Disgrace was the exercise of the sovereign will, usually independent of the regular judicial process, and it could be justified on the basis of both divine right and the ancient maxim that the king was the fount of all justice. Yet despite the emergence of a new model of disgrace in the seventeenth century, obedience did not necessarily mean acceptance. This chapter examines the progress of a parallel critique of the practice of disgrace founded on the law. From their inception, lettres de cachet were denounced as arbitrary, even despotic, and these ideas developed into a much broader critique of arbitrary punishment driven by judges and many victims of disgrace that by the reign of Louis XVI would lead to calls for their abolition. As this chapter demonstrates, the campaign for a French version of habeas corpus would sap the ideological justification of disgrace and prepare the ground for Revolution.
