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Judicial Corporal Punishment Of Women: Stories And Novels

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An old spanking magazine Whispers No 4 has a curious questionnaire where the first question of 13 is about JCP. Also of interest is question # 13 about celebrities. Another magazine, Blushes No 19, provides some answers from readers.
J C Penney?
They have some great deals sometimes. Crucified slave girls go on sale every Thursday, $50 each or 2-fer-$85.00!
(They let you try before you buy.)

iu.jpeg
 
I haven't read the "Hangman's Daughter" novels, but from the summary you have posted it uses quite a lot of the general background I have posted here, regarding how the hangman's trade in Germany and the use of torture to extract confessions was organised. I see that there are now eight volumes in the "Hangman's Daughter" series, so perhaps I should take a closer look.
I didn't realize there were a series of these novels. I'm about three quarters of the way through the first in the series, "The Hangman's Daughter," and regrettably, cannot recommend it. I wasn't expecting hardcore descriptions of the torture process, but I was hoping that the scenes would be a little more dramatic than they are. Even for a mainstream book, this is pretty inoffensive stuff. I was also hoping for a convincing evocation of time and place, but IMO any reasonably competent writer could have produced this after an hour or two worth of research on the internet. I think the book even fails as a mystery story. On this site there is far more in depth and interesting background research, and stories that are more engaging, even leaving aside the kink aspects.
Another related fictional treatment is the movie "The Headsman" (or "Shadow Of The Sword") which we have been discussing here:
Thanks, I will see if I can find that.
 
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When a dying boy is pulled from the river with a mark crudely tattooed on his shoulder, hangman Jakob Kuisl is called upon to investigate whether witchcraft is at play.
Stan Goldman has investigated plenty of dead bodies pulled from the river, but he finds usually money is more
I think the book even fails as a mystery story.
I know a bit about failing as a mystery story.
On this site there is far more in depth and interesting background research, and stories that are every bit as competently written .
The stories here are worth every penny you pay for them!
 
Stan Goldman has investigated plenty of dead bodies pulled from the river, but he finds usually money is more

I know a bit about failing as a mystery story.

The stories here are worth every penny you pay for them!
I'll take "The Bronx Crux Murders" over "The Hangman's Daughter" any day. No doubt, I would have enjoyed "The Hangman's Daughter" more if the Jakob Kuisl (the "Hangman") could have had a torture session with Barbara Moore. Barbara is an old hand at time travel, and I'm sure she wouldn't mind if Stan Goldman came along with her to meet Jakob Kuisl. I think Stan and Jakob would bond. Their both essentially hangmen with hearts of gold.

BTW, I contribute to the site, so, in a sense, I do pay for the stories here.
 
That particular directory at ASSTR appeared about a year ago when another story paysite closed down -- they had a comprehensive collection of commercially-published pulp porn novels from about the 1960s to 1980s, which was dumped unsorted onto two ASSTR folders. There are about 12,000 full novels there (!), but there is no index of any sort, the file names are non-descriptive and there are lots of duplicates. You're best off downloading them all to your own hard disk and using a local search app to find what's of interest to you. The Firefox plug-in "HTTP Directory Downloader" is very useful for this as you can get the entire directory downloaded with a single click.

The folder links are:



In addition to Dedaux (or Dedeaux, both spellings seem to be used), you may want to check out F.E. Campbell, A de Granamour and Paul Gable (each of them has multiple books there), but there are a fair few others in the spanking/flogging genre as well. As you would expect, the quality of writing is wildly uneven.

I think the two books you have linked are the only Dedaux ones there -- "The Prussian Girls" is not in this collection, but can be found at the link I posted earlier in this thread. However, while we are talking about the Prussia of King Friedrich Wilhelm I, here is another pulp novel with that setting:

Thanks for hte links. I have been looking for Clotilda. However, the story could have been greatly improved.
The "Judicial" chapter begins with some exciting lead-ins--


"It is winter, a cold time for madam to strip in," sneered the bewigged and red-robed judge from his seat of eminence, "see that you warm her shoulders thoroughly, Mr. Beadle. The cart's tail to Taunton and let's see if you feel so rebellious by the time you have made that little journey, lady. You shall strip in the yard and then you shall follow the cart with your arms tied to a hurdle and your big breasts swinging and bouncing as the lashes bite into your shoulderblades, for all to see. Oh Mr. Beadle, I urge to the utmost rigor with this woman. Make her wish she'd never been born."

"On the morrow you will be whipped at the cart's tail from here to Teviot, market-place to market-place, and on the morrow after that from Teviot to Child's Greene and from there back to here again, on the succeeding day. You will have one week in prison on bread and water to recover and reflect, then you will be released only after two hours standing in the pillory."


However, he doesn't go into further detail. A graphic description of these two ladies being stripped to the waist in the depth of an English winter and then forced to entertain the townspeople by dancing topless would have been exhilarating.
 
I found a scientific article in Polish called "The Roman Terminology Applied to Define Tools Used for Flogging". Of course, for the members of our forum this topic is far from new, but the article is quite interesting from the point of view of systematizing the instruments of punishment and the categories of persons in relation to whom they were used according to Roman law. Here is the summary in English, but if interested, I can translate something.

Piotr Kołodko. Rzymska terminologia stosowana na określenie narzędzi używanych podczas chłosty. – Zeszyty Prawnicze. Tom 6. Nr 1. 2006.



Piotr Kołodko
The Roman Terminology Applied to Define Tools Used for Flogging


Summary​

It can be taken for granted that the Roman law knew several tools which were used for flogging (e. g. verber, virga, vitis, flagellum, fustis, ferula, plumbata). Their choice was determined by the personal status of the wrongdoer on whom flogging was inflicted (distinction between humiliores-honestiores, servi). Thus, servi were flogged with verber or flagellum whilst humiliores were beaten with fustis (the same instrument as long as vitis were applied to the soldiers – milites). Those Romans who were called honestiores were excluded from flogging (as an additional punishment), at least from the time of principate.

The severity of flogging was connected with the kind of an instrument which was applied. Hence, the most severe flogging was when plumbata was used, because of its construction (plumbata had tips finished with leaded balls). This instrument (as well as verber) was applied when a delinquent was tortured.

It seems that Roman law did not treat all those mentioned instruments for flogging as equivalent. Although the lexical meaning of e. g. verber or virga is similar there is a significant difference between them, which is related to personal status of delinquents on whom flogging was inflicted.
 

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Someone said that it is impossible to write a five-act drama about a girl being whipped. It looks like a Chinese anonymous author succeeded. Before us is an "epic" story set in old days in China about how a young girl of 17, Hu Er, was falsely accused of indecent behavior and sentenced by a local magistrate to the traditional public "full punishment of buttocks", which consists of 500 strokes as the main punishment and several hundred more strokes as additional, with different tools. It should be noted that the girl received a lot of pain, but did not receive serious damage to her health.
Of course, I, like many of us, do not read Chinese, but using the translation function in Google Chrome, it is quite possible to read.

Full Punishment of Buttocks (杖臀全刑)
Part 1: https://spanking.wiki/杖臀全刑/
Part 2: https://spanking.wiki/杖臀全刑-后篇/
 

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Someone said that it is impossible to write a five-act drama about a girl being whipped. It looks like a Chinese anonymous author succeeded. Before us is an "epic" story set in old days in China about how a young girl of 17, Hu Er, was falsely accused of indecent behavior and sentenced by a local magistrate to the traditional public "full punishment of buttocks", which consists of 500 strokes as the main punishment and several hundred more strokes as additional, with different tools. It should be noted that the girl received a lot of pain, but did not receive serious damage to her health.
Of course, I, like many of us, do not read Chinese, but using the translation function in Google Chrome, it is quite possible to read.

Full Punishment of Buttocks (杖臀全刑)
Part 1: https://spanking.wiki/杖臀全刑/
Part 2: https://spanking.wiki/杖臀全刑-后篇/
The movies is "A Chinese Torture Chamber Story" (1994). I bought a subtitled DVD several years ago and there are others available online. Its a pretty good movie that includes other tortures such a the breasts press and the mechanical donkey so popular on this site.
A_Chinese_Torture_Chamber_Story_1995.avi2.jpgA_Chinese_Torture_Chamber_Story-863445837-large.jpg
 
When running a search on Roland Brévannes, I noticed that there are several scanned books of his at Gallica, the online arm of the Bibliothèque Nationale de France, including a good quality scan of the full book La Flagellation passionnelle, written under the pseudonym Don Brennus Aléra, which is the source of the last two images of his in my previous post:


Here are all ten illustrations in the book (including cover) -- readers of French can access the full text at the link above.

View attachment 972479View attachment 972468View attachment 972469View attachment 972470View attachment 972471View attachment 972472View attachment 972474View attachment 972475View attachment 972477View attachment 972478

Searching the Gallica site, I found a fair number of other turn-of-the-century flaggellation and fetish books. I haven't looked through the PDFs yet, but will post any illustrations that are relevant here once I get around to it. I think these may be fairly recent scans as I can't recall seeing them when I previous searched on Gallica.

I have been referring in the other thread to old French books on flagellation and JCP which are available for download from the Gallica site, the online arm of the Bibliothèque Nationale de France. Leaving aside the illustrations posted in that thread, there are some interesting books, at least for readers of French, for example "Etude sur La Flagellation A Travers Le Monde" by Jean de Villiot (2nd expanded edition, 1901 -- the 1899 first edition is also at Gallica, in better scan quality but not illustrated and with less text):

Cover.jpgFrontispiece.jpg


This book reproduces a lengthy "letter to the editor", supposedly quoted from an English newspaper (but possibly freely invented), which these days would make a natural discussion post in this thread or elsewhere on CF. Here it is in the original French and in English translation (Google Translate with some manual corrections from me):

QUESTIONS IMPORTANTES

A MONSIEUR L'ÉDITEUR DE LA «SOCIETY» [Important périodique anglais.]

Monsieur,

Les lettres reproduites dans les colonnes de votre journal, me font penser que je pourrais me procurer des renseignements sur quelques célèbres flagellations du passé et aussi dans les pays étrangers, par l'entremise de vos correspondants.

On a quelquefois fouetté des demoiselles d'honneur en France comme en Russie. De quelle manière? Que sait-on spécialement sur la flagellation de Mlle de Lineuil, sous Catherine de Médicis, et de Mlles Elmpt et Buturlin sous Catherine II de Russie? A-t-on fouetté d'autres dames en même temps que Mlle de Limeuil, et a-t-on conservé leurs noms ?

Y a-t-il quelqu'un parmi les lecteurs qui puisse donner les faits sur la flagellation de Mme de Liancourt par les domestiques de la marquise de Tresnel ? Quel était le nom de demoiselle de cette dame, quel âge avait-elle, et était-ce une aïeule du duc de Liancourt, très connu peu de temps avant la révolution française? Et sur quels faits se base l'histoire de la flagellation de la comtesse de Rosen par les domestiques de Mme Du Barry ?

En France beaucoup de femmes ont été fouettées et marquées au siècle dernier. Au moyen de quel instrument et sur quelle partie du corps leur a-t-on administré des coups de fouet? Sait-on si une autre dame a été punie de cette manière, excepté la Comtesse de la Motte? Et y a-t-il une dame ou femme bien connue qui ait subi cette peine du temps de la révolution, excepté Théroigne de Méricourt ? Les renseignements dans le Registre annuel de 1792, sur le maltraitement que les troupes françaises à Orchies firent subir à Mlle Nash, une anglaise, signifient-ils qu'elle fut fouettée? Qui était Mlle Nash, qu'est-ce qui l'amena à Orchies, et quelle fut son histoire subséquente?

Lorsque Doris Ritter, qu'on croyait être la maîtresse du prince de Prusse (plus tard Frédéric le Grand) fut fouettée en public par ordre du roi, de quelle manière la peine fut-elle infligée ?

Y a-t-il un lecteur qui sache les noms de quelquesunes des dames russes, qui, dit-on, furent fouettées à la manière des écoliers pendant le règne de l'empereur Nicolas? Cooper constate dans son Histoire de la Verge (ouvrage qui paraît être très peu positif) qu'une d'entre elles était une dame appartenant à la noblesse et qu'elle fut fouettée publiquement, mais il n'en donne pas le nom. A-t-on fouetté de cette manière des dames polonaises, et sait-on leurs noms?

Comment Mme Maderspach fut-elle fouettée en Hongrie ou plutôt en Transylvanie, en 1847 ? Et peut on donner quelques renseignements sur une demoiselle, fille d'un surintendant calviniste (appelée, je crois, Hebner ou Hubner) qui fut condamnée à être fouettée publiquement selon l'information que nous donne M. Tissot. De quelle manière s'est-on servi de la canne autrichienne pour fouetter deux jeunes filles (cantatrices), appelées Galli et Conti, qui subirent la peine parce qu'elles avaient causé une émeute à Milan en 1849? Et connaît-on les noms d'autres dames italiennes qui subirent la peine ? Sans doute quelquesunes des victimes vivent encore. Les deux jeunes filles fouettées à Milan ont moins de soixante-dix ans, si elles vivent.

Une bonne, appelée Marie Çadman, qui avait été fouettée comme un écolier par son maître, le révérend Zacharie Brigton, le poursuivit en justice, et l'on dit qu'elle a réussi. Y a-t-il un rapport de ce procès ? Ce fut, je pense, du temps de la république. Quand on fouettait en Angleterre des femmes condamnées, la peine fut-elle toujours infligée au-dessus de la taillé? Et l'a-t-on jamais infligée à des dames ou restreinte à des femmes de basse origine?

Les histoires sur la flagellation comme discipline de pénitence, d'après lesquelles la dame aurait reçu les coups de fouet comme un garçon, sont-elles basées en un cas quelconque sur des preuves réelles?

A quel sujet a-t-on fouetté des femmes en Espagne et dans les Etats espagnols en Amérique? Y a-t-il eu des dames parmi les victimes, ou a-t-on réservé ordinairement à des femmes esclaves la flagellation administrée à la personne exposée? Y avait-il un fond de vérité dans les histoires sur la flagellation de dames chiliennes par les Balmacédistes à l'occasion de la dernière guerre ?

Que sait-on sur la discipline de nos jours dans les écoles de jeunes filles en France et en Allemagne?

[Nos lecteurs verront que presque tous ces points ont été traités dans le présent ouvrage, et dans Curiosités et Anecdotes sur la Flagellation.]



IMPORTANT QUESTIONS

TO THE EDITOR OF "SOCIETY" [Important English periodical.]

Sir,

The letters reproduced in the columns of your newspaper make me think that I could obtain information on some famous flagellations of the past and also in foreign countries, through your correspondents.

Noble maidens have sometimes been whipped in France as in Russia. In what way? What do we know especially about the flagellation of Mlle de Lineuil, under Catherine de Medici, and of Mlles Elmpt and Buturlin under Catherine II of Russia? Were other ladies whipped at the same time as Mlle de Limeuil, and have their names been kept?

Is there anyone among the readers who can give the facts about the flogging of Mme de Liancourt by the servants of the Marquise de Tresnel? What was this lady's maiden name, how old was she, and was she a grandmother of the Duke of Liancourt, very well known shortly before the French Revolution? And on what facts is the story of the flogging of the Countess de Rosen by Mme Du Barry's servants based?

In France many women have been whipped and branded in the last century. Using what instrument and on what part of the body were they lashed? Do we know if another lady was punished in this way, except the Comtesse de la Motte? And is there a well-known lady or woman who suffered this pain during the time of the revolution, except Théroigne de Méricourt? Does the information in the Registre annuel of 1792, on the mistreatment that the French troops in Orchies inflicted on Miss Nash, an Englishwoman, do they mean that she was whipped? Who was Miss Nash, what brought her to Orchies, and what was her subsequent story?

When Doris Ritter, believed to be the mistress of the Prince of Prussia (later Frederick the Great) was whipped in public by order of the king, how was the punishment imposed?

Is there a reader who knows the names of some of the Russian ladies, who are said to have been whipped in the manner of schoolchildren during the reign of Emperor Nicholas? Cooper notes in his History of the Rod (a work which seems to be very unsuccessful) that one of them was a lady belonging to the nobility and that she was publicly flogged, but he does not give the name. Have they whipped Polish ladies in this way, and do we know their names?

How was Mrs. Maderspach whipped in Hungary, or rather in Transylvania, in 1847? And can we give some information on a young lady, daughter of a Calvinist superintendent (called, I believe, Hebner or Hubner) who was condemned to be publicly flogged according to the information given to us by Mr. Tissot? How was the Austrian cane used to whip two young girls (singers), named Galli and Conti, who suffered the penalty because they had caused a riot in Milan in 1849? And do we know the names of other Italian ladies who suffered the penalty? No doubt some of the victims are still alive. The two young girls whipped in Milan are under seventy, if they live.

A maiden, called Marie Çadman, who had been whipped like a schoolboy by her teacher, the Rev. Zacharie Brigton, sued him, and is said to have succeeded. Is there a report from this trial? It was, I think, in the days of the republic. When condemned women were whipped in England, was the punishment always inflicted above the waist? And has it ever been inflicted on ladies or restricted to women of low origin?

Are the stories of flogging as a discipline of penance, that the lady was whipped like a boy, in any way based on actual evidence?

On what grounds have women been whipped in Spain and in the Spanish states in America? Were there any ladies among the victims, or was the scourging administered to the exposed person usually reserved for female slaves? Was there any truth to the stories about the Balmacedist flogging of Chilean ladies during the last war?

What do we know about discipline nowadays in schools for young girls in France and Germany?

[Our readers will see that almost all of these points have been covered in this book, and in Curiosités et Anecdotes sur la Flagellation.]


In respect of that final editorial annotation in [ ], the second book referred to is also on Gallica, although I don't think the author is correct that between the two books he has answered all the questions -- nothing but a passing reference to Doris Ritter for example...:


Curiosites cover.jpg

The subtitle of this book looks intriguing: "The court martial of Miss Fanny Hayward", although on flicking through the text it seems to be an account of a private orgy in a regiment's officer quarters involving a mock trial and whipping of poor Fanny, rather than an actual formal court martial, as in "Miss Berkeley's Voyage".

There are also at least two on-topic books in English available for download here, both of them containing spanking/corporal punishment fiction rather than historical writing:

Curiosities Volume 1 cover.jpgCuriosities Volume 2 cover.jpgConvent school cover.jpg



Last but not least, Gallica also have one (and only one) of the innumerable books by Aimé van Rod with the word "fouet" (whip) in the title:

La Terreur du Fouet.jpg
 
How was Mrs. Maderspach whipped in Hungary, or rather in Transylvania, in 1847?
I wrote about that a few years ago

 
I wrote about that a few years ago

Yes, indeed, and a great story it is, too! I think most of the questions raised in this letter to the Editor have been addressed on CF over the years, which is why I thought the letter writer would feel right at home here.
 
For example, the image 4 (03) depicts a girl named Fanny who was punished with a birch in the officers' community for stealing a gold watch from one of the officers
The subtitle of this book looks intriguing: "The court martial of Miss Fanny Hayward", although on flicking through the text it seems to be an account of a private orgy in a regiment's officer quarters involving a mock trial and whipping of poor Fanny, rather than an actual formal court martial, as in "Miss Berkeley's Voyage".
I think these two quotes refer to the same incident, so we now have the story (in French) and an accompanying image from a different book.
 
I have been referring in the other thread to old French books on flagellation and JCP which are available for download from the Gallica site, the online arm of the Bibliothèque Nationale de France. Leaving aside the illustrations posted in that thread, there are some interesting books, at least for readers of French, for example "Etude sur La Flagellation A Travers Le Monde" by Jean de Villiot (2nd expanded edition, 1901 -- the 1899 first edition is also at Gallica, in better scan quality but not illustrated and with less text):

Cover.jpgFrontispiece.jpg

Etude sur la flagellation à travers le monde : aux points de vue historique, médical, religieux, domestique et conjugal avec un exposé documentaire de la flagellation dans les écoles anglaises et les prisons militaires (2e éd. augmentée) | Gallica

Most scans at the Gallica site are simply non-searchable PDFs of scanned pages as images. However, this particular book is one of the few with OCR text, and this makes it fairly straightforward to extract sections and run them through Google Translate (with a bit of post translation editing to tidy it up). Here are a few sections from the book, more or less at random:

THE FLAGELLATION OF SERFS IN RUSSIA

Fortunately, the despotic power with which the owners of estates in Russia were once vested has been abolished. The rights over serfs no longer exist; in practice, however, the old state of affairs still exists in many places. Hopefully, however, cases like the one narrated below are rare:

“A beautiful young girl, whose father was a serf, was engaged to a young man of her status. But her lord wanted to make her his mistress, and, because she refused in the most energetic manner to commit herself to this degradation, he resolved to have her flogged: she was therefore accused of some misdeed, and on this false accusation she was arrested and sent to prison, where, with the door closed, she was immediately placed naked and stretched out on a bench at the end of which were two holes in which her arms were put through: then two men held her head and her feet , while a third whipped her until she was covered in blood, and it would take nearly three months for her to recover. "

"The Englishwoman in Russia" [a periodical] tells about a lady of the highest rank, who had used the privilege of every woman in a masked ball, to slip a few words into the ear of the Emperor; she had taken the opportunity to risk a somewhat indiscreet suggestion. Having been followed to her home by a spy, she was summoned the next day to Count Orloff's office. On her arrival, she was shown a chair, where, having sat down, she was quietly questioned. Shortly afterwards she was gently lowered into a lower room, where she was vigorously whipped with rods by someone invisible as if she had been a little girl. The "Englishwoman" vouches for the accuracy of this anecdote. She knew the lady in question, and the story was told to her by a close friend of the family.


This last anecdote may be the basis of this film clip I posted in the "Whipping Scenes" thread a few weeks ago:


THE FLAGELLATION OF A HIGHLY PLACED LADY

We sometimes hear strange stories about the extreme shamelessness of the actions of the Russian official world. Here is the terribly unworthy treatment which was inflicted on a Russian lady and which, thank God, the Paris police headquarters has not yet adopted.

A lady of high lineage, suspected of having been involved in some case of treason, was summoned to the secret police office: when she arrived there and the door was closed on her, she was politely asked to come forward a little. more, but in doing so, a trap door suddenly opening under her, she slipped in until she was suspended only by her clothes which had remained hanging under her arms. She remained in this position which prevented her from making the slightest movement, freely exposed to the lashes that an executor called for this purpose administered to her with all his might. It might not be useless to make use of this rather quick means to cure forever a too talkative woman, but it seems to us that it would be more suitable and more decent to call the husband or even the brother or the cousin, to carry out this work, than to delegate it to a stranger hidden under the floor. A deputy who would have the audacity to propose such coercive measures for French women would not keep his mandate for long.


THE FLAGELLATION OF PROSTITUTES

It was once the practice in England to whip bad-tempered women. We extract the following curious story from the pages of the LONDON SPY.

"... From there my friend drove me to the Bridewell (reformatory), where it was reception day, in order to provide me with the entertainment of watching the bawling of a few sidewalk ladies calm down by the application of the cat nine tails ... After we had passed through the door of an imposing building, which my friend pointed out to me as the Bridewell, and passed the threshold, I was at first rather inclined to believe myself in the palace of a prince than in a house of correction; but, on turning round, I saw in a large room a bunch of poor wretches, sad looks, in their shirtsleeves.

“From there we passed into another courtyard, where the buildings that surrounded it, like the previous ones, looked the most beautiful. In front of us was another gate, which led to the room occupied by the women. As we continued on our way straight ahead, we could see these ladies who were cloistered there like nuns, but also like so many slaves under the surveillance of a guardian who was walking up and down, armed with an emblem of very flexible authority, to correct those of those hemp unravelers who might have the misfortune of being troubled by the demon of laziness. They stank like a bunch of foul goats in the stable of a Welsh squire, or rather like a nest of pissing children in bed in the care of a nanny at the poorhouse, and they looked just as decent as so many holy residents of the central prison. However, they took their side just as cheerfully by indulging in their degrading work, despite their miserable condition, as so many merry cobblers in the attic, or blacksmiths in the basement with the gay sounds of the hammer on the anvil. There were some very young, and I found myself finding it very strange that they could already have accumulated enough vices in their tender years to soon fall into such a deplorable state of misery ...

“As I was as weary as I was sickened by the contemplation of the boastfulness and the lack of restraint of these unfortunate women who felt neither modesty nor shame, had neither awareness of what virtue could be, nor fear of it. infamy or misery, my friend made me retrace my steps as far as the first courtyard, and, going up by a staircase, he made me enter a vast room, where a tribunal sat with great pomp and solemnity. A very serious gentleman, whose severe expression indicated that he was a notable citizen, occupied the president's seat, armed with a hammer like an auctioneer in a sale, making a candlelight auction; and in the next room, the doors of which were wide open to allow everyone to see and hear what was going on, a woman was being whipped. Finally the hammer fell, and the punishment ended; so that I believed, until further information, that it was papist penitents who, deceived by their priests, had been persuaded to come there to shout and lash out to redeem their sins. I noticed that the very honorable court was mainly frequented by companions in blue clothes, and by women in blue aprons. Another accusation having been brought by a flat cap against a poor bitch, and the latter having no one to defend her, the president appealed to the public as follows:

All of you who are of the opinion that Elizabeth X. has to undergo immediate correction, please raise your hands: which was done immediately; and then it was ordered that they should do her the honors of the house, and she was forced to show off her tender back and her appetizing nipples to the austere sages of this august assembly, who, moved by her modest countenance as well as by the whiteness of his skin, let it slip this time, with a slight correction.
 
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The following translated anecdote is unlikely to be an accurate representation of respectable German society circles of the 1880s, but then again you wouldn't expect sympathy for Germany in an French book at the time, what with the Franco-Prussian war and the bitterness about the annexation of Alsace-Lorraine:

The Modesty of German Ladies

In the societies which most affect the respect for the absolute purity of morals, among the peoples who claim the monopoly of decency and chastity, the greatest depravity, the most cynical dissolution is sometimes encountered, and this especially in this class of people, whom birth, fortune and education place at the highest rank in society.

We only want as proof the account of the following facts which are related to us by a former correctional judge of the German Empire and which are strictly correct. They date back to 1886 and took place in Charlottenburg and Potsdam, near Berlin.

At that time, as moreover very probably still today, there existed in Berlin a socialite company which had taken for title: "Gesellschafts-Club Gemütlichkeit". The members of this association were recruited from the upper spheres of Berlin society; there were doctors, lawyers, great merchants, judges, and, as we later learned, an imperial prosecutor who were part of it. The official aim of the club was to maintain among its members friendly relations, social, recreational and agreeable ties, during balls, banquets, excursions, etc. Scores of the mostly married ladies - wives of male club members - had been admitted to society on the same basis as men.

However, one day we learned with amazement that a night search had been carried out in the house where the club met in Charlottenburg and that we had discovered a scandal which exceeded all limits and defied all description. There were all kinds of noises set in motion, there was talk of high personages compromised in a matter of morals. But the noise raised by this affair soon died down; Little by little, people were forgotten and, in the end, no one heard of this scandal. The affair had obviously been hushed up because of the compromised personages, among whom was precisely an imperial prosecutor.

Here is, however, exactly what was going on at this Gemütlichkeit club. There reigned a bonhomie of a very special order and which had absolutely nothing of the old and so famous Teutonic modesty. On the contrary, the Sardanapalesque feasts, the orgies worthy of the best days of Babylon were consumed there with boundless refinement. The Gretchens of Germany returned points to the courtesans of Paris.

The ladies and young girls belonging to the club dressed with sophistication and tried to put in their toilet all the suggestiveness necessary to ignite ardent desires in men. Very often, in order to better succeed in the goal they set out for themselves, they then adopted costumes which allowed them to appear dressed as babies, with short sleeves, discreetly scooped bodices, loose blouses, short skirts wrapped up, with socks of tender color which allowed them to discover their calves and part of their voluptuously shivering flesh, to give their partners a taste of these sensual pleasures which, regularly, had to end the sessions.

They started with a great ceremony. But the representations often varied. It often happened that the members of the club improvised a minuet which gradually became a disheveled quadrille then a regular heckling. Little by little, in this dance, the modest members of society stripped themselves of their clothes, piece by piece, and ended up finding themselves facing each other in the primitive and uncomplicated costume with which God bestowed our good father Adam.

Once reduced to this state, this is how they proceeded:

It was absolutely a scene of domestic castigation. A few ladies or gentlemen, dressed as schoolchildren or schoolgirls, with short skirts pulled up, received the punishment they had deserved. But they did not assault them with violence, on the contrary. Other times they played with a hot hand. The name of whoever was to start was drawn and the little distraction was put into practice as usual. The person in the harness knelt down, his head hidden between the legs of one of the ladies, whose petticoats prevented him from seeing. But, instead of having her place her hand on her back, in order to strike it, they exposed her backside, either by rolling up the skirts when it was a woman, or by lowering the pants when it was a man. fate had designated. Once in position, everyone got in the game and it was to strike the hardest on the poor posterior who, very often, endured real torture, although the blows were only dealt with the flat of the hand. This was, moreover, a circumstance which made it possible to push this singular sport, because many members took the opportunity to explore prohibited regions. These daring touches were, on the other hand, a chance of salvation for the receiver or the receiver of the blows, because, in the long run, with a little observation, they had noticed the peculiarities of each member and the way in which they knocked so that the liberating name was quite frequently guessed.

One of the ceremonies which were in great honor in this Adamic club was an infernal sarabande, danced by all members until they were completely out of breath and during which the dancers took off their clothes as we said above. From the contacts that inevitably occurred, there was an excitement that went beyond all bounds. There followed orgies, in which very often took part as well the husbands and the wives as very often the father, the mother and the daughter, and although this could seem strange and improbable, it is seen that a husband indulged in the most frenetic erotic transports with the wife of a friend who, in return, was paid largely in the same currency on the wife of his obliging friend. In the same way, we have seen in these orgies fathers sacrificing to eroticism alongside their daughters barely escaping from boarding school.

It is easy to imagine that the police hushed up such a scandal. But should we believe that these depraved mores no longer exist in Germany and that the fear of scandal could have stifled couples with instincts of debauchery by which upper Teutonic society is dominated? One would be much more justified in believing that today as before these erotic clubs still exist and that after having let the storm pass, the Verein Gemütlichkeit will have been reconstituted on other bases. [Allow us to cite in this connection a great scandal, roughly of the same kind, which broke out at the court of Berlin around 1879 or 1880 and in which the family of Baron de Schleinitz, marshal of the court, was involved. ]

We see that if there have been clubs of whipping ladies in France where the fair sex indulged exclusively in antics of a very questionable taste, they were not shy in Germany of letting men take part indiscriminately. and women, young and old, and that in the most elegant circles of society.

We were obliged to ignore certain details which, by their very crudeness, gave rise to doubts as to their perfect accuracy.
 
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