The village of cannibals

"In August 1870 in the isolated French village of Hautefaye, a gruesome murder was committed in broad daylight that aroused the indignation of the entire country. A young nobleman, falsely accused of shouting republican slogans, was savagely tortured for hours by a mob of peasants who later burned him alive. Rumors of cannibalism stirred public fascination and the details of the case were dramatically recounted in the popular press. While the crime was rife with political significance, the official inquiry focused on its brutality. Justice was swift: the mob's alleged ringleaders were guillotined at the scene of the crime the following winter. The Village of Cannibals is a fascinating inquiry into the social and political ingredients of an alchemy that transformed ordinary people into executioners in nineteenth -century France. Alain Corbin's chronicle of the killing reveals the political motivations of the murderers and the gulf between their actions and the sensibilities of the majority of French citizens who no longer tolerated violence as a viable form of political expression."--back cover

Year

1992

Language

English

Publisher

Harvard University Press

Editions

1

Pages

172

ISBN

9780674939011

Data source: Wikidata