It probably depends on the method. With waterboarding you pass out, they wake you up and waterboard you more, you pass out again, they wake you again, waterboar

It probably depends on the method. With waterboarding you pass out, they wake you up and waterboard you more, you pass out again, they wake you again, waterboard you some more, pass out again, wake you up, repeat over the course of tens of hours. You might lose some brain cells but it's more psychological than permanent. And maybe you know that. Compare that to extracting an eye, a second eye, a tongue... cutting off an ear, a nose, fingers, destroying your knee cartilage, cutting your Achilles tendon? So it sounds like torture was institutionalized in France in the 1700s much like it is in the u.s. now, and that less permanent forms of torture were accepted, much like it is now in the u.s. So, I think I'd first take these institutionalized forms of torture, then death, then the more gruesome and permanent forms of torture.