Memorials of Human Superstition: being a paraphrase and commentary on the Historia Flagellantium of the Abbé Boileau, Doctor of the SorbonneLolme, Jean Louis de
History
Memorials of Human Superstition: being a paraphrase and commentary on the Historia Flagellantium of the Abbé Boileau, Doctor of the Sorbonne
Lolme, Jean Louis de
Boileau, Jacques, 1635-1716. Historia flagellantium; Flagellants
Nor were disciplines like those we mention, imposed only upon
those persons who expressly made part either of the Royal of Noble
Housholds, for the edification of which they were inflicted; but
wholesome corrections of the same kind were also occasionally
bestowed upon such Strangers as happened to infringe the rules of
decorum, or in any other manner, offended against the respect that
was owing to the Royal or Noble Proprietor of the House.
Of this we have an undeniable proof in the Story of that Reverend
Father Jesuit, who was flagellated at Vienna, as Brantôme relates, by
command of a Princess of the Austrian House, whose displeasure he had
incurred.
The Princess here alluded to, was daughter to the Emperor Maximilian
II. She had been formerly married to Charles IX. King of France; and
after the death of that Prince, by whom she had had no children, she
retired to Vienna in Austria. Philip II. King of Spain, having about
that time lost his wife, sent proposals of marriage to the Princess
we mention, who was at the same time his Niece; and the Mother of
the Princess, a Sister to Philip II. was very pressing to induce
her to accept the above proposals; which the Princess Elizabeth
(such was her name) otherwise Queen-Dowager of France, persevered
in refusing. The Empress, and the King of Spain, then thought of
employing the agency of a Father Jesuit, a learned smooth-tongued
Man, who was to persuade the Princess to accept the offers of Philip;
but the endeavours of the Father having proved ineffectual, he at
last desisted from importuning the Princess any more, and retired.
The King of Spain then sent new letters to the Princess concerning
the same subject, and the Jesuit was sent for a second time, and
injoined to exert again all his efforts to make the affair succeed.
In consequence of these orders, the Jesuit resumed his function;
but the Princess, whom Brantôme represents as having been a person
of much merit, and who certainly must have had some, since she
resolutely persevered in refusing to marry that abominable Tyrant,
Philip the Second, the Princess, I say, grew much displeased with the
importunities of the Jesuit; and at last spoke very harshly to him,
and plainly threatened him, if he dared to mention a word more to her
on the subject, with an immediate flagellation (_de le faire fouetter
en sa cuisine_).
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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