Dans le Times du 7 septembre...

[José]

…1795 :

On This Day September 7, 1795

The reign of terror may be over but the Convention’s attitude to free speech is infuriating French journalists, The Times reports

The rigorous measures pursued by the Convention against several journalists, have rendered their fellow-writers still more bold and daring; they are incessantly fulminating against the arbitrary conduct of the Committees. “Nay,” exclaims one of them, “should that pen be wrested from my hand, and the tongue torn from my mouth, I will never cease to write and to assert, that we live under tyranny. Much is talked at the Tribune of the Convention, of the despotism of the English Government, and yet that Government has never attempted such acts of violence as we witness here. If the English Minister thinks proper to call in the aid of persecution, he openly declares it in Parliament, by demanding the temporary suspension of the Habeas Corpus Act. The Convention has declared Pitt to be the enemy of human kind, but what name is to be given to you, who are more cruel oppressors than ever he was? What would Europe say, if he misued his authority as Minister, to imprison such Editors of newspapers as are his opponents? Yet this is the case with us. As all descriptions of power are concentrated in the Committees, what recourse has liberty left, if opinions are to be put in trammels?”

“Whither are we going?” exclaims another journalist; “That Citizen, whoever he may be, is a tyrant, who first proposed the imprisonment of his fellow-citizens, for having written an insignificant page in a public print. Woe to jaundiced and envious beings, who, under the guidance of delirious fancy, mistake their chimerical apprehensions for public dangers.”

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/life_and_…icle2399673.ece