Sur la liberté de la presse, imité de l'Anglois de Milton. Par le Comte de Mirabeau

1788-12-04 Paratext Forms: Epigraph, Notes, Postface, Preface Paratext Functions: Community-building, Text-activating French

Contributions

Honoré-Gabriel Riqueti, comte de Mirabeau

author

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Summary (extracted citations)

Epigraph: "Who Kills a man Kills a reasonable creature... but he who destroys a good book, Kills reason itself. Tuer un Homme, c'est détruire une Créature raisonnable; mais étouffer un bon Livre, c'est tuer la Raison elle-même". Footnote on title-page: "Le titre de ce morceau très-singulier, oú j'ai suivi de beaucoup plus près mon Auteur que ne voudront le croire ceux qui ne consulteront pas l'Original, et où j'ai plutôt retranché qu'ajouté; ce titre est Areopagitica". “It is at the moment when the King invites all the French to enlighten him on the fairest and wisest way of summoning the Nation… it is at this moment that, under the most scandalous inconsistency, the freedom of the press is being severely persecuted, in the Monarch’s name, with a more active and hypocritical inquisition than the most unbridled Ministerial despotism ever dared”. [Preface, p.3] “If Rome had preserved freedom of thought, she would never have been stigmatized by other nations: she would never have submitted to the yoke of those monsters who enslaved and debased her, if intellectual servitude had not prepared the way for political servitude”. [Insertion into main text on p.16] In a postscript on the final pages, Mirabeau cites the recent proclamation of the Paris Parliament from 5 December 1788, calling for, amongst other things, a free press: “.… & the profession of faith which it publishes, a true programme for the declaration of rights on which the new, public liberty must be founded, is finally exempt from all ambiguity… there is the flag which the nation must rally around; there is the branch of peace that must disperse all distrust and reunite all wishes… we will have a constitution, since the public spirit has made such progress, such conquests; we will have a constitution, perhaps even without a major civil disturbance, which, after all, is preferable to a bad legal system; we will have a constitution, and France will finally reach her ultimate destiny”. [pp.64-66]

Notes

Mirabeau's translation of Milton's text (pp.8-51) is embedded within his own plea for the liberty of the press in France and comparison of the situation drawn by Milton with contemporary France (pp.1-8 & 51-62; fn on p.29).

Minimal footnotes and some unattributed additions to main text (eg p.16).