Hostage

Hostage, a person given to an enemy as a pledge for the proper fulfilment of treaty conditions. Formerly the evasion of the terms of the treaty by one of the contracting parties used to be regarded as entitling the enemy to put to death the hostages that had been given up to them. The shooting of Archbishop Darboy (q.v.) and his fellow hostages in 1871 was the most execrable crime of the Paris Communists.