Royal Censorship of Books in Eighteenth-Century FranceToday, we are inclined to believe that intellectual freedom has no greater adversary than the censor. In eighteenth century France, the matter was more complicated. Royal censors envisioned themselves not as fulfilling a mission of state sponsored repression but rather as guiding the literary traffic of the Enlightenment. By awarding pre publication and pre distribution approvals, royal censors sought to insulate authors and publishers from the