| Play from beginning |
| 00:00:05 | In most countries
on the continent |
| 00:00:08 | There were princes,
they were absolute regimes, |
| 00:00:13 | The degree of absolutism was
relative to a particular setting, |
| 00:00:17 | But If you take France as the most important
central, most populace country, |
| 00:00:22 | you had a very elaborate system of
censorship, but in addition to that, |
| 00:00:27 | you had a monopoly of production
in the bookseller's guild in Paris, |
| 00:00:32 | it had police powers |
| 00:00:34 | and then the police itself had
specialised inspectors of the book trade |
| 00:00:38 | so you put all of that together |
| 00:00:40 | and the state was very powerful
in its attempt to control the printed word. |
| 00:00:45 | By the time you time you get
to the age of the Enlightenment |
| 00:00:48 | there's a highly organised
administration of the book trade, |
| 00:00:53 | so in principle anything that appears in print
has to pass the censorship |
| 00:00:58 | and be registered, |
| 00:01:01 | to go through an elaborate process, |
| 00:01:03 | and of course this didn't work |
| 00:01:06 | that the directions set, |
| 00:01:10 | the organisation set up
by the state was so elaborate, |
| 00:01:16 | so baroque in its bureaucracy |
| 00:01:18 | that in a sense it was
counterproductive. |
| 00:01:21 | Censorship, you know, |
| 00:01:23 | varies from regime to regime. |
| 00:01:26 | We think we know
what censorship is, |
| 00:01:27 | but i would argue that it's a
different thing under different systems, |
| 00:01:34 | so the basic idea of censorship
in 18th century france |
| 00:01:38 | is the concept of privilege
or private law, |
| 00:01:40 | a publisher gets the right to publish
a particular text |
| 00:01:44 | that is denied to others, |
| 00:01:46 | so he has that privilege. |
| 00:01:48 | that's different from censorship
under stalin, say, or hitler |
| 00:01:52 | There is a monopoly of what's called
the booksellers guild of paris. |
| 00:02:00 | it has police power; |
| 00:02:02 | its syndics and aguane are
obliged to inspect |
| 00:02:09 | all of the printing houses in paris |
| 00:02:12 | and printers are officially limited
to 36 printing shops. |
| 00:02:17 | And so the guild is supposed to go
around from shop to shop |
| 00:02:20 | and find out what
they're printing, |
| 00:02:22 | make sure there are no illegal
books being printed. |
| 00:02:25 | No books that
contravene privileges |
| 00:02:29 | the equivalent of copyright in a sense etc.
So yes they have powers |
| 00:02:35 | and they also inspect every single book
which is shipped into paris. |
| 00:02:38 | the books are stopped at the wall
which surrounds paris |
| 00:02:42 | and any ship which is
marked 'libri' books |
| 00:02:46 | is sent to a special
large hall |
| 00:02:51 | where the booksellers guild and inspector
of police will inspect it. |
| 00:02:54 | Essentially what you have |
| 00:02:57 | is a centralised administration for
controlling the book trade |
| 00:03:02 | using censorship and
also using the monopoly |
| 00:03:06 | of the established publishers |
| 00:03:08 | against that you've got
publishing houses, |
| 00:03:11 | print presses that
surround france |
| 00:03:14 | in what i call a
'fertile crescent' |
| 00:03:16 | dozens and dozens of them producing
books which are smuggled |
| 00:03:20 | across the french borders |
| 00:03:22 | and distributed everywhere in the kingdom
by an underground system, |
| 00:03:25 | so in effect you've got two systems
at war with one another. |
| 00:03:30 | And it's the system of production
outside france |
| 00:03:34 | that is crucial for the
enlightenment, |
| 00:03:37 | virtually all of the works that we associate
with the french enlightenment |
| 00:03:41 | are published in Amsterdam,
in the Hague, |
| 00:03:44 | in Brussels in Geneva,
in Neuchatel, in Basel |
| 00:03:48 | these are the places where
Rosseau, Voltaire |
| 00:03:51 | and company get
themselves printed, |
| 00:03:54 | but these printers also
produce other things |
| 00:03:57 | because they're in it not simply
to spread enlightenment, |
| 00:04:01 | many of them are sympathetic
to the enlightenment |
| 00:04:05 | they're in it to make money. So
they will satisfy demand, |
| 00:04:09 | whatever the demand might be... |
| 00:04:11 | the pirates had agents in paris |
| 00:04:14 | and everywhere else, who were sending
them sheets of new books |
| 00:04:17 | which they think will sell well, |
| 00:04:19 | the pirates are systematically
doing market research |
| 00:04:25 | in hundreds and thousands of letters,
they are sounding the market, |
| 00:04:33 | they want to know
what demand is |
| 00:04:35 | the reaction of publishers at the centre
is of course extremely hostile, |
| 00:04:41 | I've read a lot of their letters; |
| 00:04:43 | they're full of expressions
like buccaneer |
| 00:04:46 | and private and people without
shame or morality etc. |
| 00:04:51 | in actual fact many of these pirates
were good bourgeois, |
| 00:04:56 | in Lausanne or, Geneva
or, Amsterdam |
| 00:04:59 | and they thought, that they were
just 'doing business'. |
| 00:05:03 | after all there was no
international copyright law |
| 00:05:07 | and they were satisfying demand.
If the demand hapend to be in france |
| 00:05:11 | well, that's a problem
for the french, |
| 00:05:13 | but not for the
dutch or the swiss |
| 00:05:15 | I must admit,
I always hesitate |
| 00:05:18 | to pronounce on
world historical trends. |
| 00:05:21 | But i've spend a lot
of time in the archives |
| 00:05:25 | and you can at least
glimpse something, |
| 00:05:28 | that might look world
historical from time to time, |
| 00:05:31 | as you go through
various bits of old paper. |
| 00:05:34 | What is clear is that
during the 18th century |
| 00:05:38 | that the printed word as a
force is expanding everywhere |
| 00:05:43 | and we can go into a
lots of detailed studies |
| 00:05:46 | to find out why an
how that this happened |
| 00:05:49 | The population is increasing, the
educational institutions are spreading, |
| 00:05:54 | literacy is going up and there is this
new thing we call 'public opinion'. |
| 00:06:00 | The phrase itself is first used in
the middle of the 18th century, |
| 00:06:03 | I think the phenomenon
existed earlier, |
| 00:06:06 | but for the last half
of the 18th century |
| 00:06:09 | there is a public that is
fascinated with public affairs, |
| 00:06:14 | now the mechanism
for controlling the media |
| 00:06:18 | if you want to use that expression
notably the print media |
| 00:06:21 | is simply not adequate to
controlling this demand. |
| 00:06:25 | So everywhere around france,
even within france, |
| 00:06:30 | there are entrepreneurs who take it
upon themselves to satisfy this demand |
| 00:06:36 | and this can be in the form of clandestine manuscript newsletters, |
| 00:06:40 | it can be in a form of fully printed
books and there are many other forms |
| 00:06:46 | the one that I find most
interesting is songs. |
| 00:06:49 | It turns out that everyone in the
18th century, if you take paris, |
| 00:06:55 | had a repertory of tunes in his
or her had, as we do today. |
| 00:07:00 | most of my tunes come
from commercials actually |
| 00:07:03 | People would improvise |
| 00:07:06 | new words to old tunes,
everyday. |
| 00:07:10 | And these would be sung
in the streets of paris, |
| 00:07:14 | sometimes by professionals,
who had hurdy-gurdys |
| 00:07:18 | and would simply belt out the last
verse tune that everyone knew. |
| 00:07:24 | And it could be about
the kings mistress, |
| 00:07:27 | it could be about a minister
who is abusing power, |
| 00:07:30 | it could be on a whole variety
of quite political subjects. |
| 00:07:34 | This new verse is then picked up
because it is a great mnemonic device |
| 00:07:39 | and the song is been song throughout
the streets of paris. |
| 00:07:43 | I imagine the street of paris - it is just
echoing everywhere with songs. |
| 00:07:48 | So that is a good example of how
in the absence of news media |
| 00:07:54 | of proper newspaper, a new
kind of medium developed, |
| 00:08:01 | that actually does
the job of newspapers |
| 00:08:04 | I've studied hundreds of these songs and I would say, they were sung newspapers. |
| 00:08:10 | There's no way that an
absolutist political system |
| 00:08:15 | can totally suppress the
spread of information |
| 00:08:18 | new media adapt themselves
to these circumstances, |
| 00:08:22 | and often they can become even more
effective because of the repression. |
| 00:08:27 | It's a fascinating process
and it culminates frankly |
| 00:08:31 | right on the eve of the france
revolution, so that i would argue, |
| 00:08:35 | Not only did this new media system
spread the enlightenment |
| 00:08:39 | but, I won't use the word
'prepared', the way for the revolution |
| 00:08:42 | it indicted the old regim |
| 00:08:47 | that this power, public opinion,
became crucial |
| 00:08:51 | in the collapse of
the government 1787-1788. |
