Abstract
This chapter discusses the problem of arbitrariness in justice in the French Republics. Of all the ideals that five French Republics have invoked since 1793, none has caused them more trouble than justice. Each promised to celebrate it; each was accused of subverting it. Hence the chapter considers how they could have placed justice at the service of the people while emancipating it from their government—an issue that still persists to this day. Arbitrariness, the republicans held, had been the besetting sin of monarchical justice. When justice was secret, justice was arbitrary; and it was secret when a regime subtracted it from the light of day and the sovereign gaze of the people.