Curiosities of Superstition, and Sketches - W. H. Davenport Adams

the fanaticism; the wits of Paris levelled their ridicule at it; and finally, in 1601,
the Parliament of Paris passed an act to abolish a fraternity of Flagellants, called
the Blue Penitents, in the town of Bourges, and afterwards against all whipping
brotherhoods without distinction, declaring the members to be not only heretics,
traitors, and regicides, but unchaste. The fraternity thereafter declined, and
finally disappeared from France.