ach, a deputy
who never equivocated with his conscience or yielded to danger,
complained on this subject in the chamber: the opinion of the house
went along with him; and the government, pretending to yield to the
feeling of the deputies, presented a bill to the chambers through the
medium of M. de Montesquiou, which, instead of delivering the press
from its slavery, gave full establishment to the censorship, and
legalized the tyranny which had been exercised over the press by mere
force under the former government.

Benjamin Constant attacked the bill with vigour: the same side was
taken by the public journals, and by all public writers; but there was
no possibility of putting M. de Montesquiou out of countenance. It was
demonstrated to him that his law would wholly destroy the liberty of
the press. By holding the charter before his eyes, the advocates of
public rights proved that the charter only declared that the licence
of the press was to be restrained, and that his bill was therefore
radically unconstitutional, because the preliminary censorship was not
intended to restrain abuses, but to prevent their taking place.
Montesquiou answered gravely, that the persons with whom such
objections originated did not understand French; that the words
"_prevenir_" and "_reprimer_" were perfectly synonymous: and that the
bill, instead of being offensive or unconstitutional, contained a most
complete and a most liberal development of the clause in the charter.

This unparalleled endeavour of Montesquiou, who persuaded himself that
he could convince an assembly of Frenchmen that they did not
understand their own language, was justly considered by the chamber as
a matchless specimen of impudence and folly. Lexicographical
subtleties were employed with bitter mockery for the purpose of
destroying a public right, consecrated by the constitutional compact.
Never had insolence and bad faith been displayed so prominently:
Raynouard, the reporter of the committee, exclaimed in the language of
grief and indignation, "Minister of our King, confess, at least, that
your law is contrary to the constitution, since you cannot refute the
evidence adduced against it: your obstinacy in contesting such an
indisputable truth would not then inspire us with such just alarms."

The law was ultimately adopted by both chambers; ministerial influence
triumphed over reason, and rased the most important bulwark of the
rights guarantied to the nation. T