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Lettre de Cachet (French)

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An arbitrary warrant of imprisonment; a letter folded and sealed with the king’s cachet or little seal. These were secret instructions to the person addressed to proceed against someone named in the letter. The lieutenant-general of police kept an unlimited number of these instruments, and anyone, for a consideration, could obtain one, either to conceal a criminal or to incarcerate someone obnoxious. This power was abolished in the Revolution.

 

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Entry taken from Dictionary of Phrase and Fable, edited by the Rev. E. Cobham Brewer, LL.D. and revised in 1895.

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Letters
Letters Missive
Letters Overt
Letters Patent
Letters at the Foot of a Page
Letters of Administration
Letters of Bellerophon
Letters of Horning
Letters of Junius
Letters of the Sepulchre
Lettre de Cachet (French)
Lettre de Jérusalem
Leucadia or Leucas
Leucippus (Greek, Leukippos)
Leucothea [White Goddess]
Leuh
Levant and Couchant
Levant and Ponent Winds
Levant
Levée
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