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 excuteur 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.