zation of our different Colleges-the courses of study for the respective Faculties-the system of distributing prizes, and inflicting censures, when necessary, in the University-the Schools on the plans of Bell and Lancaster, or, as we call them, Schools of Mutual Instruction-and you will see that the whole may easily furnish matter for a long continuance of that correspondence, which you have done me the honour to solicit.

I am, Sir,

with great respect, Your very obedient servant,

L.

To Sir W. L—

Dear Sir, Paris, 1st Feb. 1817. You YOU wish to know the state of the press in France: in other words, what degree of freedom our writers enjoy. To answer this question clearly, it might seem sufficient to send you an abstract of our laws on the subject; but we have no laws. Then you will say what is the usage? Why, we have not yet any usage. Indeed, how can usage be established, in a country which has renounced all experience, in order to venture upon untried systems? Besides, a knowledge of the laws on any particular subject, is of little avail without an acquaintance with the manners of the nation for which those laws were framed. Thus, you see, your question leads to a far wider discussion, and if you would comprehend the state of the press, you must be made acquainted with the manners of the literary class in France.

The term public opinion is not to be found in any of the French historians prior to the reign of Louis XIII. Until that period, our literature was unformed; no one wrote on the administration of government, because the concerns of government were then very limited, and politics were a science studiously concealed from the vulgar eye. The minister of that King, our famous Cardinal de RICHELIEU, having formed the design of attacking the privileges and independence of the nobility, flattered the passions of the commonalty, and did all in his power to exalt that order. He affected to suppose that the French nation in general, entertained an opinion on state affairs, and by means of the support derived from this opinion, he endeavoured to render every thing subservient to his own will. There were some grounds for this notion; for in fact the French people really felt the want of union, steadiness, and congruity in their operations; qaliuties which had not existed since the death of Henry IV., not through the defect of the institutions, but through the weakness of the government. Either from zeal for the advancement of literature, of which the Cardinal RICHELIEU, though totally devoid of taste, was a great admirer; or else from policy, and a wish to erect a sort of visible tribunal for that public opinion to which this minister so

frequently appealed, he associated the writers of reputation in his days, and founded the French Academy. In forming this association he took the members of it into regular pay, a proceeding apparently simple, but attended with important consequences, because our men of letters from that moment concluded that they were to depend on the government for subsistence, and that pensions granted by the court, were preferable to any emoluments that might arise from the independent exercise of their talents.

The nature of our legislation was comformable with these ideas. Our laws did not protect literary property. The dramatic authors were under the control and at the mercy of the players; whilst other writers were in like manner subjected to the booksellers. Our nation, in its chivalrous spirit, though enamoured of the pleasures arising from literature, imputed shame to a subsistence derived from the pen; and to make a trade of the art of writing, was to lose a portion of respectability, whatever might be the writer's talents, or however splendid his success. This will serve to explain, why the masterly productions of our literature during the age of Louis XIV. were utterly profitless to their authors. Thus the legislature, the national manners, and the prevailing prejudices, all contributed to debar them from every prospect of security against want, except such as might arise from the bounty of the government. It is not surprising, therefore, that they should become flatterers of power, and yield easily to its insinuations.

The maintenance of all those doctrines, which were in harmony with the form and spirit of the government, was at that time confided to certain religious societies, who pronounced public censure on authors whenever they deviated from the principles essential to the safety of the state. Our high courts of magistracy, to whom belonged every branch of police, even that which regarded opinions, punished the errors of writers; and though there were no special laws against the delinquencies of the press, yet, as in every civilized country, whatever is considered detrimental to established order, is in some way or other punishable, justice was executed on criminal authors, in the same manner as on criminals who were not authors. Thus, it may be said that the religious bodies denounced, and the parliament punished.

On attentively considering the history of the whole world, we shall every where perceive a distinction between intellectual and material power. To govern bodies and to govern minds have almost always been considered as two distinct things; and it would not be difficult to prove that nations have been more agitated by the pretensions of those who wished to influence the mind, than by those who confined their aims to the subjection of the person. This idea suggests a thousand curious reflections. I merely throw out for your consideration, and proceed with my survey. 'It is now generally allowed, that the main spring of representative governments, is public opinion; but public opinion I regard as nothing more than the triumph of intellect over force. In this point of

view, it is not to be imagined that the liberty of the press, can ever become questionable, in countries where the interests of the state are discussed in large assemblies, and where the deliberations of those assemblies are public. Indeed the very question would suppose an alarming inconsistency; but of this inconsistency we have just given another example; for in France we do not appear to take any interest in the establishment of a principle except for the pleasure of violating it in all its consequences.

The privilege of directing men's minds may sometimes belong to the passions, but never to ignorance, and those, who in the present day blame the monastic orders for having possessed themselves of that privilege, do nothing more than reproach them with having had greater talents and acquirements than the rest of their contemporaries. Had there been only one monastic order in Europe, I think it would have been impossible to take from that order what I call the intellectual supremacy; but when several such orders arose, there sprung up a rivalry among them; they contended for this power, which is certainly the greatest, and that which has most charms for exalted minds. What, indeed, can be more attractive than the idea of gaining the ascendancy of the age by dint of mental power alone? What other end does a man of letters propose to himself? Honoured be those writers who, on questions of public interest, sacrifice every personal consideration to the pleasure of meditating on the general welfare!

The Jesuits in France were in quiet possession of the right of directing the public mind, when the Jansenists attacked them for the purpose of wresting from them this high privilege. This was the real ground of the quarrel between these two bodies; theological disputes were merely the mode in which it was carried on. The Jesuits preached a lax morality in order to ensure a majority in their favour: the Jansenists, to make a striking impression and produce a strong contrast, propagated a system of morals at once gloomy and severe; but we may rest assured that if they had found the Jesuits maintaining their influence over the public mind by means of strict principles, they would have sought popularity by propounding milder doctrines. Is not this generally the case, at the present day, in deliberative assemblies, when the parties opposed to each other, consider contrary doctrines merely in relation to the means which they afforded for obtaining the direction of public affairs?

It is here that we meet with a singular result of the creation of the French Academy; a result, certainly, not foreseen by Cardinal Richelieu, one of the most despotic of men in principle and disposition.

Whilst the Jesuits and the Jansenists contended for the privilege of directing the public mind, the men of letters who swayed the French Academy, formed an association under the name of Philosophers. Serving both parties in turn, for the sake of inflaming the quarrel, and alternately satirizing them both, in order to ex

pose them to equal ridicule, they at last overthrew them both, and occupied their place. We have driven out the foxes,' wrote Voltaire confidentially to his disciples, and now we must hunt the wolves.' The foxes were the Jesuits, the wolves were the Jansenists; and though M. de Voltaire beheld in both of them the enemies of that supremacy over the public mind at which he was aiming, it is easy to perceive, by the different names which he gave them, that he still retained a tender recollection of the Jesuits, among whom he had been educated, and whose amiable and lively manners he loved, as much as he detested the rudeness and rigour of the Jansenists.

The former being ousted, and the latter overthrown, the men of letters in France, and all those whom they had admitted into their philosophical fraternity, ruled the nation, the Court, and even a great portion of Europe. As it had been necessary for them to propagate new doctrines in order to rouse the public mind, they were desirous of developing all the consequences of those doctrines in order to perpetuate their power. These consequences, rigorously uniform in their progress, placed the government in the hands of the populace in 1793; and the excesses of the populace paved the way for Bonaparte's usurpation. Thus the dominion of force over the ascendency of intellect was again re-established in two different ways. Such is the circle in which human nature moves; and if there be any means of giving a legal organ to public opinion in order to ensure its triumph, those means can only consist in the adoption of a representative government, by which we Frenchmen generally mean the form of government so long and so happily established in England.

What the men of letters had received as a boon under Cardinal Richelieu and Louis XIV. they imperiously demanded when they had gained the ascendency toward the close of Louis XV.'s reign; always asking, always complaining, and always threatening, it is impossible to say what was lavished upon them, and whether their cupidity did not even exceed their ambition. Secretaryships for military bodies were created for them with considerable salaries; places were multiplied for them in all the establishments dedicated to literature, science, and the arts; they had apartments in the Louvre, the finest of our royal palaces; and as it had become customary for every writer to be paid by the government, the better they were paid, the more their numbers increased. They were insolent and factious; but not one of them was independent except J. J. Rousseau, who, not being a native of France, set some value on his liberty; and in consequence he was the only one among the literati of that time who was really popular.

Bonaparte, eager to take the lead in every thing, had one measure of universal application; it was that of forming men into re giments. Thus he made a regiment of men of letters, [savans,] and artists; he gave them an uniform, a sword, and other ridiculous equipments, and this regiment was called the Institute. Dis

satisfied with being held in subjection, but cowardly and ever ready to side with the victor, the members of the Institute knew not whether they were to consider themselves as a part of the state, or simply as a learned society; for the servants of government among them, who were strangers to literature and science, were more numerous than the men of letters; and all the men of letters and scientific persons of any merit were made servants of government by Bonaparte. This strange combination is not one of the least skilful contrivances of that man, who perfectly understood the vices of his age, who would allow no liberty except to himself, and who was more ambitious of governing minds than bodies.

If the foundation of the French Academy by Cardinal Richelieu gave birth to a general notion that every writer in France ought to subsist on the bounty of the government, the establishment of the Institute by Bonaparte in like manner propagated the idea now so prevalent, that the cultivation of literature, science, and the arts is not to be regarded as an end, but simply as a means of getting into place; and since books, dramas, and articles in the journals are written only with a view to obtain one or more situations under government, when that purpose is answered, nothing more is done unless the situation be such as to require its holder to write in favour of those by whom he is paid. Again, who are those that pay? Formerly it was the King. In our way of thinking every favour from the King is honourable. Gods and sovereigns are the only beings, it seems, to whom men may confide their wants without blushing. Accordingly, nothing is more noble and more decorous than the letters written by Colbert to the men of merit in his time, announcing the favours granted to them by Louis XIV. Bonaparte, on the contrary, whose aim was to degrade human nature, assigned the duty of pensioning the men of letters to the police! Thus was established the custom which still continues. From the sacrifice of independence, we have proceeded to the disregard of delicacy. Such is in the natural course of events; but money compensates for every thing, in cases where it does not create an obligation, or even excite gratitude. Posterity has become fully acquainted with the pensions granted by Louis XIV. to men of letters; the modern police acts with greater mystery; for the most of its pensioners are not even known to the literary world.

Having thus seen how the characteristic manners of our writers, have been formed, having considered their habits and pretensions, and being able to appreciate their expedients for obtaining or extorting money from the government, you may compare the existing state of these matters in England, with that in France; you will then easily comprehend the details which I have to give you concerning the state of the press in the latter country; in what respects it differs from the freedom enjoyed by you, and what may be the obstacles to its improvement. But there is another observation for