Tickling and High Treason

[chandor864]

Tickling and High Treason​

Versailles, 1785. Luxury was an armor, etiquette a prison. Amidst the splendor, Céleste de la M... was merely a simple lady-in-waiting. Her days were spent navigating the Château's corridors, assisting here and there, but always discreet, almost invisible.

Her only unique trait—the one no one suspected—was an exaggerated sensitivity of her feet. For Céleste, the world was felt through her small, delicate soles. The slightest grain of sand, the smallest variation in temperature, too much pressure... everything was an amplified sensation. She took great care of her silk slippers, a necessity more than a caprice.

It was in the shadow of a late evening, as the torches died down and the court plunged into a false tranquility, that Céleste's story tipped. Two shadows, quick and silent, seized her near the Ambassadors' Staircase. Not a cry. No struggle. Just a handkerchief pressed over her mouth, and the marble world of Versailles was replaced by the rattling of a sinister carriage. She was not a very important person, but in those barbaric and paranoid times, error was often the first step of the conspiracy.

The journey was short but terrifying. Céleste was thrown into the depths of the Grand Châtelet, the sinister fortress-prison of Paris. The cell that greeted her was cold, the air heavy with humidity and a persistent smell of mold. Shock and fear numbed her until the arrival of her "interrogator."

He was not an executioner, but a man with plain features, dressed in dark clothes, carrying a bundle of papers and, stranger still, a small canvas bag. The judge was not seeking a public confession or spectacular torture. He was looking for a word, a name, a State secret believed to be hidden among noblewomen or their immediate entourage.

"Mademoiselle de la M...," the man said in a neutral voice. "You possess a secret concerning the affair of Monsieur de V... Speak."

Céleste, trembling, had no idea who Monsieur de V. was. She stammered her ignorance. The man shrugged, a gesture that meant pity did not enter the Châtelet.

"Very well. You will not speak by day. You will speak by night, far from ears and suspicion."

He signaled a jailer. Moments later, Céleste was lying on a straw mattress, her ankles firmly tied. The jailer approached with a cold smile. In his hand, he held the contents of the canvas bag: a handful of long, soft, white goose feathers.

The interrogation began with nightfall, the icy December wind creeping in through a loophole window.

Céleste's ordeal was not one of bloody violence, but a slow and insidious destruction of the will. For her feet, so tender and sensitive, the light and continuous contact of the feather was an electric torture.

For hours, the jailer, relieved by the judge, applied the feathers, running them, brushing them, rubbing them gently on her arches, her toes, and especially, her heels. The sensation was unbearable, the tickling rapidly turning into a nervous cramp, then into an uncontrollable fit of hysteria.

"Where is the document?" "I don't know! Please!" "Who is the contact in Austria?" "I have nothing to do with politics! Ah! Stop!"

Céleste laughed, cried, writhed, begged. The laughter, born of reflex and horror, mingled with the tears of her distress. The cold of the dungeon amplified every brush, transforming the feather's softness into a burning needle. Her tiny feet were so acutely sensitive that they were the sole breaking point of her being. She would have confessed anything, even the assassination of the Dauphin, if it could have stopped her torment.

But the interrogator only stopped when the first pale light of day filtered through the cell's window. The girl was exhausted, hoarse from the laughter and sobs that had shaken her all night. She fainted from nervous exhaustion, her feet in painful spasms.

Minutes later, the cell door opened. Another man entered, looking serious—the senior judge, visibly irritated.

"Release this girl immediately!" he ordered.

The interrogator and the jailer complied. The judge bent over Céleste, who was painfully regaining consciousness.

"Mademoiselle de la M...," he muttered, a tone of forced apology in his voice. "There has been... a regrettable mistake in identity. The individual we were looking for has a black lock of hair. You are blonde. I beg you to accept our apologies."

A black lock of hair. For a lock of hair, she had endured hell. The investigator had relied on an unconfirmed source, and the State's paranoia had done the rest, sacrificing the discreet little employee to buy time.

Céleste was released. She emerged from the Châtelet, the morning sun striking her like an assault. She wore her silk slippers, but fear had lodged itself in her limbs. She bore no visible mark—no blood, no scar—and that was precisely what made her torment so perfect for the era: torture without a trace.

Walking painfully on the uneven cobblestones, psychological pain mingled with the physical pain of her feet, bruised by tension and extreme sensitivity.

Céleste de la M... returned to Versailles. She continued her service, saying nothing of the night she had spent, for fear of being deported. But the secret was no longer the State's. The secret was now her own: that of a weakness so intimate and humiliating that it had become a weapon. Every time she removed her shoes, the memory of the feathers returned, and a single thought haunted her: she had survived the horror, not through strength, but because of a stupid mistake about a lock of hair.

From then on, Céleste was never the same. She became a silent shadow who, beneath the opulence of Versailles, trembled at the slightest brush of wind. She had learned that, sometimes, the most refined cruelty was that which exploited the simplest vulnerability.

If the State had made a mistake with Céleste, it was not for lack of investigative rigor, but because of the urgency of a paranoia that made any blonde suspect if she was in the wrong place. The Judge's true target was not an innocent lady-in-waiting, but Éléonore de V..., a recently widowed countess renowned for her sharp mind, her network of informants, and her lack of blind allegiance to the Court.

Éléonore, unlike Céleste, was a political chess player. She knew that information was currency more valuable than gold, and she sold it at auction to the highest bidder, whether it was the Orléanist faction, Austrian emissaries, or even England. She ostentatiously wore a thick lock of naturally black hair, contrasting with the rest of her powdered coiffure.

She had sensed the wind turning days earlier when her banker refused an seemingly innocuous letter of credit. She had immediately prepared her escape, but the Châtelet's surveillance network, stung by the Céleste mistake, had doubled its efficiency.

And so, on a rainy evening, while attempting to leave Paris disguised as a simple commoner, Éléonore de Valois was apprehended. No brutal kidnapping. Just a cold order from a disguised agent, then a discreet carriage to the same place as Céleste: the dungeons of the Grand Châtelet.

Éléonore's cell was identical to Céleste's, but the countess, accustomed to betrayal and pretense, did not feel the same shock. Fear, yes, but also a cold resolve. She had things to hide, information to protect.

The same dreary judge and the same agile-handed jailer entered.

"Madame de V...," the judge said, this time with implacable certainty. "We know you possess the secret treaty with Spain. Tell us where it is."

Éléonore smiled, a thin, defiant smile. "A secret treaty? My dear Judge, my only concern is whether my room at the Châtelet is warm enough for the coming winter."

The judge was not amused. "We have ways, Madame, of making even the most locked tongues speak. Ways... discreet."

He signaled the jailer, who approached with the same small canvas bag from which the white tips of goose feathers protruded. Éléonore looked at them, her cold gaze betraying nothing. She had heard of this method, these "tortures without a trace" that broke the spirit without leaving marks. She had always believed herself to be above it.

She was tied down in the same manner as Céleste, lying on the straw mattress.

"I must warn you, Madame," the judge said, "this method is particularly effective on people of high sensitivity."

Éléonore raised an eyebrow. "My feet, Monsieur, have trod the finest floors and the roughest paths. They are not those of a mere maiden."

But Éléonore was wrong. Or at least, she underestimated the universality of human sensitivity. Like Céleste, her feet had known the luxury of silk slippers, the softness of Persian carpets. Her feet, beneath their seemingly robust appearance, were still nerves, flesh, and skin.

As soon as the first feather brushed her sole, Éléonore gasped. The sensation was both foreign and unbearable. She tried to control the laughter that rose, a nervous, almost hysterical laugh.

"Where is the treaty?" "That's ridiculous! Hahaha! I have no idea... Ouch!" "Who are your English contacts?" "The Duke of... No! Stop!"

Éléonore, unlike Céleste, did not merely submit. Every laugh, every cry was also a form of struggle. She tried to bite the jailer, to headbutt, to writhe with unexpected strength. Her voice was rougher, harsher. She insulted, threatened, then implored. The feathers, those discreet instruments of torture, wrung from her not only laughter but also venomous curses.

The judge, frustrated by Éléonore's defiance, did not stick to her feet. He knew that to break a woman of her caliber, he had to attack her most intimate and unexpected weak points.

"We shall see if your body is as accustomed, Madame," the man smiled sinisterly.

Éléonore was stripped of her heavy clothes and held lying on the damp straw mattress, her wrists and ankles still tied. The jailer and a second man approached, armed with even finer goose feathers and soft-bristled brushes.

The torment began with a line of feathers brushing her ribs. Éléonore immediately writhed, a sharp, uncontrollable laugh escaping her throat.

"No! Ah! Stop! It's horrible!"

The sensation quickly intensified. The tickle, that primitive nervous irritation, transformed into a shockwave running through her torso. The jailer began to run the feather along her waist, moving up and down, each pass drawing a sob mixed with laughter. Éléonore felt her muscles contract in involuntary spasms.

"For pity's sake! Hahahaha! Judge! I beg you! Let me breathe!"

The judge leaned in, his impassive face contrasting with the countess's hysterical suffering. "Where is the document, Éléonore?"

"I... I can't! Hahahahaha! It's too much! Stop the tickling!"

The true horror came when the feathers, slightly dipped in cold water, began to delicately stroke the sensitive area of her armpits. This area, rarely exposed to the outside world and full of nerve endings, reacted violently. Éléonore's laughter was no longer human. It was a cacophony of gasps, strangled whimpers, and laughter so forced that it sounded like cries of pure pain.

She arched her back, her spine lifting from the straw mattress, attempting to roll, to fold in half, anything to push away these light, insidious instruments. Her lungs demanded air, but the incessant laughter cut off her breath, pushing her to the brink of asphyxiation.

"Help! By the Virgin! Let me go! The Duke of... of Guise... has everything! Ah! No! That's false!"

The judge increased the pressure. The second man used small, stiff brushes to rub the sensitive areas of her sides, while the jailer focused on the folds of her waist. Éléonore was no longer the distinguished countess; she was a trembling, screaming mass, trapped in an uncontrollable laughing fit. Tears streamed down her temples, the humidity and cold of the dungeon amplifying her skin's sensitivity.

She eventually collapsed from exhaustion. The laughter turned into gasps. She no longer responded with lies, but with incoherent stammers, unable to form a rational thought. Her will, so strong against the threat of death, was pulverized by the most ridiculous sensation imaginable. She lay there, drenched in sweat, her body shaking with residual spasms.

The judge, seeing she was no longer able to provide reliable information, signaled a stop.

"You obtained nothing, Judge," Éléonore managed to whisper, her breath short and ragged, but a flicker of defiance still visible in her clouded eyes. "Just the spectacle of a humiliated woman."

The night was drawing to a close. Éléonore, broken by the feather torment, lay shaking. The judge knew he was close to breaking her, but needed a final push.

He signaled the jailer. "We will finish, Madame," the judge said tiredly. "The feather is an artifice. Let's return to the essential."

The jailer cast aside the feathers and bent over Éléonore's feet, which had been relatively spared until now, but whose sensitivity had been exacerbated by the full body's hysteria.

The jailer settled comfortably in front of her pale, taut soles. He began with the simplest: a thumb and index finger pinching and quickly rubbing the arch of her foot.

The shock was instant and absolute. The laughter that erupted was of a higher intensity than that caused by the feathers. It was more visceral, sharper, mixed with cries of alarm. It was the sensation of tickling at its peak, direct and personal.

"No! Ah! Ha, ha, ha! Stop! I can't take it anymore!"

The jailer then moved to a more targeted technique. He used the tip of his nail to lightly scratch the space between her little toe and its neighbor, then gently pulled her toes one by one, each stretch sending a nervous jolt up the countess's leg.

Éléonore began to plead incoherently. She tried to curl her feet, to hide her toes under the straw mattress, but her ankles were firmly held.

The jailer smiled, reveling in the noblewoman's total vulnerability. He then attacked the area most sensitive for many: he pressed his index finger onto the small nerve point located just beneath the ball of her main toe, then began to massage it in quick, circular motions.

Éléonore's body went into convulsions.

"I confess! I confess! Let me go! Stop, it's unbearable! I... I lied! The treaty is... Hahahahaha! It's hidden in the library! In the... the fake Virgil book!"

Éléonore spat out this information, delivering it like a gasp of air after drowning, not out of will, but because her body could no longer endure this direct, unfiltered sensory invasion.

The jailer finally stopped, his fingers trembling from the effort.

The judge, triumphant, ordered an immediate halt. "The fake Virgil! Go search for the treaty!"

Éléonore lay there, panting, tears and saliva mingled on her face. She had given in.

The Judge's Humiliation

An hour later, the messenger returned from Éléonore's Parisian residence, his face defeated. "Judge, there is no fake Virgil book. The book is real, and it is empty. She lied, or she mixed up the clues."

Éléonore, exhausted but lucid, smiled. The fingers had wrung out information, but the brain, even under torture, had had time to weave a lie into it. She had deliberately thrown her tormentors a plausible, but fatally erroneous, lure.

The failure of the "fake Virgil" clue struck the Judge as a public humiliation. The messenger had barely left the cell before the Judge turned to Éléonore, his face convulsed with cold fury. He was no longer the methodical man of the early night; he was an official humiliated by the intelligence of a woman he had reduced to hysteria.

"She mocks us!" the Judge spat, striking the stone wall with his fist. "This witch used our own weakness, our method of discretion, to play a trick on us!"

He fixed his gaze on Éléonore, who was struggling to catch her breath, her look of defiance still noticeable despite her physical exhaustion.

"We shall see who is the most cunning, Madame la Comtesse," the Judge growled.

The Judge gave a sharp order to the jailer: "Turn her over! And blindfold her!"

Éléonore was forced onto her stomach. Her hands remained tied to the straw mattress posts. The operation was brutal, making her moan as her exhausted muscles protested. A cloth mask was tightened around her eyes, plunging her into total darkness, amplifying all other sensations.

The Judge had reasoned: without sight to anticipate the gesture, the anticipation and uncertainty would tenfold the effect of the tickling, transforming the sensation into pure terror.

"We will resume where your mind tried to deceive us, Madame," the Judge announced. "And you will not move."

The torment began again, but under this new sensory condition, the effect was instantly catastrophic.

The jailer began with the most vulnerable and least visible area: her waist. His fingers, his nails, and even a small brush returned to attack Éléonore's flanks. Plunged into darkness, she could no longer anticipate whether the contact would be light or intense, nor where it would come from. Every brush was an electric surprise that made her entire body shudder.

Her laughter, already hysterical, became a jerky, mournful scream. She thrashed and contracted frantically. Her desperate attempt to fold in half was hampered by her restraints.

"No! No! Not there! It's too much! Judge! You're a monster! Ha, ha, ha! I'm going to die laughing!"

The jailer focused on her ribs and armpits, alternating rough brushes and quick fingers, while the second man worked on her feet and knees. Éléonore's laughter turned into a tearing cry of nervous pain, an animal-like moan without dignity. She could no longer form coherent sentences, only fragments of supplications and jumbled information.

She wept, spat, laughed, all at once. She reached a state of hysterical panic where the only way to stop the torment was to spit out information credible enough to be believed.

The Judge leaned in one last time. "Your last chance, Madame. The truth, or we will continue to tickle you until your heart gives out."

The jailer increased the speed and pressure on the crease of her knees and under her armpits. It was too much. The combination of darkness, cold, and the unbearable sensation broke the last barrier of her will.

"Stop! Stop!" Éléonore choked, spitting the word out amidst a hysterical rattle. "I confess! I confess everything! The treaty! It's not in a fake book! It's... it's sewn into the lining of the red velvet curtain... in the reception room of the Marquis de la Salle! I was supposed to retrieve it tomorrow! It's the truth! I beg you, stop the tickling!"

The Judge gave a triumphant jerk. He immediately ordered the torment to stop.

Éléonore remained on the straw mattress, her body shaking with residual spasms, defeated, silently weeping into the blindfold that covered the world. This time, she had truly surrendered.

The Judge only needed a few hours to verify the information. The red velvet curtain was cut open, and the secret treaty with Spain was discovered. The State was saved, the betrayal foiled.

Éléonore de V... was formally accused of high treason. Her trial was swift and held behind closed doors, avoiding a public scandal that would have revealed the methods used by justice.

Her sentence was read one cold morning in the Judge's office, in the presence of two guards.

"Éléonore de V..., you are found guilty of intelligence with the enemy and of undermining the security of the Kingdom. You are condemned to fifteen years' imprisonment in the Abbey of Saint-Michel, where you will be isolated and cut off from all external influence."

The Judge paused, staring at the broken countess, who listened without moving.

"Furthermore, given the severity of your crimes and your proven aptitude for concealment, the State needs to ensure your total and definitive submission. Your body revealed the weakness of your mind. Consequently, a special clause is added to your sentence: you will be subjected, three times a week, to prolonged and targeted corporal tickling sessions (on the feet, ribs, waist, and armpits), executed by designated Abbey staff."

The Judge emphasized his point:

"These sessions are not intended to obtain new information, but to remind you that the State has found the infallible means to reach you where you are most vulnerable. This torment, without mark or blood, will continue for the duration of your imprisonment."

Éléonore, who had not flinched at the fifteen-year prison sentence, let out a sob at the mention of the tickling. She then understood that her punishment was not prison, but the horror of sensory humiliation, turning hysterical laughter into a cruel punishment.

She was led away.

The Judge, satisfied to have saved the State and to have invented a penalty that was both merciless and traceless, wiped his brow. He had transformed the tool of interrogation into a cruel and relentless, but effective, method of correctional discipline.

As for Céleste de la M..., she continued her service at Versailles, unaware of the countess's fate, but sharing with her the same invisible scar: the terror of laughter. The only difference was that Céleste was innocent; Éléonore, guilty, was condemned to relive her punishment for fifteen years. Feathers and fingers had revealed that, in barbaric times, the most effective weapon against secrets was not always the axe, but extreme sensitivity to tickling.