United States or Russia ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
Certainly Zenker is justified in saying, "The deeds of people like Jacques Clément, Ravaillac, Corday, Sand, and Caserio, are all of the same kind; hardly anyone will be found to-day to maintain that Sand's action followed from the views of the Burschenschaft, or Clément's from Catholicism, even when we learn that Sand was regarded by his fellows as a saint, as was Charlotte Corday and Clément, or even when learned Jesuits like Sa, Mariana, and others, cum licentia et approbatione superiorum, in connection with Clément's outrage, discussed the question of regicide in a manner not unworthy of Nechayeff or Most."
Finally, upon condition of ridding Europe of their presence, the posterity of Hapsburg were to be allowed the liberty of augmenting her territories in all the other known or yet undiscovered portions of the globe. But the dagger of Ravaillac delivered Austria from her danger, to postpone for some centuries longer the tranquillity of Europe.
If Ravaillac had not been imprisoned for debt, he would not have stabbed Henry of Navarre.
In one way and another I fancy that I am well acquainted with the assassins of history. Of those who slew Caesar I learned in my schooldays, and between Ravaillac, who did the business for Henry of Navarre, and Booth and Guiteau, my familiar knowledge seems almost at first hand.
With difficulty they protected him from being torn to pieces by the infuriated people. His name was Francis Ravaillac. According to the savage custom of the times, he was subsequently put to death with the most frightful tortures. The lifeless body of the king was immediately taken to the Tuileries and placed upon a bed. Surgeons and physicians hurried to the room only to gaze upon his corpse.
No: fulminate our rivals in Asia by all means, ye brave Russian revolutionaries; but to aim at an English princess-monstrous! hideous! hound down the wretch to his doom; and observe, please, that we are a civilized and merciful people, and, however much we may regret it, must not treat him as Ravaillac and Damiens were treated.
"Your Eminence means, I presume, the knife stab in the Rue de la Feronnerie?" "Precisely," said the cardinal. "Does not your Eminence fear that the punishment inflicted upon Ravaillac may deter anyone who might entertain the idea of imitating him?"
It is true that it may be quite possible, in the first place, that Ravaillac had no accomplices; and in the second, that if he had any, they were in no way connected with the fire of 1618.
"Oh, mon Dieu! nothing, my dear son," said the palatine, taking the hand of the prince, and looking at him with as much maternal tenderness as her little eyes were capable of expressing, "nothing, if every one knew you as well as I do, and saw you so truly good that you cannot hate even your enemies; but Henry IV., whom unluckily you resemble a little too much on certain points, was as good, and that did not prevent the existence of a Ravaillac.
In his voyages and travels, in describing the death of the King of Demaa at the hands of his page, Mendez Pinto says that instead of being reserved for torture, as were his successors Ravaillac, and Gerard, the slayer of William the Silent, the assassin was impaled alive with a long stake which was thrust in at his fundament and came out at the nape of his neck.