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Who really said it

Give me six lines written by the most honest of men, and I will find something in them to hang him

Unknown — no 17th-century source exists Unknown Earliest located printing 1782, in French · credited to Laubardemont, not Richelieu
Disputed Free to reuse

There is no 17th-century French source — nothing in Richelieu’s own Mémoires, his political testament or his correspondence, and nothing in a contemporary who heard him. The earliest located printing is from 1782, about 140 years after his death, and it does not say six lines and does not say Richelieu: it says ten lines and credits Jean Martin de Laubardemont, the magistrate Richelieu used for his most notorious prosecutions. Richelieu’s name is attached in 1790, during the Revolution, when a cardinal-minister was a convenient face for arbitrary justice.

Last verified 21 Jul 2026 · how we verify · spot an error?

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Disputed credit — copy with the correction

“Give me six lines written by the most honest of men, and I will find something in them to hang him” An anonymous French saying, first located in print in 1782 — as ten lines, and credited to Richelieu's magistrate Laubardemont. No 17th-century source exists.

The slide-ready mistake: crediting this to Cardinal Richelieu. Use the credit shown above instead.

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In context

Evoking the world of Cardinal Richelieu — Armand Jean du Plessis, chief minister to Louis XIII of France. Theme: "Give me six lines written by the most honest of men, and I will find something in them to hang him". Atmospheric and restrained, cinematic directional light, a muted period-appropriate palette, fine grain and texture. Compose with generous empty space for the quote and a small credit line. No lettering in the image itself.

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Minimalist editorial slide for the quote "Give me six lines written by the most honest of men, and I will find something in them to hang him". Clean background, a single muted accent color, generous negative space, subtle paper or linen texture, no literal illustration — let the words carry it. Reserve clear space for a serif quote and a small credit line. No lettering in the image itself.

Provenance

The source

Origin
Unknown — no contemporary record
Earliest located
1782, in French — ‘ten lines’
Credited then to
Laubardemont, Richelieu’s magistrate
Richelieu credit from
1790, during the Revolution

Qu'on me donne dix lignes de l'écriture d'un homme, fût-ce à sa Maîtresse, & je suis sûr d'y trouver de quoi le faire pendre. Anonymous, printed 1782

The earliest located printing, from 1782, in the French of the period: ten lines rather than six, addressed to a mistress, and spoken by Laubardemont. Roughly: give me ten lines of any man's handwriting, even to his mistress, and I am sure to find enough in it to hang him. Note that the polished modern version is tighter and crueller — it has been improved in the retelling.

Citations vérifiées — the 1782 and 1790 printings

How we traced it

  • The French sentence people quote today is ‘Qu’on me donne six lignes écrites de la main du plus honnête homme, j’y trouverai de quoi le faire pendre.’ It is real French and it circulates widely — but no 17th-century text contains it.
  • The earliest instance located in print is from 1782, in Lally-Tolendal’s introductory matter to a volume of correspondence, and it differs in both details that matter: ten lines, not six, and the speaker is Laubardemont, not Richelieu the French trail ↗.
  • In 1790 the remark is reassigned to Richelieu himself, in a revolutionary pamphlet on public force by Dubois de Crancé. Early 1800s criminal-trial records swing back to Laubardemont, but with six lines rather than ten.
  • The number will not stay still. Across the sources it is one, two, three, four, five, six and ten lines. A saying whose most memorable detail keeps changing is being retold from memory, not copied from a page.
  • Later scholarship keeps arriving at the same place. Édouard Fournier, in L’Esprit dans l’histoire (1867), judged that if anyone said it under Richelieu it was Laubardemont or Laffemas, his two prosecutors — Richelieu, he wrote, did not descend to the details of the executioner. David Hackett Fischer calls the modern form a paraphrase of Quintilian and finds nothing closer to Richelieu than the memoirs of Françoise Bertaut de Motteville — who only reached court after he was dead the sourcing ↗.
Public domain

The 1782 and 1790 French printings are long out of copyright, as is Fournier’s 1867 discussion, so both the French text and the standard English rendering are free to reproduce. Modern translations published in the last few decades can carry a translator’s copyright of their own; the plain English version on this page is a common-form rendering with no single owner. This is not legal advice.

This reflects the original work, which is public domain. If your exact English wording comes from a specific modern translation, that translation may itself still be under copyright — check the edition you quote.

Fact-check

The attribution problem

This is not a fabrication invented from nothing; it is an old French saying that drifted upward. It started attached to a prosecutor nobody remembers and ended attached to his famous employer.

Not Cardinal Richelieu no 17th-century source

Nothing in his memoirs, his political testament, his letters or any contemporary account of his conversation. The gap between his death in 1642 and the first printing in 1782 is about 140 years the French dossier ↗.

Jean Martin de Laubardemont earliest located

The magistrate Richelieu sent to try Urbain Grandier at Loudun — a man whose reputation for finding guilt was already proverbial. The earliest printing gives him the line, and says ten lines of a man’s handwriting, even to his mistress.

One, two, three, four, five, six, ten the giveaway

Every version is confident and they disagree. That pattern is what oral transmission looks like: the shape of the idea survives, the specifics do not, and there is no manuscript to check any of them against.

Credited in 1843 another wrong owner

A French bibliophiles’ bulletin assigned it to Voltaire in 1843. Sayings without owners attract famous names in rotation; Voltaire, like Richelieu, was simply available.

Possible ancestor idea, not wording

The historian David Hackett Fischer reads the modern form as a paraphrase of the Roman rhetorician Quintilian on how any text can be turned against its writer. That is a lineage of thought, not a line of descent for the sentence.

An anonymous French saying with no 17th-century source. It first appears in print in 1782 — as ten lines, spoken by Laubardemont — and only becomes Richelieu’s in 1790 the French dossier ↗.

Context

Why it resonates

It names a fear that has only got sharper: that the danger is not what you did but what you wrote, and that a sufficiently motivated reader can make any six lines mean something fatal. Everyone who has had an old email quoted back at them knows the feeling.

It also travels because it is a boast rather than a complaint. Put in the mouth of the man doing the hanging, it is far more chilling than any warning about arbitrary power written from outside — which is presumably why it climbed from an obscure magistrate to the most famous minister in French history.

Ten lines in 1782, six by 1800. The number moves — which is how you know nobody was reading it off a page.

The paper trail, in order

1642: Richelieu dies. Nothing resembling the saying appears in his own writings or in contemporary accounts of him.

1782: earliest located printing, in French, in Lally-Tolendal's introductory matter to a volume of correspondence — ten lines, spoken by Laubardemont.

1790: reassigned to Richelieu in Dubois de Crancé's revolutionary Discours sur la force publique.

Early 1800s: criminal-trial records credit Laubardemont again, now with six lines.

1867: Édouard Fournier concludes that if anyone said it, it was Laubardemont or Laffemas — not Richelieu.

1896: the English form is carried into Hoyt's Cyclopedia of Practical Quotations, which is how most English speakers meet it.

Explore

Filed under

More provenance-checked quotes on the same theme, each with its reuse status.

Power Justice

Go further

Dig deeper

Trusted places to keep pulling the thread — primary archives, fact-checks, and scholarship. We show how we used each one before you leave.

Citations vérifiées — « Qu'on me donne… »citationsverifiees.fr

The French fact-checking dossier: the 1782 Laubardemont printing, the 1790 switch to Richelieu, and the wandering line count.
Cardinal Richelieu — Wikiquote (Misattributed)en.wikiquote.org

Files the saying as disputed, with Fournier’s 1867 verdict and Fischer’s Quintilian paraphrase argument.
Mémoires de Mme de Motteville sur Anne d'Autriche et sa courfr.wikisource.org

The memoirs named as the nearest thing to a source — by a writer who arrived at court after Richelieu’s death.

Popularly credited author

Why it gets pinned on Richelieu

Cardinal Richelieu

1585–1642 · Armand Jean du Plessis, chief minister to Louis XIII of France

Cardinal Richelieu (1585–1642) ran France for Louis XIII for eighteen years, broke the political power of the Protestant towns and the great nobles, and founded the Académie française. He also built the machinery this saying describes — intercepted letters, special commissions, prosecutors like Laubardemont and Laffemas who could be relied on for a verdict. That is exactly why the line sticks to him: it is the right idea about his government attached to the wrong mouth. Dumas finished the job. The Richelieu most people picture is the villain of The Three Musketeers, and villains get the good lines.

For writers & researchers

Cite this

Primary source — Chicago

Anonymous saying; earliest located printing 1782, in French, as ‘ten lines’ and credited to Jean Martin de Laubardemont. Reassigned to Richelieu in 1790. No 17th-century source exists.

MLA (9th ed.)

“Qu’on me donne six lignes écrites de la main du plus honnête homme.” Anonymous French saying; earliest located printing 1782.

APA (7th ed.)

Qu'on me donne six lignes écrites de la main du plus honnête homme. (1782). Anonymous French saying [earliest located printing].

This verification page

Quotle.info. “Who really said ‘Give me six lines written by the most honest of men’?” Last verified 21 Jul 2026. https://quotle.info/who-said/give-me-six-lines-written-by-the-most-honest-of-men

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