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

178.: FRENCH NEWS [67] EXAMINER, 15 JULY, 1832, P. 456 - John Stuart Mill, The Collected Works of John Stuart Mill, Volume XXIII - Newspaper Writings August 1831 - October 1834 Part II [1831]

Edition used:

The Collected Works of John Stuart Mill, Volume XXIII - Newspaper Writings August 1831 - October 1834 Part II, 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.

About Liberty Fund:

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


178.

FRENCH NEWS [67]

EXAMINER, 15 JULY, 1832, P. 456

For the entry in Mill’s bibliography, see No. 116. The item, headed “London, July 15, 1832,” is listed as “Article on France” and enclosed in square brackets in the Somerville College set of the Examiner.

we have great pleasure in calling the attention of our readers to an article on the state of France, which has just appeared in the Westminster Review. It is obviously of French origin, and bears marks of the hand to which it is ascribed, one of the most enlightened and high-minded of patriots.1 We are proud to find in this retrospective view of the history of parties in France, the confirmation (with many additional particulars) of all that was written in this journal on French politics in the few months succeeding the Revolution in July.

We learn from the Paris correspondent of the Chronicle, that a half-penny paper for the people is about to be started at Paris, under the auspices of Laffitte, Odilon-Barrot, and Arago, (the leaders of the moderate Opposition) whose names appear in the prospectus;2 and under the gratuitous editorship of M. Cauchois-Lemaire, one of the ablest and most independent of the political writers of the day. The price will just cover the stamp duty to Government,—all the other expenses will be defrayed by subscription. A noble employment of wealth and talents, from which we augur the happiest consequences. These are the true Penny Magazines3 for this age of politics; all others, though not absolutely useless, are secondary in usefulness, and less than secondary as instruments of power.

The French Ministry has issued a precious circular to the different Procureurs du Roi, ordering a still more strenuous persecution of the newspaper press.4 Censure of the mere acts of the Government is to be permitted; but every body who professes, even as a speculative opinion, that a republic, or the restoration of the exiled family, would be desirable, is to be prosecuted. As the first fruits of this increase of “vigour,” several newspapers have been seized, and the Moniteur has been so obliging as to announce officially what are the exceptionable passages. In one case, that of the Tribune, the crime was publishing a list of subscriptions, in which one of the subscribers signs himself “A Good Republican,” another “An Enemy of Kings,” and a third “An Enemy of all Monarchs since the death of Napoleon.”5 This is the fifty-sixth prosecution of this one journal since the July Revolution. Truly the heroes of the barricades threw their lives away to some purpose.

The chambers are not to be summoned immediately. The King and his miserable Ministry are afraid to meet them.

In the meanwhile, the Government is weeding the public offices of the few remaining patriots, whom it had not hitherto ventured to touch.

September 1832 to August 1833

[1 ]“Present State of France,” Westminster Review, XVII (July 1832), 211-41. The author has not been identified.

[2 ]“O.P.Q.” (Caleb Charles Colton) announced the prospectus for Le Bon Sens in the Morning Chronicle, 13 July, 1832, pp. 3-4. Dominique François Jean Arago (1786-1853), a prominent scientist, became a deputy in 1831.

[3 ]The Penny Magazine (1832-45) was edited and published by Charles Knight for the Society for the Diffusion of Useful Knowledge.

[4 ]Moniteur, 1832, p. 1414.

[5 ]Given ibid., p. 1413, as “Un vrai républicain, 50 cent.; un ennemi des souverains depuis que Napoléon n’est plus, 1 fr.; une bonne patriote, un ennemi des rois, 1 fr.; C. orléaniste devenu républicain, 5 fr., etc., etc.”