One can easily imagine the strange and melancholy aspect of this monumental gibbet if one thinks of the number of corpses continually attached to it, and which were feasted upon by thousands of crows. On one occasion only it was necessary to replace fifty-two chains, which were useless; and the accounts of the city of Paris prove that the expense of executions was more heavy than that of the maintenance of the gibbet, a fact easy to be understood if one recalls to mind the frequency of capital sentences during the Middle Ages. Montfaucon was used not only for executions, but also for exposing corpses which were brought there from various places of execution in every part of the country. The mutilated remains of criminals who had been boiled, quartered, or beheaded, were also hung there, enclosed in sacks of leather or wickerwork. They often remained hanging for a considerable time, as in the case of Pierre des Essarts, who had been beheaded in 1413, and whose remains were handed over to his family for Christian burial after having hung on Montfaucon for three years.

The criminal condemned to be hanged was generally taken to the place of execution sitting or standing in a waggon, with his back to the horses, his confessor by his side, and the executioner behind him. He bore three ropes round his neck; two the size of the little finger, and called tortouses, each of which had a slip-knot; the third, called the jet, was only used to pull the victim off the ladder, and so to launch him into eternity ([Fig. 350]). When the cart arrived at the foot of the gallows, the executioner first ascended the ladder backwards, drawing the culprit after him by means of the ropes, and forcing him to keep pace with him; on arriving at the top, he quickly fastened the two tortouses to the arm of the gibbet, and by a jerk of his knee he turned the culprit off the ladder, still holding the jet in his own hand. He then placed his feet on the tied hands of the condemned, and suspending himself by his hands to the gibbet, he finished off his victim by repeated jerks, thus ensuring complete strangulation.

When the words "shall be hung until death doth ensue" are to be found in a sentence, it must not be supposed that they were used merely as a form, for in certain cases the judge ordered that the sentence should be only carried out as far as would prove to the culprit the awful sensation of hanging. In such cases, the victim was simply suspended by ropes passing under the arm-pits, a kind of exhibition which was not free from danger when it was too prolonged, for the weight of the body so tightened the rope round the chest that the circulation might be stopped. Many culprits, after hanging thus an hour, when brought down, were dead, or only survived this painful process a short time.

[Fig. 350.]--Hanging to Music. (A Minstrel condemned to the Gallows obtained permission that one of his companions should accompany him to his execution, and play his favourite instrument on the ladder of the Gallows.)--Fac-simile of a Woodcut in Michault's "Doctrinal du Temps Présent:" small folio, goth., Bruges, about 1490.

We have seen elsewhere (chapter on Privileges and Rights, Feudal and Municipal) that, when the criminal passed before the convent of the Filles-Dieu, the nuns of that establishment were bound to bring him out a glass of wine and three pieces of bread, and this was called le dernier morceau des patients. It was hardly ever refused, and an immense crowd assisted at this sad meal. After this the procession went forward, and on arriving near the gallows, another halt was made at the foot of a stone cross, in order that the culprit might receive the religions exhortations of his confessor. The moment the execution was over, the confessor and the officers of justice returned to the Châtelet, where a repast provided by the town awaited them.

[Fig. 351.]--View of the Pillory in the Market-place of Paris in the Sixteenth Century, after a Drawing by an unknown Artist of 1670.

Sometimes the criminals, in consequence of a peculiar wording of the sentence, were taken to Montfaucon, whether dead or alive, on a ladder fastened behind a cart. This was an aggravation of the penalty, which was called traîner sur la claie.

The penalty of the lash was inflicted in two ways: first, under the custode, that is to say within the prison, and by the hand of the gaoler himself, in which case it was simply a correction; and secondly, in public, when its administration became ignominious as well as painful. In the latter case the criminal was paraded about the town, stripped to the waist, and at each crossway he received a certain number of blows on the shoulders, given by the public executioner with a cane or a knotted rope.

When it was only required to stamp a culprit with infamy he was put into the pillory, which was generally a kind of scaffold furnished with chains and iron collars, and bearing on its front the arms of the feudal lord. In Paris, this name was given to a round isolated tower built in the centre of the market. The tower was sixty feet high, and had large openings in its thick walls, and a horizontal wheel was provided, which was capable of turning on a pivot. This wheel was pierced with several holes, made so as to hold the hands and head of the culprit, who, on passing and repassing before the eyes of the crowd, came in full view, and was subjected to their hootings ([Fig. 351]). The pillories were always situated in the most frequented places, such as markets, crossways, &c.

Notwithstanding the long and dreadful enumeration we have just made of mediæval punishments, we are far from having exhausted the subject; for we have not spoken of several more or less atrocious punishments, which were in use at various times and in various countries; such as the Pain of the Cross, specially employed against the Jews; the Arquebusade, which was well adapted for carrying out prompt justice on soldiers; the Chatouillement, which resulted in death after the most intense tortures; the Pal ([Fig. 352]), flaying alive, and, lastly, drowning, a kind of death frequently employed in France. Hence the common expression, gens de sac et de corde, which was derived from the sack into which persons were tied who were condemned to die by immersion.... But we will now turn away from these horrible scenes, and consider the several methods of penal sequestration and prison arrangements.