Set in fifteenth century France. A Parisian lawyer wearies of the cynical sophistication of the capital and solicits appointment as the public defender in a remote, rural province. He finds himself expected to defend a pig in a murder trial. (As the public prosector says, "Anyone who knows animals knows there are good ones and bad ones.") What initially appears to be a case based on simple rural superstition turns out to conceal a far worse corruption. Eventually the lawyer returns to the capital, having learned that cynical sophistication is not so easily evaded.—Fred Hapgood