In the 18th century, the whip reigned supreme. Children are whipped at home and at school, soldiers know about corporal punishment, and beating is the rule in convents and prisons. In a completely different register, all the erotic novels of the period celebrate the rods in the boudoir and in the convent ... Brantome says that Catherine de Medici took pleasure in whipping, in correcting herself the girls of her squadron flying bare buttocks . And Rousseau tells with emotion the scene of the spanking ...