The Sun.
London, England, 1850-07-19 00:00:00

artninix

LONDON, FRIDAY, JULY 19, 1850.

A more desperate effort at political repression than
any hitherto adventured upon by the counter-revo-
lutionists has just been made in the French Legisla-
tive Assembly. By a law introduced under the aus-
pices of the Reaction, journalism has been effectually
gagged. Journalism, be it remembered ! Journalism,
the voice of popular opinion ! Journalism, the organ
of the multitude ! Journalism, that vast and almost
übiquitous power which has thrice shaken down the
bulwarks of royalty, laid bare the " official holy of
holies," and rung the tocsin of three tre-
mendous revolutions ! It is in these magnificent
antecedents that we can alone recognise the reason
of this daring and most flagitious enactment.
It is in consequence of the vengeance inspired by the
previous achievements of the press that the most
cowardly of all factions, the faction of reaction, has
found courage at last, from the very desperation of
its atrabilious temperament, to grapple with that
visible Genius of. Democracy, whose grasp has
already strangled the elder and the younger branches
of the Bourbon dynasty, and whose struggles against
oppression have from time to time convulsed the
whole surface of Christendom. Madmen that they
are, they cannot recognise through their infatuation
a fact otherwise patent to the dullest com-
prehension, the fact that in thus boldly
entering the lists against journalism they
are, like their pedecessors, dooming themselves to
inevitable destruction. As if that terrible truth had
not been proved in bloody characters during the
reign of terror and the days of the guillotine ! As if
journalism, even when enervated with licentiousness,
and degraded by cruelty, and debased by its associa-
tion with death and criminality, had not shown that
its vitality defied all the forces of despotism, and
evaded all the artifices of retrogressive conspirators!
Why, the Pere Duehesne itself—that literary incar-
nation of all that was infamous, that corn
pilation of indecencies and slang, of blackguardism
and blasphemy—set at naught the repressive influence
of a censorship not yet quite extinguished. The
Vieux Cordeliers, with its incendiary wit, and insur-
rectionary declamation, assisted in smiting down the
laws which had been created for its own destruction
and for that of its contemporaries. The Arra du
Peuple, though written as it were on the headsman's
block, with a bayonet for a pen, and for ink the gore
of the victims of assassination, survived the combined
attacks of the administrative and legislative authorities.
Nor can these things be regarded as any matter for
astonishment when it is remembered that journalism
—even journalism such as this—is the utterance of
large masses of the population, and that to drown
these utterances is as desperate and futile an aspira-
tion as to quench the flames of a volcano, or to allay
the ravages of an earthquake. Yet the counter-re-
volutionists of 1850 are insanely endeavouring to
repeat those exertions which have resulted in the
total discomfiture of their precursors ; and this, more-
over, when the press of France is represented not by the
ferocious squalor of MARAT, or by the sinister cruelty
of ROBESPIEREE, or by the inflammatory fanaticism
of DESMOULINS, but by the ability, the probity, and
the sagacity of some of the most distinguished men
of our generation. The tyrannical enactment just
passed by the counter revolutionary majority of the
Legislative Assembly becomes enhanced in severity,
in our estimation, when we consider that its penalties
are held in terrorern, not over the heads of demons
like the Septembrists, bat over those of the witty
MARRAST and the accomplished GIUARDIN, over
the conciliatory graces of the feuilletonists,
over the charming JAPIN and the indefatigable
SouLIE. Bearing these facts in recollection, no ar-
gument is assuredly requisite to demonstrate the
excessive folly of this most atrocious innovation, or to
justify us in designating the Loi sur la Prase the
most suicidal proceeding upon which the reactionists
have yet adventured. The disfranchisement of three
millions of voters throughout the Republican popula-
tion of France was of itself an act sufficiently cha-
racterised by its audacity. Yet even that flagitious
movement of retrogression, when contrasted with the
law affecting the press, sinks into utter and absolute
insignificance.

According to this enactment of the Legislative As-
sembly, influenced by such men as TUIERS, MOLE, and
BERUYEE, the French newspapers are henceforth to
be not under the jurisdiction of a Censor of the Press,
but under the thumb of the Prefect of Police'. That
official becomes empowered by this shameless system
of retrogression to suppress at pleasure any journal
or periodical whatsoever, reserving to a few select
favourites the advantage of the consequent
monopoly. Henceforth, moreover, no book or
pamphlet consisting of merely three sheets can be
legally issued without undergoing a tax of one sou
per sheet prior to publication. Neither can the
daily journal of Paris be adorned with its customary
roman-feuilleton, unless graced with an additional
stamp of one halfpenny ! Farewell, then, to the
diurnal joys of the women of France, to the volup-
tuous imaginings of EUGENE SUE, and the romantic
encyclopaedias of ALEXANDRE DUMAS. Even the
Constitutionnel, it is to be feared, from the size of its
sheet and the cheapness of its u
by this additional impost, willbs
be.
compelled cry weighed down
leaye
uncompleted the novel r pwelelei
recently commenced in its
feuilleton, by the versatile and perennial genius of
LAMARTINE. The most remarkable
clause, however,
in the whole of this extraordinary enact-
ment is the one rendering it necessary for each indi-
vidual article in a newspaper to be authenticated by
the signature of its contributor• It intended
by this arbitrary arrangement to d • eprive journalism
henceforth and for ever of its anonymous character
and it is conjectured that by so doing it will be most
effectually denuded of its enormous influence over the
multitude. 'Whether this be the inevitable conse-
quence or not of the above tyrannical contrivance yet
remains to be demonstrated : but, proven or not
proven as to its result, the intention of the act
is sufficiently obviuus and sufficiently execrable as
one of atrocious despotism on the part of the counter-
revolutionists. As such it will be sedulously borne in
remembrance by the people, and its recol-
lect:on carefully cherished for the ultimate
-day of retribution. In reference to this the
concLuding words of the oration delivered by General
DE LAMORICIERE were prophetically significant,
whe» on Tuesday last he exclaimed to the Legis-
lative Assembly :—" I have but one word more to
say to you, to you who desire to maintain
the Parliamentary Government: since the day when
you he d satisfied, by your repressive measures, all
that i. vas required is the name of order and
security, every blow that you direct against li-
berty will ultimately turn against yourselves !"
The re; oressive measure affecting journalism was
fornaalll •• passed into a law while the walls of the