The criminal condemned to be hanged was generally taken to the place of execution sitting or standing in a waggon, with his back to the horses, his confessor by his side, and the executioner behind him.  He bore three ropes round his neck; two the size of the little finger, and called tortouses, each of which had a slip-knot; the third, called the jet, was only used to pull the victim off the ladder, and so to launch him into eternity (Fig. 350).  When the cart arrived at the foot of the gallows, the executioner first ascended the ladder backwards, drawing the culprit after him by means of the ropes, and forcing him to keep pace with him; on arriving at the top, he quickly fastened the two tortouses to the arm of the gibbet, and by a jerk of his knee he turned the culprit off the ladder, still holding the jet in his own hand.  He then placed his feet on the tied hands of the condemned, and suspending himself by his hands to the gibbet, he finished off his victim by repeated jerks, thus ensuring complete strangulation.

When the words “shall be hung until death doth ensue” are to be found in a sentence, it must not be supposed that they were used merely as a form, for in certain cases the judge ordered that the sentence should be only carried out as far as would prove to the culprit the awful sensation of hanging.  In such cases, the victim was simply suspended by ropes passing under the arm-pits, a kind of exhibition which was not free from danger when it was too prolonged, for the weight of the body so tightened the rope round the chest that the circulation might be stopped.  Many culprits, after hanging thus an hour, when brought down, were dead, or only survived this painful process a short time.

[Illustration:  Fig. 350.—­Hanging to Music. (A Minstrel condemned to the Gallows obtained permission that one of his companions should accompany him to his execution, and play his favourite instrument on the ladder of the Gallows.)—­Fac-simile of a Woodcut in Michault’s “Doctrinal du Temps Present:”  small folio, goth., Bruges, about 1490.]

We have seen elsewhere (chapter on Privileges and Rights, Feudal and Municipal) that, when the criminal passed before the convent of the Filles-Dieu, the nuns of that establishment were bound to bring him out a glass of wine and three pieces of bread, and this was called le dernier morceau des patients. It was hardly ever refused, and an immense crowd assisted at this sad meal.  After this the procession went forward, and on arriving near the gallows, another halt was made at the foot of a stone cross, in order that the culprit might receive the religions exhortations of his confessor.  The moment the execution was over, the confessor and the officers of justice returned to the Chatelet, where a repast provided by the town awaited them.

[Illustration:  Fig. 351.—­View of the Pillory in the Market-place of Paris in the Sixteenth Century, after a Drawing by an unknown Artist of 1670.]