Sac à procès

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Sac de procédure du XVIIe siècle Comes from the Parliament of Brittany
Sacs à procédure. In the archives of the Département de l'Isère.
From Der Dorfadvokat ( Pieter Brueghel the Younger , 1621), sacks full of court documents, identified by a label. They're on the wall of the lawyer's office.

A sac à procès , more rarely called sac de procès , was a bag made of sackcloth, hemp, or leather that was used during court hearings under the Ancien Régime and that contained all the elements of a process for archival purposes .

In it were kept:

  • Statements and inquiries;
  • signed copies of the prosecutors
  • Evidence

Once the trial was terminated by a judgment, these various documents were collected and hung in a pouch that was hooked to a wall or beam (hence the term "une affaire pendante" (a pending case)) for the Scrolls were not destroyed by rats. These bags were kept in the law firm or the offices of the respective courts.

The phrase "l'affaire est dans le sac" (the case is in the sack) meant that the court records were closed and all the material was kept in the sealed sack. For the hearing, the sack was removed and the prosecutor or attorney could go to court and "vider son sac" (empty his sack) by submitting the necessary documents for his playdoyer. A good lawyer or public prosecutor who knew how to stage all these documents is the origin of the phrase "avoir plus d'un tour dans son sac" (having more than just one trick in your pocket)

Individual evidence

  • 1. ↑ Christophe Blanquie, “Les sacs à procès ou le travail des juges sous Louis XIII”, Revue d'histoire de l'enfance “irrégulière”, 2001, pp. 181–192 (read online [archive])
  • 2. ↑ «Sac à procès» [archive]
  • 3. ↑ Pierre Estoup, La justice française, Litec, 1989, p. 115
  • 4. ↑ Delphine Gaston, Nos 500 expressions populaires préférées, Larousse, 2013, p. 121