Le Gibet de Montfaucon - Étude sur le vieux Paris

by Firmin Maillard

D écrire tous les lieux où jadis on exécutait serait une rude besogne : chaque pavé de notre bonne ville de Paris est rouge. Cependant, avant de faire l’historique du gibet de Montfaucon, objet de cette monographie, indiquons sommairement quels étaient les principaux emplacements affectés au supplice des criminels. Les plus anciens lieux patibulaires furent, — à ce que dit Sauvai, et il n’en est pas sûr, — Saint-Denys du Pas, Montmartre et la Croix du Tiroi. Fruit d’une sélection réalisée au sein des fonds de la Bibliothèque nationale de France, Collection XIX a pour ambition de faire découvrir des textes classiques et moins classiques dans les meilleures éditions du XIX e siècle.

100 pages, Kindle Edition

Published November 17, 2016

Reviews

[Nathan Hillyer · Rating 3 out of 5]

If you are reading this review, wow! You must have a very particular academic interest in French history or a fixated curiosity about Montfaucon. This monograph from the 1800s is only extant in French. In order to read it, I went to the trouble of utilizing AI to translate and provide notes, which was a tedious and frustrating task - even for the mere 98 pages of the monograph. It often includes lengthy footnotes, which take entire pages themselves and confuses an AI model. That said, I was finally able to produce a readable pdf. The monograph is not so much about the actual gibbet. Montfaucon's basic structure is outlined, along with the potential origins of how it came to be located where it was. There is mention of its needing repair a few times and its eventual end, but the bulk of the work is about the key figures who were hung there. Some of these are quite interesting and led me to look up their histories, especially during the turbulent period of the reign of Charles VI. But, being entirely ignorant of French history, it was new to me. Montfaucon was not only a place of display but also execution from time to time, though not necessarily. Often people were executed in other locations, and their corpses were brought to be put on display. And often not even all of the body was displayed since many were decapitated rather than hung. The heads were put on spikes, and if the body was quartered, perhaps only the trunk was placed at Montfaucon while limbs were displayed at prominent gates elsewhere. In the present, we might have a public service billboard admonishing people: Don't do drugs! whereas in the 14th - 17th centuries, one looked up at the city gate and said, "Hey, there is that traitor's arm. Probably should avoid going into politics." I read Le Gibet de Montfaucon almost as a hobby project, like building a model train display, because it wasn't too long, and I wanted to see if I could produce a readable version for myself. Having read two books about gibbets in England and seen ominous images of the grand gibbet of Paris, I wanted to satisfy my curiosity. I can't say that it was entirely achieved because the subject of this looming temple of death on the horizon, something drawn and painted in historic works, is treated as incidental in the monograph. As a structure with a haunting reputation, it has made more of an impression perhaps in literature and art indirectly. At least moreso than in this piece of writing, which is not even listed as a reference in the Wikipedia page for the Gibbet of Montfaucon. In fact, Wikipedia doesn't offer much more on the subject of the grand gibbet either. Perhaps it is better that way. The works of art and vague mentions of the two-tier display of up to 32 corpses is left to the fearsome imagination, like a ghostly legend.