French government documents and political pamphlets

The largest part of this collection of printed matter is made up of censorship decrees issued by various government and ecclesiastical bodies between 1626 and 1789. Among those represented are: the Parlement of Paris; provincial Parlements; the king of France; the Conseil d'Etat du Roi; the Paris police (whose decrees were directed as much against the book trade as the individual author); the theological faculty at the Sorbonne; bishops, archbishops and the Pope (in decrees concerning France). Although most of the works falling under the ban are theological, there are also secular works of literature, history and philosophy in the list. Notable among them are the entire works of Voltaire (see the Arrest du Conseil d'Estat du Roy, 1785 Jun 3) and Helvetius' De l'Esprit, (banned in the papal decree of 1759 Jan 31).

The collection also includes a small amount of literature from the period of the French Revolution and some documents issued during the Napoleonic era. One Jugement dated 1792 Jan 24, has a holograph note on the last page reading: "Premier Jugement à mort par du Guillotine. Executé du Avril 1792." Three publications on Voltaire include two describing the ceremonies surrounding the removal of his body to the Pantheon in 1791 and a pamphlet (published in 1781) denouncing his writings to the Parlement of Paris.

The material was organized and annotated by Jeffrey Merrick in 1978.

The papers are divided into two series. Series I contains censorship decrees (1626-1789). Series II is a small collection of political pamphlets and government decrees (1789-1904).