Offences committed by the scholars on the left bank were tried in the law courts on the island, and were punished on the right bank at Montfaucon; unless the rector, feeling the University to be strong and the king weak, intervened; for it was the students’ privilege to be hanged on their own grounds. The greater part of these privileges, it may be noted in passing, and there were some even better than the above, had been extorted from the kings by revolts and mutinies. It is the course of things from time immemorial; the king only lets go when the people tear away. There is an old charter
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A privilege of students to be hanged on their own grounds
