The Public Sphere Reconsidered

From the perspective of the later sixteen-hundreds, we can see that France entered the century with a relatively open public sphere that was free from direct state control. This situation was not the consequence of any commitment to freedom of expression (although Henry IV had a notoriously relaxed attitude toward censorship).^[4] Before the 1630s the institutional means for comprehensive state control of the press and public political discourse simply did not exist. Even during the reign of Louis XIV, the government could not put a complete stop to the activities of the clandestine press.^[5] But over the course of the seventeenth century censorship capabilities improved greatly. Opportunities to publish opposition political views were largely eliminated. Effective competition with the government in this sphere became more difficult and dangerous. What remained of public political discourse was distorted and manipulated either directly by government action, or indirectly through eco-

[4] . Soman, "Press, Pulpit, and Censorship," 444.

[5] . The general line of development during Louis XIV's reign is elegantly summarized by Klaits, Printed Propaganda , 3-57. For the state of the press, see Lanette-Claverie, "Librarie française," 3-44. On censorship see Birn, "Book Production and Censorship," 145-171.

nomic incentives and psychological mechanisms.^[6] In addition to outright censorship, the public sphere was closed down through the granting, or withholding, of pensions and the formation of royal academies to privatize and otherwise restrict the expression of political ideas.

Throughout these developments, pamphlet campaigns were a focal point. High officials and leaders of political coalitions used pamphlets to win the support and cooperation of a broad spectrum of political interest groups.^[7] And it was necessary for these same leaders, in order to maintain the effectiveness of royal government generally, to be broadly perceived as exercising the king's authority legitimately.^[8] In its efforts to defeat challengers, the government had to mobilize favorable public opinion toward its ministers and their "official" policies.

Such policies gained momentum in the 1614-1617 conflict and continued to gather strength over the next two decades. From 1617 to 1621 the government of Louis XIII used similar strategies in its struggle against the exiled Marie de Médicis and French Protestants. A loose coalition of ministers, including Richelieu, gained control of Louis XIII's councils in 1625. At this point, there were new efforts by the king's council to increase the circulation of progovernment propaganda and to suppress publications by the political opposition. From 1626 to 1629 this group orchestrated a major military effort against Protestant autonomy, culminating in the seizure of La Rochelle.^[9] This campaign too was accompanied by ferocious pamphleteering on both sides.

Increasing concern over control of the public sphere extended much further than the psychology of individual ministers and was certainly part of a general reaction in France to the many campaigns during the years 1610-1629. Nonetheless, the ministry of Cardinal Richelieu was an important turning point, and Richelieu's particular obsessions and policies played a fundamental role in the post-1618 developments. It is worth recalling here the passage from Richelieu's Testament Politique , in which he claims that a ruler can do more through manipulating public opinion than through armies.^[10] Richelieu believed part of his mandate as a minister was to suppress all public political discussion that did not sup-

[6] . The psychology engendered by this artificial situation, and the writing strategies adopted to deal with it, has been explored by Ranum, Artisans of Glory , 103-277, and Marin, Récit est un piège , 15-34, and Portrait du Roi , 49-115.

[7] . On coalitions and control of the state, see Rule and Tilly, "1830 and the Unnatural History of Revolution," 49-77.

[8] . On power and legitimacy, see the classical view in Weber, Economy and Society , 1:30-40, 212-271. But cf. Habermas, "Hannah Arendt's Communicative Concept of Power," 3-24.

[9] . Parker, La Rochelle and the French Monarchy ; and Clarke, Huguenot Warrior , 136-180.

[10] . See chap. 1, n. 4.

port a stronger royal government within France and a stronger France in the world.

Long before he was fully in power in 1635, Richelieu worked from various positions in the king's council to shape the flow of public discourse.^[11] He was eventually able to curtail the pamphlet campaigns against his own administration and its policies and also to establish mechanisms for encouraging and sponsoring the publication of progovernment writings of all kinds. With his typical flair for administration and the skillful use of patronage, Richelieu made the existing organs of censorship and patronage more effective while putting new ones in place. By the mid-1630s antiadministration propaganda had been largely eliminated from France. In order to continue publishing, opposition pamphleteers such as Mathieu de Morgues had to flee the country.^[12]

Richelieu's efforts to control French and international public opinion with respect to the monarchy are remarkable above all for their comprehensiveness. Not content simply to censor critical writings and encourage favorable publications, he also sought to set up a system of privileges and monopolies through which to discipline loyal printers and put others out of business. He recruited skillful pamphleteers and gave them salaried positions. He then worked closely with them and supervised their efforts to publicize and popularize his policies. One of the more innovative features of this undertaking was Richelieu's supervision of the periodical press. In 1624 he helped to engineer a change of editorship for the Mercure françois , perhaps one of the most important political publications of the time, which presented, more or less annually, a remarkably candid and comprehensive narrative of political events in France and Europe. Although information about the circulation of the Mercure is hard to obtain, early volumes were popular enough to have been republished several times, even in pirated editions.^[13] The new editor of the Mercure françois was Père Joseph, one of Richelieu's closest collaborators and advisers, who used the Mercure to advocate Richelieu's foreign policy and to deflect criticism of his despotic control of the king s councils.^[14] In a similar way, Richelieu protected and controlled Theophraste Renaudot's

[11] . Church, Richelieu and Reason of State , 82-101, 495-513; Thuau, Raison d'état et pensée politique , 169-178; and Elliot, Richelieu and Olivares , 3, 47, 85.

[12] . On the career of de Morgues see Bailey, Writers against the Cardinal ; "Pamphlets de Mathieu de Morgues," 3-48; and "Pamphlets des associés polémistes de Mathieu de Morgues," 229-270.

[13] . The original editor and printer sued another printer for having had a pirated edition printed in Germany and sold in Paris; see B.N. Ms. fr. 22087, ff. 195-198. (See Introduction, n. 40.)

[14] . For Père Joseph's takeover of the Mercure , see Dedouvres, Le Père Joseph Polèmiste , and Fagniez's review of Dedouvres, "L'Opinion publique et la polémique," 442-484.

Gazette , a weekly news sheet of several pages that began to appear in 1631.^[15] In exchange for a legal monopoly on the trade, Renaudot obligingly printed material that was flattering to the cardinal and his policies as well as the king and his family.