The city of Romans, in Dauphine province in S. France, was the annual scene of a colorfully animated Mardi gras carnival. In 1580, however, winter festivities degenerated into bloody ambush. While costumed craftsmen and u0026 peasants mimed and u0026 danced their uprising in the streets, and u0026 notables and u0026 bourgeoisie hurried from banquets to balls in ostentatious finery, Jean Serve-Paumier, master craftsman, draper and u0026 popular party leader was assassinated, his supporters beaten and u0026 pursued by a mob hired by Judge Antoine Guerin, leader of the inflexibly reactionary part of the ruling party. More than a cruel incident, this night marked the intersection of an urban movement and u0026 even larger rural stirrings. Ladurie marshals a wealth of evidence and u0026 reveals the town of Romans as a microcosm of the political and u0026 religious antagonisms tearing 16th-century France. Le Carnival de Romans: de la chandeleur au mercredi des cenders describes the massacre of about 20 artisans at an annual carnival. Ladurie uses the two surviving eyewitness accounts - one hostile towards the victims by Guerin, the other sympathetic yet often inaccurate by Piemond - along with such information as plague and u0026 tax lists, to treat the massacre as a microcosm of rural political, social and u0026 religious conflicts, thereby providing a good example of microhistory.