Registry and prison registers

Meaning

Related words and phrases.

Greffe is the registry or administrative office, distinct from its clerk, the greffier. Registres d’écrou record prisoners’ admission and confinement; écrou here is not a mechanical nut. Brotteaux sees condemned men waiting for the cart while the clerk enters his name. The ordinary record-keeping room is thus a material stage in the prison’s route toward execution, not an abstract synonym for justice.