Lettres de cachet
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Lettres de cachet were letters signed by the king of France, countersigned by one of his ministers, and closed with the royal seal. They contained orders directly from the king, often to enforce actio
A lettre de cachet of 1703 (reign of Louis XIV), opening De par le roy ("In the name of the King...")
Lettre de cachet ordering Jean-François Marmontel's detention at the Bastille, signed by Louis XV and minister Louis Phélypeaux in 1759
Honoré Gabriel Riqueti, Count of Mirabeau, known simply as Mirabeau, was a French writer, orator, and statesman, and a prominent figure of the early stages of the French Revolution.
Lettres de cachet
…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 wrote a scathing indictment of lettres de cachet while imprisoned in the dungeon of Vincennes (by lettre de cachet obtained by his father). The treatise…
Portrait by Joseph Boze, 1789
Bust of Honoré Gabriel Riqueti de Mirabeau at Palace of Versailles
Statue of Honoré de Mirabeau. Palais de justice d'Aix-en-Provence
Statue of Mirabeau at the Panthéon