To receive a royal pardon in sixteenth-century France for certain kinds of homicideunpremeditated, unintended, in self-defense, or otherwise excusablea supplicant had to tell the king a story. These stories took the form of letters of remission, documents narrated to royal notaries by admitted offenders who, in effect, stated their case for pardon to the king. Thousands of such stories are found in French archives, providing precious evidence of the narrative skills and interpretive schemes of peasants and artisans as well as the well-born.