It seems to me that you're conflating too different manifestations of fear - the fear of the crowd that watched executions and a larger societal fear of governm

It seems to me that you're conflating too different manifestations of fear - the fear of the crowd that watched executions and a larger societal fear of governmental or judicial violence. No one who has read primary sources from the period we're talking about would argue that the latter didn't exist; as for the former, like Muir points out, it could manifest many different ways, from howls of fear to laughter and jokes. In the end we can never say definitively what was running through the heads of everyone in a crowd 400 years ago, but it's not just Foucault making stuff up or trying to trick his audience when he writes about attitudes toward early modern executions. It really is there in the original sources. Here's just one case in point, from the dairy of Samuel Pepys: Saturday 13 October 1660 To my Lord’s in the morning, where I met with Captain Cuttance, but my Lord not being up I went out to Charing Cross, to see Major-general Harrison hanged, drawn, and quartered; which was done there, he looking as cheerful as any man could do in that condition. He was presently cut down, and his head and heart shown to the people, at which there was great shouts of joy. http://www.pepysdiary.com/diary/1660/10/13/ http://www.pepysdiary.com/diary/1660/10/13/