Louis XIV and the lettre de cachet—Society corrupt—Assassination common—Cheating at cards—Shocking state of Paris—“The Court of Miracles”—Prisons filled—Prisoners detained indefinitely—Revived persecution of the Protestants—General exodus of industrious artisans—Inside the Bastile—Sufferings of the prisoners—The Comte Pagan—Imprisonment for blasphemy, riotous conduct in the streets and all loose living—Kidnapping of the Armenian Patriarch, Avedik—His sudden death—Many heinous crimes disgrace the epoch—Plot of the Chevalier de Rohan—Its detection—De Rohan executed.
The three notable cases of arrest and imprisonment given in the last chapter are typical of the régime at last established in France under the personal rule of a young monarch whom various causes had combined to render absolute. The willing submission of a people sick of civil war, the removal or complete subjection of the turbulent vassals, his own imperious character,—that of a strong willed man with a set resolve to be sovereign, irresponsible master,—all combined to consolidate his powers. Louis was the incarnation of selfishness. To have his own way with everyone and in everything, to gratify every whim and passion was the keynote of his sensuous and indulgent nature. No one dared oppose him; no one stood near him. His subjects were his creatures; the greatest nobles accepted the most menial tasks about his person. His abject and supple-backed courtiers offered him incense and dosed him with the most fulsome flattery. He held France in the hollow of his hand and French society was formed on his model, utterly corrupt and profligate under a thin veneer of fine manners which influenced all Europe and set its fashions.
The worst example set by Louis was in his interference with personal liberty. The privilege of freedom from arrest had been won by the Parliament, in the Fronde. They had decreed that any one taken into custody one day must be produced for trial the next and his detention justified. This safeguard was shortlived. The law was defied and ignored by Louis XIV who invented the lettres de cachet, or sealed warrants, which decreed arbitrary arrest without reason given or the smallest excuse made for the committal. It came to be a common thing that persons who were not even suspected of crimes, and who had certainly never been guilty of crimes, were caught up and imprisoned indefinitely. They might lie for years in the Bastile or Vincennes, utterly uncared for and forgotten, kept in custody not because anybody was set upon their remaining but because nobody was interested in their release. In the absence of any statement of the offense no one could say whether or not it was purged and no one was concerned as to whether the necessity for punishment still survived. These lettres de cachet were abundantly in evidence, for they were signed in blank by the King himself and countersigned by one of his ministers whenever it was desired to make use of one.
It may be well to explain here that it was customary for the King of France to make his sovereign will known by addressing a communication to the various State functionaries in the form of a letter which was open or closed. If the former, it was a “patent,” it bore the King’s signature, it was countersigned by a minister and the great Seal of State was appended. This was the form in which all ordinances or grants of privileges appeared. These “letters patent” were registered and endorsed by the Parliament. But there was no check upon the closed letter or lettre de cachet, famous in the history of tyranny, as the secret method of making known the King’s pleasure. This was folded and sealed with the King’s small seal, and although it was a private communication it had all the weight of the royal authority. It became the warrant for the arbitrary arrest, at any time and without any reason given, of any person who, upon the strength of it, was forthwith committed to a State prison. The chief ministers and the head of the police had always lettres de cachet in stock, signed in blank, but all in due form, and they could be completed at any time, by order, or of their own free will, by inserting the name of the unfortunate individual whose liberty was to be forfeited. Arrest on a lettre de cachet, as has been said, sometimes meant prolonged imprisonment purposely or only because the identity of the individual or the cause of the arrest was forgotten.
Society was horribly vicious and corrupt in the time of Louis XIV. Evil practices prevailed throughout the nation. Profligacy was general among the better classes and the lower ranks committed the most atrocious crimes. While the courtiers openly followed the example set by their self-indulgent young monarch, an ardent devotee of pleasure, the country was over-run with thieves and desperadoes. Assassination was common, by the open attack of hired bravos or secretly by the infamous administration of poison. Security was undermined and numbers in every condition of life were put out of the way. The epoch of the poisoners presently to be described is one of the darkest pages in the annals of the Bastile. Cheating at cards and in every form of gambling was shamelessly prevalent, and defended on the specious excuse that it was merely correcting fortune. Prominent persons of rank and fashion such as the Chevalier de Gramont and the Marquis de Saissac won enormous sums unfairly. The passion for play was so general and so engrossing that no opportunity of yielding to it was lost; people gambled wherever they met, in public places, in private houses, in carriages when travelling on the road. Cheating at play was so common that a special officer, the Grand Provost, was attached to the Court to bring delinquents immediately to trial. Many dishonest practices were called in to assist, false cards were manufactured on purpose and cardmakers were a part of the great households. Strict laws imposed heavy penalties upon those caught loading dice or marking packs. Fraud was conspicuously frequent in the Italian and most popular game of hoca played with thirty balls on a board, each ball containing a number on a paper inside.
The Bastile
The first stone of this historic fortress was laid in 1370. For the first two centuries it was a military stronghold, and whoever held the Bastile overawed Paris. The terrors of the Bastile as a state prison were greatest during the ministry of Richelieu. From the beginning of the revolution this prison was a special object of attack by the populace. On July 14, 1789, it was stormed by the people and forced to surrender.
Later in the reign, the rage for play grew into a perfect madness. Hoca, just mentioned, although it had been indicted by two popes in Rome, and although, in Paris, the Parliament, the magistrates and the six guilds of merchants had petitioned for its suppression, held the lead. Other games of chance little less popular were lansquenet, hazard, portique and trou-madame. Colossal sums were lost and won. A hundred thousand crowns changed hands at a sitting. Madame de Montespan, the notorious favorite, lost, one Christmas Day, 700,000 crowns and got back 300,000 by a stake upon only three cards. It was possible at hoca to lose or win fifty or sixty times a stake in one quarter of an hour. During a campaign, officers played incessantly and leading generals of the army were among the favorite players with the King, when invited to the palace. The police fulminated vainly against the vice, and would have prohibited play among the people, but did not dare to suggest that the court should set the example.
Extravagance and ostentation being the aim and fashion of all, every means was tried to fill the purse. The Crown was assailed on all sides by the needy, seeking places at court. Fathers sent their sons to Paris from the provinces to ingratiate themselves with great people and to pay court in particular to rich widows and dissolute old dowagers eager to marry again. Heiresses were frequently waylaid and carried off by force. Abduction was then as much the rule as are mariages de convenance in Paris nowadays. Friends and relations aided and abetted the abductor, if the lady’s servants made resistance.