There is always a public Censorship, except during the first two or three months following the accession of princes to the throne, and the two or three months after they are deposed; but when these three months have elapsed, the Censorship reappears on the waters after its plunge, and proceeds to discover some minister, preferably of Liberal or even Republican tendencies, and to lay a snare for him.
When the Mariage de Figaro was running its course, M. Suard was censor, and he was also a journalist. He was one of those who had most bitterly opposed the representation of Beaumarchais' work, and he was largely responsible for the fifty-nine journeys—du marais à la police—that the illustrious author made without being able to obtain leave for his play to be performed.
At length, thanks to the intervention of the queen and the Comte d'Artois, the Folle Journée, recovered intact out of the claws of these gentlemen, was played on 27 April 1784. M. Suard was vindictive both in his capacity as censor and as a journalist; so that if he could not exercise the Censorship by the use of scissors, he had recourse to his pen. M. Suard was on very familiar terms with the Comte de Provence, and he served the Comte de Provence as a screen when His Royal Highness wished to give vent, incognito, to some petty literary spite. M. le Comte de Provence detested Beaumarchais almost as much as did M. Suard himself; the result was that the Comte de Provence hastened to unburden himself, by means of M. Suard, in the Journal de Paris, against the unfortunate Mariage de Figaro, which continued its successful run, in spite of M. Suard's signed articles or the anonymous articles of His Royal Highness. In the meantime, Beaumarchais handed over the sum of about thirty or forty thousand francs which he received as author's rights in the Mariage de Figaro to the association for helping poor foster-mothers.
Monsieur, who had not got a child (a less polite chronicler than myself would say who was incapable of begetting one), and who consequently, owing to his failing in this respect, had not much sympathy with foster-mothers, indulged himself, always under the cloak of anonymity, in attacking the man, after having attacked the play, and wrote a letter against him in the Journal de Paris, overflowing with venomous spleen. Beaumarchais, who thought he recognised this onslaught as from the hand of M. Suard, proceeded to lash the pedant soundly. As ill-luck would have it, it was His Royal Highness who received the tanning intended for the censor's hide. Monsieur, smarting under the stripes, went with the story of his grievances to Louis XVI., giving him to understand that Beaumarchais was perfectly well aware that he was not replying to the royal censor, but to the brother of the king. Louis XVI.; offended on behalf of Monsieur, commanded the citizen who dared to take the liberty of chastising a royal personage, regardless of his rank, to be arrested and taken to a house of correction—not to the Bastille, that prison being considered too good for such a worthless scamp; and as His Majesty was playing loo when he made this decision, it was on the back of a seven of spades that the order was written for Beaumarchais' arrest and his committal to Saint-Lazare.
Thus we see that, when Louis XVIII. had Magallon taken to Poissy, he remained faithful to Monsieur's traditions.
... Apropos of the Censorship, a good story of the present censor is going the rounds this 6th of June, 1851. We will inquire into it and, if it be true, we will relate it in the next chapter.
This excellent institution furnishes so many other instances of a like nature that its facts and achievements have to be registered regardless of chronological order, where and when one can, lest one run the risk of forgetting them, and that I would indeed be a sad pity!...
Revenons à nos moutons! our poor moutons shorn to the quick, like Sterne's lamb.
I have remarked that the year 1823 was the "year of trials"; let us see how it earned that name.