E. Cobham Brewer 1810–1897. Dictionary of Phrase and Fable. 1898.
Martinet.
A strict disciplinarian; so called from the Marquis of Martinet, a young colonel in the reign of Louis XIV., who remodelled the infantry, and was slain at the siege of Doesbourg, in 1672 (Voltaire, Louis XIV., c. 10). The French still call a cat-o’-nine-tails a “martinet.”
1
The French martinet was a whip with twelve leather thongs.
