On the 5th of September, 1379, as two herds of swine, one belonging to the commune and the other to the priory of Saint-Marcel-le-Jeussey, were feeding together near that town, three sows of the communal herd, excited and enraged by the squealing of one of the porklings, rushed upon Perrinot Muet, the son of the swinekeeper, and before his father could come to his rescue, threw him to the ground and so severely injured him that he died soon afterwards. The three sows, after due process of law, were condemned to death; and as both the herds had hastened to the scene of the murder and by their cries and aggressive actions showed that they approved of the assault, and were ready and even eager to become _participes criminis_, they were arrested as accomplices and sentenced by the court to suffer the same penalty. But the prior, Friar Humbert de Poutiers, not willing to endure the loss of his swine, sent an humble petition to Philip the Bold, then Duke of Burgundy, praying that both the herds, with the exception of the three sows actually guilty of the murder, might receive a full and free pardon. The duke lent a gracious ear to this supplication and ordered that the punishment should be remitted and the swine released. (_Vide_ Appendix K.) A peculiar custom is referred to in the _procès verbal_ of the prosecution of a porker for infanticide, dated May 20, 1572. The murder was committed within the jurisdiction of the monastery of Moyen-Montier, where the case was tried and the accused sentenced to be “hanged and strangled on a gibbet.” The prisoner was then bound with a cord and conducted to a cross near the cemetery, where it was formally given over to an executioner from Nancy. “From time immemorial,” we are told, “the justiciary of the Lord Abbot of Moyen-Montier has been accustomed to consign to the provost of Saint-Diez, near this cross, condemned criminals, wholly naked, that they may be executed; but inasmuch as this pig is a brute beast, he has delivered the same bound with a cord, without prejudicing or in any wise impairing the right of the Lord Abbot to deliver condemned criminals wholly naked.” The pig must not wear a rope unless the right to do without it be expressly reserved, lest some human culprit, under similar circumstances, should claim to be entitled to raiment. “’Twill be recorded for a precedent; And many an error, by the same example Will rush into the state: it cannot be.”