since 1814, though formed under different circumstances, and actuated by different impulses, have been exposed to the same attacks, and to the same unbridled expressions of passion. Sacrifices of every kind, concessions of power, alliances of party, nothing has been able to protect them from this common destiny. This fact alone, so fertile in reflections, suffices to assign to the press, its true. and unvariable character. It labors by continuous and persevering efforts daily repeated, to loosen all the bonds of obedience and subordination, to weaken the springs of public authority, to sink and debase it in the opinion of the people, and to create for it everywhere embarrassments and resist

ance.

Its art consists not in substituting for a credulous submission of the mind the healthy liberty of examination, but to reduce the most positive truths to problems; not to invite a frank and useful controversy upon political questions, but to present them in a false light and to resolve them by sophisms.

The press has thus disordered the most upright minds, shaken the firmest convictions, and produced in the bosom of society a confusion of principles which favors the most disastrous attempts. Anarchy in doctrines is a prelude to anarchy in the State.

It is worthy of remark, Sire, that the periodical press has never fulfilled its most essential condition, namely, publicity. It may appear strange, but it is no less true, that there is no publicity in France, taking this word in its just and

rigorous acceptation. In the actual state of things, facts, when not entirely suppositious, are only presented to many millions of readers curtailed, disfigured, and mutilated in a most odious manner. A thick cloud raised by the journals disguises the truth, and in a measure prevents a perfect understanding between the government and the people. The kings, your predecessors, Sire, have been desirous freely to communicate with their subjects; but this is a satisfaction which the press is not willing that your Majesty should enjoy.

A licentiousness which bas outstripped all bounds even upon the most solemn occasions, and neither respected the express wishes of the king nor the addresses made to them from the throne. The one has been mistaken or perverted and the others have been the subject of perfidious commentary or bitter derision. It is thus that the last act of royal authority, the proclamation, fell into general discredit even before it was known to the electors.

This is not all the Press has a tendency to subjugate the sovereignty and usurp the powers of the State. The pretended organ of public opinion, it aspires to direct the debates in the two Chambers, and it incontestably exercises an influence upon those debates, no less baneful than decisive. This dominion in the Chamber of Deputies, especially for the last two or three years, has assumed a manifest character of oppression and tyranny. We have seen in this interval the journals pursuing with insult and outrage numbers whose vote ap

are marked out sooner or later to be immolated to popular vengeance.

The press has not manifested less zeal in attacking, with its envenomed darts, our religion and our clergy. Its object is to root out the last germs of religious sentiments. Doubt not, Sire, but by attacking the basis of our faith, corrupting the sources of public morals, and by heaping derision and contempt upon the ministers and altars of our holy religion, that it will accomplish its purpose.

No force, we must avow, is capable of resisting so energetic a dissolvent as the press. At all periods, when its shackles have been stricken off, it has burst forth and invaded the State. Notwithstanding the diversity of circumstances and the numerous changes of individuals who have occupied the political arena, we cannot but be forcibly impressed with the similarity of its effects during the last fifteen years-in a word, it is destined to recommence the revolution, the principles of which it has so openly

the Departmental press, which, by exciting jealousies and local hatreds, by sowing consternation in the bosoms of the timid and by tormenting the authorities with interminable stratagems, have exercised an almost decisive influence upon the elections.

These last effects, Sire, are momentous; the more durable results may be remarked in the morals and character of a nation. A violent lying and passionate polemic school of scandal and licentiousness, produces serious and profound altercations: it gives a false direction to the minds of men, fills them with perversions and prejudices, diverts them from serious investigations, injures also the progress of the Arts and the Sciences, excites among us a continually increasing fermentation, and maintains, even in the bosom of families, fatal dissensions, and may gradually conduct us back to a state of barbarism.

Against such a variety of evils, engendered by the press, law and justice are equally compelled to acknowledge their impotence. It would be superfluous to investigate the causes which have arrested and insensibly rendered useless a weapon in the hand of power. It is sufficient to interrogate experience and to remark the present condition of things.

The proceedings of the Judiciary furnish with difficulty an

efficacious repression. This truth, verified by observation, has for a long time been apparent to good minds: it it has lately acquired a more marked character of evidence. To satisfy the necessity which gave rise to it, repression should be prompt and powerful on the contrary, it has remained slugglish, feeble, and almost void; when it happens, the injury is committed and the punishment far from repairing the injury, adds to it the scandal of debate.

Juridical proceedings tire; but the seditious press never tires. The one is embarrassed because there is too much to punish, the other multiplies its forces by multiplying its delinquencies. Under different circumstances, prosecutions have had their different periods of activity or relaxation. But what imparts to the press zeal or lukewarmness on the part of the public minister, it seeks in an increase of its excesses a guarantee to their impunity.

The insufficiency, or rather the inutility of the precautions established by the laws in force, is demonstrated by the above-named facts, and it is equally established that the public security is compromised by the press. It is time, it is more than time, to arrest its

are too real not to be heard, these wishes are too legitimate not to be listened to.

There is but one means of satisfying them, it is to return to the Constitution—if the terms of the eighth article are ambiguous, its measure is manifest. It is certain that the Constitution has not conceded the liberty of the press to journals and periodical writings. The liberty of publishing our personal opinions does. not certainly imply the right of publishing by way of speculation, the opinions of others. The one is a use of a faculty that the law is at liberty to grant or to submit to restrictions; the other is a speculation of industry, which, like all others, and more than all others, supposes the supervision of public authority.

The meaning of the Constitution in this particular is exactly explained by the law of the 21st of October, 1814; we can place the more reliance upon this as the law was presented to the Chamber the 5th of July, that is to say, one month only after the adoption of the Constitution. In 1819, an epoch when a contrary system prevailed in the Chambers, it was openly proclaimed that the periodical press was not governed by the 8th article. This fact is confirmed by the laws even which have imposed the necessity of a censure upon the journals.

Now, Sire, it only remains to be decided how this return to the Constitution and the law of the 21st of October shall be accomplished. The present serious aspect of affairs has resolved the question.

We must not deceive ourselves