Forty-two opposition or
"suspect" journals are silenced at one stroke, their stock plundered,
or their presses broken up ; three months after this, sixteen more
take their turn, and, in a year, eleven others ; the proprietors,
editors, publishers and contributors, among whom are La Harpe,
Fontanes, Fi?v?, Michaud and Lacretelle, a large body of honorable or
prominent writers, the four or five hundred men who compose the staff
of the profession, all condemned without trial to banishment,[80] or
to imprisonment, are arrested, take flight, conceal themselves, or
keep silent. The only voice now heard in France is the mega-phone of
the government.
Naturally, the faculty of voting is as restricted as the faculty of
writing, so that the victors of Fructidor, together with the right to
speak, now also monopolize the right of electing. - Right away the
government renewed the decree which the expiring Convention had
rendered against allies or relations of ?migr?s. moreover, it
excluded all relatives or supporters of the members of the primary
assemblies, and forbade the primary assemblies to choose any of these
for electors. Henceforth, all upright or even peaceful citizens
consider themselves as warned and stay at home.
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