so it was freely used in town and country. We will mention one case, because it recalls the name of a famous novelist. The grandfather of Restif de la Bretonne gave his son, aged eighteen, three strokes with a whip which fetched blood through his shirt, because he had spoken several times to a girl without permission. This same son, now a father of fourteen children, flogged them with more circumspection: in case of a serious punishmsnt he simply threatened them with the whip at first, and allowed a week to pass between the threat and the flogging, so that it should impress the child more.
This authority of the father over his children is still existent in rural districts. The Goncourts relate in their Journal that an old friend of theirs, a doctor, had just married off his daughter. She quarrelled with her husband. Her father caught her up under his arm, turned up her skirts and unfastened her drawers, and soundly smacked her. Then, turning to his dumbfounded son-in-law, he calmly said: 'There, that'll quieten her down a bit.'
In a list of the personnel of the Mazarin College, dating from the eighteenth century,
