See also: Seal

A lettre de cachet is, under the Ancien Mode in France, a letter being used for the transmission of an order of the king.

Definition

The lettre de cachets are letters of the king which are closed by the Sceau because they should be read only by the recipient, contrary to the Letters patent which are public and opposable letters with all. The seal employed is not that of the chancellery, but the seal known as “of the secrecy” or “seal”: it carries the royal weapons but its dimensions are more reduced than the seal of large or small chancellery; it is preserved by the chamberlain. The lettre de cachets should not be confused with the letters of seal, which carry they also the seal, but on the recto, and are sent open.

The lettre de cachet does not have a priori disciplinary character: the orders addressed directly by the king to the one of his officers affect all the shape of the lettre de cachet. It is also the means used by the king to recall an officer to his duties: thus letters addressed to the members of the Parliament of Paris for their mander to record an edict.

The letter addressed to an officer raises of the restrained Justice of the king. It is thus a lettre de cachet which order in 1661 with D' Artagnan, captain of the Mousquetaire S, to seize Nicolas Fouquet and to lead it in a strong house. The letters concerning of the private individuals are written by the ministerial departments to compensate a gap in the law: it is a question for example of commuting to detention the sorrow of bagne to which a woman was condemned; to make lock up a demented person or a drunkard or a prostitute with the General hospital but also, the request of the lieutenant of police force, to make lock up an individual with the Prison of the Abbey for violations of the press laws, meetings Jansenists, etc Indeed, the imprisonment does not form part of the arsenal of the sorrows envisaged in the criminal code of the Old Mode: the prisons are used only to the debtors or for marked on standby of their judgment.

The lettre de cachet bound for a Prison of the king is generally taken with the request, and the expenses of the families to make imprison one of its members, either for disciplinary raisans (case of Mirabeau for gambling debts and prodigality at the request of his/her father), or to make it escape a criminal judgment (case of Donatien de Sade at the request of his/her beautiful mother to avoid the shame of a death sentence for rape). Indeed, detention in a royal prison confers an immunity which puts out of reach ordinary legal system. The lettre de cachet relates to businesses of State only for one very weak minority of the corpus, about 4 or 5 ‰.

As from the 17th century, in the political literature, the lettre de cachet is heard more only like one privative order of freedom, requiring of police officers the imprisonment, widening or the house arrest of a person.

Large seal and small seal

A lettre de cachet can be dispatched movement of the king - it is the letter of “large seal”. It is typically the case of the political imprisonments, such those of Voltaire or Diderot.

It also can the being on request of a private individual - it is the letter of “small seal”. Thus, Voltaire himself requires a lettre de cachet for the imprisonment of a tripière carrying out din in the vicinity. Indeed, this intervention is theoretically reserved for small offenses, other than the crimes. She is often asked for private affairs where the plaintiffs want to act quickly and without public din. One can group them in five categories:

• madness and irresponsibility;

• excess of youth;
• libertinage;
• unequal marriage (typically between the nobility and the people);
more serious
• offenses or crimes.

Consequences of lettre de cachets:

• unlimited detention (for the insane ones);

• one to two years of prison for the people who, under the terms of the baron de Breteuil, “without to have disturbed the law and order by offenses, without having anything fact which could expose them to the severity of the sorrows pronounced by the law, delivered themselves to the excess of libertinage, the vice and dissipation”;
• “afflicitives sorrows important for those which made acts of violence or crimes which interest the order and public safety and that justice, if it had taken knowledge, had punished sorrows (…) dishonouring for the families. ”

The letter takes the following form normally:

“Mr Untel, I make you this letter to think that my will is that… On this, I request God that it has you, Mr Untel, in his holy guard. ”

In fact, an order of imprisonment can be dispatched open very well, and with the third nobody. On the other hand, it is always contresigned by a Secretary of State.

The office of the claims was opened to the public in Paris to make with a minister, the request for a lettre de cachet. The files containing the letters of requests, the files of investigations and the deliberations, were preserved in the funds of the Bastille and were studied by historians.

The procedure is the following one: the family sends to the king a justified petition. In the event of “public scandal”, the request can emanate from the priest of the parish, of the bishop of the diocese or the local lord. It is examined by the general lieutenant of police force or an intendant, who orders an investigation, generally accomplished by the subdelegated local one, the intendant being satisfied to take again the conclusions of this last. The investigation is generally rather long. The checks relate mainly to two points: the exactitude of the reported facts and the solvency of the parents of the interested party. Indeed, the prisoner by lettre de cachet must pay itself his pension. It happens that it is slackened if he of it is not able any more.

Of 1741 with 1775, nearly 20.000 letters are thus dispatched. The number of letters does not cease increasing during the 18th century: thus, in Brittany, one counts 10 letters per annum of 1735 to 1750, then 20 to 40 per annum of 1778 to 1789. This growth is explained by the increase in the number of requests and not by an increased severity of the royal administration. On the contrary, this one is shown moreover into reticent to grant lettre de cachets. Malesherbes, Minister for the House of the King in 1775, in vain tries to remove them. In 1786, the baron of Breteuil written thus that “the prodigality of a married man and his passion for the play are not sufficient reasons to deprive it of his freedom. ” More and more, one thus lets slice ordinary justice, especially for financial businesses. Libertinage, in the absence of characterized scandals, is not any more one sufficient reason.