The court sitting at the Arsenal resumed its labours on May 19, 1681, but on the condition laid down by the king that nothing further should be done in regard to the declarations in which Madame de Montespan had been involved. On December 17, the facts which he had wished to keep from the knowledge of the judges reappeared with new force at the examination of La Joly. Louvois at once wrote to Bazin de Bezons, the fellow-commissioner of La Reynie, instructing him to be careful to put all these declarations into separate portfolios not to be shown to the judges. La Reynie in fact perceived that the difficulties of the Court, in regard to a regular performance of its duties, were increasing from day to day, and it was not long before he understood, and made his colleagues see also, that the mere fact of the suppression of the report containing the replies of Filastre under torture rendered it impossible to investigate legally the cases of the principal prisoners. This he clearly demonstrated in notes really admirable in their outspokenness and sound judgment. And to measure their dignity and courage, we must remember that his words were addressed directly to Louvois and Louis XIV. But Louis' character was not great enough to allow him to sacrifice his pride to the public good, to consent to such a humiliation in the eyes of his subjects and of Europe. He adhered to his veto on the communication of the Montespan documents to the Chambre. On his part, La Reynie remained inflexible, refusing to allow a case to be tried in which the whole of the documents were not submitted to the court. Yet something had to be done: a Chamber must be either open or shut. After having done everything possible to enable justice to follow its course in complete independence, so as to reach the guilty however high-placed they were, La Reynie indicated the only solution which would permit the magistrates--since they were not allowed to fulfil their duty to the full--not to fail in so much of their duty as lay in the limited field still open to them. There were at that time in France tribunals in which judges sat, and _lettres de cachet_ which operated without legal formalities, at the mere command of the king. Elsewhere we have shown how, almost at the same period, d'Aguesseau, the most illustrious of French judges, asked for _lettres de cachet_ in the course of a case in which he was engaged. Like d'Aguesseau, La Reynie might have said: 'I am not accused of a fondness for extraordinary ways and a hatred of the forms known to justice, yet I find here many reasons for having recourse to orders from the king' (_lettres de cachet_).