Note 74 — INDEX.

Footnote 74: To be broken alive on the wheel was one of the most horrible of tortures, a bequest from ages of violence and barbarism. It was preserved in France mainly for the punishment of Protestants. The prisoner was extended on a St. Andrew's cross, with eight notches cut on it—one below each arm between the elbow and wrist, another between each elbow and the shoulders, one under each thigh, and one under each leg. The executioner, armed with a heavy triangular bar of iron, gave a heavy blow on each of these eight places, and broke the bone. Another blow was given in the pit of the stomach. The mangled victim was lifted from the cross and stretched on a small wheel placed vertically at one of the ends of the cross, his back on the upper part of the wheel, his head and feet hanging down. There the tortured creature hung until he died. Some lingered five or six hours, others much longer. This horrible method of torture was only abolished at the French Revolution in 1790.[Back to Main Text]