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The Royal Censors as Guarantors of Freedom of the Press

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The Invention of Free Press

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Abstract

The royal censors bore most of the responsibility for the functioning of the French control system. They had to carry out essential operations on a daily basis: reading carefully, making suggestions for rewriting texts, and granting (when possible) permission to publish. The participants in the production process converged around a single goal: to make a book legally available to readers through the open market. The painstaking diligence of the royal censors sustained the scheme devised by the Chancelier de , Louis II Phélypeaux de Pontchartrain, in the early eighteenth century. It was the censors’ commitment that ensured the survival of censorship institutions until the outbreak of the Revolution. If the principle of control over printed matter was by and large acknowledged as necessary, its application in individual cases would often, throughout the century, arouse fierce criticism. The main motives for complaint were the slow pace of the revision process, incompetence, inability to resist interference from authors or publishers, and blatant bias.

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Notes

  1. 1.

    See Shovlin 2009: 50–58.

  2. 2.

    Voltaire 1877–1885. Vol. 8: 563 footnote 1.

  3. 3.

    The term “functional ambiguity” was coined by Patterson 1984.

  4. 4.

    See Grosclaude 1961; Shaw 1966 (both are based on a comprehensive documentation).

  5. 5.

    BnF, MS fr., 22133, ff. 18–26. See Birn 1964: 159, on the exchange of views between Malesherbes and Pierre Rousseau.

  6. 6.

    BnF, MS fr., 22133, ff. 43–4. Almanac des auteurs. The complete title reads La France littéraire ou les beaux arts, contenant les noms & les ouvrages des gens de lettres, des sçavans & des artistes célèbres qui vivent actuellement en France: augmentée du catalogue des Académies établies tant à Paris, que dans les différentes villes du Royaume, Paris: Duchesne 1756. Avec approbation & privilège du Roi. The privilege was signed by de Cahusac, 24 December, 1755. The entry “Diderot” included the “pensées sur l’interprétation de la nature 1754. Il a la principale part à l’Encyclopédie dont il est un des éditeurs. On lui attribue d’autres ouvrages tels que la Lettre sur les aveugles à l’usage de ceux qui voyent, 1749, in 12°. Les Bijoux indiscrets, les Pensées philosophiques, & l’Histoire & le secret de la peinture en cire; mais il n’a jamais avoué ces quatre derniers ouvrages” (74–5). The entry “Montesquieu” did not list any of his works and merely mentioned 10 January, 1755 as the date of his death (259).

  7. 7.

    Moureau 1997; Weil 1999: 56–7.

  8. 8.

    BnF, MS fr., 22133, f. 58. For an analysis of this document see Ives 2003.

  9. 9.

    Forbonnais 1754: 86.

  10. 10.

    Forbonnais 1754: 79.

  11. 11.

    Melon 1754: 140. Melon’s book was first published in 1734.

  12. 12.

    BnF, MS fr., 22133, ff. 65–6.

  13. 13.

    BnF, MS fr., 22133, f. 67.

  14. 14.

    BnF, MS fr., 22133, ff. 68–69.

  15. 15.

    Malesherbes further developed these thoughts in a text published posthumously in Grosclaude 1960: 184–5 and in Rousseau and Malesherbes 19911991: 20–1 footnote 2.

  16. 16.

    Malesherbes’s understanding of the notion of constitution was based on his interpretation of Montesquieu (Rousseau and Malesherbes 1991: 19). The fundamental difference between France and England in terms of their constitutional arrangement was fully acknowledged. It was one of the reasons why in France the widespread sympathy for the English constitution was replaced by a prevalent Anglophobic attitude in the second half of the eighteenth century. See Maza 1997.

  17. 17.

    BnF, MS fr., 22133, ff. 59–64.

  18. 18.

    Larrère 1992: 114–8 has an in-depth analysis of how Melon and Forbonnois used this concept in production analysis.

  19. 19.

    Malesherbes 1994: 98. The most insightful examination of the Mémoires sur la Librairie is Roger Chartier’s Introduction, Malesherbes 1994: 7–47. See also Birn 1989; Rousseau and Malesherbes 1991. Introduction: 18–21; Kelly 1979.

  20. 20.

    Malesherbes 1994: 119.

  21. 21.

    Malesherbes 2010. Mémoire sur la situation présente des affaires en juillet 1788: 123–265, 193–196. A similar point is raised in his Mémoire sur la liberté de la presse, Malesherbes 1994.

  22. 22.

    Discours prononcés dans l’Académie française 1775: 9–10.

  23. 23.

    See Maza 1993: 58; Gilot 1999. In 1768 Maupeou ordered an internal investigation to be conducted on some of the royal censors. It turned out to be incomplete and ineffectual: see Hanley 2002. In 1770 Jean Capperronnier , since 1759 the Directeur des imprimés at the Bibliothèque du Roi and royal censor for history and literature, was praised in a report. However, he was also blamed for “being allegedly quite easy-going” it was further remarked that apparently “his obligations do not allow him to examine carefully” (BnF, ms Joly de Fleury, 2192, f. 197). It was his reputation as a tolerant censor that prompted Helvétius to suggest Capperronnier when a censor was required for the first recantation of De l’Esprit, the Lettre au Révérend père ***, Jésuite. Malesherbes disregarded Helvétius’s proposal and appointed Salmon instead (Smith 1965: 32).

  24. 24.

    Ephémérides du citoyen 1777, 1: vii-xviii. See Echeverria 1985: 204–5.

  25. 25.

    d’Aubusson 1771: 18. The confrontation between supporters and opponents of Maupeou’s reforms as well as the growing control of public opinion by the monarchy are vividly described in Hudson 1973.

  26. 26.

    “At present they [the French] are miserably hampered by the censeurs of the press. The person who has translated my Treatise on Air could not obtain leave to insert that paragraph in the preface in which I speak of the consequence of the spread of knowledge with respect to religion. A person is translating my Essay on Government; but he must print it in Holland, and get it into France clandestinely. Upon the whole, I thought the country by no means a desirable one to live in, or stay much in, and I wonder much at the taste of my countrymen, who spend so much of their time, and of their money, there” (Letter to Reverend William Graham , no date, but written in Paris in 1774: Priestley 2003. Vol. 1: 256–7). See the Avertissement du traducteur emphasizing that the translation follows the original closely (Priestley 1778: viii). On pp. xxiii–xxiv stricken through lines made clear to the readers a passage that could not be translated. As explained in his letter to Graham , the paragraph expunged from the French translation conveyed Priestley’s confidence that “This rapid progress of knowledge, which, like the progress of a wave of the sea, of sound, or of light from the sun, extends itself not this way or that way only, but in all directions, will, I doubt not, be the means, under God, of extirpating all error and prejudice, and of putting an end to all undue and usurped authority in the business of religion, as well as of science; and all the efforts of interested friends of corrupt establishments of all kind will be ineffectual for their support in this enlightened age: though, by retarding their downfall, they may make the final ruin of them more complete and glorious” (Priestley 1772: xv).

  27. 27.

    Upon the request of Joseph d’Héméry François Marin wrote in 1764 a report entitled Représentations et observations en forme de mémoire sur l’état ancien et actuel de la Librairie et particulièrement sur la propriété des privilèges, etc. présentées à M. Sartine par les syndic et adjoints, et en marge les observations de M. Marin faites sur chaque article, d’après les notes instructives que je [d’Héméry] lui ai remises par ordre du magistrat, Mars 1764, BnF, Fonds Français 22183. It is analyzed in Birn 1970–1971: 153–4. Marin was befriended by Voltaire: see Mortier 1998. On 1 September 1771 Marin was appointed the editor of the Gazette de France. In 1758 he published a Histoire de Saladin, sultan d’Egypte et de Syrie. Paris-La Haye, 1758. From October 1763 he was the secretary general of the Librairie under Sartine (Feyel 2000: 760). As the editor of the Gazette de France he worked closely alongside with the two censors Gérard and Rayneval. The details from his report of 26 July 1774 are in Feyel 2000: 761. In the 1770s he was heavily criticized by the philosophes and especially by Grimm and Caron de Beaumarchais .

  28. 28.

    See the evidence provided by Dawson 2006.

  29. 29.

    BnF, MS fr. 22017.

  30. 30.

    Malesherbes doubted that the permissions tacites could be the solution to the problem (Malesherbes 1994: 203–9).

  31. 31.

    Donato 1996.

  32. 32.

    BnF, MS fr., 22017, ff. 38–39, 8 December 1773.

  33. 33.

    Circulaire pour la declaration des contrefaçons en magasin, BnF, MS fr. 22017, ff. 44–47; Mémoire servant d’instruction sur la manière de procéder à l’estampillage des livres, BnF, Ms fr. 22017, ff. 48–51.

  34. 34.

    For the best treatment of this issue see Hesse 1990.

  35. 35.

    McLeod 2011: 214.

  36. 36.

    Goetzmann 1778: 32 (the preface is dated 20 January 1778).

  37. 37.

    Lettre à un ami: 3.

  38. 38.

    Hanley 2005. Vol. 1.

  39. 39.

    See Birn 2007 (refuting de Negroni 1995: 40–51). An English version of La Censure Royale has been published in 2012 (Birn 2012) with two additional chapters.

  40. 40.

    Birn 2012: 99–113, has analyzed some of Saineville’s reports.

  41. 41.

    Saineville is mentioned and briefly analyzed also in Cerf 1967: 12–22.

  42. 42.

    Fitzsimmons 1987: 206.

  43. 43.

    See Bachaumont 1777–1789. Vol. 30: 127: the detention of a M. le Maitre at the Bastille was blamed on Saineville. In Dutens 1807. Vol. 3: 229–31, Saineville was at the centre of a humorous episode that occurred at the café Procope. Rétif de la Bretonne, who disliked Saineville, called him a “plat bourgeois” (Rétif de la Bretonne 1989. Vol. 2: 1006).

  44. 44.

    Cfr. Necker 1773. On the importance of this éloge for establishing Necker’s respectability see Lilti 2005: 372.

  45. 45.

    BnF, MS fr., 22014. f. 139, n. 444, 17 February 1777.

  46. 46.

    BnF, MS fr., 22014, f 159, n. 527: “p. 113 Cet auteur a sur la liberté de la presse des principes qui m’ont paru assez sages; il croit que celle absolue peut être dangereuse dans un état nouveau qui a acquis sa liberté, avant d’avoir l’art de s’en servir . Il discute à merveille les inconveniens de cette liberté et veut qu’au moins tout écrivain soit oblige de mettre son nom à son ouvrage, et se soumettre ainsi à l’animadversion des loix, s’il les offense” (27 July 1784, signed by Saineville).

  47. 47.

    See Medlin 1995: 193 footnote 35. Morellet began writing the Réflexions while at the Bastille in 1760: Morellet 1988: 104, 138–40. Indirect evidence of his attitude towards the dangers in managing censorship is also in Morellet’s (clandestinely and anonymously printed) Préface de la Comédie des philosophes (Morellet 1760), where he fears that “nothing would be printed unless approved by twelve theology doctors from Coimbra or Salamanca and by four inquisitors”.

  48. 48.

    BnF, MS fr., 22014, ff. 10–1, n. 746, 30 November 1774, Réflexions sur les avantages de la liberté d’écrire et d’imprimer sur les matières de l’administration.

  49. 49.

    Necker 1775: 175. See Darnton 1969: 613; Birn 2012: 101–2.

  50. 50.

    Morellet 1988: 203.

  51. 51.

    Condorcet 1774: 29.

  52. 52.

    BnF, MS fr., 22015, n. 195, 8 March 1777, n. 1403. “Vues patriotiques ou réflexions d’un citoyen sur l’impôt et sur le commerce des grains. Ce mss m’a été adressé au mois d’août dernier, les changemens dans l’administration m’ont déterminé à le garder quelque tems, avant d’en rendre compte. On a […] abusé de la liberté d’écrire sur les matières qui intéressent le gouvernement; je l’ay pensé dans le temps; et je l’ay dit sans avoir été écouté; on a mis depuis des entraves à cette liberté d’écrire et on a très bien fait. Mais cette raison en est elle une pour qu’il soit absolument interdit d’écrire sur ces matières ? C’est à vous Monsieur, de concert avec Monsieur le garde des sceaux et Monsieur le contrôleur général à prononcer.” Saineville described the Vues patriotiques as a text written without declamations in which ideas are developed in order, and required a permission tacite.

  53. 53.

    BnF, MS fr., 22014, f. 105, n. 372, 24 February 1775. The book was published despite Saineville’s negative assessment (Paris: Bastien, 1775).

  54. 54.

    BnF, MS fr., 22015, f. 143, n. 1207, 15 December 1775.

  55. 55.

    BnF, MS fr., 22015, f. 112, n. 1061, 14 August 1775.

  56. 56.

    BnF, MS fr., 22015, f. 70, n. 972, 23 March 1775, Analyse de l’ouvrage sur la législation et le commerce des bleds.

  57. 57.

    BnF, MS fr., 22016, f. 68, n. 1899, 14 August 1778.

  58. 58.

    This episode was recorded by Belin: 353. Voltaire’s writing was published in May 1775, anonymously and without place of publication. It was suppressed by the Conseil on 19 August 1775, because it offended religion (as it claimed that all religions are based on agriculture) and the king’s authority.

  59. 59.

    BnF, MS fr., 22015, f. 143, n. 1207, 15 December 1775, in which he reviewed the Ami de la France, ou le monopoleur converti.

  60. 60.

    BnF, MS fr., 22015, f. 208, n. 1454, 14 July 1778, the review of the Apologie du commerce. Saineville expunged the invectives against the philosophes and Raynal in particular.

  61. 61.

    BnF, MS fr., 22015, f. 46, n. 1816, 28 March 1778. Saineville reviewed Chambon’s work on the French trade from Marseilles to America. It was first published in 1764 without authorization. Chambon was now requesting a printing privilege. All unauthorized copies had been seized. Chambon criticized Voltaire’s views of monogenism in a way that Saineville considered unacceptable. “This dissertation is full of harsh words against him [Voltaire]. The author blames his impiety incessantly and feigns the tone of Christian benevolence while his words are not charitable at all”. Saineville was in favour of granting the same degree of freedom to those who defend the established religion as to those who criticize it. He recommended that a permission tacite be conceded.

  62. 62.

    BnF, MS fr., 22015, f. 200, n. 2615, Essais historiques et politiques sur les angloamericains by d’Auberteuil. Its Prospectus was inspected and approved by de Vergennes. Saineville remarked that the Essais were pleading the insurgents’ cause too openly. “This liberty, so cherished by the author, includes religious tolerance and freedom of printing as well. I deleted a footnote on parliaments burning books at the stake. Such a footnote would have us both, the author and myself, burned, if I ever left it at its place”. Despite these changes, accepted by d’Auberteuil, readers can easily detect “the philosophical spirit that reveals at every step his true thinking”. Saineville denied the privilège général and thought even a permission tacite to be too generous. A second censor should be involved. Upon a second reading, in fact, Saineville deleted a number of “signs of approbation”, that he regretted having conceded (20 June 1781).

  63. 63.

    The publication of the Essais historiques et politiques sur les Angloaméricains shows that the prohibition of contemporary history was not without exceptions. For a different view see Darnton 2010: 275 (“Contemporary history and biography […] had no place within the legal literature of the Ancien regime because they dealt with issues that were still sensitive and persons who were still alive”).

  64. 64.

    BnF, MS fr., 22015, f. 16, n. 779, 12 February 1776.

  65. 65.

    Cfr. Murphy 1982: 211–395.

  66. 66.

    BnF, MS fr., 22014, f. 13, n. 25, 12 July 1778.

  67. 67.

    BnF, MS fr., 22014, f. 66, 18 August 1778. It refers to the following edition: La Haye: Gosse, 1777. Another French edition was published in London: Cadell, 1777.

  68. 68.

    BnF, MS fr., 22016, f. 49, n. 1817.

  69. 69.

    On Petit’s activity as an administrator in the Caribbean colonies and on his writings see Ghachem 2001.

  70. 70.

    The reform of the French judicial system was increasingly discussed from the 1760s until 1789.

  71. 71.

    BnF, MS fr., 22014, ff. 151–2, n. 479, 1 September 1776.

  72. 72.

    Petit 1778: 218–9.

  73. 73.

    BnF, MS fr., 22015, ff. 44–5, n. 896, 28 March 1778.

  74. 74.

    BnF, MS fr., 22015, f. 55, n. 935. Weiss’ book was first published with the place of publication given as En Suisse 1785 and went through a number of editions.

  75. 75.

    BnF, MS fr., 22014, f. 159, n. 527.

  76. 76.

    BnF, MS fr., 22015, f. 94, n. 1037, 2 May 1786.

  77. 77.

    BnF, MS fr., 22015, f. 259, n. 1598, reviewing Droit public du comté état de la Provence…, 3 May 1788.

  78. 78.

    Linguet 1775: 74.

  79. 79.

    BnF, MS fr., 22015, f. 14, 18 July 1789. The Corrections et additions are signed 15 June 1789, while the text was finished on 15 May 1789. The volume was published with the title Dignité du commerce et de l’état de commerçant, par M. Anquetil du Perron, Voyageur, 1789 (no place of publication given; no authorization to publish was mentioned).

  80. 80.

    BnF, MS fr., 22015, f. 42 n. 895, 15 July 1787. Brissot and Clavière 1787.

  81. 81.

    Gordon 1995: 52–3, analyzes Morellet’s treatise.

  82. 82.

    Morellet 1988: 80–1. The selection from Eymerich’s massive Directorium Inquisitorum, Le Manuel des Inquisiteurs à l’usage des Inquisiteurs d’Espagne et de Portugal (Eymerich 1762): 196–198, shows a similar pedagogical attitude in the Postcriptum de l’Editeur.

  83. 83.

    Morellet 1775a: 65 footnote.

  84. 84.

    Morellet 1775b: 191.

  85. 85.

    Di Rienzo 1994: 37–44.

  86. 86.

    Linguet 1775. Jean-Charles Lenoir was director of the Librairie from July 1774 to May 1775.

  87. 87.

    Levy 1980: 112. See Turgot 1913–23. Vol. 5: 144 footnote a.

  88. 88.

    Turgot 1913–23. Vol. 5: 144.

  89. 89.

    Turgot 1913–23. Vol. 5: 544. Turgot recalled this approach in a letter of 4 December 1777 to the duchess d’Enville, in Turgot 1976: 128.

  90. 90.

    Turgot 1913–23. Vol. 5: 566–7.

  91. 91.

    Turgot-Condorcet 1882: 146–7 (Turgot to Condorcet, December 1773).

  92. 92.

    Turgot 1913–23. Vol. 3: 493 (letter to Dupont, 9 August 1771).

  93. 93.

    Turgot 1976: 143.

  94. 94.

    BnF, MS fr. 22137, letter by abbé Guirot to Malesherbes, 1751, requesting to be exonerated from censoring a text full of allusions he could not puzzle out, quoted in Darnton 2010: 448.

  95. 95.

    Goldgar 1992: Edelstein 2012.

  96. 96.

    BnF, MS fr., 22015, f. 147, n. 2173. The book was not published.

  97. 97.

    La Grange de Chessieux 1756: iii–iv. See Jefferys 1754.

  98. 98.

    BnF, MS fr., 22015, ff. 166–174, n. 547. Chesterfield 1776. See Trumbull 1998: 171–2.

  99. 99.

    BnF, MS fr., 22015, n. 654, f. 1, 30 May 1780.

  100. 100.

    BnF, MS fr., 22015, f. 306, n. 1331. It was published as Trenck 1787.

  101. 101.

    Kirsop 2012.

  102. 102.

    Rétif de la Bretonne 1989. Vol. 2: 1005–6.

  103. 103.

    Rétif de la Bretonne 1889: 32, 72, 318, in particular on his relationship with the censor Terrasson.

  104. 104.

    Trouille 2010: 296.

  105. 105.

    Le Drame de la vie. Vol. 5: 1317, 1321, quoted in Trouille 2010: 296 (Letters of La Reynière, 19 May and 7 July, 1791).

  106. 106.

    BnF, MS fr., 22014, ff. 156–7, n. 497. See Trampus 2001.

  107. 107.

    BnF, MS fr., 22015, f. 50, 4 February 1786.

  108. 108.

    BnF, MS fr., 22015, f. 228, n. 1493, 9 August 1787.

  109. 109.

    BnF, MS fr., 22015, n. 1532, 5 November 1788.

  110. 110.

    Archives Nationales, M 748. Manesse received the privilege for Manesse 1785, mentioned as a source of technical details on grain milling in Kaplan 1984: 264.

  111. 111.

    BnF, MS fr., 22016, f. 140, n. 2069, 26 June 1788. Du mariage des chrétiens ou la nouvelle loi sur l’état civil des non-catholiques en France justifiée aux yeux de la religion et de la critique. Par un avocat de Paris. See Kirsop 2012: 475.

  112. 112.

    BnF, MS fr., 22014, f. 303, n. 1760, de Wedelaans, Seconde lettre d’un hollandois à M. le comte de Mirabeau ou considérations sur les révolutions des Provinces Unies. See Ferri de Saint-Constant 1788, containing a letter A Monsieur de Mirabeau.

  113. 113.

    BnF, MS fr., 22015, f. 9, n. 725 , Lanchamp 1789.

  114. 114.

    BnF, MS fr. 22101, ff. 346–352. See Malandain 1982. Vol. 2: 564–7.

  115. 115.

    BnF, MS fr., 22012, f. 11. It was published as Delisle de Sales 1770. See Weil 1999: 47 footnote 175; Darnton, 1995c: 542.

  116. 116.

    BnF, MS fr. 22102, f. 22.

  117. 117.

    Le danger de la satire 1778.

  118. 118.

    See DBI. Vol. 50, 202–6; Rozzo 1995; Godman 2000: 29; Niccoli 2005: 158–73.

  119. 119.

    Le danger de la satire 1778: 29.

  120. 120.

    Le danger de la satire 1778: 279.

  121. 121.

    See Tortarolo 2009.

  122. 122.

    Hasquin 1974; Dictionnaire des journaux 1991. Vol. 2: 643–645; Mat 1995: 484–6. François Antoine Chevrier criticized Le Journal de commerce in Le colporteur: 24, 168.

  123. 123.

    See Decroix 2006: 50–1.

  124. 124.

    Accarias de Serionne 1774. Vol. 2: 338.

  125. 125.

    Accarias de Serionne 1774. Vol. 2: 344–5.

  126. 126.

    Accarias de Serionne 1771: 18.

  127. 127.

    Accarias de Sérionne 1775. Vol. 1: 6.

  128. 128.

    Accarias de Sérionne 1775. Vol. 1: 5.

  129. 129.

    Accarias de Sérionne 1775. Vol. 1: 30; vol. 2: 37.

  130. 130.

    Accarias de Sérionne 1775. Vol. 1: 125.

  131. 131.

    Accarias de Sérionne 1775. Vol. 2: 38–9.

  132. 132.

    Accarias de Sérionne 1775. Vol. 2: 89.

  133. 133.

    See Geissler 1985: 18.

  134. 134.

    Accarias de Sérionne 1775. Vol. 2: 163.

  135. 135.

    Accarias de Sérionne 1775. Vol. 2: 181.

  136. 136.

    Accarias de Sérionne 1775. Vol. 2: 183.

  137. 137.

    Accarias de Sérionne 1775. Vol. 2: 187–8.

  138. 138.

    See Schneider 2003.

  139. 139.

    There is no copy in the Bibliothèque Nationale de France, Paris. I used the copy at the Biblioteca Palatina, Parma, shelfnumber *4 A-R8 S4.

  140. 140.

    The correspondence between Brissot and the Société Typographique de Neuchâtel has been published on-line by Robert Darnton in 2001; Brissot’s contacts with the Parisian censors are frequently mentioned (http://www.voltaire.ox.ac.uk/www_vf/brissot/brissot_index.ssi). See Whatmore 2012: 211–220.

  141. 141.

    BnF, MS fr. 22015, f. 42, n. 895. Brissot excoriated Beaumarchais’ Figaro. See Brown 2006.

  142. 142.

    Brissot and Clavière 1787: xxij.

  143. 143.

    Hesse 1990; Boncompain 2001.

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Tortarolo, E. (2016). The Royal Censors as Guarantors of Freedom of the Press. In: The Invention of Free Press. International Archives of the History of Ideas Archives internationales d'histoire des idées, vol 219. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-017-7346-1_4

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