"Bonaparte busied himself with extinguishing what yet remained of the freedom of expression won during the Revolution and with crushing what yet remained of organized opposition, whether royalist, Jacobin or merely intellectual. On 17 January 1800 he shut down sixty out of seventy-three existing newspapers; by the end of 1800 only nine remained, and those under strict censorship. The theatre was censored from April 1800. With his excessive sensitivity to personal criticism and ridicule, Bonaparte took a direct interest in this censorship... In July 1803 he ordered that bookshops be prohibited from placing new works on sale until seven days after a copy had been submitted to the censor "so that, as soon as there is an undesirable work, it can be stopped." The systematic opening of private correspondence, the ubiquitous police spy, and imprisonment without trial completed Bonaparte's practical interpretation of the "sacred right" of liberty guaranteed by the Constitution."
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Correlli Barnett, Bonaparte (1978), pp. 84-85
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Napoleon
Napoléon Bonaparte (15 August 1769 – 5 May 1821) was a French military general who rose dramatically up the ranks of the French Army during the French Revolution, becoming the ruler of France as First Consul of the French Republic (11 November 1799 - 18 May 1804), and then Emperor of the French and King of Italy under the name Napoleon I (18 May 1804 - 6 April 1814, and again briefly from 20 March - 22 June 1815). He died in exile on the island of Saint Helena.
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