David Bell's book traces the development of the French legal profession between the reign of Louis XIV and the French Revolution, showing how lawyers influenced, and were influenced by, the period's passionate political and religious conflicts. Bell analyzes how these key "middling" figures in French society were transformed from the institutional technicians of absolute monarchy into the self-appointed "voices of public opinion," and leaders of opposition political journalism. He describes the birth of an independent legal profession in the late seventeenth century, its alienation from the monarchy under the pressure of religious disputes in the early eighteenth century, and its transformation into a standard-bearer of "enlightened" opinion in the decades before the Revolution. His work illuminates the workings of politics under a theoretically absolute monarchy, and the importance of long-standing constitutional debates for the ideological origins of the Revolution. It also sheds new light on the development of the modern professions, and of the middle classes in France.

In this history of the ancient, and now defunct, office of the king's serjeant at law in Ireland, Judge Hart traces the development of an office which was at the centre of legal and political affairs in Ireland throughout the greater part of the seven centuries of its existence. From the early days of the 'first adventure of the common law' in the thirteenth century, to Serjeant Sullivan KC, who defended Sir Roger Casement on charges of treason in 1916, the serjeants at law included many of the leading members of the Irish bar, individuals who were as prominent in government, parliament and public life in Ireland as they were in the law courts. This survey seeks to provide for the first time a systematic analysis of their legal and political significance, and examines their changing role, from being the predecessor of the modern attorney general, to being chosen in the eighteenth century as much for their usefulness to the government as parliamentary champions as for their services in the courts.The contents also include the first table of all known holders of this office, details of their terms of office and careers, as well as appendices containing details of the earnings of serjeants before and after the Union. An Irish Legal History Series volume. -- Publisher description