After the Restoration, Roger Lestrange was appointed licenser of printing. He wrote in 1663, Considerations and Pro pmals in order to the Regulation of the Press.' Lestrange seems to have re tained his office till the revolution of 1688, when he was succeeded by Fraser, who, it was said, was shortly after re moved from his office for having allowed Dr. Walker's ' Trne Account of the Author of Eikon Basilike ' to be printed. Edmund Bohun, a Suffolk justice, was appointed in Fraser's place. In a pam phlet printed in London in 1693, en titled Reasons humbly offered for the Liberty of Unlicensed Printing ; to which is subjoined the just and true Character of Edmund Bohun, the Li censer of the Press, in a Letter from a Gentleman in the Country to a Member of Parliament,' there is a specimen of Bohun's licences: "You are hereby al lowed to print and vend a certain book, , and for so doing this shall be your sufficient warrant. E. B." The act passed under Charles II., in 1662, which was, with few alterations, a copy of the Parliamentary ordinances concerning the licensing of printing, ex pired in 1679, but was revived by statute I Jac. II. c. 17, and continued till 1692. It was then continued for two years longer by statute 4 William and Mary, c. 24, and it expired in 1694, when the licensing system was finally abolished in England; but the question of its revival was repeatedly agitated in parliament, as we see by a paper dated 1703, entitled • Reasons against restraining the Press,' which deprecates the intention of re viving the licensing system ; and by a much later and bolder pamphlet dated 1729, styled, Letter to a Great Man concerning the Liberty of the Press.' Under the old French monarchy, all works previous to being printed were to be examined by the royal censors ; and if approved, were signed with their per mission. The French censorship was originally in the hands of the bishops, for all matters concerning religion and ecclesiastical discipline. By degrees the bishops delegated this power to the faculty of theology, and the Parlia ment of Paris sanctioned the practice. The manuscripts were laid before the faculty, which appointed two doctors of divinity to examine them. The doctors made their report to the general assembly of the faculty, which approved or re jected the work. Prelates themselves were not exempt from this rule. The learned Cardinal Sadoleto, while Bishop of Carpentras, was refused permission to print a commentary which he had written on the Epistle of Paul to the Romans in 1532: Cardinal Sauguin was likewise refused permission to publish a work in 1542. As at that time a number of heterodox books were pouring into France from abroad, the Parliament of Paris, by a decision of the year 1542, authorised the faculty of theology to ex amine all books imported from foreign countries. Towards the beginning of the following or seventeenth century, the great increase and accumulation of new books having induced the examin ing doctors to omit their reports to the assembly of the faculty, the assembly issued an order to the said examiners not to give their approbation to new works without mature consideration, under penalty of suspension from their office. In 1624 the faculty itself being divided into parties on some matters of controversy, Dr. Duval, the leader of one of the parties, obtained the king's letters patent for himself and three of his cone:lees, by which they obtained the exclusive authority of approving all books concerning religion and church discipline. The faculty remonstrated against this innovation, but the king maintained his appointment. After Duval's death, the faculty resumed its old powers; but in 1653, the controversy concerning grace having given birth to a multitude of polemical works, concern ing which the faculty itself was divided in opinion, the chancellor Seguier took from it the censorship ; and he created Jim censors, with an annual stipend, to examine all works without distinction.
Before that time it appears that works unconnected with religion were ex amined by the Maitres des Requetes. But ever since 1653, the appointment of the censors rested with the chancellor. They were styled Royal Censors, and their number was gradually increased. They were distributed into seven classes, according to the nature of the works which they had to examine, namely, theology, jurisprudence, natural history and medicine, surgery, mathematics, history and belles lettres (which class had the greatest number of censors at tached to it) ; and lastly, geography, navigation, travels, and engravings.
No work could be printed or sold unless it was previously examined and ap proved by one of the Royal Censors. The lieutenant of police had under him a censor who examined all dramatic works, before they could be performed.
At the Revolution the censorship was abolished. The republican constitutions which were proclaimed in succession ac knowledged the principle of the liberty of the press, but amidst the struggle of parties, that principle was often over looked, and journals and other works obnoxious to the ruling faction of the day were seized, and the authors or editors imprisoned or transported. Throughout the whole period of the so-called French Republic, liberty ex isted in name, but not in reality ; and it was the experience of this that made people acquiesce in Bonaparte's dictator ship. After the revolution of Brumaire, when Bonaparte was proclaimed First Consul of the French Republic, with powers more extensive than most kings, the question of the press attracted his early attention. He said one day in the Council of State, that the character of the French nation required the liberty of the press should be limit, ,t to works of a certain size ; but newspapers and pamphlets ought to be subject to the strict inspection of police. No censor ship was established by the Consular con stitution, but the newspaper press was left at the mercy of the executive. By a de gree of the 27th Nivose, 1800, the num ber of newspapers at Paris was fixed, and the editors were forbidden to insert any article " derogatory of the re spect due to the institutions of the coun try, the sovereignty of the people, and the glory of the French armies," or of fensive to the governments and nations which were the friends and allies of France, even if such articles should be extracted from foreign journals, under pain of immediate suppression. The Monitenr was announced to be the only official journal. The Ami des Lois was suppressed on the 3rd Prairial, 1800, by the order of the Consuls on the report of Lucien Bonaparte, Minister of the In terior, for having thrown ridicule on the members of the Institute. Under such discipline the number of subscrib ers to the newspapers of Paris dwindled rapidly from 50,000 to less than 19,000, and the Moniteur inserted the statement as a subject of congratulation. The Minis ter of the Interior had the censorship of dramatic compositions before they could be brought on the stage.
Napoleon was not friendly to liberty of any kind, and still less to that of the press. He felt very sore at the jibes and sarcasms of the English journals, which he had translated to him; and he insisted that no word, however offensive, should be omitted. When the organic law was discussed in the Senate, which was to de clare him Emperor, some one spoke of guarantees to be given to the nation, and mentioned the liberty of the press among the rest. Napoleon contented himself with appointing a committee in the Senate with the nominal office of protecting the liberty of the press, which was both a misnomer and a sinecure.
In 1806 there appeared an instance of renewed book-licensing. A drama of Collin d'Harleville, making part of the series of his works, bore the following licence: Seen and allowed to be printed and published, by decision of his Excel lency the Senator Minister of the General Police, dated 9 Prahi.11, ar xm. By order of his Excellency the chief of the department of the liberty of the press, P. Lagarde.' The Journal of the Empire inserted this novel document in its co lumns; upon which the official Moniteur observed, in a tone of ill humour, that the Emperor had been surprised to learn that an estimable writer like M. d'Harle ville should need permission to publish a work bearing his name ; that there existed no censorship in France ; that any French citizen could publish any book that he thought proper, being responsible for its contents before the tribunals, and pursuant to a decree of his Majesty, if charged with any thing derogatory to the power of the Emperor and the interests of the country.