![Lettre de cachet (1703)](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/8/8d/Lettre_de_cachet_%281703%29.jpg)
''Lettres de cachet'' (; ) were letters signed by the
king of France,
countersigned by one of his ministers, and closed with the
royal seal
A seal is a device for making an impression in wax, clay, paper, or some other medium, including an embossment on paper, and is also the impression thus made. The original purpose was to authenticate a document, or to prevent interference with ...
. They contained orders directly from the king, often to enforce arbitrary actions and judgments that could not be
appealed.
In the case of organized bodies, 'lettres de cachet’ were issued for the purpose of preventing assembly or accomplishing some other definite act. The provincial estates were convoked (called to assembly) in this manner, and it was by a ''lettre de cachet'' (in this case, a ''lettre de jussipri''), or by showing in person in a ''
lit de justice
In France under the Ancien Régime, the ''lit de justice'' (, "bed of justice") was a particular formal session of the Parliament of Paris, under the presidency of the king, for the compulsory registration of the royal edicts. It was named thu ...
'', that the king ordered a ''
parlement'' to register a law despite that ''parlement''s refusal to pass it.
The best-known ''lettres de cachet'', however, were penal, by which a subject was imprisoned without
trial
In law, a trial is a coming together of parties to a dispute, to present information (in the form of evidence) in a tribunal, a formal setting with the authority to adjudicate claims or disputes. One form of tribunal is a court. The tribunal ...
and without an opportunity of defense (after inquiry and due diligence by the ''lieutenant de police'') in a state prison or an ordinary jail, confinement in a
convent
A convent is a community of monks, nuns, religious brothers or, sisters or priests. Alternatively, ''convent'' means the building used by the community. The word is particularly used in the Catholic Church, Lutheran churches, and the Anglic ...
or the
General Hospital of Paris, transportation to the colonies, or expulsion to another part of the realm, or from the realm altogether. The ''lettres'' were mainly used against drunkards, troublemakers, prostitutes, squanderers of family fortune, or insane persons. The wealthy sometimes petitioned such ''lettres'' to dispose of inconvenient individuals, especially to prevent unequal marriages (nobles with commoners), or to prevent a scandal (the ''lettre'' could prevent court cases that might otherwise dishonour a family).
In this respect, the ''lettres de cachet'' were a prominent symbol of the abuses of the ''
ancien régime
''Ancien'' may refer to
* the French word for "ancient, old"
** Société des anciens textes français
* the French for "former, senior"
** Virelai ancien
** Ancien Régime
** Ancien Régime in France
''Ancien'' may refer to
* the French word for ...
''
monarchy
A monarchy is a government#Forms, form of government in which a person, the monarch, is head of state for life or until abdication. The legitimacy (political)#monarchy, political legitimacy and authority of the monarch may vary from restric ...
, and as such were suppressed during the
French Revolution
The French Revolution ( ) was a period of radical political and societal change in France that began with the Estates General of 1789 and ended with the formation of the French Consulate in coup of 18 Brumaire, November 1799. Many of its ...
. In 1789 and 1790, all cases were reviewed by a commission which confirmed most of the sentences. Historian
Claude Quétel has interpreted these confirmations as indicating that the ''lettres'' were not as arbitrary and unjust as they have been represented after the Revolution, and he hence speaks of a
''Légende noire''.
History
The power to issue ''lettres de cachet'' was a royal privilege recognized by the French monarchic civil law that developed during the 13th century, as the
Capetian monarchy overcame its initial distrust of
Roman law
Roman law is the legal system of ancient Rome, including the legal developments spanning over a thousand years of jurisprudence, from the Twelve Tables (c. 449 BC), to the '' Corpus Juris Civilis'' (AD 529) ordered by Eastern Roman emperor Ju ...
. The principle can be traced to a maxim which furnished a text of the ''
Pandects
The ''Digest'', also known as the Pandects ( la, Digesta seu Pandectae, adapted from grc, πανδÎκτης , "all-containing"), is a name given to a compendium or digest of juristic writings on Roman law compiled by order of the Byzantine e ...
'' of
Justinian
Justinian I (; la, Iustinianus, ; grc-gre, Ἰουστινιανός ; 48214 November 565), also known as Justinian the Great, was the Byzantine emperor from 527 to 565.
His reign is marked by the ambitious but only partly realized ''renovat ...
: in their Latin version, "''Rex solutus est a legibus''", or "The king is released from the laws." "The French legal scholars interpreted the imperial office of the Justinian code in a generic way and arrived at the conclusion that every 'king is an emperor in his own kingdom,' that is, he possesses the prerogatives of legal
absolutism that the ''
Corpus Juris Civilis
The ''Corpus Juris'' (or ''Iuris'') ''Civilis'' ("Body of Civil Law") is the modern name for a collection of fundamental works in jurisprudence, issued from 529 to 534 by order of Justinian I, Byzantine Emperor. It is also sometimes referred ...
'' attributes to the Roman emperor."
This meant that when the king intervened directly, he could decide without heeding the laws, and even contrary to the laws. This was an early conception, and in early times the order in question was simply verbal; some
letters patent of Henry III of France in 1576 state that
François de Montmorency
François de Montmorency, Duc de Montmorency (17 July 1530 – 6 May 1579) was a French soldier, diplomat and peer who served as governor of Paris. He was Duke of Montmorency, Count of Dammartin, Baron of Châteaubriant and Lord of L'Isle-Ada ...
was "prisoner in our castle of the
Bastille
The Bastille (, ) was a fortress in Paris, known formally as the Bastille Saint-Antoine. It played an important role in the internal conflicts of France and for most of its history was used as a state prison by the kings of France. It was stor ...
in
Paris
Paris () is the Capital city, capital and List of communes in France with over 20,000 inhabitants, most populous city of France, with an estimated population of 2,165,423 residents in 2019 in an area of more than 105 km² (41 sq mi), ma ...
by verbal command" of the late king
Charles IX.
In the 14th century the principle was introduced that the order should be written, and hence arose the ''lettre de cachet''. The ''lettre de cachet'' belonged to the class of ''
lettres closes'', as opposed to ''
lettres patentes
Letters patent ( la, litterae patentes) ( always in the plural) are a type of legal instrument in the form of a published written order issued by a monarch, president or other head of state, generally granting an office, right, monopoly, titl ...
'', which contained the expression of the legal and permanent will of the king, and had to be furnished with the seal of state affixed by the
chancellor.
The ''lettres de cachet'', on the contrary, were signed simply by a secretary of state for the king; they bore merely the imprint of the king's privy seal, from which circumstance they were often called, in the 14th and 15th centuries, ''lettres de petit signet'' or ''lettres de petit cachet'', and were entirely exempt from the control of the chancellor.
As a tool
While serving the
government
A government is the system or group of people governing an organized community, generally a state.
In the case of its broad associative definition, government normally consists of legislature, executive, and judiciary. Government is ...
as a silent weapon against political adversaries
or controversial writers and as a means of punishing culprits of high birth without the scandal of a lawsuit, the ''lettres de cachet'' had many other uses. They were employed by the police in dealing with prostitutes, and on their authority lunatics were shut up in hospitals and sometimes in prisons.
They were also often used by heads of families as a means of correction, for example, for protecting the family honour from the disorderly or criminal conduct of sons. The case of the
Marquis de Sade (imprisoned 1777–1790 under a ''lettre de cachet'' obtained by his wealthy and influential mother-in-law) is a prominent example. Wives, too, took advantage of them to curb the profligacy of husbands and vice versa.
In reality, the secretary of state had a delegation and could issue them at his own discretion, and in most cases the king was unaware of their issue. In the 18th century the letters were often issued blank, i.e. without containing the name of the person against whom they were directed; the recipient, or
mandatary, filled in the name in order to make the letter effective.
Protests
Protests against the ''lettres de cachet'' were made continually by the ''
parlement'' of
Paris
Paris () is the Capital city, capital and List of communes in France with over 20,000 inhabitants, most populous city of France, with an estimated population of 2,165,423 residents in 2019 in an area of more than 105 km² (41 sq mi), ma ...
and by the provincial ''parlements'', and also by the
Estates-General. In 1648, during the
Fronde
The Fronde () was a series of civil wars in France between 1648 and 1653, occurring in the midst of the Franco-Spanish War, which had begun in 1635. King Louis XIV confronted the combined opposition of the princes, the nobility, the law cour ...
, the sovereign courts of Paris, by their ''Arrêt d'Union'', procured their momentary suppression in a kind of charter of liberties which they imposed upon the crown, but which was short-lived.
It was not until the reign of
Louis XVI
Louis XVI (''Louis-Auguste''; ; 23 August 175421 January 1793) was the last King of France before the fall of the monarchy during the French Revolution. He was referred to as ''Citizen Louis Capet'' during the four months just before he was ...
that a reaction against the abuse became clearly perceptible. At the beginning of that reign
Malesherbes during his short ministry endeavoured to infuse some measure of
justice
Justice, in its broadest sense, is the principle that people receive that which they deserve, with the interpretation of what then constitutes "deserving" being impacted upon by numerous fields, with many differing viewpoints and perspective ...
into the system, and in March 1784 the
baron de Breteuil, a minister of the king's household, addressed a circular to the intendants and the lieutenant of police with a view to preventing the most serious abuses connected with the issue of ''lettres de cachet''.
The
Comte de Mirabeau
''Comte'' is the French, Catalan and Occitan form of the word 'count' (Latin: ''comes''); ''comté'' is the Gallo-Romance form of the word 'county' (Latin: ''comitatus'').
Comte or Comté may refer to:
* A count in French, from Latin ''comes''
* A ...
wrote a scathing indictment of ''lettres de cachet'' while imprisoned in the dungeon of
Vincennes
Vincennes (, ) is a commune in the Val-de-Marne department in the eastern suburbs of Paris, France. It is located from the centre of Paris. It is next to but does not include the Château de Vincennes and Bois de Vincennes, which are attache ...
(by ''lettre de cachet'' obtained by his father). The treatise was published after his liberation in 1782 under the title ''Les Lettres de cachet et des prisons d'etat'' and was widely read throughout Europe.
Besides the Bastille, there were thirty prisons in Paris by 1779 in which a person could be detained without trial.
[''The National Cyclopaedia of Useful Knowledge'', Vol.III, London (1847) Charles Knight, p.1,002] Convents were used for the same purpose.
They were reported to have been openly sold, in the reign of Louis XV, by the mistress of one of his ministers.
In Paris, in 1779, the
Cour des Aides The Courts of Aids (French: ''Cours des aides'') were sovereign courts in ''Ancien Régime'' France, primarily concerned with customs, but also other matters of public finance. They exercised some control over certain excise taxes and octroi dutie ...
demanded their suppression, and in March 1788 the Parlement of Paris made some exceedingly energetic remonstrances, which are important for the light they throw upon old French public law. The crown, however, did not decide to lay aside this weapon, and in a declaration to the States-General in the royal session of June 23, 1789 (art. 15) it did not renounce it absolutely.
Abolition and reinstatement
''Lettres de cachet'' were abolished after the
French Revolution
The French Revolution ( ) was a period of radical political and societal change in France that began with the Estates General of 1789 and ended with the formation of the French Consulate in coup of 18 Brumaire, November 1799. Many of its ...
by the Constituent Assembly, but
Napoleon
Napoleon Bonaparte ; it, Napoleone Bonaparte, ; co, Napulione Buonaparte. (born Napoleone Buonaparte; 15 August 1769 – 5 May 1821), later known by his regnal name Napoleon I, was a French military commander and political leader who ...
reestablished their penal equivalent by a political measure in the decree of 8 March 1801 on the state prisons. This is all the more striking, given that Napoleon had pushed for measures ensuring the
rule of law in the
codes
In communications and information processing, code is a system of rules to convert information—such as a letter, word, sound, image, or gesture—into another form, sometimes shortened or secret, for communication through a communication ...
of laws adopted under his rule. This action was one of the acts brought up against him by the senatus-consulte of 3 April 1814, which pronounced his fall "considering that he has violated the constitutional laws by the decrees on the state prisons."
Victims of ''lettres de cachet''
*
Charles Simon Favart
Charles Simon Favart (13 November 1710 – 12 May 1792) was a French playwright and theatre director. The Salle Favart in Paris is named after him.
Biography
Born in Paris, the son of a pastry-cook, he was educated at the Lycée Louis-le-Grand, a ...
(because a nobleman was interested in his wife)
*
Luke Joseph Hooke
Luke Joseph Hooke (born Dublin in 1716; died in Saint Cloud, near Paris, 16 April 1796) was a controversial Irish theologian, representing in Paris the "Catholicism of the Enlightenment". The laws of civil society should be so designed, he argued, ...
(deprived of his academic chair in theology for awarding a PhD to a candidate without having read the (heretical) thesis.)
*
Honoré Gabriel Riqueti, comte de Mirabeau (several times, on request of his father, as protection against creditors and once to prevent a death penalty for kidnapping and eloping with a married woman)
*
Marguerite Monvoisin Marie Marguerite Mon(t)voisin (born c. 1658, died after 1682) was the daughter of La Voisin and a main witness in the famous Poison Affair. It was her statement, made after the execution of her mother, that implicated the royal mistress Madame de Mo ...
(complicity in a
poisoning affair. A ''lettre de cachet'' was used to avoid a scandal that might have affected
Françoise-Athénaïs, marquise de Montespan, a mistress of the King who was assumed to have been involved).
*
Pigault-Lebrun
Charles-Antoine-Guillaume Pigault de l'Espinoy, better known as Pigault-Lebrun, (8 April 1753 – 24 July 1835) was a French novelist, playwright, and Epicureanism, Epicurean. Victor Hugo references Pigault-Lebrun in chapter I part 8 of Les Misé ...
(twice, for eloping with two successive young women)
*
Alexandre Balthazar Laurent Grimod de La Reynière
Alexandre-(Balthazard)-Laurent Grimod de La Reynière (20 November eptember?1758 in Paris – 25 December 1837), was a lawyer by qualification who acquired fame during the reign of Napoleon for his sensual and public gastronomic lifestyle. Son ...
(misconduct: sent away to an abbey by his father)
*
Marquis de Sade (rape and torture. The Lettre was petitioned by the marquis' wife, to avoid a court case)
*
Comte de Sanois (domestic disputes and debt. His wife petitioned a Lettre, claiming her husband insane)
*
Voltaire
François-Marie Arouet (; 21 November 169430 May 1778) was a French Enlightenment writer, historian, and philosopher. Known by his ''nom de plume'' M. de Voltaire (; also ; ), he was famous for his wit, and his criticism of Christianity—es ...
(once for slander, a second time for violent menaces against the Prince de Rohan)
*
Jean-François Marmontel, accused to be the author of a satire against the Duke d'Aumont. His account of his short stay in the Bastille contains a description of the food he received, the room he was imprisoned with his servant, and the goodwill shown to him.
*
Giacomo Casanova
Giacomo Girolamo Casanova (, ; 2 April 1725 – 4 June 1798) was an Italian adventurer and author from the Republic of Venice. His autobiography, (''Story of My Life''), is regarded as one of the most authentic sources of information about the c ...
(dueling)
*
Marie-Anne de La Ville (practiced black magic. A scandalous trial was avoided by a ''lettre'')
*
Jean-Baptiste Forqueray
__NOTOC__
Jean-Baptiste Forqueray (3 April 1699 – 28 June 1782), the son of Antoine Forqueray, was a player of the viol and a composer.
Forqueray was born in Paris. He is most famous today for his 1747 publication of twenty-nine pieces fo ...
(request of his father)
In literature
*
Honoré Mirabeau
Honoré is a name of French origin and may refer to several people or places:
Given name
Sovereigns of Monaco
Lords of Monaco
* Honoré I of Monaco
Princes of Monaco
* Honoré II of Monaco
* Honoré III of Monaco
* Honoré IV of Monaco
* Honorà ...
''Des Lettres de Cachet et des prisons d'état''(
Hamburg
(male), (female) en, Hamburger(s),
Hamburgian(s)
, timezone1 = Central (CET)
, utc_offset1 = +1
, timezone1_DST = Central (CEST)
, utc_offset1_DST = +2
, postal ...
, 1782), written in the dungeon at
Vincennes
Vincennes (, ) is a commune in the Val-de-Marne department in the eastern suburbs of Paris, France. It is located from the centre of Paris. It is next to but does not include the Château de Vincennes and Bois de Vincennes, which are attache ...
into which his father had thrown him by a ''lettre de cachet'', one of the ablest and most eloquent of his works, which had an immense circulation and was translated into
English
English usually refers to:
* English language
* English people
English may also refer to:
Peoples, culture, and language
* ''English'', an adjective for something of, from, or related to England
** English national ide ...
in 1788.
*
The Castle of Wolfenbach
''The Castle of Wolfenbach'' (1793) is the most famous novel written by the English Gothic novelist Eliza Parsons. First published in two volumes in 1793, it is among the seven "horrid novels" recommended by the character Isabella Thorpe in Ja ...
, one of the "Horrid Novels" mentioned in "
Northanger Abbey
''Northanger Abbey'' () is a coming-of-age novel and a satire of Gothic novels written by Jane Austen. Austen was also influenced by Charlotte Lennox's '' The Female Quixote'' (1752). ''Northanger Abbey'' was completed in 1803, the first of ...
" by
Jane Austen, features a "lettre de cachet" as a major plot point when the main villain, the guardian of a young lady who has run away, tries to use a "lettre de cachet" to obligate her to be returned to him so he can force her into marriage.
*
Doctor Alexandre Manette, in
Dickens
Charles John Huffam Dickens (; 7 February 1812 – 9 June 1870) was an English writer and social critic. He created some of the world's best-known fictional characters and is regarded by many as the greatest novelist of the Victorian er ...
' ''
A Tale of Two Cities
''A Tale of Two Cities'' is a historical novel published in 1859 by Charles Dickens, set in London and Paris before and during the French Revolution. The novel tells the story of the French Doctor Manette, his 18-year-long imprisonment in ...
'', was thrown into the
Bastille
The Bastille (, ) was a fortress in Paris, known formally as the Bastille Saint-Antoine. It played an important role in the internal conflicts of France and for most of its history was used as a state prison by the kings of France. It was stor ...
prison by means of a ''lettre de cachet''. In addition,
Charles Darnay
Charles Darnay, Charles D'Aulnais or Charles St. Evrémonde is a fictional character in the 1859 novel ''A Tale of Two Cities'' by Charles Dickens.
Overview
Darnay is a wealthy gentleman who spends time in both France and England during the time o ...
suspected that his uncle, a marquis, would have used a ''lettre de cachet'' to put Darnay himself into prison had the Marquis not fallen out of favour with the royal court.
See also
*
Bill of attainder
A bill of attainder (also known as an act of attainder or writ of attainder or bill of penalties) is an act of a legislature declaring a person, or a group of people, guilty of some crime, and punishing them, often without a trial. As with attai ...
*
Divine right of kings
*
National Security Letter
A national security letter (NSL) is an administrative subpoena issued by the United States government to gather information for national security purposes. NSLs do not require prior approval from a judge. The Stored Communications Act, Fair Cre ...
*
Firman
*
Letters close __NOTOC__
Letters close ( la, litterae clausae) are a type of obsolete legal document once used by the Pope, the British monarchy and by certain officers of government, which is a sealed letter granting a right, monopoly, title, or status to an i ...
Notes
References
{{Authority control
Law of France
Legal documents
Letters (message)
Economic history of the Ancien Régime
Legal history of the Ancien Régime