Description
The following document is a police dossier drawn from the Y series of the Archives Nationales. Compiled by a neighborhood commissioner named Louis- Pierre Regnard, the dossier contains testimony pertaining to the case of François Fromard, a journeyman quarry worker who hanged himself in his apartment in a working-class neighborhood of Paris on 29 May 1750. According to the testimony of his wife and neighbors, Fromard saw police agents everywhere and, before taking his own life, had become convinced that he was going to be arrested and imprisoned. No one, however, gave any indication that the police were really pursuing him. The dangers he saw lurking all around him were figments of his imagination, or, as one witness eloquently described it, of his “wounded imagination” (imagination blessée).
Start Date
24-8-2016 1:00 PM
End Date
24-8-2016 2:00 PM
Location
Fordham University
Included in
Cultural History Commons, European History Commons, History of Religion Commons, Jewish Studies Commons, Social History Commons
Fear in the Archive: Police Dossiers and the History of Emotions in Old Regime France
Fordham University
The following document is a police dossier drawn from the Y series of the Archives Nationales. Compiled by a neighborhood commissioner named Louis- Pierre Regnard, the dossier contains testimony pertaining to the case of François Fromard, a journeyman quarry worker who hanged himself in his apartment in a working-class neighborhood of Paris on 29 May 1750. According to the testimony of his wife and neighbors, Fromard saw police agents everywhere and, before taking his own life, had become convinced that he was going to be arrested and imprisoned. No one, however, gave any indication that the police were really pursuing him. The dangers he saw lurking all around him were figments of his imagination, or, as one witness eloquently described it, of his “wounded imagination” (imagination blessée).
