at the cabinets, as with at the clubs, coffee houses, salons and bookshops, serious discussions would break out. People argued, hurled abuse and fought one another over specific facts in order to attack or defend the public figures being discussed. Whether by the light of a lantern or a simple oil lamp, people came to feed their political appetite and to leave better prepared for the debates that took place in the street. For this reason, the majority of the cabinets were located at the Palais-Royal in central Paris. Among them was Gattey’s, which published Rivarol and Champcenetz's satirical, anti-revolutionary pamphlet, Les Actes des Apôtres (in English: The Acts of the Apostles). Bravely, Gattey kept his establishment open during the Revolution, despite the dangerous name with which his cabinet was often associated: “The Aristocrats’ Den”. Opening a cabinet de lecture During the First Empire and the Restoration periods in France there were several laws regarding the regulation of book trade, printing, and the press. These laws required booksellers to be licensed and officially sworn. Cabinets de lecture, however, didn't require a license in order to operate. A person who wanted to own a cabinet de lecture only needed to be issued an authorization to do so, after making a payment. It was also required that there be evidence of good moral character, financial responsibility, and the need for a cabinet de lecture in the community. A request to open a cabinet de lecture could be refused on the grounds that the directeur-général believed there to be too many cabinets de lecture in the area already. Decline of the cabinet de lecture There were many variables that contributed to the decline of the cabinet de lecture, which occurred around 1850. There were numerous complaints in the early to mid-1800s that cabinets de lecture were, by their very existence, ruining the bookselling trade, and that cabinets de lecture were "establishments [that] provided an outlet for works of most dubious quality, often written by venomous hacks and read by envious idlers." More attacks on the characters of cabinets de lecture were made by various booksellers in this period, and it is likely that these remarks grew from the conflict between such booksellers and the establishments that threatened their livelihood. But such a remark was not entirely baseless. There was a growing difference between the editions of books found in cabinets de lecture, and