As an instrument of state, torture was expressly abolished by the French Revolution (which never practised it) on 8 October 1789, but even well before this French humanist writers had decided that it was both inhuman and inefficient. Article 303 of the French Penal Code (aiming specifically at highwaymen who had an unpleasant habit of “warming up the feet” of their victims) actually imposed the death penalty upon anyone practising torture.

QUESTION: France abolished torture in 1789 yet seems to have pioneered modern torture techniques decades later during Algeria. Worth chasing that reversal.

Horne, Alistair, A Savage War of Peace- Alge…, loc. 581