lettre de cachet

Definitions

A warrant issued by the monarch in ancien régime France, especially one which imprisons someone without trial.

historical

Equivalents

Examples

“I lost my temper, and spoke so irreverently of the Grand Monarque, that the next morning I was sent to the Bastile, by virtue of a Lettre de Cachet.”

““Bon Dieu!” thought the old negotiator, “the boy has actually talked the woman round, and she’d get⟳ him a wife as she would a toy if Master cried for it. Why are there no such things as lettres-de-cachet—and a Bastille for young fellows of family?””

“This year the King sent it to Troyes, each member ordered there by an individual lettre de cachet.”

“Louis stepped up persecution of prominent Jansenists, using lettres de cachet to imprison the most subversive [...].”

CEFR level