364 Readings in European History his persecutor. If any one who is able to impose upon your Majesty and procure a lettre de cachet is to be shielded from the courts,] how indeed can we be said to live to-day under any laws, sire, since such orders have prodigiously increased of late and are granted for all sorts of reasons and for personal considerations ? Formerly they were reserved for affairs of state, and then, sire, it was proper that the courts should respect the necessary secrecy of your administration. Subse- quently these orders began to be granted in certain interest- ing cases, as, for example, when the sovereign was touched by the tears of a family which dreaded disgrace. 1 To-day they are considered necessary every time a common man offers any slight to a person of consideration, — as if persons of quality had not enough advantages already. It is also the usual form of punishment for indiscreet remarks. . . . These orders signed by your Majesty are often filled in with obscure names of which your Majesty cannot possibly have heard. They are at the disposal of your ministers, and it would appear, in view of the great number which are issued, of their clerks as well. They are confided to officials in both the capital and the provinces, who make use of them in accordance with the suggestions of their subdelegates and other subordinates. They doubtless find their way into many other hands, since we have just seen how readily they are granted to a simple farmer general or even, we may safely add, to the agents of the farm. . . . The result is, sire, that no citizen in your kingdom can be assured that his liberty will not be sacrificed to a private grudge ; for no one is so exalted that he is safe from the ill will of a minister, or so insignificant that he may not incur that of a clerk in the employ of the farm. The day will come, sire, when the multiplicity of the abuses of the lettres de cachet will lead your Majesty to abolish a custom so opposed to the constitution of your kingdom and the liberty which your subjects should enjoy. 1 This refers to the imprisonment of unruly sons or other relatives who were compromising a respectable family by their conduct.
