Le gibet de Montfaucon (étude sur le vieux Paris)

A historical monograph surveying sites of public execution in Paris and the organization of high and local justice, it catalogs gallows, pillories, and other places of corporal punishment while explaining the legal jurisdictions that controlled them. The central focus is the great hilltop gallows: its origins, physical form, approach and enclosure, documentary mentions and property ties, and the popular legends and vivid accounts surrounding condemned prisoners. Drawing on archival acts, legal edicts, and contemporary descriptions, the study reconstructs the material setting and public rituals of execution and traces how punitive spectacle was embedded in the city’s topography and institutions.