From 1770 to 1789 a succession of highly publicized cases riveted the attention of the French public. Maza argues that the reporting of these private scandals had a decisive effect on the way in which
Beggars, outcasts, urchins, waifs, prostitutes, criminals, convicts, madmen, fallen women, lunatics, degenerates—part reality, part fantasy, these are the grotesque faces that populate the underworld,
