Poetry and the Police: Communication Networks in Eighteenth-Century Paris

“We are given a vivid sense of how songs were circulated and performed on the streets of Paris…Darnton has opened up another rich vein of research in the eighteenth century.” —Times Literary Supplement

In spring 1749, François Bonis, a medical student in Paris, found himself unexpectedly hauled off to the Bastille for distributing an “abominable poem about the king.” So began the Affair of the Fourteen, a police crackdown on ordinary citizens for unauthorized poetry recitals. Why was the off...