The French committal papers of 1838

The law of 30 June 1838 on the insane governed French asylums until 1990. A voluntary placement needed a request for admission giving the names, occupations, ages and homes of the person asking and of the person to be placed and their relationship, written and signed, or taken down by the mayor or the police commissioner; a doctor's certificate describing the mental state and the particulars of the illness and the need to treat the person in an asylum and keep them confined there, void if more than fifteen days old or signed by a doctor of the establishment or a relative; and the passport or another paper proving who the person was (art. 8). A placement by authority was ordered by the Prefect of Police in Paris, by the prefect elsewhere, for anyone whose state endangered public order or the safety of persons, in an order giving its reasons (art. 18); in imminent danger the police commissioner or the mayor acted first and referred to the prefect within twenty-four hours (art. 19).

No form of the period has been found, so the three papers Bearer prints are set on the words of the law, and the office says so above them. The request is drawn when someone asks, the prefect's order when its circumstances are given.

Bearer makes an investigator's papers for Call of Cthulhu and any 1920s or 1930s tabletop campaign: the passport a consul would have filled in, with the visas and frontier stamps a campaign leaves in it, and the permits, certificates and tickets of the period, to print or to share.

An example

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The paper

A reconstruction

This paper is a reconstruction. The law of 30 June 1838, read, says what a request for admission had to contain (the names, occupations, ages and homes of both people and their relationship), what the doctor had to certify and within what time, and that the prefect's order had to give its reasons; no form of the period has been found, and the words that are not the law's are ours.

The same paper elsewhere

• Committal papers by country

Still to be confirmed

• the three forms. What would settle it: a request, a certificate and a prefect's order of 1920 to 1939.
• the voluntary request is drawn only when someone asks, and the prefect's order only when its circumstances are given. What would settle it: nothing: the law made them two ways of placing a patient.

Sources

• Royaume de France (texte en vigueur jusqu'en 1990); texte reproduit par le CRPA, référence Légifrance JORFTEXT000000882534, Loi du 30 juin 1838 sur les aliénés, articles 8, 10, 11, 18 et 19, art. 8: une demande d'admission contenant les noms, profession, âge et domicile, tant de la personne qui la formera que de celle dont le placement sera réclamé, et l'indication du degré de parenté ou, à défaut, de la nature des relations qui existent entre elles, écrite et signée, ou reçue par le maire ou le commissaire de police; un certificat de médecin constatant l'état mental de la personne à placer, et indiquant les particularités de sa maladie et la nécessité de faire traiter la personne désignée dans un établissement d'aliénés, et de l'y tenir renfermée, non admis s'il a été délivré plus de quinze jours avant sa remise, s'il est signé d'un médecin attaché à l'établissement ou parent ou allié au second degré; le passeport ou toute autre pièce propre à constater l'individualité; art. 18: à Paris le préfet de police, dans les départements les préfets ordonneront d'office le placement de toute personne dont l'état d'aliénation compromettrait l'ordre public ou la sûreté des personnes, par des ordres motivés énonçant les circonstances; art. 19: en cas de danger imminent, les commissaires de police à Paris et les maires ailleurs ordonnent les mesures provisoires, à la charge d'en référer dans les vingt-quatre heures au préfet (read directly)

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