The Regulation of 1810

As we have seen, in 1804 the ministers of justice and the police were already making formal inquiries among printers and publishers, exploring the possibilities for reorganizing the world of the printed word. The inadequacies of the system of police surveillance exposed in 1806 and 1807 led to action. By 1808 the imperial Council of State began holding

[100] Ibid., Report to the minister of police from Pierre-Edouard Lemontey, Joseph-Alphonse Esménard, Defauchery, and Charles-Joseph Lacretelle le jeune: the members of the "bureau de consultation" of the Division de la Liberté de la Presse (June 26, 1806).

[101] Peignot, Essai historique sur la liberté d'écrire, 155–158.

[102] For the number of works deposited per year at the dépôt légal between 1801 and 1809, see Bellos, "Conjoncture de la production," 554. For extant records of books submitted for inspection at the Paris Prefecture of Police, see AN, ser. F18, carton 40.

regular meetings with the emperor to discuss the situation and present proposals for a forthcoming règlement .^[103] In the same year, a draft of an imperial decree proposing that "a new Administration of the Book Trade be immediately organized" was circulated informally within the publishing world.^[104] The Lyon publisher Jean-Marie Bruysset, recalling that he had "always enjoyed the favor of M. Malesherbes and M. Vidaud de La Tour, former directors-general of the Book Trade," made a bid for the directorship.^[105] The publisher Henri Agasse used the power of his presses to make Malesherbes's views on the regulation of the book trade widely available to the public. Numerous other Parisian publishers and printers, notably Jules-Gabriel Clousier fils aîné , Jean-Georges-Antoine Stoupe, B. Vincard, Louis Ravier, Joseph Fiévée, and François-Jean Baudouin, also circulated their views in print.^[106] They were joined by colleagues from the provinces, including Bruysset, Louis Jacob l'aîné in Orléans, and Pierre-Marie-Sebastien Catineau-LaRoche in Versailles.^[107] In 1810, the ministers of police and the interior received over twenty solicited and unsolicitied reports and proposals from printers and publishers, disclosing the views not only of Paris notables like François-Jean Baudouin, César Briand, Jacques-Denis Langlois, François Chaignieau, and François Buisson, but also of their brethren in Lyon, Orléans, Bordeaux, Carcassonne, and even Turin.^[108] Three concerns emerge

[103] Jean-Guillaume Locre de Roissy, ed., Discussions sur la liberté de la presse, la censure, la propriété littéraire, l'imprimerie et la librairie qui ont eu lieu dans le conseil d'état pendant les années 1808, 1809, 1810 et 1811 (Paris: Garnery & Nicolle, 1819).

[104] AN, ser. F18, carton 565, Letter from Barthélemy, homme de lettres in Lyon, to M. Cretel, minister of the interior, proposing that the Lyon publisher Bruysset be made director of the new Administration of the Book Trade, June 10, 1808. See also AN, ser. F18, carton 39, Proposal from a former royal censor, Raupt-Bapstein, for the formation of a new college of censors, September 15, 1808.

[105] AN, ser. F18, carton 565, Letter from Barthélemy.

[106] Jules-Gabriel Clousier fils aîné, Notes sur l'imprimerie, la librairie et la fonderie des caractères d'impression (Paris, [1801]); Stoupe, Mémoire sur le rétablissement de la communauté des imprimeurs de Paris; Ravier, Répertoire de librairie; B. Vincard, Projet sur l'organisation de la librairie, discuté par la majeure partie des imprimeurs et des libraires, et par les hommes de lettres, censeurs, etc. . . . soumis aux membres du Conseil d'Etat (Paris, [1809]); Joseph Fiévée, Observations et projet de décret sur l'imprimerie et la librairie (Paris: Imprimerie Impériale, 1809); and François-Jean Baudouin, Esquisse d'un projet de règlement pour l'imprimerie, la librairie et autres professions relatives, rédigée d'après les lois anciennes et nouvelles (Paris, 1810).

[107] Jean-Marie Bruysset, Caractères de la propriété littéraire (Lyon, [1808]); Jacob, ldées générales sur les causes de l'anéantissement de l'imprimerie; and Catineau-LaRoche, Réflexions sur la librairie .

[108] See AN, ser. F18, carton 11a, plaque 1, Reports from Raymond, a printing shop foreman in Paris, from April 26, May 8, 15, and 17, June 5, 12, and 14, July 14, September 29, October 14, December 2 and 10, 1810, and January 5, 1811; AN, ser. F18, carton 39, Letter from Jean-Antoine-Guillaume Bailleul, Paris printer-publisher, January 2, 1810; AN, ser. F18, carton 11a, plaque 1, Letters from François Chaignieau, printer in Paris, January 4, 1810; Joseph-Gaspar Gillé, printer in Paris, January 11, 1810; Pierre Plassan, printer-publisher in Paris, January 28, 1810; François Buisson, publisher in Paris, February 24, 1810; Jacques-Denis Langlois, printer-publisher in Paris, February 27, 1810; François-Jean Baudouin, Paris printer, March 19, 1810; Pierre-César Briand, publisher in Paris, April 2, 1810; Anonymous report on printers in the departments, received April 16, 1810; Letters from Antoine Chambon, printer in Paris, April 27, 1810; Joudou, printer for the prefecture of the department of the Aube, Carcassonne, May 7 and 28, 1810; Pierre Michel Lamy, publisher in Paris, May 8 and 24, 1810; Louis Jacob, printer in Orléans, May 22 and June 14 and 22, 1810; Castillon, printer in Bordeaux, June 28, 1810; Toscanelli, publisher in Turin, July 18, 1810; Théodore Demaison, Paris printer, July 27 and October 14, 1810; Pierre-Marie Bruysset, publisher in Lyon, September 26 and October, 1810.

repeatedly from these reports: (1) the need for greater surveillance and protection against pirate editions, (2) the need to regulate the commercial exploitation of works in the public domain, and (3) the need to restrict the number of printers in order to insure adequate employment.^[109]

The declaration of the rights of genius of July 19, 1793, comprised a single title and a mere seven articles;^[110] it was a legislative act, emanating from the committees of the National Convention. In 1810, a new imperial Administration of the Book Trade was laid into place by executive order. On February 5, the emperor's Council of State promulgated a "regulation of the printing and book trades" comprising eight separate titles and forty-eight articles.^[111] The genius of the regulation of 1810 lay in its synthesis of the political needs of the imperial state and the commercial interests of the major publishers and printers into one coherent administrative vision. Title one of the regulation established a "General Direction," with a director and six auditors, under the minister of the

[109] For testimony on the need to limit printers, see AN, ser. F18, carton 11a, plaque 1, Reports from Jacques-Denis Langlois, printer-publisher in Paris; François Baudouin, printer in Paris, and Théodore Demaison, printer in Paris; Anonymous report on departmental printers of April 16, 1810; Reports of Joudou, printer in Carcassonne; Pierre-Michel Lamy, printer in Paris; Louis Jacob, printer in Orléans; Toscanelli, publisher in Turin; and Jean-Marie Bruysset, publisher in Lyon.

[110] AN, ser. F18, carton 1, "Décret de la Convention nationale du 19 juillet 1793, l'an 2 de la République Française, relatif au droit c \a propriété des auteurs."

[111] Ibid., "Bulletin des Lois, no. 264: Décret impérial contenant le règlement sur l'imprimerie et la librairie . . ., 5 février 1810." The following summary quotes from this seven-page document.

interior. Title two limited the number of printers in Paris to sixty (extended shortly thereafter to eighty), each required to possess a minimum of four presses. Suppressed printers were to receive an indemnity. When a printer died, preference would be given to his or her family in selecting a successor. Title three outlawed the printing or publication of anythiug that questioned the duty of "subjects toward the sovereign, or the interest of the state." Prepublication censorship was reimposed: publication of any work, whether new or a re-release in either the private or the public domain, required permission of the General Direction. Title four required all publishers and booksellers to be licensed independently of printers. All new publishers and booksellers, furthermore, had to provide proof of their "clean living and good morals, as well as their attachment to the fatherland and the sovereign." Title five concerned the importation of foreign books: it required all imported books to be registered with the prefects in the border departments and approved by the General Direction and a tariff to be imposed on all imported French and Latin books. Title six revised the laws on literary property, extending private claims on a text to the life of the author, his widow, and their children for twenty years after their deaths. Title seven authorized the formation of a corps of inspectors of the book trade and officers of the police and customs to enforce the regulation. Finally, title eight established a dépôt at the Prefecture of Police, in Paris and every other department, with publishers required to deposit five copies of any work they intended to publish. It was then the prefect's responsibility to send one copy to the dépôt at the Bibliothèque Nationale.

The structure, services, personnel, and finances of the new imperial General Direction of the Printing and Book Trades in 1810 can be diagrammed (figures 8–9, tables 4–5). As these figures make clear, the priorities of the new administration, in terms of the commitment of both money and personnel, lay in surveillance rather than censorship. Whereas censorship was episodic and half-hearted throughout the Napoleonic period,^[112] implementation of the decrees of February 5, 1810, mobilized a small army of Napoleonic inspectors and prefects to produce a massive census of every single printer, publisher, bookseller, manufacturer of printing types, colporteur, and keeper of a cabinet de lecture in the entire empire. Thus, an announcement in the newly

[112] See Victor Coffin, "Censorship under Napoleon I," American Historical Review 22 (1916–1917): 291.

Figure 8.
The Imperial Administration of the Book Trade: Administrative Organization, 1810
Source: AN, ser. F4, cartons 2572–2573, doss. 1–2; and BN, nouv. acq. fr. 1362, feuilles 63–64.

founded Journal de la librairie informed the publishers and book dealers of Paris on July 2, 1811, that they were to report in person immediately to the secretariat of the Direction of the Book Trade to declare their intention to continue their businesses.^[113] The fruits of these censuses are still, in large part, extant in the Archives Nationales.^[114] According to the

[113] See Journal de la librairie 1, no. 31 (July 2, 1811): 256.

[114] AN, ser. F18, carton 25, contains the surveys of printers, publishers, and booksellers in every department and city in France, and some material for the "reunited departments." It also contains specific surveys for Paris. Additional material for Paris may be found in AN, ser. F18, carton 10a, plaque 2, doss. xxv, "Préfecture de Police, Paris: Etat des imprimeurs qui se sont conformés aux dispositions de l'article XI du décret impérial du 5 février 1810 en présentant à la Préfecture de Police un livret pour être côté et paragraphé," April 4, 1810. For the organization of the survey procedure, see AN, ser. F18, carton 11a, plaque 1, Report from Delaubépie, inspector in Paris, March 26, 1810; and AN, ser. F18, carton 10a, plaque 2, doss. xxxiv, Request for surveys by the Direction, December 6, 1810.

Figure 9.
The Six Arrondissements of the Paris Inspectors of the Book Trade, 1810–1811.
Source: AN, ser. F4, cartons 2572–2573, doss. 1–2; and BN, nouv. acq. fr. 1362, feuilles 63–64.

results for Paris, in 1810 there were 157 printers and 588 publishers and booksellers in the capital prior to implementation of the new decrees; thereafter, the number of printers in Paris was halved and every bookseller and publisher in Paris either licensed or suppressed.

Paris was assigned special inspectors of the book and printing trades. The city was divided into six arrondissements of inspection, with one man assigned to each.^[115] The inspectors were ordered to conduct vigilant

[115] AN, ser. F4, carton 2572, doss. 1, "Etat nominatif des inspecteurs de la librairie à Paris . . ., 1810." For the creation of their arrondissements, see BN, nouv. acq. fr. 1362, feuilles 63–64, "Lettres et ordres de service de [FrançoisRené-Jean] général baron de Pommereul, directeur général de la librairie et imprimerie, adressés à Gaudefroy, inspecteur de la librairie à Paris, 1810–1814."

surveillance, "not only of the printing, publishing, and bookselling trades, but also of all the professions that service them, such as binders, folders, type founders, press manufacturers, engravers and print dealers, colporteurs, reading rooms, etc.," and every inspector was to keep an exact log of every visit he made and to submit a written report every Monday morning to the director general.^[116]

The General Direction of the Book Trade intended to monitor not only every printer, publisher, and bookseller in the entire empire, but also every piece of printed matter. All printed goods in general commerce at the moment of the regulation had to be registered and stamped.^[117] Every new publication had to be submitted for a récipissé at the Prefecture of Police—a certificate that served as a legal proof of registration and, in effect, a permission to sell the work.^[118] Every new edition or reedition, and even new press runs, had to be declared and permissions granted. The Direction of the Book Trade also established a national Journal de l'imprimerie et de la librairie to announce all legal works "in print,"^[119] with new works to be announced separately from new editions of works in the public domain.^[120] The new regime had begun. And it was a new regime based on surveillance rather than censorship as the chief preventative mechanism of cultural control.

The regulation of 1810 reshaped the social as well as the civic dimensions of print culture. On April 27, 1810, the newly formed General Direction received an appeal from the Paris printer Antoine Chambon. Chambon described himself in the following terms:

[116] BN, nouv. acq. fr. 1362, feuilles 31–32, "Lettres et ordres de service du général baron de Pommereul."

[117] AN, ser. F18, carton 1, "Bulletin des lois, no. 264: Décret impérial contenant le règlement sur l'imprimerie et la librairie . . ., 5 février 1810," 2.

[118] AN, ser. F18, carton 40, Instructions from the Director General to "MM. les imprimeurs de Paris," [1810]. He writes, "Some printers are referring to this récipissé as a permission . This is not an abuse of words."

[119] AN, ser. F18, carton 10a, plaque 2, "Copie de la circulaire de monsieur le directeur général, concernant le journal du Sr. Pillet, aux inspecteurs de la librairie aux départements," November 27, 1810.

[120] AN, ser. F18, carton 40, Letter from FrançoisRené-Jean, baron de Pommereul, director general, to the minister of police, January 19, 1811.

I have been a printer since the age of twelve; I was a printing-shop worker until 1780 when I became a book dealer, with nothing but the fruits of my savings. I continued this trade until 1790 when, following the example of so many others, I took advantage of the declaration of unlimited freedom of the press across France to return to my original profession. . . . I used every resource I had to establish a little printing shop composed of two presses. . . . It has been my source of livelihood to this day.

Chambon was now to be driven from his chosen profession by the new requirement that all printers have at least four presses. And he had a theory as to why these criteria had been imposed:

For a while now a certain number of agitators, among whom there are a few who enjoy a reputation for rectitude, but many of whom are crippled by debts or dishonored by fraudulent bankruptcies . . ., have been knocking at every door soliciting a regulation of this trade. There is no doubt that the decrees of February 5 are the result of the shady dealings and manipulations of this group. . . . Perhaps these greedy men hope to receive jobs in this new administration . . . in order to pay off their debts and restore their honor.^[121]

Chambon was an acute observer of his community and its fate. The regulation of 1810 was designed by and for the older and larger printing establishments of Paris and the departments. In exchange for a restricted monopoly, they agreed to surveillance. It was the Baudouins and the Agasses, not the Chambons, who would benefit from the Napoleonic system, as they had from the Old Regime. Indeed, at least one-third of the eighty Paris printers retained in 1810 were from families of the old Paris Book Guild.^[122] Lineage counted for something. Yet as the suppression of the Paris printer Demoraine, "printer from father to son for over one hundred years," makes clear, the new regulation did not represent a simple victory of the "old" printers over the "new," but of the bigger and wealthier printers over the smaller ones.^[123]

The regulation was intended to have similar consequences for the publishing world. While taking every step to eradicate all but official journals and ephemeral literature, the General Direction did everything

[121] AN, ser. F18, carton 11a, plaque 1, Report from Antoine Chambon, printer in Paris, April 27, 1810.

[122] See chapter 5.

[123] AN, ser. BB16, carton 772, doss. 4543, Letter from Jean-Baptiste Demoraine, printer in Paris, to the minister of justice, February 8, 1811, protesting his suppression after the implementation of the regulation of 1810, which limited the number of printers in the city to eighty.

possible to restore and improve the commercial viability of book publishing. The regulation significantly extended the duration of private claims on texts, from ten years after the author's death to twenty years after the death of the author and his wife. The commercial value of a writer's work was thus significantly enhanced. The value of publishers' portfolios would increase as a consequence, while the rate at which they would need to replenish their portfolios would diminish. The incessant quest for nouveautés would therefore become less of a commercial imperative. And in exchange for political cooperation with the regime, publishers enjoyed police surveillance and protection of their property from literary piracy.

Even more importantly, the General Direction took significant steps to insure that publishers could fruitfully exploit the public domain, first by requiring registration of all editions of works and, second, by reserving the power to grant, deny, or delay permissions to publish; this made it possible to regulate the number and kinds of editions of a given text on the market at a given moment. With the publication of the Journal de l'imprimerie et de la librairie , publishers themselves for the first time gained an effective means to operate strategically in the public domain. In exchange for the services the government provided in regulating the public domain, publishers and printers paid a per-page fee to the General Direction for all editions they produced of those common works.^[124] This tax single-handedly financed the new administration. The era of the cutthroat free market in common ideas was over.

Assured of sales, works already established as classics now appeared more commercially attractive to publishers than new books. The regulation of 1810 thus marked a victory for the big printers and publishers of lengthy works over the little printers and dealers in ephemeral and periodical literature. The first, but short-lived, head of the Direction of the Book Trade, the comte de Portalis, announced in an early official bulletin: "By recovering a more tranquil course . . . and leaving behind the rebellious, aggressive, and angry tone that it acquired in the past century, the book trade will change its complexion. It will become a commerce in books for libraries and instruction, and cease to be one of

[124] AN, ser. F18, carton 1, "Bulletin des Lois, no. 366," decree of April 29, 1811. See also BN, nouv. acq. fr. 1352, feuille 44, Letter from Pommereul, general director of the book trade, to the Paris inspector Gaudefroy.

seditious pamphlets."^[125] The civilization of "the book" re-eclipsed the revolution of "the press(es)."

Significantly, the next director of the book trade, FrançoisRené-Jean, baron de Pommereul, referred to the tax on publishers as a "dowry" paid to the administration in exchange for the right to reproduce texts in the common domain.^[126] And indeed, the new cultural regime instituted through the decrees of 1810 was a marriage of state regulation and the commercial market, a reshaping through the social metaphor of a family rather than the political metaphor of a republic of citizens. The author, consecrated in 1793 as a civic hero of public enlightenment, now saw the legal lineage of his or her textual property extended not according to political and civic ideals, but along biological and familial lines: a remaining spouse and children replaced the nation as the author's immediate heirs, and authorial legal identity began its course toward reprivatization. Analogically, the relationship between the state and the commerical publishing world was reconfigured within the family metaphor as well: the father/publisher was to offer a "dowry" in the form of a per-page, per-edition tax to the Direction of the Book Trade to insure administrative protection of his daughter/commodity and the reproduction of a national cultural lineage through the printed book. If under the Republic state patronage had advanced philos as a cultural ideal in an effort to temper the eros of the commercial market, now the paterfamilias would serve as the organizing principle for the public transmission of ideas.

[125] Comte de Portalis, Bulletin, no. 268, Announcement from the director of the Administration of the Book Trade (1810); cited in Charles Thuriot, "Documents relatifs à l'exécution du décret du 5 février 1810," Revue critique d'histoire et de littérature, nos. 43–49 (1871): 340.

[126] Ibid.