The Claudine Rouge Affair (1767): Identity, Putrefaction and Medical Expertise in a Lyonnais Cause Célèbre
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Collegium de Lyon, 15 parvis René-Descartes, 69007 Lyon, Salle R143
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Eighteen-year-old Claudine Rouge, domestic servant and daughter of Claude Rouge, master silk-maker went missing from her home on the slopes of the Croix Rousse on the evening of 25 June 1767. Her disappearance and the discovery of a badly-decomposed female cadaver several days later in the Rhone near Condrieu soon became the talk of the town in Lyon and farther afield. The subsequent investigations and trial of five of her neighbours for her rape and murder quickly took on extraordinary proportions earning Claudine Rouge her place as a Cause Célèbre. This notorious case was tried on many different levels in at least four different arenas: criminal, civil, medical and public. The medical and public trials continued long after the criminal procedure had ground to a halt propelling the affair onto the national and even international stages, obliging those accused of her murder and the medical experts who examined her corpse to defend their honour and reputations.
This paper takes a microhistorical approach to the ‘exceptional normal’ moment that was the Claudine Rouge affair. It demonstrates that a reconstruction of this case and its many facets can tell us much about the workings of the ancien regime judiciary at a time when the abuses and corruption of the judicial system were subject to strong criticism. In particular, a close reading of the Claudine Rouge affair provides insight into the relationship between law and medicine and the controversies surrounding medical expertise, the role of the medical expert and the problematic nature of medical evidence.