Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Preface
- Acknowledgments
- List of abbreviations
- Introduction
- 1 Revolutionary justice in 1789–1790: the Comité des Recherches, the Châtelet, and the Fayettist coalition
- 2 The judicial aftermath of the July Revolution
- 3 The Besenval affair: amnesty or prosecution?
- 4 Lafayette, Orléans, and the October Days
- 5 The post-October Days campaign against the left
- 6 The Favras conspiracy
- 7 The Favras–Besenval judicial transaction
- 8 The Maillebois conspiracy
- 9 The October Days affair and the radicalization of the Comité des Recherches
- 10 The Maillebois and October Days affairs: mutual amnesty and the breakup of the Fayettist coalition
- Conclusion
- Notes
- Select bibliography
- Index
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Preface
- Acknowledgments
- List of abbreviations
- Introduction
- 1 Revolutionary justice in 1789–1790: the Comité des Recherches, the Châtelet, and the Fayettist coalition
- 2 The judicial aftermath of the July Revolution
- 3 The Besenval affair: amnesty or prosecution?
- 4 Lafayette, Orléans, and the October Days
- 5 The post-October Days campaign against the left
- 6 The Favras conspiracy
- 7 The Favras–Besenval judicial transaction
- 8 The Maillebois conspiracy
- 9 The October Days affair and the radicalization of the Comité des Recherches
- 10 The Maillebois and October Days affairs: mutual amnesty and the breakup of the Fayettist coalition
- Conclusion
- Notes
- Select bibliography
- Index
Summary
On the eve of the French Revolution, few subjects were capable of arousing more indignation in “enlightened” circles in France than the miscarriages of justice allegedly being perpetrated by an irrational and inhumane judicial system. Responding to a sustained campaign by an energetic group of publicists and reformers, the “tribunal of public opinion” had ruled almost unanimously by the 1780s that French justice was too severe, too arbitrary, and, in general, scandalously and shamefully “barbaric,” considering that it was almost the end of the eminently civilized eighteenth century. As Condorcet put it in 1793:
A strongly expressed demand for… the abolition of torture and barbarous punishments, the desire for a more lenient criminal justice system, and for a jurisprudence which would provide complete security to the innocent… These principles, gradually filtering down from philosophical works to every group in society whose education went further than the catechism and the alphabet, became the common faith and emblem of all those who were neither Machiavellians nor fools.
Yet, these words were written, as is well known, by a man who at that very moment was being hunted and tracked down by a regime which was in the process of making a mockery of the supposed “principles” of this supposed “common faith.” Classified by the Montagnards as a leading Girondin, Condorcet was arrested in March 1794 and apparently committed suicide soon afterwards to avoid almost certain execution.
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- Information
- Revolutionary Justice in Paris, 1789–1790 , pp. ix - xvPublisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 1993