d dragged him by
the cords with which he was pinioned, although he followed them without
offering the least resistance, and, finally, they barbarously knocked
him down against the pillar. This pillar, placed in the centre of the
court, stood alone, and did not serve to sustain any part of the
building; it was not very high, for a tall man could touch the summit
by stretching out his arm; there was a large iron ring at the top, and
both rings and hooks a little lower down. It is quite impossible to
describe the cruelty shown by these ruffians towards Jesus: they tore
off the mantle with which he had been clothed in derision at the court
of Herod, and almost threw prostrate again.

Jesus trembled and shuddered as he stood before the pillar, and took
off his garments as quickly as he could, but his hands were bloody and
swollen. The only return he made when his brutal executioners struck
and abused him was, to pray for them in the most touching manner: he
turned his face once towards his Mother, who was standing overcome with
grief; this look quite unnerved her: she fainted, and would have
fallen, had not the holy women who were there supported her. Jesus put
his arms round the pillar, and when his hands were thus raised, the
archers fastened them to the iron ring which was at the top of the
pillar; they then dragged his arms to such a height that his feet,
which were tightly bound to the base of the pillar, scarcely touched
the ground. Thus was the Holy of Holies violently stretched, without a
particle of clothing, on a pillar used for the punishment of the
greatest criminals; and then did two furious ruffians who were
thirsting for his blood begin in the most barbarous manner to scourge
his sacred body from head to foot. The whips or scourges which they
first made use of appeared to me to be made of a species of flexible
white wood, but perhaps they were composed of the sinews of the ox, or
of strips of leather.

Our loving Lord, the Son of God, true God and true Man, writhed as a
worm under the blows of these barbarians; his mild but deep groans
might be heard from afar; they resounded through the air, forming a
kind of touching accompaniment to the hissing of the instruments of
torture. These groans resembled rather a touching cry of prayer and
supplication, than moans of anguish. The clamour of the Pharisees and
the people formed another species of accompaniment, which at times as a
deafening thunder-storm deadened