The Quebec
Gazette of 19th June, 1766, mentions the whipping, on the Upper and Lower
Town markets, of Catherine Berthrand and Jeanotte Blaize, by the hand of
the executioneer, for having "borrowed" (a pretty way of describing petty
larceny), a silver spoon from a gentleman of the town, without leave or
without intention of returning it.
For male reprobates, such as Jean May and Louis Bruseau, whose punishment
for petty larceny is noted in the Gazette of 11th August, 1766, the
whipping was supplemented with a walk - tied at the cart's tail - from the
Court House door to St. Roch and back to the Court House. May had to whip
Bruseau and Bruseau had to whip May the day following, at ten in the
morning.
Let us revert to Captain Testu's doings. The plot was to strangle
Champlain, pillage the warehouse, and afterwards betake themselves to the
Spanish and Basque vessels, laying at Tadousac. As, at that period, no
Court of Appeals existed in "la Nouvelle France" - far less was a
"Supreme Court" thought of - the trial of the chief of the conspiracy was
soon dispatched says Champlain, and the Sieur Jean du Val was "presto
well and duly hanged and strangled at Quebec aforesaid, and his head
affixed to the top of a pike-staff planted on the highest eminence of the
Fort." The ghastly head of this traitor, on the end of a pike-staff, near
Notre Dame street, must certainly have had a sinister effect at twilight.
