Note 260 — Chapter I · (continued 2)

‘La presse jouissait d'une entière liberté pendant les troubles de la Fronde, et le public prenait un tel intérêt aux débats politiques, que les pamphlets se débitaient quelquefois au nombre de huit et dix mille exemplaires.’ Sainte–Aulaire, Hist. de la Fronde, vol. i. p. 299. Tallemant des Réaux, who wrote immediately after the Fronde, says (Historiettes, vol. iv. p. 74), ‘Durant la Fronde, qu'on imprimoit tout.’ And Omer Talon, with the indignation natural to a magistrate, mentions, that in 1649, ‘toutes sortes de libelles et de diffamations se publioient hautement par la ville sans permission du magistrat.’ Mém. d'Omer Talon, vol. ii. p. 466. For further evidence of the great importance of the press in France in the middle of the seventeenth century, see Mém. de Lenet, vol. i. p. 162; Mém. de Motteville, vol. iii. pp. 288, 289; Lettres de Patin, vol. i. p. 432, vol. ii. p. 517; Monteil, Hist. des divers Etats, vol. vii. p. 175.

In England, the Long Parliament succeeded to the licensing authority of the Star-chamber (Blackstone's Commentaries, vol. iv. p. 152); but it is evident from the literature of that time, that for a considerable period the power was in reality in abeyance. Both parties attacked each other freely through the press; and it is said that between the breaking out of the civil war and the restoration, there were published from 30,000 to 50,000 pamphlets. Morgan's Phœnix Britannicus, 1731, 4to. pp. iii. 557; Carlyle's Cromwell, vol. i. p. 4; Southey's Commonplace Book, third series, p. 449. See also on this great movement of the press, Bates's Account of the Late Troubles, part i. p. 78; Bulstrode's Memoirs, p. 4; Howell's Letters, p. 354; Hunt's Hist. of Newspapers, vol. i. p. 45; Clarendon's Hist. of the Rebellion, p. 81; Nichols's Lit. Anec. vol. iv. pp. 86, 102.