Le gibet de Montfaucon (étude sur le vieux Paris)

A vivid portrait of medieval and early‑modern Paris, this work opens by mapping the city’s many places of public punishment—from the grim gallows of Montfaucon to the scattered pilories, ladders, and “fourches” that once dotted every neighborhood. The author traces how each site reflected the tangled web of overlapping jurisdictions, from local abbots to the royal Châtelet, and explains the edicts that eventually tried to bring order to this chaotic system of justice.

Beyond the stark descriptions of execution methods, the book weaves together legal documents, contemporary verses, and folklore surrounding the condemned. Readers discover how ordinary Parisians navigated a landscape where every cobblestone could mark a death, and how the city’s authorities used public spectacle both to deter crime and to assert power. Rich in detail yet accessible, the study invites listeners to step back into a Paris where law, religion, and violence intersected on the very streets they walked.