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Note: This text has been automatically extracted via Optical Character Recognition (OCR) software. The text has not been manually corrected and should not be relied on to be an accurate representation of the item.
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permitted for the exercise of thought . Some celebrated men , however , passed these confined limits , and founded with success a publication , which , under another name , still lives with its old reputatation . The restoration , however little liberty it brought , gave the periodical press greater latitude . They who
imposed the Charter of 1814 , however ignorant of the wants of the age , well knew that their power was not strong enough to make us submit to the same yoke that Napoleon imposed . They determined to watch narrowly the extension of thought , to stop it whenever it went too far , to keep it continually under guardianship , but still to leave it unshackled . This
¦ was enough for the press j give it but the liberty of speakiug , and it well knows how to conquer fully and entirely . And it did conquer : it became allpowerful from the date of its existence ; when its enemies would have attacked it , 5 t was already strong ; it several times
broke its bonds ; and when at last they perceived that it had destroyed despotic principles , and had become , in its turn , the dictator , they made a last and decisive attempt to destroy it : the result of the struggle was the defeat of the monarchy , and the fall of the dynasty .
It was during these fifteen years of continual struggles that the periodical press of France may date its origin ; it is only since theu that it has understood its real position , and commenced its political destiny . The Constitutionnel was the first journal that became the opposition organ of the men who discovered the secret
intentions of the restored dynasty , with its old feelings of divine right and aristocratic prejudices . Its success was rapid . The national pride , wounded by the sight of foreign armies , who brought back to us a race almost forgotten ; the collision of numerous interests attached to the
empire ; the hatred of a domination imposed by force , and which every where endeavoured to revive the blind absurdities of the monarchy ; the popular instinct , so strong in France , which indicated to the mass , at last , that it had no sympathy with its new masters—soon swelled the rauks of this growing opposition . From that period the number of readers of the Constitutionnel have never
decreased , and the immense circulation of this paper has given it an opportunity of rendering services to liberty , the importance and reality of which it would be injustice to deny . We must , however , admit that this success was not always the success of its
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principles . Enclosed withiu the narrow limits of a systematic opposition , the Constitutionuel did not universally support those large and broad principles of liberty for which the editors , who for the most part had been brought up under the empire , possessed both the knowledge and skill . They may often be reproached with flattering prejudices and popular passions , and of lending themselves to the caprices of opinion , even
when they have been the most erroneous . Thus for a long time they encouraged the military pride that survived the empire , and which was even stronger after its fall ; at a later period , they carried their opposition to Jesuitism to the most ridiculous extreme , and highly applauded the ordinances of 1828 , which were , in fact , a violation of religious liberty , and the very worst fault of the Martignac ministry .
This flexibility of principle proves that this publication had not ouly for its object the circulation of its opinions , but that it was likewise a mercantile speculation ; that , besides the writers who directed the spirit of the journal , there were the merchants who caused it to follow every extreme of public opinion , whether right or wrong .
The 25 th of July displayed this fact to the world . Whilst the other journals set a shining and , to themselves , dangerous example of resistance to iniquitous and brute force , the Constitutionuel refused to join in their energetic protest . Nay , more , it abjured this act , which history
will proclaim as sublime - > it acknowledged the legitimacy of force ; it succumbed to the perjurer , and obtained by its cowardice permission to live . From this time many men of talent who had until theu lent the support of their pen to the Coustitutionnel , refused any louger to be associated with it . Several of those that
remained saved their character by signing as individuals the protest of the 27 th of July . The Constitutionnel , however , rallied with the glorious victory of liberty - y it proclaims itself now its firmest support , and attempts to take its share of the laurels without having incurred the dangers of the victory . At all times its course has been
somewhat constrained and embarrassed . Without those immoveable principles , which find their application in all circumstances , it knew not to what system to attach itself . It did not dare quit its old habits of opposition , and ally itself frankly with tjie government , because it feared to Compromise a fortune only acquired by
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398 Critical Notices . — Miscellaneous .
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Citation
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Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), June 2, 1831, page 398, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2598/page/38/
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