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.
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