20 Fred Morrow Fling 



desirous of disposing of some personal enemy. To obtain a 

 hearing was practically impossible and the poor wretch was 

 often condemned to pass his life in solitude, not knowing the 

 name of his accuser nor the crime of which he was accused. 

 The number of these letters issued under one minister ran up 

 into the thousands.' So many were issued to Mirabeau's father 

 — who used them to rid himself of a wife, a son, and a daugh- 

 ter that he at last exhausted the patience of the government. 



In 1780 there were thousands of men languishing in French 

 dungeons who had been brought there through the instrument- 

 ality of a lettre de cachet. Is it to be wondered at that Mira- 

 beau exclaimed in Yincennes, "Are the laws without force in 

 France?"-^ His civil death had been pronounced and he had 

 not been permitted to defend himself.^ Without any justifica- 

 tion, the monarch or any of his ministers might deprive any of 

 his subjects of their liberty for long periods of time,^ That 

 had been done in the case of Mirabeau and he was forced to 

 deal with a question that was of world wide importance, the 

 right of every man to "life, liberty and the pursuit of happi- 

 ness. "^ This he demonstrated in his works by every argument 

 at his command. Add to the evils already enumerated, the 

 crushing censorship of the press, public instruction lacking 

 quality and quantity, and the frightful legal inequality existing 

 between the different classes and the picture is complete. 



1 "Le cardinal de Fleuri s'est vante, dit-on, d'avoir fait expedier quarante 

 mille lettres de cachet. Sans doute il a ete, sinon surpasse, de moins 

 ^gal^." Des lettres de cachet, p. 274. 



2 "Les lois sont-elles done sans force en France?" Lettres originales de 

 Mirabeau, vol. II, p. 58. 



=' "Ma mort civile est prononcee, sans qu'on daigne m'admettre a me 

 justifier." Ibid, III, p. 184. 



■* "Grands, petits, riches, pauvres, tous sout menaces." Des lettres de 

 cachet, p. 94. 



^ "La liberty est le droit inalienable de tous les hommes." Des lettres 

 de cachet, p, X. 



64 



