, may be reminded of an analogous event ot modern times from which we are not yet separated by a century. In the year 1766, at Abbeville in France, two young gentlemen of good family the Chevalier d'Etallonde and Chevalier de la Barre were tried, convicted, and condemned for having injured a wooden crucifix which stood on the bridge of that town : in aggravation of this offence they were charged with having sung indecent songs. The evidence to prove these points was exceedingly doubtful ; nevertheless, both were condemned to have their tongues cut out by the roots, to have their right hands cut off at the church gate, then to be tied to a post in the market-place with an iron chain, and burnt by a slow fire. This sentence, after being submitted by way of appeal to the Parliament of Paris, and by them confirmed, was actually executed upon the Chevalier de la Barre d'Etallonde having escaped in July, 176C ; with this mitigation, that he was allowed to be decapitated before he was burnt; but at the same time with this aggravation, that, he was put to the torture, ordinary and extraordinary, to compel him to disclose hit accomplices (Voltaire, Relation de la Mort du Chevalier de la Barre, CEuvres, vol. xlii, pp. 361-370, ed. Bcuchot: also Voltaire, Le Cri du Sang Cnnoccnt, vol. xii, p. 133).