One of the well-known abuses which preceded the Revolution, was the improper use which, in the reign of Louis XV. was made of _lettres de cachet_, obtained too often by private solicitation or the interest of some of the mistresses of the King or his ministers. Their abuse rose to the highest pitch, under the administration of the Duke de la Villière. The Marchioness Langeac, his mistress, openly made a traffic of them, and never was one refused to a man of influence, who had a vengeance to satiate, a passion to gratify. The Comte de Segur gives the following characteristic anecdote, illustrating the use made of these instruments of tyranny, even upon the inferior classes of society.
"I have heard related the sad mishap which occurred to a young shop-mistress, named Jeanneton, who was remarkable for her beauty. One day the Chevalier de Coigny met her radiant with smiles, and in the highest spirits. He inquired the cause of her extreme satisfaction. 'I am truly happy,' she replied,--'My husband is a scold, a brute; he gave me no rest--I have been with M. le Comte de Saint Florentin; Madame ----, who enjoys his good graces, has received me in the kindest manner, and for a present of ten _Louis_ I have just obtained a _lettre de cachet_ which will deliver me from the persecution of that most jealous tyrant.'
"Two years afterwards, M. de Coigny met the same Jeanneton, but now sad, pale, with downcast look, and a care-worn countenance. 'Ah! my poor Jeanneton!' said he, 'what has become of you? I never meet you any where. What has cast you down, since we last met?' 'Alas! sir,' replied she, 'I was very foolish to be then in such spirits; my villanous husband had that very day taken up the same idea as I; he went to the minister, and the same day, by the intervention of his mistress, _he brought an order to shut me up_; so that it cost our poor _menage_ twenty _louis_ to throw us at the same time reciprocally into prison.'"--(Vol. ii. p. 489.)
M. De Tocqueville sums up in these eloquent words which close his work, the tendency and final result of the government of the Regent Orleans and Louis XV.:--
"The high society was more liberal than the bourgeois: the bourgeois than the people. The Revolution commenced in the head of the social system; from that it gained the heart, and spread to the extremities. It became a point of honour to be in opposition. It was a mode of shining and acquiring popularity; a fashion which the young seized with avidity. The words Liberty and Representative Government were continually in the mouths of those who were, ere long, to ascribe to them all their misfortunes.