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Subject Area: Political Theory
Collection: The Collected Works of John Stuart Mill

62.: FRENCH NEWS [4] EXAMINER, 28 NOV., 1830, PP. 761-2 - John Stuart Mill, The Collected Works of John Stuart Mill, Volume XXII - Newspaper Writings December 1822 - July 1831 Part I [1822]

Edition used:

The Collected Works of John Stuart Mill, Volume XXII - Newspaper Writings December 1822 - July 1831 Part I, ed. Ann P. Robson and John M. Robson, Introduction by Ann P. Robson and John M. Robson (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, London: Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1986).

Part of: Collected Works of John Stuart Mill, in 33 vols.

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Liberty Fund, Inc. is a private, educational foundation established to encourage the study of the ideal of a society of free and responsible individuals.


62.

FRENCH NEWS [4]

EXAMINER, 28 NOV., 1830, PP. 761-2

This article is headed “London, Nov. 27.” For the entry in Mill’s bibliography, see No. 55.

the chamber of deputies having rejected the bill brought in by M. Benjamin Constant to exempt persons desirous of following the business of a printer from the necessity of obtaining a license from the Government,1 M. Laffitte has declared that the ministers will take up the subject.

M. Laffitte has also introduced a bill for equalizing the pressure of certain taxes which at present press very unequally upon different parts of France.2 The sentiments and views expressed in the speech with which M. Laffitte prefaced his motion, are generally liberal and enlightened.

With these exceptions, the new Ministry has given no indication of its being animated by a popular spirit; and, unless it is reserving itself for the great struggle which is approaching, on the election law,3 it will find in a few weeks, that it has thrown away the popularity which is its only strength, to pay its court to an inept and ill-designing majority, who will give it no thanks for what they will consider with truth, as the effect of mere timidity and irresolution.

The retirement of Marshal Gérard from the war department, has modified, and, we regret to say, materially for the worse, the composition of the Ministry.4 Marshal Soult, the new minister of war, has been, from the beginning of his career, the ready slave of any one who would employ him. He is indeed understood to have been chosen in deference to the general opinion of the army, that there was no other man equally fit for that particular post; but there is not the same excuse for the promotion of Sébastiani, a man almost equally destitute of political integrity, to the Foreign Department:5 his place as Minister of Marine being supplied by d’Argout, a man fitter for the Guizot or even the Martignac Cabinet, than for a ministry of popular principles.6

Meanwhile, the Chamber never lets an occasion slip for displaying its anti-popular spirit; and we see no chance that even a moderate and insufficient reform of the law of elections will be conceded to any thing less than intimidation.

Prosecutions multiply against the popular press. M. Guizot, in a recent speech, attempted to draw a distinction between the old-established papers and the new ones, and complimented the former on their comparative moderation;7 but M. Persil,8 procureur général in the Cour Royale, an obscure provincial advocate who was selected as successor to M. Bernard of Rennes,9 when the latter refused to become an instrument in persecuting the press, has now instituted a prosecution against a newspaper of the class which M. Guizot exculpated, the Journal du Commerce.10

In our next paper we shall make some observations on the ill-advised prosecution of M. de Kergorlay, for his protest against the change of dynasty.11 For the present, we recommend to the reader’s attention, on this subject, the observations of a writer whom we seldom have occasion to commend, O.P.Q., of the Chronicle.12

The change of Ministry in England13 has given the greatest satisfaction in France, being considered a pledge of the pacific character of our foreign policy.

[1 ]For details, see No. 60.

[2 ]For Laffitte’s speech of 15 Nov. introducing the bill, see Moniteur, 1830, pp. 1475-6; the bill, amended, was enacted as Bull. 29, No. 96 (26 Mar., 1831).

[3 ]For the initiation of the measure, see No. 58.

[4 ]Comte Maurice Etienne Gérard (1773-1852), a deputy from 1827, popular minister in the Provisional Government and under Louis Philippe, had to retire because of ill-health, and a slight reshuffling in the administration resulted.

[5 ]Comte François Horace Bastien Sébastiani (1772-1851), one of Napoleon’s generals, was an opposition deputy after 1819. In favour of a dynastic change, he was given the Ministry of Marine in August 1830, and that of Foreign Affairs in November 1830.

[6 ]Apollinaire Antoine Maurice, comte d’Argout (1782-1858), had served Napoleon and the Bourbons and been made a peer in 1819.

[7 ]Speech on the Press (8 Nov.), Moniteur, 1830, pp. 1425-6.

[8 ]Jean Charles Persil (1785-1870), a liberal lawyer, had defended individuals against government prosecution before July 1830, but thereafter became reactionary.

[9 ]Louis RoseDésiré Bernard (1788-1858), called Bernard de Rennes, a deputy from 1830, had defended the Journal du Commerce when it was prosecuted during the Polignac ministry. He had been appointed procureur général, but later chose to transfer to the Court of Appeal.

[10 ]A generally liberal journal (1794-1848) that changed its name several times.

[11 ]Mill did not return to this question. Louis Florian Paul, comte de Kergorlay (1769-1856), was an ultra-royalist deputy from 1815 to 1816 and 1820 to 1823, when he became a peer. On 23 Sept., 1830, he wrote a letter to the President of the Chamber of Peers against the new government, printed in the Quotidienne, 25 Sept., p. 6. He was tried by the Chamber of Peers and sentenced to six months in prison and a 500-franc fine.

[12 ]“O.P.Q.” was the Rev. Caleb Charles Colton (1780?-1832), a frequent contributor to the Morning Chronicle over this signature. See his “France. Important Trial before the Chamber of Peers of Count Kergorlay, Ex-Peer of France, for a Political Libel,” Morning Chronicle, 26 Nov., 1830, pp. 1-2.

[13 ]On 16 Nov. the Duke of Wellington had resigned.