Page:The Green Bag (1889–1914), Volume 12.pdf/681

 640

method of torture is apparent. Jurists of the middle ages appear to have had implicit faith in its power to extort a confession. Farinaccio, the advocate of Beatrice, au thor of a work of some two hundred and fifty closely printed folio pages with double columns, treating of torture generally, says that out of a hundred accused only five were able to withstand its torments. The "rope" was divided into three de grees, the slight, the medium and the severe. The first acted purely upon the imagination and consisted in conducting the accused into the torture chamber where he was disrobed and his wrists bound together from behind by a rope running through a ring attached to the ceiling. His sufferings should he per sistently refuse to confess were then minutely described to him. If this failed, he was raised from the ground by means of the rope, the other end of which was attached to a wind lass. The suspension lasted but a short time, and the raising and lowering were done with some degree of gentleness. Thus ended the torture "ordinary." The torture " extraordinary " consisted in prolonging the suspension, swinging the suf ferer backward and forward like a pendulum, or raising him to the height of eight or ten feet and allowing him to fall, stopping him with a sudden jerk when within a few inches of the ground. Often weights were attached to the feet to increase the shock. With the exception of Beatrice, the mur derers gave way on being subjected to the "ordinary " and made full confession. Upon her, neither persuasion nor torture had any effect. She persisted in declaring her innocence. A different result, however, followed the application of the method "exTaordinary." The following is freely trans lated from the procès-verbal drawn up at the time : And as during the entire interrogatory, she had confessed nothing, we placed her in charge of two officers who conducted her to the torture

chamber where the executioner awaited her, and there after having shaved her head, the execu tioner made her seat herself on a little seat . . . tied her hands behind her back, attached them to a rope passed through a pulley fastened to the ceiling of the room, the other end of which rope was attached to a wheel with four spokes, turned by two men. And before she was raised, we interrogated her again as to the said parricide, but despite the confessions of her brother and of her step mother which were again shown her, signed by them, she constantly denied her guilt, saying, "Have me drawn up and do what you choose. I have told you the truth and shall tell you noth ing else though you dismember me." Wherefore we had her drawn up, having as we have stated, her hands tied to the said rope, to the height of about two feet and having left her thus while we recited a Pater Noster, we asked her again as to the facts and circumstances of the aforesaid parricide, but she would say nothing but what she had already stated, nor otherwise reply than by saying, " You are killing me. You are killing me." We raised her yet higher and even to the height of four feet and commenced an Ave Maria, but before we had half finished, she pretended to faint. Seeing that she persisted in her denials, we ordered the execuiioner to give the shock. In consequence, the executioner raised her to the height of ten feet and we then called upon her to tell us the truth, but either because she had lost the power of speech or because she would not speak, she answered only by a gesture of the head signifying that she either could not or would not say anything. Seeing which, we gave the executioner a sig nal to let go the cord and she fell with all her weight from the height of ten feet to the height of two feet, and with the shock her arms turned wrong side outwards and she gave a great cry and fainted. We made them throw water over her face. She recovered and cried, " Infamous assassins, you are killing me, but were you to tear out my arms, I would tell you nothing!" We consequently ordered that there be at tached to hc.r feet a weight of fifty pounds. But