pt. 1. An epistemology of pain. Murder in the Rue Noue : the trials of Jean Bourdil and the legal system of old regime France. "If he trembles, if he weeps, or sighs . . ." : judges, legal manuals, and the theory of torture. "To know the truth from his mouth" : the practice of torture in the parlement of Toulouse, 1600-1788 --
pt. 2. Pain, truth, and the body. "The executioner of his own life" : lay piety and the valorization of pain. "The tortur'd patient" : pain, surgery, and suffering. As if pain could draw the truth from a suffering wretch" : pain as politics.

At one time in Europe, there was a point to pain: physical suffering could be a path to redemption. This religious notion suggested that truth was lodged in the body and could be achieved through torture. In Tortured Subjects, Lisa Silverman tells the haunting story of how this idea became a fixed part of the French legal system during the early modern period. Looking closely at the theory and practice of judicial torture in France from 1600 to 1788, the year in which it was formally abolished, Silverman revisits dossiers compiled in criminal cases, including transcripts of interrogations condu.