When newspapers first appeared, they were heavily censored, if not shut down entirely; those that were permitted to develop were primarily court gazettes, founded to monopolize the news and to report and celebrate the ceremonial life of the court. In other words, they extended the display of authority rather than the substantive discussion of politics. By the end of the century, however, journals were beginning to assume an accepted, albeit restricted role in political communication which took two principal forms: one, a national press; the other, transnational.