Lord Carriway's Love Letter to his Paramour

Purpose

This is a love letter written by Lord Daniel Carriway to his paramour, a courtesan of the Scarlet Block named Sara Dumonde. It became a well-known public document as a result of unfortunate circumstance; Miss Dumonde had broken off the relationship and discarded her letters in the trash. This letter was subsequently recovered by the muckrakers at the Etoile Monitor and published on its front page as an attention-getting joke.
This prompted acrimonious suits from Lord Carriway that percolated their way through The Magistrates , finally establishing in 720 that papers given freely to another could be disposed of at their will, including being simply discarded; and that objects discarded were public property, with the public able to do as they like with the garbage they recover.

Historical Details

History

The love letter remains a standby for the communication of trysts. This one is no different in its provenance, being merely unusually flowery and mistake-ridden. Its publication in the Monitor, however, was the cause of massive controversy, as Lord Carriway was embarrassed by the revelation of his infidelity on the public stage, and believed it an unconscionable invasion of his privacy. Lord Carriway filed suit against his ex-lover Dumonde, the Etoilean Monitor, and three comedians who had mocked him during their routines.

Public Reaction

While the letter itself was merely the butt of jokes, the suits brought before the Magistrates were of distinct seriousness and discussion, being a previously untested issue in the Principality of Etoile. While many argued that the Monitor was merely doing its job as journalists reporting on newsworthy things, others noted that the Principality has laws upholding public decency, and argued that the publication of such sordid documents violated decency on two levels - first, the 'decency' of not harassing or upbraiding private individuals, and second, the rather unseemly contents of the letter itself, with several references to anatomy. The counter-arguments from the journals noted that it would be up to the Magistrates or the Princeps to determine what is or is not a matter of 'public decency', and that equally lascivious things were published regularly in The Scarlet Journal.
Though the Magistrates upheld the idea of freedom of expression when the suits were settled, there remain a number of people in Etoile deeply unsatisfied with the muckrakers.

Legacy

All suits were settled in favor of the journals, and Carriway was simply left to fume and go through a messy divorce with his wife. While the Monitor celebrated the decision in a splashy front-page article, they have notably refused to publish any more discovered love letters found in the trash, to the dismay of many who began digging through curbside trash cans. The editor of the Monitor made a public statement not long afterwards, quoted, "We're not in the industry of hunting down infidelity, it was a matter of principle. Stop sending us your petty squabbles, we won't publish them."

Medium

Paper

Authoring Date

715

Location

Etoile Capital City