It is no pleasure to follow the provost, his guards, and his prisoners to a certain tower, where in a lower vaulted room there are various iron and wooden instruments. We are given to understand that torture is a pretty usual part of criminal proceedings, unless the defendant is a noble whose alleged crime does not touch the safety of the state. It is true that wise men have discouraged the practice. What seems clearer than that which Pope Nicholas I wrote A.D. 866? "A confession must be voluntary and not forced. By means of torture an innocent man may suffer to the uttermost without making any avowal--in such a case what a crime for the judge! Or a person may be subdued by pain, and acknowledge himself guilty, though he be innocent--which throws an equally great sin upon the tribunal." Nevertheless, the Church is said now to be allowing torture in her own ecclesiastical courts, and Sire Macaire would tell us cynically that "torture is a sovereign means wherewith to work miracles--to make the dumb speak." Torture at St. Aliquis is administered by a sober-faced man in a curious yellow dress. He is known as Maître Denis,[51] the baron's "sworn executioner." He acts as torturer, chief jailer, and also attends to beheadings and hangings. To be a professional hangman implies considerable ostracism. Hangmen's families have to marry among themselves, between fief and fief; hangmen's sons follow their fathers' calling. On the other hand, the position is an assured one, with good perquisites and not too much labor. Maître Denis is a quiet and pious man, who can exhort condemned criminals quite as sanctimoniously as a priest; but his piety never compels him to false mercy. [Sidenote: Varieties of Tortures] There are assuredly many ways of helping transgressors to make a complete confession. Forms of torture vary from region to region. In Brittany the culprit is often tied in an iron chair and gradually brought near to a blazing fire; but in Normandy the effect seems best when one thumb is squeezed by a kind of screw in the ordinary, and both thumbs in the extraordinary (doubly severe) torture. At Autun they have an ingenious method. After high boots of spongy leather have been put on the culprit's feet, he is tied near a large fire and boiling water is poured on the boots, which penetrates the leather, eats away the flesh, and vouchsafes a foretaste of the pangs of hell. At Orléans they have another method. The accused's hands are tied behind his back, and a ring fastened to them. By this ring the unhappy fellow is lifted from the floor and hung up in midair. If they then desire the "extraordinary" torture, weights of some two hundred and fifty pounds are attached to his feet. He is hoisted to the ceiling by a pulley, and presently allowed to fall with a jerk, dislocating his limbs.[52]