This paragraph was nothing more nor less than a threat, which translated itself into a Bill presented to the Chamber under the title of _Projet de loi sur la police de la presse._ The reading of this Act was interrupted by the Opposition a score of times and ended in a scene of terrible agitation. Casimir Périer jumped up from his seat, exclaiming--
"You might just as well bring forward a Bill consisting of the single clause, 'Printing is suppressed in France to the benefit of Belgium'!"
M. de Chateaubriand called this law a _law of Vandalism._ And to the outcry in the capital, the whole of France responded, sending joint and separate petitions to implore the Chamber to reject the Bill as destructive of all public liberties, disastrous to commerce and an attack on the sacred rights of property. In the midst of that terrible manifestation which, in 1827, predicted the armed opposition of 1830, the _Moniteur_ had either the cleverness or the perfidiousness--one never can quite fathom the _Moniteur's_ real sentiments--to insert in an article in favour of the law the phrase characterising it as a _law of justice and of love._ Oh! what an opportunity this gave for the weapon of sarcasm, always powerful in France! It fastened upon this phrase and used it as a weapon with which, on every possible occasion, to prick the heart of M. de Peyronnet. Everybody exclaimed against this Act, even the Academy itself. It was M. de Lacretelle who ventured to take the hazardous and difficult step of attempting to awake the Forty Immortals in their chairs. He read a rousing discourse to them on 4 January, on the disadvantages of the projected law, and the fetters it would put upon thought; he repudiated this fresh Censorship, which was to make printers judges of authors, and demanded that the Academy should make use of its prerogative and petition the king to accede to the entreaties of the Forty by withdrawing the Bill. After an hour's discussion, it was decided almost unanimously that this petition should be presented to the king, and MM. de Chateaubriand, Lacretelle and Villemain were deputed to draw it up. On 21 January, the following notice appeared in the _Moniteur_:--
"ART. I. The appointment of Sieur Villemain, _maître des requêtes_ to the Council of State, is revoked..."