This question being of a nature no less delicate than that concerning
the police, you cannot but commend my discretion in adopting a
similar method to gratify your curiosity; that is, to refer you to
the intelligent author whom I quoted on the former occasion. If
common report speaks the truth--_Sit mihi fas audita loqui?_--the
press here is now in much the same state in which it was before the
revolution. I shall therefore borrow again the language of MERCIER,
who is a famous dreamer, inasmuch as many of his dreams have been
realized: yet, with all his foresight and penetration, I question
whether he ever dreamt that his picture of the French press, drawn in
the interval between the years 1781 and 1788, would still be, in some
respects, a true one at the beginning of the year 1802. But, as
Boileau shrewdly remarks,
"_Le vrai peut quelquefois n'être pas vraisemblable._"
"The enemies of books," says our author, "are the enemies of,
knowledge, and consequently of mankind. The shackles with which the
press is loaded, are an incitement for setting them at defiance. If
we were to enjoy a decent liberty, we should no longer have recourse
to licentiousness. There are political evils which the liberty of the
press prevents, and this is already a great benefit. The interior
police of States requires to be enlightened by disinterested
writings. There is no one but the philosopher, satisfied with the
esteem alone of his fellow-citizens, that can raise himself above the
clouds formed by personal interest, and set forth the abuses of
insidious custom. In short, the liberty of the press will always be
the measure of civil liberty; and it is a species of thermometer,
which shews, at one glance, what a people have lost or gained.
"If we adopt this maxim, we are every day losing; for every day the
press is more restricted.
"Suffer people to think and speak; the public will judge: they will
even find means to correct authors. The surest method to purify the
press, is to render it free: obstacles irritate it: prohibitions and
difficulties engender the pamphlets complained of.
"Could despotism kill thought in its sanctuary, and prevent us from
communicating the essence of our ideas to the mind of our
fellow-creatures, it would do so. But not being able quite to pluck
out the philosopher's tongue, and cut off his hands, it establishes
an inquisition, peoples the frontiers with searchers, spreads
satellites, and opens every package, in order to interrupt the
infallible progress of morality and truth. Useless and puerile
effort! Vain attack on the natural right of general society, and on
the patriotic rights of a particular one! Reason, from day to day,
strikes nations with a greater lustre, and will at last shine
unclouded. It answers no purpose to fear or persecute genius: nothing
will extinguish in its hands the torch of truth: the decree which its
mouth pronounces, will be repeated by all posterity against the
unjust man. He wished to snatch from his fellow-creatures the most
noble of all privileges, that of thinking, which is inseparable from
that of existing: he will have manifested his weakness and folly; and
he will merit the twofold reproach of tyranny and impotence.
"When a very flat, very atrocious, and very calumniating libel
appears under a fellow's coat, 'tis a contest who shall have it
first. People pay an exorbitant price for it; the hawker who cannot
read, and who wishes only to get bread for his poor family, is
apprehended, and sent to prison, where he shifts for himself as well
as he can.
"The more the libel is prohibited, the more eager we are for it. When
we have read it, and we see that nothing compensates for its mean
temerity, we are ashamed to have sought after it. We scarcely dare
say, _we have read it_: 'tis the scum of low literature, and what is
there without its scum?
"Contempt would be the surest weapon against those miserable
productions which are equally destitute of truth and talent.
"When will men in power know how to disdain equally the interested
encomiums of intriguing flatterers and the satires produced by
hunger?
"Besides, those who sit in the first boxes must always expect some
shafts levelled at them by those who are in the pit; this becomes
almost inevitable. They must needs pay for their more commodious
place: at least we attribute to those who rule over us more
enjoyments: they have some which they will avow, solely with a view
to raise themselves above the multitude. The human heart is naturally
envious. Let men in power then forgive or dissemble seasonably:
satire will fall to the ground; it is by shewing themselves
impassible, that they will disarm ardent malignity.
"Nevertheless, there is a kind of odious libel, which, having every
characteristic of calumny, ought to be repressed. This is commonly
nothing more than the fruit of anonymous and envenomed revenge: for
what are the secret intrigues of courts to any man of letters? He
will know time enough that which will suit the pen of history.
"A libeller should be punished, as every thing violent ought to be.
But the parties interested should abstain from pronouncing; for where
then would be the proportion between the punishment and the crime?
"I apply not the name of libels to those atrocious and gratuitous
accusations against the private life of persons in power or
individuals unconnected with the government. Such injurious and
unmeaning shafts are an attack on honour: their authors should be
punished.
"The police detected and apprehended one of its inspectors, who,
being charged to discover those libels, proposed the composition of
similar ones to some half-starved authors. After having laid for them
this infernal snare for the gain of a little money, he informed
against them, and sold them to the government.
"These miscreants, blinded by the eager thirst of a little gold,
divert themselves with the uneasiness of the government, and the more
they see it in the trances of apprehension, the more they delight in
magnifying the danger, and doubling its alarms.
"Liberty has rendered the English government insensible to libels.
Disdain is certain, before the work is commenced. If the satire is
ingenious, people laugh at it, without believing it; if it is flat,
they despise it.
"Why cannot the French government partly adopt this indifference? A
contempt, more marked, for those vile and unknown pens that endeavour
to wound the sensibility of pride, would disgust the readers of the
flat and lying satires after which they are so eager, only because
they imagine that the government is really offended by them.
"It is to be observed that the productions that flatter more or less
public malignity, spread in fugitive sparks a central fire, which, if
compressed, would, perhaps, produce an explosion.
"Magistrates have not yet been seen disdaining those obscure shafts,
rendering themselves invulnerable from the openness of their
proceedings, and considering that praise will be mute, as long as
criticism cannot freely raise its voice.
"Let them then punish the flattery by which they are assailed, since
they are so much afraid of the libel that always contains some good
truths: besides, the public are there to judge the detractor; and no
unjust satire ever circulated a fort-night, without being branded
with contempt.
"Ministers reciprocally deceive each other when they are attacked in
this manner; the one laughs at the storm which has just burst on the
other, and promotes secretly what he appears to prosecute openly and
with warmth. It would be a curious thing if one could bring to light
the good tricks which the votaries of ambition play each other in the
road to power and fortune.
"There is nothing now printed in Paris, in the line of politics and
history, but satires and falsehoods. Foreigners look down with pity
on every thing that emanates from the capital on these matters. Other
subjects begin to feel the consequences of this, because the
restraint laid on the mind is manifested even in books of simple
amusement. The presses of Paris are no longer to serve but for
posting-bills, and invitations to funerals and weddings. Almanacks
are already a subject too elevated, and the inquisition examines and
garbles them.
"When I see a book," says MERCIER, "sanctioned by the government, I
would lay a wager, without opening it, that this book contains
political falsehoods. The chief magistrate may well say: 'This piece
of paper shall be worth a thousand francs;' but he cannot say: 'Let
this error become truth,' or, 'let this truth no longer be anything
but an error.' He may say it, but he can never compel men's minds to
adopt it.
"What is admirable in printing, is that these fine works, which do
honour to human genius, are not to be commanded or paid for; on the
contrary, it is the natural liberty of a generous mind, which unfolds
itself in spite of dangers, and makes a present to human nature, in
spite of tyrants. This is what renders the man of letters so
commendable, and insures to him the gratitude of future ages.
"O! worthy Englishmen! generous people, strangers to our shameful
servitude, carefully preserve among you the liberty of the press: it
is the pledge of your freedom. At this day, you alone are the
representatives of nearly all mankind; you uphold the dignity of the
name of man. The thunderbolts, which strike the pride and insolence
of arbitrary power, issue from your happy island. Human reason has
found among you an asylum whence she may instruct the world. Your
books are not subject to an inquisition; and it would require a long
comment to explain to you in what manner permission is at length
obtained for a flimsy pamphlet, which no one will read, to be exposed
for sale, and remain unsold, on the _Quai de Gévres_.
"We are so absurd and so little in comparison to you," adds MERCIER,
"that you would be at a loss to conceive the excess of our weakness
and humiliation."