The analysis is centered on the Paris law courts of the Chatelet and Parlement, and their criminal defendants. The volume reconstructs the general system of royal criminal justice and the correlating Old Regime political structure. Some of the issues discussed include the formation, authority, and ethos of the magistracy, and its relationships to the monarchy, the church, and the various social classes. Other section examine the doctrines and practices of punishment, the jurisprudence of moral and criminal responsibility, and the ideology and procedures of royal pardon. The final two section of this volume describe and analyze the procedure for trial and judgment of defendants that was in force from 1670 until the Revolution, and presents three case studies that illustrate the workings of the Chatelet and the Parlement. 16 figures, 9 maps, 15 charts, and 32 tables, and 1 appendix