Music, Discipline, and Arms in Early Modern France (review)
concept would have been useful. The Giroux trial and related judicial proceedings do reveal contemporary French attitudes toward crime, justice, and the legal system. Beyond the courthouse, Farr investigates the lives of the people who were swept into the investigations and trials in Dijon in the 1630s and 1640s, revealing witnesses’ observations about marriage, sexuality, honor, medicine, and urban life in early modern France. The author demonstrates how money and political power entered into the legal system through parties instigantes (persons aiding and funding the prosecution), épices (court costs), and venal offices. But the enigmatic figure of the Prince de Condé and the patron-client relationships that influenced the case remain a bit opaque. The noble judges involved in the case could be considered in relationship to broader aspects of noble culture, instead of as members of a distinct “robe” nobility. The contemporary contexts of Catholic religious renewal, social unrest, and the Thirty Years’ War might have been woven more significantly into the text. A Tale of Two Murders is nonetheless riveting and readable, equally appropriate for an audience of university students or general readers. As it attempts to uncover the fates of everyone involved in the case of the two missing men, this impressive book also makes an important contribution to early modern judicial history. Farr’s reflections on the historian’s craft and the paradoxes of public/ private justice expose the malleability of the rule of law, forcing us to reflect on the seeming irrelevance of guilt and innocence in the disturbing Giroux affair. BRIAN SANDBERG Medici Archive Project