Remaking the Administration of the Book Trade
The Napoleonic Direction of the Book Trade did not descend deus ex machina in 1810 upon an unwitting world of printers and publishers. Rather, it was born out of a series of negotiations between the government
[74] Ibid., Jacques-Denis Langlois, Paris printer-publisher, February 27, 1810.
[75] Ibid., Report from César Briand, April 2, 1810.
[76] Malesherbes, Mémoires sur la librairie .
and the various constituencies within the publishing and printing world.[77] As in the early 1790s and 1795–1796, in 1800 the initiative to re-regulate and revive the book trade was accompanied by an equally vigorous effort to restrict the political periodical press. In January 1800, the consuls suppressed all but thirteen political journals in Paris and submitted these remaining journals to continuous surveillance and censorship.[78] The administrative reorganization of the nation on February 17, 1800, and especially the installation of the system of prefects a month later, made centralized national surveillance of the press an administrative possibility.[79] The periodical press, however, was not the only form of the printed word to fall under the purview of the prefects.
As early as November 1801, the minister of police, Joseph Fouché, was employing the prefect of police in Paris to confiscate books and pamphlets from printing shops, editors, and booksellers because of their moral, political, or religious content.[80] These repressive measures were soon to be complemented by preventative ones. The Paris prefect of police thus reported:
By his letter of 20 messidor, year XI [July 9, 1803], the chief minister of justice has charged me to inform all printers and publishers that they must deposit with me two copies of everything that they propose to publish,
[77] This chapter was researched and written in 1983–1984, before I became aware of Bernard Vouillot's unpublished 1979 thesis for the Ecole des Chartres entitled "L'Imprimerie et la librairie à Paris sous le Consulat et l'Empire (1799–1814)," which treats some of the same archival material I consider here. I would like to thank him for his permission in 1989 to consult his thesis, from which I profited considerably in revising this portion of the manuscript, and especially for his references to printed pamphlets concerning the re-regulation of the trades between 1806 and 1810. Nonetheless, my own interpretation of the causes and significance of the revival of the national Administration of the Book Trade differs considerably from Vouillot's. While he sees censorship as the most critical motivation behind, and consequence of, re-regulation, I see the commercial viability of printing and publishing, especially of books, as the central concern in shaping the policies of the Napoleonic authorities, and as the key reason for the support for these measures within the printing and publishing world. See also Vouillot, "Révolution et l'Empire."
[78] André Cabanis, Presse sous le Consulat, 12–13, 319–320.
[79] Louis Bergeron, France Under Napoleon, trans. R. R. Palmer (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1981), 23–31, 208–209.
[80] For examples, see AN, ser. F18, carton 39, Orders from the minister of police to the prefect of police in Paris to confiscate the following items: Lettres de M. de Fronsac, fils du duc de Richelieu au chevalier de Dumas, 2 vols. in 12, chez Michelet (4 frimaire, an X [November 25, 1801]), because of obscenity; Charles de Tersannes, ou familles rayées de la liste des émigrés, Imprimerie Raquin (13 frimaire, an X [December 4, 1801]), because of its politically controversial content; Sur l'émigration and Religion de l'état, chez la fille Durand (14 frimaire, an XI [December 5, 1802]), because of politically and religiously controversial content.
eight days before they release it. He has charged me, as well, to have the works examined during this period and to send him a report containing my judgment, along with a copy of each work.[81]
Thus, by the summer of 1803 an obligatory dépôt at the Prefecture of Police had been laid in place. Hundreds of reports from the prefect to the minister of justice concerning individual texts between 1803 and 1804 testify to the execution of these orders. Soon, though, the first consul himself wrote to the minister of justice clarifying that "his intention was not to impose police censorship on works pertaining to the arts and sciences," but only on politically sensitive materials.[82] The minister of justice consequently instructed the prefect not to send him reports on, or copies of, every work deposited; literary and scientific works, he suggested, should only be inspected briefly and returned, "as soon as you are certain that they treat only the subjects indicated by their titles."[83] This procedure was given official sanction several months later by a consular arrêt dated 4 vendémiaire, year XII (September 27, 1803), wherein the consuls announced that "in order to assure the freedom of the press, no publisher will be allowed to sell a work before having presented it to a review committee, which will determine whether it requires censorship."[84] Unlike the dépôt at the Bibliothèque Nationale, the inspection at the Prefecture of Police was obligatory.
The declaration of the Empire and Fouché's return to the Ministry of Police in July 1804 resulted in a further expansion of the surveillance and censorship system. Fouché ordered the prefect to revive the obligatory dépôt of two copies of everything to be published in Paris.[85] Further, he organized a "Division of the Freedom of the Press" within his ministry. To this division he attached an office of consultants—essentially, a corps of censors.[86] From the summer of 1804 through 1810,
[81] Ibid., Report from Dubois, prefect of police in Paris, to Fouché, minister of police, 21 vendémiaire, an XIII (October 13, 1804).
[82] Ibid.
[83] Ibid.
[84] Cited in Peignot, Essai historique sur la liberté d'écrire, 157.
[85] AN, ser. F18, carton 39, Report from Dubois, prefect of police in Paris, to Fouché, minister of police, 21 vendémiaire, an XIII (October 13, 1804); the minister's response is jotted in the margin. Fouché was restored to his post on July 16, 1804.
[86] Ibid. Reports from the Division de la Liberté de la Presse from 18 thermidor, an XII (August 6, 1804) and 18 ventôse, an XIII (March 9, 1805).
then, it was the duty of the prefect of police to send a report and copy of every work published in Paris to the minister of police.[87]
Regardless whether Napoleon initially intended to limit surveillance and censorship to explicitly political printed matter, nothing, in fact, escaped Fouché and his Division of the Freedom of the Press. The division, of course, continued to work at regulating the periodical press.[88] They did not, however, restrict their surveillance to political matters alone, as their concern about the harsh reception of Mme de Staël's novel Corinne in the Parisian press suggests.[89] Nor did they limit their censorship to explicitly political texts: Mme Mérard St. Just's novel Six Mois d'exil ou les orphelins par la Révolution , for example, was prohibited.[90] Travel literature, as well, received close scrutiny,[91] and the cross-references of the Dictionnaire universel de la langue française were combed for possible political innuendos.[92] The division also evaluated works such as Boieldieu's De l'Influence de la chaire, du théâtre et du barreau dans la société civile to determine whether they were worthy of government patronage.[93] Writings on military subjects were, of course, carefully studied.[94] Even poetry required close attention and interpretation.[95]
The case of the Portefeuille volé reveals how sophisticated the functions of the new division had become by 1805. The Portefeuille volé was a collection of light libertine poems, which, according to the censor, were, if a little irreverent, by no means obscene. The publisher, Debray, however, had neglected to deposit a copy at the Prefecture of Police before putting it on the market. As punishment, the prefect ordered the work to be confiscated. The authorities were clearly intent on enforcing conformity to the law. Furthermore, having closely inspected the Portefeuille
[87] Hundreds of these reports remain in AN, ser. F18, carton 39.
[88] See, for example, ibid., Request of the widow Nyon for permission to launch a new journal, 9 fructidor, an XIII (August 27, 1805).
[89] Ibid., Mme de Staël, December 22, 1808.
[90] AN, ser. F18, carton 39, Félicité Mérard St. Just (née Ormoy), 17 frimaire, an XIII (December 8, 1804).
[91] AN, ser. F18, carton 565, Jean-Georges Treuttel and Jean-Godefroy Wurtz, publishers, Paris, September 12, 1806.
[92] AN, ser. F18, carton 39, Dictionnaire universel, [1807].
[93] Ibid., Marie-Jacques-Amand Boieldieu, lawyer, De l'influence de la chaire, du théâtre et du barreau dans la société civile, 18 ventôse, an XIII (March 9, 1805).
[94] Ibid., Denis-Simon Maginel, Paris publisher, Histoire de la campagne de 1800 en Allemagne et en Italie, 18 thermidor, an XII (August 6, 1804), and the Histoire de la guerre entre la France et l'Espagne (October 28, 1808).
[95] Ibid., Portefeuille volé (a collection of poems), 17 floréal, an XIII (May 7, 1805).
volé , the prefect decided that the work, while not dangerous enough to be permanently banned, "should simply be tolerated , it should not be permitted to be advertised, either through posters or in the press. Furthermore, in returning the work to the publisher, tell him that he may not put his name on the title page, so that the publication of this work in no manner appears to have been authorized by the government."[96] Thus, by 1805 the imperial police had revived not only inspections of booksellers and printing shops, but also the system of permissions tacites and tolérances , by which an officially sanctioned literary civilization could be distinguished from independent and unauthorized cultural initiatives.
The expansion of government censorship and surveillance of the printed word, however, posed constant problems for the administration. Because the government formally recognized the principle of freedom of the press, surveillance and censorship of the book trade were difficult to justify, let alone enforce.[97] The magnitude of the task overwhelmed the resources of the prefect of police, who was facing resistance from publishers and authors to the obligatory deposit: "The majority of them submit only with repugnance to these measures. I imposed this harness on them as gently as possible, but in the end they want to be rid of it, and confidentially they admit that few of them are complying. If it is Your Excellency's [Fouché's] intention to continue this policy, how are the publishers and authors to be made to comply with it?"[98] Overextension of the administrative and police resources led to unclear jurisdiction. Enforcement was arbitrary and corrupt. These realities did little to endear the administrative regime to publishers or authors. When Mme Elisabeth Guénard, baronne de Méré, saw her fourth novel confiscated from the publisher even though she had conformed exactly to the dispositions of the law, she appealed directly to the emperor himself for a reform of the laws pertaining to the book trade.[99]
This kind of influential protest, together with administrative complaints, awakened an interest in investigating and reforming the system. On the basis of what laws did the police require the registration, cen-
[96] Ibid.
[97] See the report from the prefect of Paris to the minister of police to this effect on August 2, 1804, in Aulard (ed.), Paris sons le Consulat 2:445.
[98] AN, ser. F18, carton 39, Report from the prefect of police, Dubois, to the minister of police, January 30, 1806.
[99] For her allegations of corruption, see ibid., Mme Guénard, baronne de Méré (August 1807).
sorship, or confiscation of books? In 1806, the Division of the Freedom of the Press suggested to the minister of police that legal clarification of its activities might make their work easier:
When Your Excellency desired that all printed matter be known to him at its time of publication, he conceived of an idea that is as simple as it is just and necessary, and that infringes no more upon the freedom of the press than the census of citizens infringes upon individual liberty. . . . But in the absence of a law on the freedom of the press . . . you must anticipate that there will be difficult types who will refuse to comply.[100]
In fact, there had been no formal declaration or definition of the freedom of the press since the constitution of the year III (1795).[101]
Lack of both formal legitimation of its activities and support from the constituency it policed prevented the division from performing its duties effectively. Comparison of the number of works deposited at the dépôt légal at the Bibliothèque Nationale between 1801 and 1809 and of those deposited at the Prefecture of Police in Paris reveals how limited the scope of the prefect's surveillance was. Of the average sixteen hundred works per year deposited for copyright protection, remaining archival sources suggest that only about sixty to one hundred were inspected.[102] From the government's point of view, the police surveillance system was as ineffective as it was legally embarrassing. The remedy to this situation lay in identifying the points of convergence between the political interests of the government and the commercial interests of the publishing and printing world.