Tale of Two Murders , livre ebook

Duke University Press - Farr James R. Farr

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241 pages

English

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As scandalous as any modern-day celebrity murder trial, the "Giroux affair" was a maelstrom of intrigue, encompassing daggers, poison, adultery, archenemies, servants, royalty, and legal proceedings that reached the pinnacle of seventeenth-century French society. In 1638 Philippe Giroux, a judge in the highest royal court of Burgundy, allegedly murdered his equally powerful cousin, Pierre Baillet, and Baillet's valet, Philibert Neugot. The murders were all the more shocking because they were surrounded by accusations (particularly that Giroux had been carrying on a passionate affair with Baillet's wife), conspiracy theories (including allegations that Giroux tried to poison his mother-in-law), and unexplained deaths (Giroux's wife and her physician died under suspicious circumstances). The trial lasted from 1639 until 1643 and came to involve many of the most distinguished and influential men in France, among them the prince of Conde, Henri II Bourbon; the prime minister, Cardinal Richelieu; and King Louis XIII.James R. Farr reveals the Giroux affair not only as a riveting murder mystery but also as an illuminating point of entry into the dynamics of power, justice, and law in seventeenth-century France. Drawing on the voluminous trial records, Farr uses Giroux's experience in the court system to trace the mechanisms of power-both the formal power vested by law in judicial officials and the informal power exerted by the nobility through patron-client relationships. He does not take a position on Giroux's guilt or innocence. Instead, he allows readers to draw their own conclusions about who did what to whom on that ill-fated evening in 1638.

Sujets

Histoire

True crime

History

France

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Publié par	Duke University Press
Date de parution	28 septembre 2005
Nombre de lectures	0
EAN13	9780822387145
Langue	English
Poids de l'ouvrage	1 Mo

Informations légales : prix de location à la page 0,1348€. Cette information est donnée uniquement à titre indicatif conformément à la législation en vigueur.

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A Tale of Two Murders

Passion and Power in Seventeenth-Century France

   . 

            

             

Printed in the United States of America

on acid-free paper 

in Quadraat by Tseng Information Systems, Inc.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication

Data appear on the last printed page

of this book.

For Danielle

Contents

Prefaceix List of Principal Charactersxiii Prologue: Looking Back

  

         

Tales of Two Murders Passion and the Beautiful Cousin The Trial Opens: Jean-Baptiste Lantin’s Investigation, – A Hat, a Rapier, a Knife, and a Dagger The House of Giroux Prison Poison Jailbreak A ‘‘Minister of Vengeance’’ Rape? Attack, Counterattack The King of Spades Life or Death? The Day of Reckoning Draws Near

Epilogue Analytical Essay: The Paradoxes of Power, Law, and Justice Notes A Note on Sources Index

Preface

1 Justice is ‘‘public vengeance, not private.’’ So pronounced Pierre de Sau-maise, the Seigneur de Chasans, one of the key players in acause célèbrethat shook Burgundy in the mid-seventeenth century.This book is about that his-torical episode. It centers on the murder trial of a distinguished and power-ful man, Philippe Giroux, aprésident, or presiding judge, at Burgundy’s Par-lement, the highest court of appeal in the province. The trial was not simply of provincial importance, however, for it came to involve the most powerful men in France, among them Henri II de Bourbon, the prince of Condé; the prime minister Cardinal Richelieu; and the king himself, Louis XIII. Because of the powerful ﬁgures who became entangled in this aﬀair, it dramatically illuminates the intricate web of power relations of the time, and so demon-strates how power and inﬂuence were exerted in concrete, lived situations. One goal of mine, therefore, is to show the reader how power worked, both formally through the law and informally through patron-client relations. I also hope that this story exposes something more subtle and perhaps even more profound about the nature of seventeenth-century political culture: the deep contradictions upon which the social, judicial, and political sys-tems rested. Saumaise’s pronouncement about the public nature of justice was only partly true, in fact, for families driven by private interests guided by social imperatives captured the judicial system at a time when impartial law and disinterested justice—what we call the rule of law—were crystallizing as essential theoretical attributes of governing public polities.