Abstract
Abstract The article retraces the path followed in the course of twenty-five years of research. The point of departure was an investigation into the practice of censorship (drawing primarily upon diplomatic dispatches). This project led to the discovery that the prison records of the Conciergerie furnish the long-sought key to the criminal archives of the Parlement of Paris and open the door to intensive serial research. These archives tell us less about the levels of criminality in the society than they do about the image consciously projected by the judicial institution itself. The present text surveys witchcraft trials, torture and punishment, concluding with a preliminary sketch of the lessons to be drawn from a of 1500 hangings for the crime of infanticide.
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