The 10th Arrondissement's Montfaucon

By Thirza Vallois

This month we continue our round of Paris's arrondissements with yet another excerpt from Thirza Vallois's internationally-acclaimed Around and About Paris series. The 10th arrondissement provides us with a gruesome story that may chill your bones and spine, but which befits the dreary month of November and such celebrations as Halloween and La Toussaint.

For reasons of geography, too, the main gallows of the city that came under royal jurisdiction was set up in this area. It was all right to chop up or quarter people in the centre of Paris, but you could not leave dangling bodies to rot there. A plot of land was therefore sought in an uninhabited spot, remote enough from the city but also of sufficient height so as to be seen by everyone, inspire terror far and wide and serve as a warning to would-be wrongdoers. The word gibet (gallows or gibbet) is believed by many historians to derive from the Arabic djebel (mountain).

A site answering the requirements was found along the road to Germany, on the present rue de la Grange-aux-Belles, north of the Hôpital Saint-Louis. This was confirmed in 1954, during the construction of a garage at no. 53, when the bases of two stone pillars and some human bones were discovered. It was not a very high mound - though high enough for Henri IV to erect his battery there in 1590 for the siege of Paris - but it stoud out well among the fields. (This was open countryside, of course, the hospital having been build only four centuries later.) The site was bought from the Comte Fulco, the lord of vast expanses in these parts, including those he had sold to the Order of Saint-Lazare - hence the distorted name Montfaucon.

Of course, many wretched victims were hanged for no crime of their own. One such was the noted Pierre de la Brosse, chamberlain by appointment of Saint Louis, and also physician and Minister of Finance. He was the favorite of Philippe III le Hardi, the son of Saint Louis, which naturally aroused the jealousy of rivals, who succeeded in bringing him to trial on the false allegation that he had poisoned the heir to the throne. He was executed in 1276. Other prominent figures were to meet the same fate as a result of personal rivalries: Enguerrand de Marigny (in 1315), who had rebuilt the Royal Palace on the Ile de la Cité for Philippe le Bel, Pierre Rémy (in 1328), who had himself supervised the construction of the new, permanent, stone gallows three years earlier, Jean de Montagu (in 1409) who had repaired them; and the 72-year-old Semblançay (in 1527), the financial superintendent of François I, whose execution was immortalised in the satirical lines of the poet Clément Marot:

Lorsque Maillart, juge d'Enfer, menait
A Montfaucon Samblançay l'âme rendre,
A votre avis, lequel des deux tenait
Meilleur maintien? Pour le vous fair entendre,
Maillart semblait homme que mort va prendre,
Et Samblançay fut si ferme vieillard,
Que l'on cuidait, pour vrai, qu'il menât pendre
A Montfaucon, le lieutenant Maillart.

When Maillart, judge of Hell,
To Montfaucon led Samblançay to give up his soul,
Which of the two, in your mind,
Had the better demeanour? To enlighten you,
Maillart seemed the man whome death would take
And so sturdy an old man was Samblançay,
That one truly believed that it was he who led
Lieutenant Maillart to be hanged at Montaucon.

The size of the gallows in the kingdom depended on the rank of the authorities they came under - two pillars for a lord, four for a baron, 16 for a king, and therefore for Montfaucon. It could accommodate as many as 64 bodies at a time and was often used to full capacity. The sight of dozens of bodies dangling against the north-eastern horizon was thus an integral part of the landscape in medieval Paris. The bodies werte left to rot in the open and were taken down only when there was need to make room for others. They would then be thrown into a mass grave at the foot of the gallows, where they joined the mutilated remains of the wretched victims of public executions. Since the hanging of women was considered indecent, condemned women were instead buried there alive, a custom that presisted until the end of the 15th century. The grave was guarded by archers against mobs of witches who coveted the hearts of the victims for the preparation of philtres. In keeping with the highly hierarchial nature of this society, the gallows were divided into an upper and a lower section and the condemned were hanged in a higher or lower position according to their social rank. However, a condemned man could be pardoned if a woman of the Order of the Filles-Dieu agreed to marry him or if the rope broke during the hanging.

The famous medieval poet François Villon was one of the fortunate few whose neck was spared, though, in his case, not by the capricious intervention of Fate, but by the Parliament of Paris, which in 1463 cancelled his death sentence, after which he vanished and was heard of no more. Nevertheless, he left for posterity one of the masterpieces of French poetry, La Ballade des Pendus, which he wrote while awaiting his hanging, immortalising the chilling gallows of Montfaucon:

Frères humains qui apès nous vivez,
N'ayez les cuers contre nous endurciz,
Car, se pitié de nous pouvres avez,
Dieu en aura plus tost de vous merciz.
Vous nous voyez cy attachez cing, six:
Quant de la chair, que trop avons nourrie,
Elle est pieça devorée et pourrie,
Et nous, les os, devenons cendre et pouldre.

Brother men who after us shall live,
Let not your hearts against us hardened be,
For if you take pity on our poor souls,
God will return his mercy upon yours.
You see us here hanging, five or six,
Our flesh, once too well nourished,
now rots, torn by beaks, devoured,
And we, the bones, dissolve to dust and ashes.

Thirza Vallois brings Paris to life in a way that enthralls her readers and provides them with a detailed knowledge of the city which exceeds that of most Parisians, while her fast moving style disguises a depth of historical fact that is normally only found in academic tomes. Writer William Boyd wrote in The Spectator: "I think we can safely toss all other Paris guidebooks aside....There can be no higher praise than when I say they come close to the world's greatest guidebook, J. Link's "Venice for Pleasure" and they should soon achieve similar legendary status." The French Ambassador to the UK wrote: "I am convinced that this guide will constitute from now on, for the British lovers of Paris, a reference book which will have the success it deserves." Around and About Paris may be ordered online here.

A long time resident of Paris, she currently lives just three hours outside of Paris in London, and may be contacted via thirzavallois@iliadbooks.demon.co.uk.

Thirza Vallois will be giving several lectures and book signing in California this November. Her itinerary is here.

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