We may now pass for a short time to France. In that country the gallows was a feudal right which, held in the first place _in capite_, could be sub-infeudated to lesser vassals, but they could at any time be suppressed by the Crown.[35] Voltaire, at Ferney, had several gallows or _potences_, and his reassuring speech about them to his friends was, “I have as many gallows as would suffice to hang half the monarchs in Europe, and half the monarchs in Europe deserve no loftier position.” Charles V. (1380-1422) granted leave to certain districts to have gallows--_fourches patibulaires_--with two posts, and a curious question arose in consequence of the Count of Rhodez having placed his armorial bearings upon a gibbet of this kind against the prerogative of the king; it was an abuse of privilege, and implied the seizing of justice. Such gibbets, of which the number of pillars, or, if of wood, posts, varied from two to eight, according to the quality of the lord, were used both to hang criminals from, and for the suspension, exposure, or gibbeting of the bodies of men executed elsewhere upon temporary gallows. The sites of these _fourches patibulaires_ are recognizable at the present day by the names, “La Justice,” “La grande Justice,” titles corresponding to our own more humble and prosaic terms, “Gibbet Hill,” or “Gibbet Field.” The English gibbets have never assumed, like those in France, any monumental character. It is certain that there was already at the end of the twelfth century a great monumental gibbet on the eminence of Montfaucon, between the faubourgs of St. Martin and the Temple, in Paris. Sauval gives a remarkable description of it as at that period, and, although he does not give his authorities quite in the way English antiquaries might wish, there can be no doubt, from the documents of the thirteenth century, that the monument was as Sauval describes it. It underwent extensive repairs, if not partial re-building, in 1425, when forty-eight old beams were replaced by new ones. It is also recorded that in 1466 “at the Great Justice of Paris were attached and nailed fifty-two iron chains to hang and strangle the malefactors who have been and shall be sent here by order of Justice.” Eight great new ladders were subsequently added, and all these details are corroborated by a representation in an old tapestry at the Hotel de Ville.[36] From these very curious records the genius of Viollet le Duc has produced an illustration which is here reproduced. It will speak for itself better than any description, and it will be only necessary to say that the fourth, or open side, allowed access to the interior by a broad flight of steps leading to a wide platform on what may be called the first floor, running round the three sides of the interior. Upon this platform the executioner, with his ladders and assistants, performed his office. [Illustration: GIBBET OF MONTFAUCON. (_From Viollet le Duc, “Dictionnaire raisonné.”_)]