Bonaparte, when consul, was no more dis armed by the Antiterroriste than by the Jour-. nal de Bonaparte et des Hommes Vertueux. On 18 Brumaire the suppression of all political papers was decided, save that of 13 sheets which should appear under the supervision of the police and be ruled with ever-increasing rigor. Sixty papers died thus at one stroke (27 Nivose Anno VIII). Among the sheets that were spared were Le Moniteur Universe!, Le Jour nal des Debats, Le Journal de Paris, Le Publi ciste, L'Ami des Lois, which for a few months was suppressed for having mocked the Insti tute; La Cle due Cabinet des Souverains, Le Citoyen Francais (which became the Courrier Francais in 1804) ; the Gazette de France, the Decade Pkilosophigue and the Journal des De fenseurs de to Patrie. Neither the Constitu tion of Anno VII nor the organic Senatus Con suite of Anno X made the slightest allusion to the freedom of the press. Bonaparte had said what he as Emperor Napoleon was to repeat: 'If I give full scope to the press, I shall not keep the power three The times were approaching when a well-known sentence of Chateaubriand on the 'silence of the was to rouse the ire of the master and to be the prelude to new rigors.
On 18 May 1804 the first consul became emperor. In 1805 he gave the following warn ing to the Minister of Justice: 'Have good articles inserted in the papers. Let the con tributors to the Mats and the Publiciste clearly understand that when I perceive them to be no longer useful I shall suppress them with all the others and shall keep on but one A censor's office was created. The Debats became the Journal de !'Empire. The em peror laid hands on the income of the news papers. In fact, during the empire, the only real paper was the Moniteur with its official sheet. Soon nothing could be said but what the Master willed, a circumstance which ex plained the little help he found in the press when he was a prey to adversity. In 1808 two bills on the organization of the printing presses and the booktrade were laid before the Conseil d'Etat ; they were to end in the famous decree of 5 Feb. 1810. Napoleon wanted firstly to create a censor's office entrusted to magis trates who were to prevent the manifestation of any ideas capable of disturbing the peace and good order of the state. He took the following dispositions: limitation of the number of the printers, unceasing watch over the press to be exercised by the police agents and 22 censors, the right of the Director-General to break printing presses, seize reports, make confiscations, impose fines, imprisonments, etc. This state of things existed till the last day of the Empire for the Parisian and Provin cial press; the latter, reduced to a single politi cal paper per "departement' and severely con trolled, threatened in vain. No opposition was
possible any longer.
On 6 April 1814, the Senate restored the liberty of the press. Napoleon, overthrown, was trampled under foot. The 23d clause of the Senatus-Consulte proclaimed that "the free dom of the press is full save for the legal repression of such offenses as might result from an abuse of this freedom.' On 5 July 1814 the government of Louis XVIII brought in a bill which was to become the Law of 21 October. The censorship was restored. But Napoleon left Elba. Tardily he gave the papers back their freedom. Eight days before Waterloo he wanted to restrain their excesses. The Journal du Lys and the Journal Universe! (newly issued) compared the beaten man of Ca 18 June to Cain, the brother-killer. Louis XVIII came back to France. The press con tinued under the system of previous authori zation but enjoyed a great tolerance which it misused by blows at random. On 8 August, a Commission of Censors was created and the law was to be very hard on writers. In truth, the royalist press alone was to be allowed to speak. The papers were to be sub mitted to authorization of the king, who had the right of suspension or of suppression. Tribune and press took to arms. Benjamin Constant, Chateaubriand and Royer Collard pronounced the most splendid speeches. Never had the press such spokesmen. The great mem bers of the press were at that time Lamennais, Barante, Cousin, Guizot, Villemain, Mignet, Thiers, Sacy, Saint-Marc-Girardin, Augustin Thierry. The laws given on 17 and 26 May and on 9 June 1819 seem to be a success won by the liberated press. They were but a slight progress. They allowed every citizen to publish his thought upon his own responsibility. They granted certain rights to the press and the power of self-defense to the state.
The murder of the Duke of Berry in 1820 suddenly renewed the harsh measures. The minister Richelieu had the bills of exception passed. The censorship was revived. In 1821, the poet Beranger was brought before the judges on account of his songs. The law passed in 1822 authorized the Parliament to judge and punish directly all offenses against itself. Chateaubriand wrote a terrible pamphlet against censorship. Many famous writers were condemned. The ministry tried to buy the newspapers. The war of ideas raged for two years. In 1824, the governmental papers had 14,344 subscribers, the opposition papers, 41,330. In 1825 the former had 12,580, the latter 44,000.