Talk:.NzE.MjY1Mzg

of knowledge to be poisoned or obstructed in its course; it is to be ignorant of the benefits of the printing press, for each printmaker himself is a public instructor of language & legislation. Will you leave without benefit, somewhere in this territory, this wonderful invention that proliferates ideas & disperses knowledge, reproducing laws & decrees so quickly that within eight days, it reaches every corner of the Republic? It is an invention that allows the National Convention to be present in all municipalities, & the only method of ensuring that this great nation possesses enlightened thinking, education, a public mind, & a democratic government. Citizens, the language of a people must be one & the same for all. From the moment that men think, from the moment they are able to coalesce their thoughts, the empire of priests, despots, & schemers approaches destruction. Let us therefore give citizens the instrument of public thought, the most secure agent of the revolution, the same language. So what? While foreigners all around the globe learn the French language, while our public papers circulate in all regions; while the Journal Universel & the Journal des Hommes Libres are read in every nation from one pole to the other, how can we say that in France alone there are six hundred thousand Frenchmen who do not speak the language of their nation, & who are neither familiar with the laws nor the revolution taking place amongst them? Let us be prideful of the preeminence given by the French language since it became republicanized, & let us fulfill a duty. Let us leave the Italian language to the pleasures of