Laced boots (torture)

The Torture of the laced boots was used in France until in 1780 to tap consents. Registered in the legal system of the the Middle Ages and the Old Mode, they were conceived to crush the legs. The wounds were often so severe that the bones burst.

The defendant had sat on a massive armchair. Four narrow and solid boards were then firmly attached around its legs, and a solid cord bound these boards closely. Corners were then inserted with blows of hammer between the two central boards, printing a cruel force on the legs of the defendant.

The number of corners varied: four for the ordinary question, eight for the extraordinary question.

Often, for the ordinary question, of bottoms in parchment were applied wet to the legs of the prisoner. By approaching this leg of fire, the parchment thus violently retracted caused a terrible pain with the legs.

Artistic recoveries

Brodequin is a group of music which published an album called Instruments off Torture .

In chapter 63 of the queen Margot , Alexandre Dumas puts in scene a gentleman tortured by laced boots. (But the torturer being accessory, they are inoffensive laced boots.)

Urbain Grandier was shown of sorcery and subjected to the extraordinary question to be then burned alive.

References

Diderot, Denis and Jean the Round of Alembert, " Torture by the `laced boots', in the Encyclopedia, or Reasoned Dictionary of Sciences, Arts and Métiers" (Paris: Briasson and others, n.d.), volume II, page 433. Accessible extract on the Web:

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