So, as it turns out, St. Francis of Assisi was wild at heart. Or, at least, he had a “wild youth.” That’s part of the Francis life story you’ll read in A Mended and Broken Heart: The Life and Love of Francis of Assisi by Wendy Murray, a religion journalist who used to write for Christianity Today. She writes of Francis, one of the most revered of all Catholic saints: “Francis’ life is a story of a complicated man, a true Italian among Italians, a poet, a warrior, a knight, a lover, a madman, and a saint.” All righty, then.

What sort of stuff did Francis do that was not necessarily saint like? He had a reputation as a playboy during that “wild youth” mentioned above. He had a rocky relationship with his father, publicly renouncing him, which, by the way, is something you rarely see anymore. No one renounces anyone. His father subsequently disowned him. Francis also was a soldier, fighting in two wars.

But maybe you’re like, “Hey, that’s fine as far as it goes, but my interests are in pre-Enlightenment France.” No problem. Simply reach for The Would-Be Commoner by Jeffrey S. Ravel, a historian at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. It focuses on a murder case in the late seventeenth century. Authorities believed the first wife of Louis de la Pivardiere had killed the nobleman, perhaps out of lingering resentment and anger over the fact that he had left her to marry the daughter on an inn keeper. This case, which came to obsess all of France, also gave an opportunity for a brilliant jurist — d’ Aguesseau — to make the case that France needed a new, more humane and just justice system.