Des Lettres de Cachet et des prisons d'état
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Des Lettres de Cachet et des prisons d'état is a tract by Comte de Mirabeau written during the later period of his confinement, published after his liberation (1782).
He had been seized by the French police in in May 1777, and imprisoned by a lettre de cachet in the castle of Vincennes (during which time he had met Sade, see Marquis de Sade and Comte de Mirabeau.
It exhibits an accurate knowledge of French constitutional history skillfully applied in an attempt to show that the system of lettres de cachet was not only philosophically unjust but also constitutionally illegal. It shows, though in a rather diffuse and declamatory form, the application of wide historical knowledge, keen philosophical perception, and genuine eloquence to a practical purpose which was the great characteristic of Mirabeau, both as a political thinker and as a statesman.
