A LUGUBRIOUS TRAIL TO THE MONTFAUCON GIBET
(BEGUN 1303, DEMOLISHED 1760)
-- Main source:
Condemning to Death in the Middle Ages, 2018, by Claude Gauvard (in French)
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© British Library Board / Robana/Leemage, no source, gone from web |
It meant a four or five hours march from the Châtelet prison:
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| Paris in 1530 / zoom |
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Nothing remains of it today. (Site is at 18 rue Boy-Zelensky, 10th, m° Colonel Fabien)
Gibets were built on crossroads, on heights seen from afar: The word comes from "jebel," "mountain" in Arabic, a term the Crusaders brought back:
The Montfaucon Gibet imagined by François Alexandre Pernot toward 1850 / zoom
Montfaucon, the king's gibet, had 16 pillars connected by beams on which as many as 30 corpses could hang. Towns and nobles had gibets as well, with two to eight pillars depending on rank. With the growth of royal power they were used less and less, and came to serve mainly as signs of prestige.
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Just before or after* the Saint-Denis gate was the convent of the "Filles-Dieu," where the convoy would stop.
*Depending on security beyond the rampart
In front of a large crucifix the chaplain poured holy water over the condemned man, preparing him for death as baptism prepares for life. Then a nun gave him a glass of wine and three pieces of bread: Gulping them down meant that his soul was ready for the next world.
A second stop was at the "Cross of Craon," where the prisoner made a last confession:
Saturn and his Children (detail), anonymous, end 15th century / zoom
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"The Ballad of the Hanged," one of the great French poems, was written in prison by the 15th-century thief and murderer François Villon as he awaited hanging at Montfaucon:
Human brothers,* men who live after us
do not harden your hearts against us [...]
You see us here attached five or six [...]
Pray that God absolve us all!
-- For the full poem, please click on the link above.
*The poem's fame: Those words begin the fictionalized memoir of an SS officer in World War 2, who says, "I am guilty, you are not, that's good. But you might say to yourself that what I did, you might have done too. With perhaps less zeal, but also less despair, in any case one way or another." He asks not to be judged, as Villon does, but the novel ends abruptly: His memories have made him go mad.
-- The Kindly Ones by Jonathan Little, 2007
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The site expressed royal power:
- Images of Montfaucon in illuminated manuscripts include the king.
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| The Burning of the Amauricians before Philippe II of France by Jean Fouquet, end 15th century / zoom |
The Martyrdom of de Saint Catherine, by Jean Fouquet / zoom
- Exposing adversaries' remains showed the depth of their defeat, as when Charles IX allowed the headless corpse of his adversary, Gaspard de Coligny, to hang there after the Saint Bartholomew's Day Massacre.
The Saint Bartholomew's Day Massacre by François Dubois, 1572 / zoom
Gaspard de Coligny is about to be thrown out of a window. The work shows Monfaucon in the distance to foreshadow what will become of the corpse.
"On August 28 1572 Catherine de Medici, Charles IX and the court visited the corpse of Admiral Coligny hung by the feet from the gibet.
When the king was urged to leave the stinking site, he said: 'Comme now, sirs, doesn't an enemy's corpse always have a pleasant smell? Yet there is no agreeable company that one does not quit. Goodbye, noble Gaspard," and the gentlemen waved their hats and returned satisfied. "
-- Internet citation, no source named
llustration of "The Ballad of the Hanged" / zoom
Cadavres there did not rest in sacred land,
but on the gibet or under it:
Monarchs' control continued after death.
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