This was the time in which the battle of Jena was being fought and one might perhaps suppose that the attention of the Emperor would have been sufficiently engaged with affairs in Germany. Under the imperial censorship, occurred instances of expurgations which recall the expurgatory Indexes of the Spanish Inquisition. In the _Athalie_ of Racine, before a new edition was permitted to be printed, certain passages had to be cancelled because they contained allusions to “tyranny.” Chénier had permitted himself in his drama _Cyrus_ to present the following lines: “_Je ne commande point, j’obéis à la loi; Et je suis à l’État, l’État n’est point à moi._” These lines had to be cancelled before the performance of the play was permitted.[65] Kotzebue’s _Souvenir d’un Voyage_ was prohibited because the author had permitted himself certain favourable references to the late Queen of Naples and to the English Admiral, Sidney Smith (“that pirate,” said Napoleon). Madame de Staël’s _Corinne_ was prohibited in 1807 and a bitter criticism of the work, printed in the _Moniteur_, is ascribed to the pen of Napoleon himself. Chateaubriand’s _Les Martyrs_ was, before being published, severely handled by the censors. After suffering a large amount of elimination, it was brought into print, but even then proved unacceptable and was prohibited. A reference to the court of Diocletian was held by the police to constitute a _lèse Majesté_. In November, 1809, Napoleon specified as the responsibilities of censorship, _Le droit d’empêcher la manifestation d’idées qui troublent la paix de l’État, ses intérêts et le bon ordre_. In the same year, Napoleon says: _Qu’on laisse donc écrire librement sur la religion, pourvu qu’on n’abuse pas de cette liberté pour écrire contre l’État_.[66] In 1810, the Emperor instituted the post of _directeur general de l’imprimerie et de la librairie_, with Portalis as the first incumbent. The system of inspection and repression established under this bureau continued until the close of the empire and was, in fact, renewed with no great change after the return of the Bourbons. Peignot, writing in 1806, during the “strenuous” years of the First Empire and at a time when political censorship in France and in the great territories outside of France that were under Napoleonic control was most severe, is prepared to speak with full measure of respect of the importance and the necessity of censorship. He finds ground for criticism, however, in the cases in which the Roman Church has undertaken to interfere with the control over French literature which properly belonged to the bishops and to the civil government of France, but he is quite prepared to accept the judgments of the Church in regard to pernicious books provided that these judgments are kept subordinated to the authority of the State. Peignot speaks of “the happy Europe of his time” (the Europe controlled by Napoleon),