cruelty to children in the sixteenth and seventeenth century—attempt at regulation—deforming children for mountebank purposes—anecdote of vincent de paul—his work and his success.
from datheus to vincent de paul the general history of the child in europe moves as from one mountain peak to another with a long valley of gloom in between. datheus has received no credit; vincent de paul has been justly recognized as a deserving contemporary of that list of brilliant men who went to make up the golden age of france. golden age that it was, with its highly polished manners, there, under the reign of the elegant mazarin and the delicate anne of austria, it was no uncommon sight to see a child lying dead on the pavements, while others died of misery and hunger under the very eyes of the passers-by. not a day passed, say the chroniclers, when the men who had charge of the sewers or the police did not draw out at least the body of one child.
at the beginning of the seventeenth century europe, and france especially, was war-ridden.303 during the sixteenth century, the religious and charitable impulses had suffered, first through the national war, then by the factional wars, and finally by religious wars.
“the religious war,” said the historian of languedoc,427 “almost entirely destroyed the hospital of montpellier ... and even the order of saint esprit was dying out throughout france.”
it was a curious and disjointed society, that of the france of that day. kingdoms there were within the royal domain; the laws of the large city frequently clashing with those of the province within which it was located; here and there provinces following their own laws rather than the laws of the kingdom itself. in some provinces the church dominated; in others the nobles; elsewhere, the two classes were beginning to melt into the body of the nation which occasionally overrode both.428
at aix, for instance, it was the custom to place the abandoned child in a religious home where, as in the rest of provence, the unknown bastard was charged to the nearest hospital. practically the same law was observed in bretagne.
at poitiers, a decree on september 15, 1579, “condemning the provision by which religious orders nourished infants found at their door,” ordered that the monasteries and ecclesiastic chapters of the place should be called on to regu304late their contributions to the support of the children.
but as a rule the great nobles were obliged to take care of the foundlings abandoned within their jurisdiction. in the origin of the fiefs, the bastards had been set down as épaves (waifs), and the interpreters of the law (jurisconsults) had decided that the lord had no right to refuse to take care of the épaves. the parliaments too took the view that, inasmuch as the seigneur profited by all deaths that occurred and succeeded to all titles in the case of disinheritance within his domain, he should accept the liability for the care of the unknown children found within their domain.
of the many decrees which touch on this important point, the oldest is that of the parliament of paris in the year 1547. many other arrêts followed, until on september 3, 1667, the following, in the interest of the special hospitals, declared that:
“all the seigneurs (hauts justiciers) will be held responsible for the expense and nourishment of all infants whose parents are unknown, and who are found exposed on their lands and taken to hospitals.”
this regulation, as ramcle says, failed in its purpose, for it was not possible to force what was considered charity on the none too generous nobles. the laws were evaded, and each community tried to send to its neighbours the unfortunate infants it should have guarded.
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the mortality of infants increased, and as in rome in the days of the empire, mothers threw their children into the sewers or left them on the highways. those less inhuman left them at the doors of the hospitals, where, during the winter, in the morning, they were frequently taken in more dead than alive.
of course, the laws against these abandonments were promptly enforced—the unfortunate women were easily punished. a girl who killed her offspring was hung, and others who were caught leaving children in solitary places were whipped and disgraced in the cities and villages where they lived.
by an edict of henry ii., under penalty of punishment, a woman enceinte was obliged to declare her condition; and to add to this bungling legislative effort, she was obliged to tell who the guilty man was, the maxim creditur virgini being accepted everywhere. the attempts at curing the ills failed, for, while the intentions of the legislators were undoubtedly honest, they only exposed shameless conditions, made the unfortunate suffer even more, brought ruin to many honest families, and gain to shameless women only. the number of children abandoned and murdered in defiance of the regulations increased instead of decreasing.
at this time there came an individual effort to better things, by a woman whose name is not even known and whose efforts at a noble work have, owing to the actions of her servants, been much misinterpreted.
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living in a house in the cité de saint-landry, paris, with two servants, she received every morning the infants that the soldiers (or police) had collected during the night. so many were eventually turned over to her, that she was unable to feed them, and many died in her own house for lack of food. in the crowded conditions we are also told a selection429 was made and some of the children were exposed again, or at least they were turned over to some charitable or interested person who would accept them. the care of the children devolving finally on the two servants, many of them are said to have perished from the drugs they were given to keep them quiet. the availability of children as beggars led the servants to look on them as a means of money making, and they were sold for various cruel and evil purposes, a condition that eventually led to the reform undertaken by vincent de paul.
the fact that they frequently fell into the hands of magicians, mountebanks, and pedlars, who deformed them in order to make them of assistance in earning a livelihood, is attested by the biographer of vincent.
“returning from one of his missions,” says maury, “vincent de paul, whom i have dared to call almost the visible angel of god, found under the walls of paris one of these infants, in the hands of a beggar, who was engaged in deforming the307 limbs of the child. although almost overcome with horror, he ran to the savage with that intrepidity with which the virtuous man always attacks crime.
“‘barbarian,’ he cried, ‘how you deceive me—from a distance i took you for a man!’
“he snatched the victim from its persecutor, carried it in his arms across paris, gathered a crowd about him and called on them to witness the brutality of the day and place in which they lived. a few days later he had founded his first institution for children, and the cause of children had enrolled one of its noblest champions.”
in order to thoroughly understand the situation, a number of charitable women under the guidance of madame legas, niece of the lord chancellor marillac,430 went to the house in the cité de saint-landry and studied the question from the inside of the house. their horror at the things they saw led them to declare that the children massacred by herod were fortunate in comparison with the condition of the orphans of paris.431 as it was impossible to take charge of all the children then in the cité de saint-landry twelve children were taken, and in 1638, under the care of madame legas and some charitable women, a house was opened for them in the faubourg saint-victor. as they were able to enlarge the scope of their308 institution, more and more children were taken care of; the enthusiasm of these women ran so high under the glowing example of vincent, that even in the dead of night in the cold corners, they would be found going about the streets of paris, into the worst and least lighted sections, doing police duty, gathering the unfortunate victims, and carrying them to the house in the faubourg saint-victor.432
in the course of time, sufficient interest had developed in this work so that enough money was forthcoming to enlarge the scope. vincent gathered together the pious women who had acted as his assistants and addressed to them that touchante allocution, sometimes quoted as a model of eloquence.433 the house in the faubourg saint-victor was soon found to be too small, and the chateau de bicêtre was obtained from the king.
the place was not found suitable on account of the vivacité de l’air and the children were transferred to the faubourg saint-lazare, then in 1672 to the cité, near notre dame, where they remained up to the revolution. then they were assigned the ancient abbaye of port royal and the maison de l’oratoire, located in the southern part of paris.
the success of the new undertaking was so great that even louis xiii. became interested and309 donated four thousand francs per year to the charity. inasmuch as in the long history of the child’s fight for a place in the government, this was the first recognition by a government since the roman emperors, it is interesting to read louis’s own statement in the preamble of the letters patent relating to this gift:
“having been informed by persons of great piety, that the little attention which has been given up to the present to the nourishing and care of the parentless children exposed in the city and outskirts of paris has been the cause of death, and even has it been known that they have been sold for evil purposes, and this having brought many ladies to take care of these children, who have worked with so much zeal and charitable affection that their zeal is spreading, and wishing so much to do what is possible under the present circumstances,434 we have,” etc.
the example of louis was followed in 1641 by his widow, anne of austria, who made an annual gift of 8000 francs. she had become regent and, speaking in the name of the young king, said that “imitating the piety and the charity of the late king, which are truly royal virtues, he adds to this first gift, another annual gift of 8000 francs. thanks to what has already been given and the charity of individuals, the greater number of the310 infants rescued have been raised, and there are now more than four hundred living.”
in june, 1670, louis xiv. made the children’s hospital one of the institutions of paris, and authorized it to discharge the functions and enjoy the privileges of such an institution.
“as there is no duty more natural,” he declared, “and none that conforms more to the idea of christian charity than to care for the unfortunate children who are exposed—their feebleness and their misfortune making them doubly worthy of our compassion ... considering also that their protection and safeguarding is to our advantage inasmuch as some of them may become soldiers, others workmen, inhabitants of the colonies,” etc.435
the edict declared that while the expenses of the institution had reached forty thousand francs a year, the royal donation could not exceed twelve thousand francs, and the king exhorted the women of charity who had done so much, to continue their notable work.
this royal recognition of the great institution at paris was not without evil effect in the provinces. the nobles and the civic authorities of rural communities, wishing to get rid of the burden of the infants deserted within their jurisdiction, had the unfortunates taken to paris.436 they were usually carried there by men who were driving in on other business, and as many stops were311 made between the starting point and the destination, and as the drivers were more interested in other things than in the infant baggage, for which they were paid in advance, the mortality greatly increased.
“there was hardly a town in the kingdom,” said latyone,437 “where abandoned children were admitted freely and without information being requested. in the towns that were not too far from paris, they were carried thirty and forty leagues, at the risk of having them die on the way; and the hospital at paris was overcrowded and in debt.”
this condition of affairs led to a new law, after a report which declared that of two thousand infants carried to paris from the provinces, in all sorts of weather, by public vehicles without care or protection, three quarters had died within three months. the new law decreed that any wagoner bringing an infant to paris to expose it would be fined one thousand livres. inasmuch as the rule was made in the interest of the children, it was also decreed that abandoned children must be brought to the nearest hospital, and if that hospital declared that it had not enough funds to support the foundlings, the royal treasury might be drawn on.
