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The public expresses itself badly when it asks for a law to
accord or authorise the freedom of the press. It is not due
to a law that the citizens think, talk, write and publish
their thoughts: it is due to their natural rights; rights
which men have brought in association, and for the maintenance
of which they have established the law itself and all the
public means which serve it.
      The art of book printing could not have arisen other than
in a social state, that is true; but if the social state, while
facilitating to a man the invention of useful instruments,
extends the use of his freedom, then it is not that this or
that use could ever be regarded as a gift from the law. The
law is not a master who accords good deeds gratuitously; in
itself, freedom embraces all that does not belong to others;
the law is only there to impede that it gets lost; it is only
a protection mechanism [institution protectrice], formed by
this same freedom anterior to everything, and for which
everything exists in a social order.
      But at the same time, if one wants the law to protect
indeed the freedom of the citizen, it is necessary that it
knows how to repress the attacks which may be lodged against it.
Thus it has to mark in the naturally free acts of each
individual, the point beyond which they will become harmful
to the rights of others; there, it has to place signals, set
limits, forbid to pass them, and punish the bold one who
dares to disobey. These are the proper and guarding functions
of the law.
      The freedom of the press, like all freedoms, thus must
have its legal limits. Armed with this principle, we have started
with courage the work to which you have ordered us to devote
ourselves.
      First, we have had to begin by examining how published
works can harm the rights of others.
      We have had to specify these cases, to assess the severity
of their legal offence, and for each of them to fix its fine.