drawn up by the Commissary of Police, to the effect that he
proposed to strike off 1500 copies, and that he had already printed
2000.

From another quarter I have been informed that, although no deposit has
been made at the office for the regulation of printing, several hundred
copies have been despatched this morning before nine o'clock, from the
residence of M. Le Normant, and sent to you, and to various booksellers;
that other copies have been sold by M. Le Normant at his own house, for
the price of four francs; and two of these last copies were in my hands
this morning by half-past eight o'clock.

I have considered it my duty not to allow this infraction of the law,
and to interdict the sale of a work thus clandestinely and illegally
published; I have therefore ordered its seizure, in conformity with
Articles 14 and 15 of the Law of the 21st of October, 1814.

No one in France, my Lord Viscount, is above the law; the Peers would be
offended, on just grounds, if I thought they could set up such a
pretension. Still less would they assume that the works which they feel
disposed to publish and sell as private individuals and men of letters,
when they wish to honour the literary profession with their labours,
should enjoy exclusive privileges; and if these works are submitted to
public criticism in common with those of other writers, they are not in
any respect liberated from the control of justice, or the supervision of
the Police, whose duty it is to take care that the laws, which are
equally binding upon all classes of society, should be executed with
equal impartiality.

I must also observe, in addition, that it was at the residence and
printing-office of M. Le Normant, who is not a Peer of France, that the
order constitutionally issued for the seizure of a work published by him
in contravention to the law, was carried into effect; that the execution
of the order had been completed when you presented yourself; and upon
your declaration that you would not suffer your work to be taken away,
the workmen broke the seals that had been affixed on some articles, and
placed themselves in open rebellion against the King's authority. It can
scarcely have escaped you, that by invoking that august name they have
been guilty of a crime of which, no doubt, they did not perceive the
extent; and to which they could not have been led, had they been more
impressed with the respect due to the act of the King and his
representatives