No. VIII.
Correspondence between the Viscount de Châteaubriand, the Count Decazes, Minister of General Police, and M. Dambray, Chancellor of France, on occasion of the seizure of 'Monarchy according to the Charter,' in consequence of an infraction of the laws and regulations relative to printing. September, 1816.
1. Official Report of the Seizure.
October 19th, 1816.
On the 18th of September, in execution of the warrant of his Excellency, dated on that day, authorizing the seizure of a work entitled, 'Of Monarchy according to the Charter,' by M. de Châteaubriand, printed by Le Normant, Rue de Seine, No. 8, and which work had been on sale without the deposit of five copies having been made at the office for the general regulation of the book-trade, I went, with Messrs. Joly and Dussiriez, peace-officers and inspectors, to the house of the abovenamed M. Le Normant, where we arrived before ten o'clock in the morning.
M. Le Normant admitted to us that he had given notice of the work of M. de Châteaubriand, but that he had not yet deposited the five copies. He affirmed that on the same morning, at nine o'clock, he had sent to the office for the general regulation of bookselling, but that he was told that the office was not open. Of this he produced no proof.
He admitted that he had printed two thousand copies of this work, intending to make a fresh declaration, the first having only been for fifteen hundred copies; that he had delivered several hundreds copies to the author; that, finally, he had transmitted others on sale to the principal booksellers of the Palais-Royal, Delaunay, Petit, and Fabre.
While I was drawing up a report of these facts and statements, M. de Wilminet, peace-officer, came in with an individual in whose hands he had seen, near the Bridge of the Arts, the work now in question, at the moment when the person, who says his name is Derosne, was looking over the title. M. Derosne has admitted that he bought it for four francs, on the same day, the 18th, at about nine and a half in the morning. This copy has been deposited in our hands, and M. Le Normant has reimbursed the cost to M. Derosne.
We seized, in the second warehouse on the first floor, thirty stitched copies which we added to that of M. Derosne. In the workshops on the ground-floor, I seized a considerable quantity of printed sheets of the same work, which M. Le Normant estimates at nine thousand sheets; and thirty-one printing-forms which had been used for printing these sheets.