Introduction

This introduction presents an overview of the key concepts discussed in the subsequent chapters of this book. The book examines the history of the arrest warrant and the definition of the term “moral cupidity.” It discusses the myth surrounding the arrest warrant, in order to understand this process outside of the courts for a member of the public to request a lettre de cachet. The chapter discusses scholarship on the ambiguity and legitimacy of the epistolary exchange in the Preface-annexe regarding its inclusion in the text as an explanation of the mystification by Diderot and Grimm. It also examines instances of both written and nonverbal communication in the novel and the implications of these stated and implied transmissions of meaning. The chapter explores the rapport of communication in La Religieuse with Julia Kristeva’s terms of pere-versite/ mere-versite as they connect to sublimation and the primal drives in relation to language and gender.