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This article recounts the history of the different forms of psychiatric internment at the request of a third party in France from the seventeenth century up to the present day. French psychiatry passed from an organic view of the family requesting a lettre de cachet (letter with royal approval authorizing the detention of an individual) to an individualistic form of internment that leaves the identity and role of the person requesting internment with no clear definition. By studying the motives for internment given in historical documents, the author shows that the close relative played a significant role, often displaying concern for the patient. Today, a new conception of compulsory interment is gaining traction, wherein the close relative requesting compulsory psychiatric care can be considered as the source of a form of consent for another person.