Lettre de cachet

Lettres de cachet are signed sealed letter in the history of France from the French king. This letter was written resignation of a royal contract and statement of intent, this then led in consequence often to detention without trial, an exile or internment of unwanted people.

The Comédie- Française was founded on October 21, 1680 by a Lettre de cachet of King Louis XIV. Other examples of lettres de cachet are the infamous arrest warrants of the kings of France before the Revolution of 1789, directed by the unpopular people from Paris and the country or were brought without judgment and justice in the Bastille or another state prison.

Royal letter (French lettres royales ) were divided into the lettres patentes, ie in open, and lettres de cachet, that is sealed letters. The former have written on parchment, bore the names of signature of the king and the counterpoint signature of a minister, were not folded, but bent only on the edge and had beige prints the Great Seal. The Lettres de cachet were, however, either in the name or on behalf of the king, without other control than the signature of a Minister, written on paper and closed with the little royal seal. It was, especially since Louis XIV to make unpopular persons harmless, driven such a great abuse with these letters that the lieutenant général of police had usually prepared in advance Lettres, in which he enrolled of the name only to be arrested. But this arrest was frequently a royal grace, by the person concerned by the judiciary has been withdrawn. A decree of the National Assembly on June 23, 1789 set the Lettres an end, but they were introduced in 1811 by Napoleon Bonaparte again.