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‘Broken on the wheel’
- January 29, 2022
- Posted by:
- Category: Flashbacks
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Of the complaints against the Ancien Regime from those in the vanguard of the Enlightenment, very high on the list was the cruel and arbitrary nature of the legal system. In his memoirs, Casanova describes the notorious execution of Robert Damiens as an ‘offence to our common humanity’. A case that in some ways -
Under arrest
- June 19, 2021
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- Category: Casanova
After almost 10 years of the high life, for Casanova the fun and games abruptly stopped. Here’s an extract from his autobiography of the moment on 26th July, 1755 he was placed under arrest. What a strange and unexplained power certain words exercise upon the soul! I, who the evening before so bravely fortified myself -
Censorship in eighteenth-century France
- June 12, 2021
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- Category: Flashbacks
An extract from Dave’s article ‘The Old Regime’. “Censorship, of course, was the norm. Up until 1699, it had been undertaken by several bodies: the Parlement of Paris, the Sorbonne and the Church as well as by the royal chancellor. From 1699, however, the chancellor, Louis II Phélypeaux, comte de Pontchartrain, imposed royal authority over
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