Vivre sous la menace du bâton de maréchal : expériences carcérales et enfermements pour affaires d’honneur en France au xviiie siècle

Abstract

In the 18th century, the Tribunal des maréchaux de France was responsible for regulating the behaviour and credit of nobles and military officers. Its archives give an account of the great diversity of constraints by body available to it and therefore of the experiences of both its defendants and its agents. Imprisonment obliges defendants and then convicts to create new social relationships: with the prisoners, from whom they are all the more distant because they are privileged, and with the prison staff, who are sometimes allies and sometimes enemies. Above all, these prisoners must try to maintain their relations with the outside world through the intermediary of court officials. The maintenance of this link, to which the rich correspondence bears witness, is vital if they hope to get out of prison and finally get out. Even if sometimes, as the minutes testify, to resist this constraint, it is easier to force the door and run away.

Keywords

• prison
• France
• confinement
• nobility
• Tribunal des maréchaux
• credit