This paragraph was nothing more nor less than a threat, which translated itself into a Bill presented to the Chamber under the title of Projet de loi sur la police de la presse. The reading of this Act was interrupted by the Opposition a score of times and ended in a scene of terrible agitation. Casimir Périer jumped up from his seat, exclaiming—
"You might just as well bring forward a Bill consisting of the single clause, 'Printing is suppressed in France to the benefit of Belgium'!"
M. de Chateaubriand called this law a law of Vandalism. And to the outcry in the capital, the whole of France responded, sending joint and separate petitions to implore the Chamber to reject the Bill as destructive of all public liberties, disastrous to commerce and an attack on the sacred rights of property. In the midst of that terrible manifestation which, in 1827, predicted the armed opposition of 1830, the Moniteur had either the cleverness or the perfidiousness—one never can quite fathom the Moniteur's real sentiments—to insert in an article in favour of the law the phrase characterising it as a law of justice and of love. Oh! what an opportunity this gave for the weapon of sarcasm, always powerful in France! It fastened upon this phrase and used it as a weapon with which, on every possible occasion, to prick the heart of M. de Peyronnet. Everybody exclaimed against this Act, even the Academy itself. It was M. de Lacretelle who ventured to take the hazardous and difficult step of attempting to awake the Forty Immortals in their chairs. He read a rousing discourse to them on 4 January, on the disadvantages of the projected law, and the fetters it would put upon thought; he repudiated this fresh Censorship, which was to make printers judges of authors, and demanded that the Academy should make use of its prerogative and petition the king to accede to the entreaties of the Forty by withdrawing the Bill. After an hour's discussion, it was decided almost unanimously that this petition should be presented to the king, and MM. de Chateaubriand, Lacretelle and Villemain were deputed to draw it up. On 21 January, the following notice appeared in the Moniteur:—
"ART. I. The appointment of Sieur Villemain, maître des requêtes to the Council of State, is revoked.."
Then, lower down:—
"By order of the King, M. Michaud of the French Academy will no longer be one of His Majesty's readers.
"By command of His Excellency the Minister of the Interior, dated to-day, M. de Lacretelle has been dismissed from the post of Dramatic Censor."
This persecution was received by a burst of indignation against the Government and with demonstrative sympathy towards the victims of Ministerial cruelty. Finally, the chorus of opposition rose to such a threatening pitch that the Government grew frightened and withdrew on 18 April the Act that it had introduced on 29 November. A furore of delight then broke out in Paris: houses poured forth their inhabitants into the streets, and every face glowed with joy; hands were held out in greeting, and journeymen printers ran through the boulevards shouting, "Vive le roi!" waving white flags; and a general illumination took place all over Paris that night. But the mortified Government sent out troops, shots were fired and wounds received, and the withdrawal of the famous loi de justice et d'amour should be accredited not to the king's intelligence, but to his fear.
When Charles X.—poor, blind, deaf monarch—believing that the enthusiasm aroused by his accession to the throne would last for ever, commanded a review of the National Guard to be held on 29 April, on the Champ de Mars, he heard, to his vast surprise, mingled with those cries of "Vive le roi!" with which sovereigns are intoxicated, and thrill on their thrones, the bitter and raucous cries of "A bas les ministres!" and "A bas les Jésuits!" These cries came particularly from the ranks of the second, third, fifth, seventh and eighth legions, those, namely, belonging to the financial aristocracy and the lower middle classes. Astounded by such a reception, Charles X. drew up for an instant; then, spurring his horse to the front ranks of the legion that had uttered the bitterest of these invectives, he exclaimed—
"Messieurs, I have come here to receive homage and not lectures."
Alas! the kings of 1827, like those of 1848, should have known that homage blinds and lectures enlighten.