So wrote Villon--also called Corbeuil,--in the middle of the fifteenth century. We shall have occasion, later on, to show that human nature on the hill of Montfaucon, in the darkness of the Middle Ages, was the same as human nature in a great English midland town in the enlightened nineteenth century. Monsieur de Lavillegille tells us that there was another and a smaller gibbet, not far from Montfaucon, called “Le gibet de Montigny.”[39] This was to supply the place of the great scarecrow, when the latter was under repair, because, of course, Justice never stands still. The bodies of men decapitated, quartered, torn to pieces by horses, or boiled, were hung up in sacks of sackcloth or leather; such as committed suicide also,[40] and lay figures of persons condemned _in contumaciam_. The corpse of the great Captain Coligny, who was killed in the massacre of St. Bartholomew, August 24, 1572, was hung up by the heels at the gibbet of Montfaucon. L’Etoile reports that Catherine de Medecis--“pour repâitre ses yeux”--went to view him one evening. It was the custom in France to try, condemn, and hang on the gibbet, in human clothing, certain animals under special circumstances. So a sow, who had killed a child, was hung up at Montigny. A bull was similarly tried and condemned for killing a man, but whether the beast was gibbeted is not recorded. It may be that the difficulty and inconvenience of carrying the matter out, or perhaps the trouble to obtain garments large enough, caused our fantastic neighbours to draw the line at the bull. But we may fairly admire the principle of mediæval times, which seems to have been that justice should be meted out equally both to man and beast. It is pleasant to know that in many English towns at the present day societies are active in seeing that not only simple justice, but, what is much better for them, mercy also, is dealt out to the poor dog, the poor horse, the necessary or unnecessary cat, and other harmless, helpless creatures. Chapter IV. In Spain the body remained usually upon the gallows after execution, the gallows thus becoming the gibbet. The following story is an exemplification of this practice:-- “It was my fortune at St. Domingo to enter the Town-Church: accompanied with two _French_ Puppies, mindful to shew me a miraculous matter.