Celebrated Crimes (Complete)

The Story

This collection of historical narratives spans centuries and borders, serving as a dark mirror to the conventional portrayals of European royalty, clergy, and outlaws. The journey begins in the heart of the Italian Renaissance, where the Borgia family manipulates the machinery of the Vatican. Alexander VI, the pope, treats the papacy as a private treasury and an instrument of war, utilizing his son, Caesar, to consolidate power through strategic marriage, systemic confiscation, and the calculated use of poison. The narrative meticulously details how the pope invites cardinals to buy their titles, only to eliminate them when their offices—and their wealth—are needed.

From the corridors of Rome, the focus shifts to the religious fervor and brutal civil strife of the French Cevennes. Here, the Camisards, or French Protestant insurgents, engage in a desperate, asymmetrical war against the Catholic state. The account highlights the rise of figures like Captain Poul, a veteran of foreign wars chosen for his austere, ruthless efficiency in hunting down rebels who hide in the mountains. The struggle is defined by ambushes, night raids, and the total lack of quarter given by either side, illustrating the chaotic violence of internal sectarian conflict.

The collection then moves into the tragic, claustrophobic intimacy of high-stakes politics, notably the execution of Mary Stuart. The atmosphere thickens with the tension of betrayal as Lord Lindsay and other conspirators confront the Scottish queen. The narrative strips away the romance of the era to focus on the mechanical, almost procedural horror of her final moments—the clumsy executioner, the repeated blows of a dull axe, and the unsettling, lingering movements of the severed head. This unflinching focus on the physical reality of death persists through the account of Urbain Grandier, the priest of Loudun, whose life is dismantled by a web of accusations of demonic possession, fueled by his political enemies and a vengeful, prejudiced hierarchy.

The scope broadens to include the personal and the bizarre, such as the case of Martin Guerre, a man whose identity is stolen by an impostor. This story explores the malleability of social standing, as the impostor successfully occupies the role of husband and father for years before the real Martin Guerre returns, triggering a legal and social crisis that ends in the impostor's public execution. Similarly, the chronicle of the adventurer Ali Pacha serves as a study in the rise and fall of a regional warlord, showing how quickly fortune turns from the conquest of castles to a final, desperate stand against imperial forces.

The collection concludes by charting the tragic arc of Joachim Murat, the King of Naples. His attempt to reclaim his throne after the fall of Napoleon leads him to the town of Pizzo. There, he discovers that fame and royal blood offer no protection against an armed, resentful populace. His failed effort to rally the locals with promises of promotion—and his subsequent capture and execution—serves as a closing meditation on the fragility of power. Throughout these histories, the narrative avoids moralizing, opting instead to present the sequence of events as a cold, recurring cycle where the same patterns of greed and violence emerge across different ages and landscapes.

The People

• Alexander VI: The Pope who treats the Church as a fiefdom. He views human beings as assets to be liquidated, using his position to legitimize the violent expansion of his family’s influence while maintaining an aura of holiness.
• Caesar Borgia: The Pope’s son and the pragmatic arm of his father’s ambition. He is the architect of their tactical successes, moving through the Italian courts with the sole purpose of turning neighbors against one another until the Borgias are the only ones left standing.
• Mary Stuart: A sovereign reduced to a prisoner. Her resistance is marked by a refusal to relinquish her dignity even as she is trapped by the political requirements of her rival, Elizabeth I, ending her life as a symbol of the ultimate cost of political failure.
• Arnauld du Thill: The impostor who assumes the life of Martin Guerre. His story is one of audacious deception, showing how easily a man can insert himself into the fabric of a village by mimicking the habits and vulnerabilities of another.
• Joachim Murat: A fallen monarch whose belief in his own legend is his undoing. He approaches his former subjects expecting adoration, only to be met with the hard, indifferent reality of a populace that has moved on, leading to his ignominious end at Pizzo.
• Captain Poul: A soldier defined by his function. He represents the state’s cold response to insurrection, possessing the physical and moral hardness necessary to track fanatics through the wilderness and treat the suppression of rebellion as a mechanical duty.

In Its Own Voice

While describing the predatory nature of the Pope’s financial system, the text highlights his willingness to treat high-ranking churchmen like livestock:

"Lastly, since as cardinals they would by law lose the right of making a will, the pope, in order to inherit from them, had only to poison them: this put him in the position of a butcher who, if he needs money, has only to cut the throat of the fattest sheep in the flock."

The description of Mary Stuart’s execution captures the grim, un-heroic reality of the event:

"The executioner’s assistant drew them away, for fear they should be cut off with her head; and as the queen was saying, 'In manes teas, Domine,' the executioner raised his axe, which was simply an axe far chopping wood, and struck the first blow, which hit too high, and piercing the skull, made the crucifix and the book fly from the condemned’s hands by its violence, but which did not sever the head."

In the account of a political murder in the South of France, the bystander’s perspective captures the chilling indifference of the assassins:

"I looked at my dog; he was lying flat at the foot of the tree, and appeared to be a prey to the most abject terror. The prisoner continued his supplications, and the assassins their threats and mockery."

What It's Really About

At its core, this work is an investigation into the anatomy of state-sponsored violence and the hollowness of traditional historical myth-making. It rejects the idea that history is a series of heroic deeds, instead presenting it as a series of calculated, often gruesome transactions. The book argues that there is no meaningful distinction between "official" justice and private murder when the perpetrators hold enough power. Whether it is a pope poisoning his cardinals or a military officer executing a rebel, the mechanisms remain consistent: the consolidation of authority through the elimination of the inconvenient.

The book also explores the fragility of identity and the social contract. In stories like that of Martin Guerre, the ease with which a man’s life is usurped suggests that social reality is a construct held together by consensus rather than truth. When that consensus breaks down—or when it is actively manipulated—the individual is left vulnerable to the whims of the state. The legal processes described are rarely quests for truth; they are performances meant to legitimize outcomes already decided by power brokers.

Furthermore, the book is deeply concerned with the dehumanization of the "other," whether that other is a religious insurgent, a rival noble, or a deposed king. The recurring theme is that once an individual is labeled a criminal or a rebel, they are no longer human in the eyes of their captors. This allows for the "mocking tones" of executioners and the clinical precision of the inquisitors. The work asks uncomfortable questions about the nature of the systems we build. If the highest authorities in society—the Pope, the King, the judge—act as the primary agents of crime, then crime itself becomes the foundational language of government. The book does not suggest that this is a tragedy of a particular era, but rather an inevitable consequence of human beings wielding absolute power. It is a cynical, persistent argument that beneath the pomp of history, the baseline of human interaction, when unchecked by genuine accountability, is a terrifying, intimate kind of predation.

Why Read It Today

This work is for the reader who finds the sanitized versions of history in school textbooks insufficient and is looking for a more visceral, unvarnished encounter with the past. The writing is direct and momentum-driven, reflecting its origins as a series of dramatic, episodic pieces. It does not waste time on introspection or moral posturing; it moves with the speed of a thriller, focusing on the tactical decisions and the sudden, irreversible consequences that define these lives.

Reading these accounts today feels like peering through a cracked lens. One senses the period’s preoccupation with the sensational and the macabre, as well as its rigid, sometimes harsh, class distinctions. There are moments where the narrative takes for granted the brutality of the time, and the casual way in which lives are snuffed out can be jarring. The prose is clear, but the reader should be prepared for the absence of modern sentimentality. The historical figures here are not "relatable" in the modern sense; they are often driven by appetites and loyalties that feel alien to a contemporary mindset.

You will likely be struck by the sheer persistence of the human instinct to betray for personal gain. If you are interested in how power creates its own reality—and how quickly that reality can collapse into violence—this book offers a series of case studies that are as unflinching as they are disturbing. It is not an easy read in terms of content, and the accounts of torture, execution, and judicial corruption are unrelenting. However, for those who value historical narratives that refuse to blink, it provides an enduring, if sobering, perspective on the darker currents that have shaped the institutions we take for granted. It lingers because it reminds you that the distance between civilized society and chaos is, and has always been, measured by the restraint of those in charge.