whom, therefore, no one could wonder to find an active agent in the suppression of free discussion. Having observed that the liberty of the press necessarily enforced responsibility, the speaker stated, as the next question, "Would it not be better to prevent the evil, than to punish it after commission? He acknowledged that it would be desirable to abolish the censorial power, that natural enemy of freedom of thought and writing; but that was not possible,-it was only necessary to set limits to the authority of the censors; such was the only way of reconciling the rights of authors with the interests of the state, of religion, and of morals. The censorship, with proper modifications, might be used, as physicians sometimes employ poisons in the composition of their medicines. He must also strongly contend that printers should be made responsible. Thus only a mound could be raised against a torrent of worthless publications from so many pamphleteers."

Monsieur Faure proceeded to state kis motion, which, in substance, went to establish a censorship of works under thirty pages, before publication, by officers to be nominated by the king. If two censors should agree that the intended publication contained any thing libellous, contrary to good morals or the public tranquillity, the printing should be staid, under reservation of the author's right of appeal to a committee of the two legislative bodies, who might, if they saw cause, remove the interdict. A second branch of the same project went to place at the king's pleasure the general controul of the national press. It was proposed, that no one should exercise the trade of printer or bookseller without the royal license, under heavy penalties of fine and imprisonment. If notice was not given to the director-general of the press, and a

VOL. VIII. PART 1.

copy lodged with him, the impression of any work was liable to seizure, and the publisher to a fine of a thousand livres for the first offence, and double the sum for the second. The omission of the printer's name and residence, or the insertion of a false name and address on the title-page of any work, were liable, the former to a fine of three thousand, the latter to one of six thousand livres; and the bookseller who should sell a work without a printer's name, was to be subject to a fine of two thousand livres, to be reduced to one thousand if he should give up the printer.

The measure, thus recommended, was sent to the consideration of a committee, who made their report on the 2d of August. It was unfavourable to the motion. Monsieur Raynouard, the reporter, stated, with considerable energy, the disadvantages attending the proposed censorship, and the elusory nature of the remedy provided by the measure of Monsieur Faure. "The establishment," he observed, "of this previous censure excited alarm, and appeared to him incompatible with the liberty of the press, that right which was secured by the charter. The means also of repairing the injustice or error of the censors were equally illusory. Sometimes the whole recess of a session must expire before an author could exercise his right of complaint; and the stoppage of a work ordered during one of our sessions, could not be decided upon till the opening of the next. What reparation, in the mean time, was the author to receive, whose work was unjustly delayed? None whatever; and yet it was often of great importance to the honour or the fortune of a citizen that his work should appear at a certain determinate period. What punishment also was to be inflicted on the injustice of the censors? There was none. What gua

H

rantee could be found in their fear of being reprobated; for even if their decisions were reversed, what security was there for the condemnation being public? But were their acts of injus tice even proclaimed and posted up, still the spirit of party would easily console them for the public disapprobation. Besides, would it be difficult to mention administrations where excess of zeal, though publicly discouraged by the heads of government, might yet be excused, and even rewarded in secret? Thus every thing in the establishment of a previous censorship appeared equally unjust, both in substance and form."

The modifications of the measure did not escape the censure of the reporter. The law exempted from the censorship works printed in foreign languages. Foreigners, therefore, would possess within France a freedom of which the natives were thought unworthy. This argument, which could only be intended to catch the thoughtless vanity of his hearers, was followed by others of greater weight. 66 If," as the minister declared in his discourse, 6. care was taken to exempt all writings whose authors afforded in their character and situation a sufficient guarantee, why was it not thought proper to extend to many others an exception made in favour of ecclesiastics and advocates? Would not members of the Chamber of Peers, or of deputies, counsellors of state, public functionaries, chief members of the University, of the Chamber of Commerce, and many others, be equally entitled to be included in the number of those who by their character or situation presented sufficient guarantee ?

"By article 9, journals and other periodical writings were not to appear without the sanction of the king. This article, so short and incomplete, was only the more alarming for the liberty of the press, It would have been

proper to explain, whether it was only meant to apply to the establishment of future journals, or whether every morning the journalist would be ob liged to require a sanction. We should at least have learned how this sanction was to be obtained, or on what grounds it might be refused; whether censors or co-editors were to be appointed, and up to what point injurious both to public and private rights, those who shall have the direc tion of the journals may exclusively distribute praise and blame, or pass judgment on men and things, for the purpose of leading astray or putting down public opinion.

By art. 10, authors and printers may demand the previous examination of their works; and if approved, the author and printer are discharged from all responsibility, except towards private individuals who may be injured.'

"What an alarming power does this confer on a couple of censors? In this way the most immoral book, works injurious to every public right or institution, outraging even the sacred person of the king himself, would be screened from all future enquiry! The author would be freed from all responsibility, because two censors may have accorded their perhaps guilty approbation. But at what period, or in what country, have magistrates ever been prohibited to exercise the rights of public justice, notwithstanding the imprimatur of doctors or censors?

"The 22d article, declaring that the law shall be reviewed within three years, announces sufficiently that it is not meant to be a temporary, but s definitive law; and besides, it has ap peared to many, that the period of revision was too distant.

"These different motives, which have had more or less weight with the mem bers of the committee, have determi

ned them to declare unanimously, that the plan of the law, such as it has been proposed, cannot be adopted without some modifications. The question then arose, whether this plan was easily susceptible of amendments, by which it might be corrected, at the same time adopting its principal basis. That basis is previous censorship. "On this question the committee decided by a mere majority of voices, that previous censorship ought not to serve as the basis of the law, unless the ministers should lay before the chamber a modified project, together with the peculiar motives which suggested so strange a measure."

This important subject was resumed in several sittings, and certainly the members shewed no reluctance to exercise the freedom of debate, however they might differ concerning that of the press. About eighty, including both sides of the Chamber, inscribed their names as desiring to be heard upon the proposed law. The strongest argument used by those who defended the law referred to the existing state of France, unprepared, it was stated, for the advantages of a free constitution and the uplimited freedom of the press. It was urged, "that the order of society has been disarranged; the people have lost all precise and cautious habits of thinking, and are prepared to receive every fanciful impression; if a complete freedom of opinion is tolerated, bold bad men' immediately know that the most daring opinions are the most vendible, if they have but wit to support them, and, in consequence, let their ambition and their interest go hand in hand to encompass themselves with unreflecting proselytes. The French government therefore seeks to repress those hasty and consequent ly dangerous ebullitions of opinions, which come reeking from the press, to set the vicious and the unthinking

in a periodical ferment. It does not seek to put down those arguments which extend themselves to the size of a moderate volume; it knows that twenty sheets of false wit and sophis try would carry with them their own antidote; that an epigram or an essay may prepare men to be traitors or atheists, but that a wholesale heap of sedition or blasphemy is sure to be confuted and despised. Lastly, it wisely provides that the laws should be temporary, in the virtuous hope that wise and cautious regulations may so improve and establish the French character, that truth and justice may, in a few years, be left to make their own way to the hearts of men."

After a warm debate, the ministers saw themselves compelled to adopt several modifications of the original motion. The length of the pamphlets to be subjected to the previous censorship, was restricted to twenty pages instead of thirty, and the operation of the law was made to extend only till the end of the session .816. In the Chamber of Peers another amendment was adopted, which went to oblige the director of the press and bookselling trade to submit his interdictions against printing works, with his reasons, to both Chambers. The projected law was in this stage warmly opposed by the celebrated Marshal Macdonald, called Duke of Tarentum. His speech touched upon one topic of fearful interest. He affected to vindicate the army from the calumnies which alleged that the soldiers were seduced from their allegiance by sedi. tious publications, yet dropped the ominous question, "Ought we to be alarmed if a few obscure soldiers have swerved from their allegiance?" ac knowleging thus the existence of the very agitation which he had endea voured to palliate or deny. The Mar. shal alleged that the real cause of disaffection was not the multitude of

libels which the proposed law was meant to restrain, but the too sudden changes in public offices, and the fear of apprehended alterations in the constitution and the state of property. The soldiers, he said, feared for their honour and for their subsistence; and all ranks looked to the loyal fulfilment of the charter as the only source of security and protection. "Such," continued Marshal Macdonald," is the source of these disquietudes; and since we are acquainted with the remedy, let us not fail to apply it. Make laws conformable to this constitution; it is such only that France expects from you: she expects from you, gentlemen, the maintenance of that charter to which we have all sworn in that solemn sitting of the 4th of June; our oaths resounded throughout the kingdom, and in every part of Europe. Let us be faithful to them, as to our love for the sovereign, whom Providence and our wishes have given to us. What confidence will the French repose in us; what faith shall we display in acts and treaties; what opinion will foreigners entertain of us, if we now forget those oaths? Make it appear to the world, and prove to mankind, that you are French men truly regenerated. For, recollect that it is the non-observance, that it is the violation of the laws, which, in our unhappy disturbances, have caused all the confusions of which France has so long been the victim. If you adopt this project, gentlemen, if you leap over this barrier, who shall secure us in future from new attacks? Who shall secure those benefits which are as generously promised as they are solemnly granted by that charter? And what but the liberty of the press shall apprise the king of the truth, the errors, and the faults into which his ministers may fall? Restrain it by severe laws, by the most heavy penalties; you will thus soften licentious

ness, vindictive resentments, seditious provocations, and you will be faithful to your oaths, in leaving us the liberty of speaking, of writing, and of printing. Such is my opinion; such are my unalterable principles. I demand the previous question on the project of the law."

Notwithstanding this opposition, the law upon the censorship and superintendance of the press, upon the votes being taken by ballot, was finally adopted by a majority of 137 white balls to 80 black ones. The friends of good order and rational freedom,→ for the words are synonimous, though too often placed in opposition to each other,regretted this measure. It was in vain, they said, to allege as an excuse, that the French were yet unfitted for the liberty of the press, or to argue from the analogy of an oculist, who does not permit the eyes of his pa tient, after a successful operation, to be exposed to the full blaze of day. They were of opinion, on the contrary, that the liberty of the press is not only necessary to secure freedom, but is the only effectual means of framing man's mind to understand and to enjoy it. They allowed, that the voice of clamorous and seditious pamphleteers might justly alarm government, and mislead, for a time, the governed. But they trusted in the omnipotence of truth, which at length is almost sure to prevail over all obstacles. They conceived that the formation of a public mind in France capable of understanding sound, and rejecting false reasoning, depended on free opportunity being given to the inhabitants of listening to both. The bigotted zeal, the folly, the partiality, the selfinterest of censors, has been shown by the history of literature in all countries where the office has subsisted; and it is certain that the very idea that a work must necessarily be subjected to the ordeal of their criti

cism, must restrain and overawe the genius of the author in the labours of composition, and operate as a discouragement to liberal and free investigation by its terrors, even before their power comes into actual exercise. Admitting the imminent evil and risk to the state of France, at this hazardous crisis, from the multiplicity of seditious libels, the advocates for the freedom of the press contended, it would have been better to subject those guilty of abusing the privilege to severe, or even capital punishment, than, under the pretext of anticipating and preventing their crimes, to put the light of nations under a censorial bushel. The inefficiency of such attempts, continued these reasoners, is equal to their impolicy. While there is a free press in Europe, the expressions of popular discontent will find their way to it, as water to its level; and nothing short of an universal state of war and non-intercourse, such as existed under Buonaparte, will prevent France from receiving from other countries, with an interest and curiosity enhanced by mystery and by prohibitions, those publications which are interdicted in her own.

Much hope was conceived, how ever, of the future affairs of France, from the open and manly manner in which the debate was carried on; and this was augmented by a circumstance which seemed to show that the opposition members who voted against the law had done so not on factious, but on national motives, and really wished to secure the freedom of the press, but not to encourage its licence. Ferru, Chamerot, Dentu, Roux, and other booksellers, had been active in dispersing a pamphlet, entitled, an "Extract from the Moniteur," reflecting upon the person of the king, the printer of which had concealed his name, and they had been committed to prison as dispersers of a libel. Encouraged, it may be, by

the animated speeches made in defence of the liberty of the press, these persons petitioned the Chamber, not only for liberty, but for authority to prosecute the persons who had oc casioned their imprisonment. The Chamber, by a great majority, found that their arrest was legal under the penal code, and that, being accused of a serious offence, the petitioners had no right to apply to the Chamber for protection, since their guilt or innocence would be ascertained in the proper court of justice. The reporter, in the name of the committee of petitions, declared that the members most zealous for the freedom of the press, were not less than their colleagues the declared enemies of those who should abuse it, for the purpose of creating trouble and disorder in the state.

The censors were, however, nominated, and put into office. Among their names we observe two of bad omen; those, namely, of Lemontey, formerly a deputy to the Legislative Assembly, who had been already a theatrical censor in the days of Buonaparte, and of Lacretelle, the historian of the Revolution, who had served his apprenticeship to the same trade, under the same imperial master. The Abbé Salgues, one of the editors of the Journal de Paris, whose pen had circled as regularly around the political compass as if it had been plucked from the tail of the revolutionary weather-cock, was also named a censor, and afterwards showed how well he deserved the office, by the furious articles against the Bourbons, which he published in his journal immediately on the return of Buonaparte.

The law for restraining the freedom of the press had been carried through with such difficulty, that the disaffected were rather encouraged than checked by it, and resorted to all expedients to elude it, with a certainty that in doing so they would have the public on their side. Mon