AMENDE HONORABLE

In French Law, a species of infamous punishment, to which criminals guilty of an offence against public decency or morality were condemned under the ancient system, and are so still in some instances. Such were, sedition, forgery, sacrilege, fraudulent bankruptcy, . The simple or dry amende honorable consisted merely of an acknowledgment by the criminal of his offence in open court, bare-headed and kneeling. The amende honorable in figuris was made by an offender, kneeling in his shirt, a torch in the hand, a rope round the neck, and conducted by the executioner. It was, and still is, usually conjoined with some other punishment; sometimes capital, as in the case ol parricides, . [s. 52]