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empire of a dictatorship that they make an appearance of consulting France. It is a gagged people whom they invite to give their opinion. Censors, such as never existed under any Revo lutionary or Despotic Government; Censors who, strange to say, are not anonymous, have, with the certainty of being discovered, the incredible fidelity to alter the authentic papers delivered to them; they suppress not only opinions but facts, they command

that this affair belonged to the King's Attorney General, and refused him, in consequence, any explanation or satisfaction.

One circumstance worthy of remark is, that many journals whose opinions one can guess at, having profited by the searches made at M. Tirel's, in order to prove that miners' uniforms had actually been found at his house, and to give all due gravity to this affair, a Liberal Journal thought it was able to take up the defence of this merchant without saying any thing besides, on the charge of which he was the subject: "All we can at present say," such was the modest and reserved tone of this Editor, " is that the manufacturer, on whom suspicion rests, is a man generally esteemed at Vire, where he has filled many honorable functions; that his great enter. prises have for a long time been the happiness of the Country, and that even now he employs four or five hundred workmen, who love and revere him as a father." Surely this passage contained nothing seditious in it, it prejudged nothing. The Censorship struck it out. It had allowed insinuations which might do a merchant an irreparable injury, and has refused a few lines of praise which only spoke of past facts, and which were calculated to render these perfidious insinuations less hurtful.

* The Journal de Paris, which is known to be the ministerial sub-journal, says expressly: Dictatorship is always the offspring of licentiousness. Fortunately for the factions this dictatorship is mild andgentle. (Number of the 5th September, 1820.) I do not here enquire either into its mildness or its gentleness, I take an account of the fact. The Ministry exercises a Dictatorship, and it is under the weight of a Dictatorship that the nation is called upon to exercise its first right.

2 To alter authentic papers appears a very great irregularity, wherefore I think myself called upon to prove it. The following is the fact, just as it happened not long ago. The Moniteur, in answer to a letter which I and one of my colleagues signed, asserts that I refused to give justice the information she required. I send to a Newspaper, not an article written at the moment, but a letter previously sent by me to the Judge of Instruction, consequently an authentic document, which would appear in a process, if a process were instituted. In this letter is the following passage: There are other facts, of which I expected to have been asked for an explanation; for instance, the signed letters, containing proofs of the excesses which took place in the street Neuve-Saint-Denis. The silence you observe, Sir, upon this important point, &c. &c. This passage shows clearly that so far from refusing information, I had offered it, and that the refusal of which the Moniteur endeavours to take advantage, did not relate to information but to the name of a citizen who would, perhaps, have been punished for having spoken of a report, which, perhaps, also it was not wished should be known. What did the Censorship do? It struck out this passage; it has therefore altered, not an article or a letter to an Editor, but an authentic document. The Censorship has done more: it has permitted other papers to take advantage of this mutilation of a legal document, it has allowed one of them to speak of the famous letter by which M. B. Constant, to prove that he had not refused any informa

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imposture, sanction attack, interdict defence, authorise calum

tion to justice, declared, that he would only give it them when they had no further occasion for it. To alter documents and take advantage of these alterations constitutes, as appears to me, the first and last half of a thing very clearly designated in the Penal Code.

The reader has certainly not forgotten the order given by the Censorship to all the papers, to relate the death of young Lallemande, agreeably to the Quotidienne, because the Censorship thought fit to consider this account more probable than the rest, and this account was a calumny on the deceased. This circular of the Censorship assumes a natural air which is précious, and which it is to be regretted is not found in its subsequent acts. At present it orders much, but it writes little, and carefully prohibits the publication of what it writes; warned, as it is by sad experience, that in certain professions we have no worse exposers than ourselves.

2 One of the artifices of the Censorship and of the papers which repay in flattery the insults it allows them to offer to others, is to assert with admirable boldness, that replies are allowed provided they contain nothing contrary to religion, morals, the Monarchy, or the Charter, (M. Simeon's words in his speech on the introduction of the law of Censorship.) The Journal de Paris derides, for example, the lamentations on poor M. Keratry, who in a defenceless state is delivered up to his enemies armed at all points. (Number of the 6th September, 1820.) Who would think, according to that, that these lamentations are any thing less than founded? The following, however, are the facts. M. Keratry has been twice attacked in the same Journal de Paris, in the most unjust and perfidious manner; (Numbers of 31st August, and 3rd September,) his accounts have been contested, and his phrases perverted. I was inclined to defend M. Keratry, not in his person or intentions, (he has no need of this,) but in his assertions and arguments. I sent the following article to a Journal, and I have in my possession the prohibition of the Censorship.

"The Journal de Paris, in a long article against M. Keratry, argues in a way which indicates a man very certain that he could not be answered, or, that if he were answered, it would be on such conditions and with such impediments that he would be sure to gain a victory over his gagged enemy. Thus we shall confine ourselves to copying his phrases, simply asking him some humble questions. When we set down serenades and street music to the accounts of the Representative Government, have we a right to complain on its account, of the hooting of boys and the incivilities of a porter? a sick deputy, unable to walk, surrounded and detained by clubs raised over his head; another seized by the collar and thrown down, and a third followed in his coach; are these hootings and incivilities? If we are not inclined to take notice of such facts, have we a right to complain of street music and serenades? Ill formed minds find the victory of the left side somewhat grotesque, and carry their impertinence so far as to say, that the world would go on quite as well if M. Guilhem had had a few dishes less, and MM. Bellart and Bourdeau a few more peaceable nights."

"We should evry much disapprove of every thing that may have disturbed the rest of Messrs. Bellart and Bourdeau, and to express our censure we shall only wait the proof that the facts are not invented or much exaggerated; a proof which does not result from the measures taken (for dismissals and disarmings are not proofs); but the result of the instructions that have been announced. But what have the excesses against Messrs. Bellart and Bourdeau to do with the testimony of satisfaction given by M. Guilhem? What is there grotesque in these evidences of satisfaction? nies, forbid refutations, permit the institutions, which France and

When it was said that the inhabitants of Dieppe had given a dinner to the Viscount de Châteaubriand, the Journal de Paris saw nothing grotesque in it; the world would not go on worse if Mr. Guilhem had a few dishes less, but it would go on much worse if the citizens of Dieppe had not a right to give a dinner to whom they liked, without being suspected or disarmed; nor even although a less inconvenience resulted from it, insulted by the Journal de Paris and the Gazette de France, without being able, thanks to the Censorship, to reply one word."

" Is the Government compelled to yield to any who may oppose it, and is it not a mockery to transform into a constitutional necessity the most whimsical anarchy that ever existed? This is said à propos of the dismissal of Messrs. RoyerCollard and Camille Jordan. We ask, in our turn, if the people can be compelled to choose as defenders, men who are bound never to oppose the Government? The axiom of the Journal de Paris is the most eloquent of all exhortations to all the electors never to give their suffrages to men invested with moveable functions, whatever they may be. Let us not say that the Censorship opposed the refutation of M. Clausel's book, when it is publicly known that it has been refuted by the Moniteur as much as it was to be. That is, that the Government arrogates to itself the exclusive right of refusing what it thinks right, and of prohibiting a competition. This is exactly what is called the Slavery of the Press. In In saying that the Press is a slave, it has never been pretended that its masters cannot use it, only that they reserve the use of it to themselves. Must the Government absolutely be the reflector of all sinister errors, the echo of all absurd reports? &c. &c. The Government? No certainly. But what has the Government to do with the citizens who write? It is to the Tribunals that the citizens are to answer for what they write. The Government has nothing to do with it."

" Who would not prefer despotism to this perpetual disorder? We; for England has been a hundred and twenty years in this perpetual disorder, and we would rather have lived in London than at Constantinople. The legislature has submitted to the Tribunals the lofty paradox, and dark sophism: A more prompt justice stops the messengers of error! Are facts messengers of error? When the Censorship stops these facts, is that justice? The Courts and the Censorship halt before the "Tribune" where legal opinion begins. It is therefore nothing more than the liberty of the Tribune that the Charter has guaranteed. Therefore the 8th article of the Charter must be re-made, and it must say, "Every Frenchman has a right to manifest his lawful opinion to the Tribune." At least we should know what we are doing. These institutions, (the Courts and the Censorship) far from suppressing opinion, support it, since they preserve it from an impure mixture. They are not corrupters and tyrants, but purifiers and guardians. The Censorship is a purifier; it seems so. It is only necessary to read the article in the Gazette de France, in which it pretends that a writer, whom it mentions, ought to be answered with a horsewhip. As it is pleasant to finish with a piece of politeness, we declare that the Censorship is as great a purifier as it is equitable, and as equitable as it is a purifier."

Now I ask, was there any thing in that article contrary to religion, to morals, the Monarchy, or the Charter? Was there any thing more than an answer to the passages literally copied from the Journal de Paris? And yet two days after this refusal this same paper is authorised to insert that all replies are permitted. Never, I am bold to say, was there more hypocrisy or greater impudence. I shall add, that the Censorship appears to me to be at as culpable as the Editors. They have no excuse, either of the violence

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the Monarch have sworn to defend, to be insulted before their faces, and under their written authority, deputies who are faithful to them to be insulted, and as though they were desirous of a fresh invasion, denouncing to Europe the immense majority of the French.2

of a struggle, nor the ardor of combat, nor the provocation of words. It is in cold blood, on purpose and with premeditation, that they applaud attacks on men whom they themselves have disarmed. They strike those that are down. This is a business the same as any other; but this business, in every country in the world, is considered as the vilest.

If an example be required, of the calumnies which the Censorship authorises, not only against individuals but against the whole nation in a body, it will be sufficient to read again an article of the 5th September last, "Whether Louvel had accomplices or not what does it signify? Whoever approves the crime would commit it, had he the power; and I see nothing in the comparison of the precept with the act, but that the disciple has surpassed his master." And who then, wretched denunciator, who then has approved the execrable crime of Louvel? And where are the masters of such a disciple? And this is after an august assembly, who will not be suspected of being wanting in fidelity to the Monarchy, has declared that this atrocious crime was the solitary work of an incensed monster, that they have dared to write these lines, and that a Censorship has dared to approve them?

2 I read an article of the 6th September, in which a deputy, whose name is fully mentioned, is called the patron of the radicals. In the same paper the radicals are perpetually represented as breathing nothing but disorder, anarchy, and pillage. If in an article presented to the Censorship, this celebrated writer of the opposite party should be styled the patron of a faction which breathes nothing but proscription, vengeance, and the annihilation of our institutions, would the Censorship permit its insertion? It is instituted, say the Ministers, to keep the public papers clear of personalities. To say that M. Manuel is the patron of the radicals, is this or not a personality? M. Manuel may disdain it, he may and does despise, I am convinced, both the libellists and their abettors. But does the Censorship less fail in the object of its institution? Are they less the favorers of calumny and outrage? Remark, that they designate M. Manuel, at the close of the article, as the deputy for la Vendée, in order that the injury may reflect upon the electors who have chosen him, and in the national representation of which he forms part.

3 Read all the articles of the papers in this interest: France is described in them as the nursery of European conspiracies; and revolutionary principles are called the " mal français." In fine, the authors of these articles sometimes forget to disguise their wishes. I read in a Journal of the 31st August, "that the interest of humanity commands all sovereigns to spare us a bloody confusion." Thus, it is no longer the wisdom of the king, the patriotism of the chambers, the strength of our institutions, or the sanctity of our laws, which is to preserve us; it is for Foreigners to interpose, and the Censorship authorises this appeal to Foreigners.

"You who assert, with your eyes sparkling for joy, that Foreigners desire your systems, which I do not at all doubt; you who seem to put your noble opinions under the protection of European bayonets; you endeavour even to persuade me that such a sentiment is allowed you, or that such an opinion is commanded you. You talk to me of Foreigners when you speak In such a state of things it is evident that the nation, which ought to exercise, by means of its electors, the right of suffrage, will have,-in order to understand itself and to act in concert and give its votes to those candidates, who will not deceive their hopes -many obstacles to surmount; but a nation worthy of liberty surmounts every obstacle. No one can be compelled to inscribe on his bulletin the names he rejects. There would therefore be cowardice in condescending, though it should even be alleged that there had been tyranny or artifice in the pretension.

In another respect the existing obstructions have this advantage, that they will serve us at length to judge of the intention of Ministers without going further. It is a trial they are about to undergo. If they wish the elections to be the expression of the popular opinion, let them break the chains which bind the electors. Let them give back to the citizens their guarantees, to the papers their independence, to opinion the means of expressing itself. Let them recollect that in Rome no armed forces approached the Comitial, and that in England the place of an election is protected, as a sanctuary, from the agency of power. If they refuse to follow this noble example, it is because their intentions are contrary to their professions. It is not to the rights of all, they pay respect; it is to the exclusion of some, they aspire.

This exclusion is in fact the avowed object of the faction whose orders they appear for some time to have received. " It would be advantageous," say the papers of this faction, " to do away, by a complete renewal of the Chamber, these speaking trumpets, these telegraphs, who make speeches and, from the national Tribune, transmit signals to the agitators." Thus we find what is desired, is

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to me of the laws of my country! Let us keep vain fears at a distance. The Allies themselves have delivered their own country from the yoke of France; they know that nations ought to enjoy that independence which may in a moment be taken from them, and which they will always at length reconquer: spoliatis armu supersunt." This is what M. Chateaubriand wrote in 1816, (of the Monarchy agreeably to the Charter). But this is what the friends of liberty had said in 1789, 1792, and 1815, and what they will still say; because circumstances will make no alteration in their principles, when national independence and the dignity of the French name is the question.

This open confession will, perhaps, be disavowed by the skilful part of the party. But I defy contradiction. Robespierre contradicted Marat, at the moment when he caused the latter to ask for 20,000 heads. It is convenient for a faction to have a forlorn hope in its train, that shows respect for nothing; since this gives to the rest of the faction the appearance of greater moderation, whilst it enables them equally to move onward to their object. Fortunately there is a difference between Marat's time and ours. Marat had a frenzied populace at his heels, but there is nothing at the heels of the new Marats.

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