nnade round three of the four sides of the mass which
support them, bound together at their summits by heavy beams, whence
hung chains at intervals; on all these chains, skeletons; in the
vicinity, on the plain, a stone cross and two gibbets of secondary
importance, which seemed to have sprung up as shoots around the central
gallows; above all this, in the sky, a perpetual flock of crows; that
was Montfaucon.

At the end of the fifteenth century, the formidable gibbet which dated
from 1328, was already very much dilapidated; the beams were wormeaten,
the chains rusted, the pillars green with mould; the layers of hewn
stone were all cracked at their joints, and grass was growing on that
platform which no feet touched. The monument made a horrible profile
against the sky; especially at night when there was a little moonlight
on those white skulls, or when the breeze of evening brushed the chains
and the skeletons, and swayed all these in the darkness. The presence of
this gibbet sufficed to render gloomy all the surrounding places.

The mass of masonry which served as foundation to the odious edifice was
hollow. A huge cellar had been constructed there, closed by an old iron
grating, which was out of order, into which were cast not only the human
remains, which were taken from the chains of Montfaucon, but also the
bodies of all the unfortunates executed on the other permanent gibbets
of Paris. To that deep charnel-house, where so many human remains and so
many crimes have rotted in company, many great ones of this world,
many innocent people, have contributed their bones, from Enguerrand de
Marigni, the first victim, and a just man, to Admiral de Coligni, who
was its last, and who was also a just man.

As for the mysterious disappearance of Quasimodo, this is all that we
have been able to discover.

About eighteen months or two years after the events which terminate this
story, when search was made in that cavern for the body of Olivier le
Daim, who had been hanged two days previously, and to whom Charles
VIII. had granted the favor of being buried in Saint Laurent, in better
company, they found among all those hideous carcasses two skeletons, one
of which held the other in its embrace. One of these skeletons, which
was that of a woman, still had a few strips of a garment which had once
been white, and around her neck was to be seen a string of adrezarach
beads with a little silk bag ornamented with green glass, which