Cotta and Napoleon: The French Pursuit of theAllgemeine Zeitung

Abstract

In contrast to virtually every other aspect of Napoleon's German policy, his treatment of the German press has never been subject to much scholarly controversy. For good reason: on the one occasion when Napoleon had a German publisher entirely in his hands, he had him shot—an act whose simplicity, indeed finality, does not leave much room for quibbling as to details. The execution of J. P. Palm did not reflect Napoleon's entire policy; but it may serve as a reminder that, among the ruling personalities of Europe, it was the Emperor of the French who esteemed the power of the press most highly. Napoleon had seen an aroused nation first hand, and as the leader of Europe's first postrevolutionary society he brought to the regulation of public opinion a degree of determination unknown to the Old Regime. One of his first acts as First Consul had been to suppress most of the newspapers published in France, and he soon domesticated those that remained. His aim was not to expel public opinion from the political arena, but to remove it from the hands of the public, and to make it serve him. The same purpose guided his press policy in Germany. As the young Count Metternich noted in a dispatch from Paris, the new century would be “a century of words,” and Napoleon meant his word to be the last.