Note To St. Louis. The Punishment of Blasphemy , p. 144.
One of my learned colleagues, M. Natalis de Wailly (Académie des Inscriptions et Belles Lettres) has pointed out that the punishment of branding a blasphemer on the lips with a red-hot iron (p. 144) was probably resorted to on account of some peculiarly heinous offence, and was an isolated case; that it cannot be considered as due to any general and permanent decree applied to all cases of 'that vile oath,' blasphemy, because there is an enactment of St. Louis (Recueil des Ordonnances des Rois de France, i. 99) which decrees that adult blasphemers shall be punished by a fine, or in default of fine, by the pillory and imprisonment. Blasphemers under fourteen years of age were to be whipped. M. de Wailly's remark is just, and I hasten to acknowledge that in this matter the piety of St. Louis did not systematically lead him to exercise general and excessive rigour.
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