Did the blanket pardon from 'The Three Musketeers' exist in real life?
Upvote:-1
I see nothing special in that the cardinal could give such a letter to facilitate assistance to his envoy.
On the other hand, I am sure that such a letter would not have any legal force in case of trial or charges.
Upvote:3
I think the previous posters while correct on LEGAL authority are forgetting the influence that the Catholic church had on the populace. Crossing a Cardinal could result in excommunication and in their very antiquated views it would mean that their souls would be damned to hell with no hope of salvation.
It is not unrealistic to believe that the faithful of this time believed that they could have been influenced. The church was selling plenary indulgences and collected tithings. They were very wealthy and powerful. So just because they didn't have the authority to make such a statement. You'd definitely think twice about killing someone with a hall pass from Richelieu. Yeah, you could get away with it, but you'd suffer extreme consequences for it. So yeah, kinda sorta still holds water that it would have worked.
Upvote:8
In 17th century France, the top of the judiciary hierarchy is the King, who is an absolute monarch. Therefore, only a direct order from the King himself would be "legally" allowed to bypass laws and judges; it is called a lettre de cachet. We can see, for instance, Louis XIV issuing a bunch of them during the affaire des poisons (1677 to 1682) as an attempt to quell the scandal when witness statements began to involve the King's principal mistress Madame de Montespan. Even Louis XIV, at the high tide of his personal absolute power and glory, found it difficult. (See this book for a solid relation of that affair; I don't know if it was translated to English.)
From this, we may infer that a note from Richelieu, who was not king (although he had the unfailing political support of Louis XIII), would hardly have had any legal statute, although it could have impressed a provincial guard for enough time to allow a skilled spy to escape. It is also doubtful that a political figure as astute and energetic as Richelieu would have signed such a highly compromising note; Dumas is here writing as a novelist, not as an historian.
More post
- 📝 What was the name of Delhi during the period of Akbar ruling in parts of India?
- 📝 Why was Germany not broken up at the end of WW1
- 📝 What kind of ID Number, if any, did the Soviets institute for all their citizens?
- 📝 What is the use of vinegar as a component in ancient ink receipes?
- 📝 Where did the “vikings wear helmets with horn” stereotype come from and why?
- 📝 Symbol of the San-colottes
- 📝 In 18th century America, how did people board ships to travel long distance?
- 📝 Is there any data that supports or refutes the claim made in this paper about the Harappan/Indus Valley civilization?
- 📝 When did the Saxons settle Britain?
- 📝 Are there any underground cities known except those found in Cappadocia?
- 📝 In Russia, are the anniversaries of the various events that occurred in 1917 and '18 observed according to the Old Style or the New Style calendar?
- 📝 Did the Third Rome theory help make Michael Romanov tsar?
- 📝 Why is there no Islamic architecture with glass in windows before the 18th century?
- 📝 When did the American War of 1812 actually end?
- 📝 Did Jagdgeschwader 7 operate any Bf-109s?
- 📝 Did Nazi Germany ever actually make it illegal to practice Judaism?
- 📝 What are some Chinese sources testifying the extreme weather events of 535-536 CE?
- 📝 What factors prevented the legality of secession being pursued via the courts prior to the outbreak of the Civil War?
- 📝 Why do Wikipedia's and Guinness World Records's measurements of the Achaemenid Empire's percentage of world population differ?
- 📝 How many defensive lines did China build for the Second Sino-Japanese War?
- 📝 How colonialism have been done right (benevolently)?
- 📝 Before 1980, was there ever an attempt to evangelise for Orthodox Christianity?
- 📝 Is there any evidence of armies enrolling women in fighting roles in significant number in antiquity or the middle ages?
- 📝 How did Edgar Allan Poe get promoted to Sergeant Major from Private in just 2 years?
- 📝 Are there any surviving maps from the Delhi Sultanate?
- 📝 How quickly could the Roman legions march? How did it compare to their cavalry?
- 📝 Why was the Le Chapelier law annulled in Belgium?
- 📝 Motivation Behind the USSR Assisting China's Nuclear Program
- 📝 What names did the ancient Egyptians give to different stages of their history?
- 📝 Did Archimedes have any students?
Source: stackoverflow.com
Search Posts
Related post
- 📝 Did the blanket pardon from 'The Three Musketeers' exist in real life?
- 📝 Did China's life expectancy at birth rise 30.5 years from 1960 to 1980? If so, what were the particular changes made to their society's structure?
- 📝 Did the people who jumped from the World Trade Center during 9/11 lose their life insurance policy due to committing suicide?
- 📝 Why did Native Americans die from European diseases while Europeans didn't catch serious diseases from the New World?
- 📝 Did Bill Gates steal the GUI concept from Steve Jobs?
- 📝 Why did Columbus cross the mid-Atlantic instead of exploring from Greenland?
- 📝 Did Albert Einstein really receive this rejection letter from the University of Bern?
- 📝 Did the leaflets from the US to Hiroshima/Nagasaki civilians on bombing cities reduce the civilian casualties of the two nuclear bombs in August 1945?
- 📝 How did the American Civil War help the U.S economy recover from the Panic of 1857 given that civil wars are extremely destructive?
- 📝 Did Heisenberg undermine the German atomic bomb by deliberately hiding his expertise from the Nazis?
- 📝 Where did the “vikings wear helmets with horn” stereotype come from and why?
- 📝 What concessions did Hitler demand from the Poles before 1939?
- 📝 When Israel won the Six Day War, did they consider expelling all Arabs from the annexed territories?
- 📝 Why did Jodrell Bank assist the Soviet Union to collect data from their spacecraft in the mid 1960's?
- 📝 Why did the southern states secede from the U.S.?
- 📝 Aside from the Jews, did Hitler have a final solution plan for other ethnicities/races in the Third Reich?
- 📝 Why did the Japanese withdraw from Siberia in 1922?
- 📝 Why did Canada, Australia and New Zealand separate from the UK?
- 📝 In the early 1900s, how did US politicians treat black dignitaries from other countries?
- 📝 How long did it take to get news of the sighting of the Spanish Armada from Land’s End to London?
- 📝 How was life in the Iron Age different from life in the Middle Ages?
- 📝 Were bookshops 'common' in the late 19th century, and how did they differ from modern ones?
- 📝 Did foreign language phrase books exist in the ancient world?
- 📝 Did the Germans have a team equivalent to the one from Bletchey Park in the UK during WWII?
- 📝 How much did it cost to buy a ticket on the Orient Express from Paris to Istanbul in 1914?
- 📝 What did Germany gain from the Armistice of 11 November 1918?
- 📝 Apart from the Inuit, and candlefish on the northwest coast, did pre-Columbian America have lamps or candles?
- 📝 Which state capital did the Apollo 11 command module NOT visit after it returned from the moon?
- 📝 Why did this anti-communist pamphlet, from the USA in the 1950s, include UNESCO among its targets?
- 📝 How and why did Polish rule over the Ukraine "downwardly deviate" from Lithuanian rule?