Note 259 — Chapter XII · 1608-1700. OVERGROWING INFLUENCE OF THE SOCIETY.
Reading edition
A lettre de cachet was an order bearing the king’s signature, generally requiring the arrest or exile of the person specified. Under the reign of the despotic Louis, lettres de cachet were issued with scandalous profusion. The courtiers, the ministers, the king’s mistresses, asked, in exchange for a flattery or a caress, a lettre de cachet. Often the letter was blank, having only the king’s signature, and left to the person who had obtained it to fill it up with any name and any sort of punishment he pleased. Father Lachaise had always by him a quantity of letters of this last sort.