Literary notes about cachet (AI summary)
In literature, “cachet” functions dually as a symbol of both authority and refined distinction. On one hand, it is closely associated with the notorious lettres de cachet—orders used to constrain, confine, or exile individuals arbitrarily, as seen when characters are banished by royal decree ([1], [2], [3], [4]). On the other hand, the word conveys an air of prestige or unique quality, imbuing settings, objects, and even persons with an exclusive, desirable allure ([5], [6], [7], [8]). This flexibility allows authors to evoke themes of repression alongside those of style and social distinction, highlighting the layered nuance that “cachet” carries in literary contexts.
- The lettre de cachet was too often the instrument of private hate.
— from The Eve of the French Revolution by Edward J. (Edward Jackson) Lowell - You are to be confined by a lettre de cachet to the isle of St. Margaret, for the place of your exile is already chosen.
— from Memoirs of the Comtesse Du Barry With Minute Details of Her Entire Career as Favorite of Louis XV by Lamothe-Langon, Etienne-Léon, baron de - Indeed, the king had already drawn up the lettre de cachet which was to consign him to the Bastile.
— from Louis XIV. Makers of History Series by John S. C. (John Stevens Cabot) Abbott - A hundred and thirty-nine members received letters under the king’s seal ( lettres de cachet ), exiling them to the four quarters of France.
— from A Popular History of France from the Earliest Times, Volume 6 by François Guizot - Most of the books strewn on the tables were French novels or such American tales as had the cachet of social riskiness.
— from The Golden House by Charles Dudley Warner - They were not bad; he admitted that they gave a certain cachet to the home in Paris and to the castle.
— from The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse by Vicente Blasco Ibáñez - He bears a social cachet, though he may be a poltroon and a blackguard.
— from Sister Gertrude: A Tale of the West Riding by D. F. E. Sykes - Her gown of filmy black had the cachet of an exclusive house, the expensive simplicity that serves so well as a background for wonderful jewels.
— from Juggernaut by Alice Campbell
