But they were also entrusted with a separate task, and were to give a proper status and juridical form to measures that courts previously asked directly of the royal authorities: spendthrift and debauched fathers, prodigal sons, inheritors who were incapable of managing their share, and all the various forms of deficiency, disorder and misdemeanour that were previously sanctioned with lettres de cachet, in the absence of the complete legal procedure of interdiction, all now fell into the jurisdiction of these family tribunals.