Argues that French lawyers of the ancient regime played a critical role in shaping the French Revolution. The author explores how these critics challenged the King and created discussion within the legal system itself, forming a kind of republic within the state.

This is a definitive portrait of a group whose claim to one is long overdue. It is written with clarity and a control which, while addressing all the major issues along the way, never allows the argument to become unduly side-tracked.

"[V]ery worthwhile study. Its scholarship is impeccable, and the author's command of the literature is most impressive...the range of the major questions involved, as well as of the story provided, makes this work extremely valuable and significant."--Journal of Social History "This book is a significant contribution to the field of eighteenth-century French history and is solidly based on extensive reading of manuscript and printed sources. The historical profession has been in need of a book on this subject for many years. Given the prominence of lawyers in the revolution of 1789, the professional experience from which they emerged will be a topic of wide interest."--Philip Dawson, Brooklyn College "This is an important book. The arguments are fresh, the evidence rich, and the writing smooth and lively. The narrative is essential to the analysis. Bell is continually posing questions, and nothing in this superb book is ever irrelevant."--David D. Bien, University of Michigan "The principle merit of Bell's arresting and richly researched book is to show how Parisian barristers opened up a peculiar and precociously political 'public space' close to the center of Bourbon absolutism during the decades straddling the end of Louis XIV's reign and the beginning of the Orléans regency. Implicitly challenging Jürgen Habermas's influential thesis that modern 'public opinion' expressed itself in art and literature before doing so in politics, Bell's book stands that argument on its head, importantly redirecting discussion about how and when public opinion began to displace the king's 'certain science and plenitude of power' in eighteenth-century France. Arguing its case with evidence drawn from institutional, political, and intellectual history, this a superb exercise in all of these genres, as well as an important contribution to the ongoing debate about the ideological origins of the French Revolution."--Dale Van Kley, Calvin College "Bell marshals an impressive body of research in sources little used until recently...Bell's brief and clearly written study traces well the development of the Parisian Order of Barristers."--Law and History Review "One of the best guides to the political culture of the old Regime now available. In marrying together the insights of political sociology and ideological analysis, this book should stand as a model of what can be achieved through the blending of historical methodologies."--Journal of Interdisciplinary History "[A] well-researched book that enhances our knowledge of the Parisian Order of Barristers under the Old Regime. Bell's work expands and enriches our understanding of a long neglected but important Old Regime profession and body."--HISTORY "[I]t is a superb example of the 'new political history'..."--The American Journal of Legal History