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 Front Page arrow Titles (by Subject) arrow 266.: FRENCH NEWS [103] EXAMINER, 17 AUG., 1834, P. 520 - The Collected Works of John Stuart Mill, Volume XXIII - Newspaper Writings August 1831 - October 1834 Part II

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

266.: FRENCH NEWS [103] EXAMINER, 17 AUG., 1834, P. 520 - 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.

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266.

FRENCH NEWS [103]

EXAMINER, 17 AUG., 1834, P. 520

This article is headed “London, August 17, 1834.” This and Nos. 268 and 269 (the last series Mill wrote on French politics for the Examiner) are described in his bibliography as “The summary of French news in the Examiner of 17th, 24th and 31st August 1834” (MacMinn, p. 41). In Mill’s copy of the Examiner in Somerville College, this account is listed as “Article on France.”

a few weeks ago, we had the satisfaction of stating that the highest tribunal in France, the Court of Cassation, had, through its Criminal Committee, solemnly vindicated the liberty of the Press against one of the most impudent outrages ever sought to be inflicted upon it—the sentence by which the interdiction pronounced against the National was extended to the new journal established in its room, the National de 1834. Our congratulations, however, were premature. The Court of Cassation has reversed the decision of its Committee, and confirmed the original sentence of the Cour Royale.1

1st, Behold, then, the state of French law, as established by a series of judicial decisions. A Court of Justice may try and condemn a newspaper, without a jury, for any article containing reflections on its own proceedings—that is, provided the cause it is called upon to decide be its own cause.

2dly, The Court, thus empowered to revenge its own supposed injuries, may interdict the offending newspaper from giving any further reports of, or remarks upon, its own proceedings—that is, it may peremptorily silence all censure upon itself.

Lastly, if the newspaper thus partially confiscated be dropped, and another paper established by the same parties, the new paper shall remain subject to the interdict.

Such is French law, French liberty, under the King of the Barricades and French Judges.

The Tribune newspaper—which, after nearly a hundred prosecutions, was arbitrarily suppressed in April last, and the license (for in France all printers must be licensed) withdrawn from its printer—this paper has at last succeeded in finding another licensed printer, who is willing to incur the risk of a similar confiscation of his means of livelihood. The Tribune has now reappeared.2

The Chambers have met. In verifying the elections, the Chamber of Deputies has displayed partiality so gross as to have incurred the censure of even the Journal des Débats.3 The debate on the Address has commenced, and promises to be an animated one.4 The Address will be either a compromise, or a trial of strength, between the Doctrinaires and the tiers parti, or Dupin party. The former are aristocrats on principle, and would have preferred old institutions, and the old dynasty, with an old British constitution; the latter are the incarnate spirit of modern bourgeois oligarchy—which is for levelling down to itself, but no lower. The latter are a more genuine offspring of the present institutions of France, and will, we have no doubt, ultimately supplant the others if those institutions last, and no new revolution, legal or violent, comes between and parts the combatants.

[1 ]For Mill’s congratulations, see No. 247. The account of the decision on 6 Aug. by the full Cour de Cassation is in Moniteur, 1834, pp. 1669-70.

[2 ]For the earlier troubles, involving Auguste Mie as printer, see No. 249. La Tribune reappeared on 12 Aug., after four months’ suspension, the printer being Louis Etienne Herhan (1768-1853).

[3 ]Leading article, Journal des Débats, 7 Aug., 1834, p. 1.

[4 ]Louis Philippe’s Speech from the Throne was delivered on 31 July (Moniteur, 1834, p. 1619); the draft Reply (13 Aug.) was debated on the 14th and 15th, when it was adopted (ibid., pp. 1697-1704 and 1705).