the Press Friedrich did not grant, in any quite Official or steady
way; but in practice, under him, it always had a kind of real
existence, though a fluctuating, ambiguous one. And we have to
note, through Friedrich's whole reign, a marked disinclination to
concern himself with Censorship, or the shackling of men's poor
tongues and pens; nothing but some officious report that there was
offence to Foreign Courts, or the chance of offence, in a poor
man's pamphlet, could induce Friedrich to interfere with him or
it,--and indeed his interference was generally against his
Ministers for having wrong informed him, and in favor of the poor
Pamphleteer appealing at the fountain-head. [Anonymous (Laveaux),
Vie de Frederic II., Roi de Prusse
(Strasbourg, 1787), iv. 82. A worthless, now nearly forgotten
Book; but competent on this point, if on any; Laveaux (a handy
fellow, fugitive Ex-Monk, with fugitive Ex-Nun attached) having
lived much at Berlin, always in the pamphleteering line.]
To the end of his life, disgusting Satires against him,
Vie Privee by Voltaire, Matinees du
Roi de Prusse, and still worse Lies and Nonsenses,
were freely sold at Berlin, and even bore to be printed there,
Friedrich saying nothing, caring nothing. He has been known to
burn Pamphlets publicly,--one Pamphlet we shall ourselves see on
fire yet;--but it was without the least hatred to them, and for
official reasons merely. To the last, he would answer his
reporting Ministers, "LE PRESSE EST LIBRE (Free press, you must
consider)!"--grandly reluctant to meddle with the press, or go
down upon the dogs barking at his door. Those ill effects of Free
Press (first stage of the ill effects) he endured in this manner;
but the good effects seem to have fallen below his expectation.
Friedrich's enthusiam for freedom of the press, prompt enough, as