BREAKING ON THE See also:form of torture and execution formerly
in use, especially in France and Germany . It is said to have
been first used in the latter See also:country, where the victim
was placed on a cart- See also:wheel and his limbs stretched out
along the spokes . The wheel was made to slowly revolve, and the
man's bones broken with blows of an iron See also:bar .
Sometimes it was mercifully ordered that the executioner should
strike the criminal on chest and stomach, blows known as coups
de See also:grace, which at once ended the torture, and in
France he was usually strangled after the second or third See
also:blow . A wheel was not always used In some countries it was
upon a See also:frame shaped like St Andrew's See also:Cross
that the sufferer was stretched . The punishment was abolished
in France. at the Revolution . It was employed in Germany as See
also:late as 1827 . A murderer was broken on the See also:row or
wheel at See also:Edinburgh in 1604, and two of the assassins of
the See also:re