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OF THE PUBLIC JOURNALS OF FRANCE.

THE measure of public liberty, in modern times, is to be found in the state of the periodical press. Where the journals are prevented by authority from expressing their opinions, no liberty does, or can exist. But if the press is unshackled, or is even allowed only a moderate latitude of discussion, the tone and character of the newspapers indicate, with a close approximation to truth, the feelings of the people, and the degree in which the government is in accordance with their desires and necessities.

Under the iron despotism of Napoleon, the press, in all its departments, was not only silenced as to the emission of its own opinions, but was subjugated to a forced utterance of those of the authorities; and no facts found their way into the journals, but with such modifications as suited the views of the government, or flattered the prejudices of its chief. On the breaking up of the imperial system, the Bourbons did not succeed to this portion of the imperial power, which was founded in the force of the revolution, and resided in the absolutism of a government derived from the people, and, at least, accepted by it, as a necessary, though perhaps temporary, protection from external violence.

After a short and ineffectual struggle, the restored dynasty was compelled to abandon the previous censure; and the periodical press became an arena, in which the many factions engendered by the restoration were enabled to make trial of their strength, and

to draw prognostications of their future destiny.

Since that epoch, a rapid extension of periodical literature, both in its material and its intellectual departments, has shown a correspondent development of public opinion in France, an increased demand for political information, a concentration of public views, and a growing energy in giving them expression and effect.

At the commencement of this new era, numerous and conflicting parties, unable directly to control the emission of hostile opinions, sought, by influencing or corrupting particular journals, to give currency and preponderance to the ideas most favourable to their own views: and up to the present day, there are not wanting papers, which, held in the pay of individuals, are devoted to purposes unacknowledged by the public. But every day that passes, by increasing the intelligence and the energy of the people, diminishes alike the influence and the

utility of this system. The public are daily evincing more and more plainly, that they are the publicists' best customers. The factious journals are, therefore, obliged to assume somewhat more of a national colour, or to abandon altogether the hope of a spontaneous and adequate circulation; while those papers which frankly adopt the interests of the nation, and accord with the sentiments of the people, are (as literary speculations) the most prosperous and remunerating.

The political journals the most in vogue are the Constitutionel, the Journal des Débats, the Courier Français, and the Quotidienne.* After these come the Journal de Commerce, and the Gazette, the Moniteur, the New Journal de Paris, and the Messager des Chambres. These are all either devoted to national principles, or represent the opinions of a party having a certain weight and influence in society: while the Pilote, said to be in the pay of

* 1829.

Sosthène de la Rochefoucauld, Le Drapeau Blanc influenced by Monsieur de Dumas, the Old Journal de Paris subservient to Monsieur Peyronnet, and, in general, all the papers which were so disgracefully sold to the Villèle administration, may be considered as politically defunct.

The provincial press has partaken very much in the political condition of the departments, which have always been more subservient to the authorities, than the capital. Most of the great cities, and chef-lieus of the departments, have their especial journals; but with the exception of five or six, they are without interest, and composed of extracts from the Paris papers, commercial and judicial intelligence, and the transactions of the prefecture. The greater part of them subsisting only through the influence of the prefect, have been in close dependence on the ministry of the day; or, at best, they had no colour or opinion whatever, being the mere chronicles of ceremonies and accidents, of