The Jurats immediately gave orders to stay the execution. The matter was submitted to a searching investigation, and resulted in a full exposure of the Bailiff’s nefarious plot. Thereupon Gaultier de la Salle was sentenced to suffer the same punishment that he had intended for the innocent Massy, and his estate was declared to be confiscated to the King, since which time it has borne the appellation of “La Ville-au-Roi.” It is said that he was hanged at a spot in the parish of St. Andrew’s, where, until the last century, executions[125] usually took place, and that, on his way to the gibbet, he stopped and received the Holy Sacrament at the foot of a cross, which, though long destroyed, has given its name to the locality “La Croix au Baillif.” An old lane bounding the land of the Ville-au-Roi on the north, and which was closed in the early part of last century, when the present high road was cut, bore the singular name of “La Rue de l’Ombre de la Mort.” It had naturally an evil reputation as the resort of phantoms and hobgoblins, and even in the present day it is with fear and trembling that the belated peasant in returning from town passes the avenue of aged elms that leads up to the ruined mansion of the iniquitous judge. Many will tell you how, at the witching hour of night, they have seen a huge, headless black dog rush out and brush past them, and how those who have been bold enough to strike at the phantom might as well have beaten the air, for their cudgel met with no resistance from anything corporeal. No one doubts that it is the unquiet spirit of Gaultier de la Salle, doomed to wander till the great day of judgment around the field for the sake of which he was led into such deadly sin, happy even if so dreadful a penance could expiate his guilt. [122] See note on page 245. [123] EDITOR’S NOTE.--To this day one of the fields on the adjoining estate of “Le Mont Durant,” belonging to Colonel de Guérin, bears the name of “Petite Ville.” [124] EDITOR’S NOTES.--There is documentary evidence proving that in the early part of the fifteenth century the “Ville au Roi” estate belonged to John Thiault, Jurat of the Royal Court. He died, leaving three daughters, of whom the eldest married Perrin Careye, and thus brought these lands into the Carey family, where they remained until the year 1570, when Collette Careye, great, great grand-daughter of Perrin Careye, married Guillaume De Beauvoir, and received the Ville au Roi estate as her share of her father’s property. The property did not remain long in the possession of the De Beauvoir family, as we find, September 24, 1636, “Monsieur Jean de la Marche, ministre,” its owner, “à cause d’Ester De Beauvoir, sa femme, fille de Collette Careye.” The Reverend John de la Marche, Rector of St. Andrew’s and subsequently of the Town parish, married Esther, daughter of William de Beauvoir and Collette Careye, January 24th, 1616.