Pierre Louis de Lacretelle [SEP] native language
Pierre Louis de Lacretelle
Pierre Louis de Lacretelle (9 October 1751 – 5 September 1824) was a French lawyer, politician and writer.
He was born in Metz, the elder brother of Jean Charles Dominique de Lacretelle.
He practised as a barrister in Paris. In 1784 he shared a prize for an award-winning essay with Maximilien Robespierre. Under the French Revolution he was elected as a "député suppléant" in the Constituent Assembly, and later as a deputy in the Legislative Assembly.
He belonged
headline-grabbing lawsuit. There was huge public indignation over the principle of the "lettre de cachet", a symbol of despotism, and there was sympathy for the unfortunate old man whom his unnatural wife had had thrown into Charenton. The business thus lent itself to media exploitation by ambitious and talented lawyers like Pierre Louis de Lacretelle, the new champion of individual freedoms.
De Lacretelle dashed off his "Memoir for the Comte de Sanois" which denounces in passing the abusive use of the "lettre de cachet".