The story of free speech during the French Revolution, a recurrent theme in French Revolutionary studies, is often told like this: During the Ancien Régime, there was no such freedom. Publications were subject to censorship, and any expression deemed to have violated ‘religion, morality, the monarchy and the honour of individuals’ was subject to punishment. Authors and printers could find themselves imprisoned in the Bastille, and those accused of uttering seditious speech could have their tongues torn out by the public executioner.

Legally and morally, early modern English society abhorred suicide. Suicide was a crime for which one would be posthumously tried. It was also an act which, for Protestants, consigned an individual to hell forever. Non-fatal self-harm was no less discouraged, as permanent mutilation of oneself went against God.