the one hand, as well as imperial mistrust on the other. The men he called to his aid were Geoffroy and Fieve e ; and by the brilliancy of their talents and the keenness of his own judgment he converted the Debats into a paper having 32,000 subscribers, and producing a profit of 200,000 francs a year. When the imposition of a special censorship was threatened in 1805, at the instance of Fouche , a remarkable correspondence took place between Fieve e and Napoleon himself, in the course of which the emperor wrote that the only means of preserving a news paper from suspension was " to avoid the publication of any news unfavourable to the Government, until the truth of it is so well established that the publication becomes needless." The censorship was avoided, but Fieve e had to become the responsible editor, and the title was altered to Journal de V Empire the imperial critic taking exception to the word Debats as " inconvenient." The old title was resumed in August 1815. The revolution of July did but enhance the power and the profit of the paper. It has held its course with uniform dignity, as well as with splendid ability, amidst recent perils, and may still be said, in the words which Lamartine applied to it in an earlier day, to have " made itself part of French history." Shortly before the Journal de V Empire became again the Journal des Debats (in 1815), a severance occurred amidst both the writers and subscribers. It led to the foundation of the Constitutionnel, which at first and for a short time bore the title of L Independant, The former became, for a time, the organ of the royalists par excellence, the latter the leader of the opposition. In 1824, however, both were in conflict with the Government of the day. At that date, in a secret report addressed to the ministry, the aggregate circulation of the opposition press of Paris was stated at 41,330, 1 while that of the Government press amounted only to 14,344. 2 Consti- The rapid rise of the Constitutionnel was due partly to the tutwn- great ability and influence of Jay, of ltienne, of Be"ranger, and of Saint Albin (who had been secretary to Carnot in his ministry of 1815), all of whom co-operated in its early editorship, and partly to its sympathy with the popular reverence for the memory of Napoleon, as well as to the vigorous share it took in the famous literary quarrel between the classicists and romanticists (although in that quarrel it took what may now be called the side of the vanquished). Its part in bringing about the revolution of 1830 raised it to the zenith of its fortunes. For a brief period it could boast of 23,000 subscribers at 80 francs a year. But the invasion of cheap newspapers, and that temporary lack of enterprise which so often follows a brilliant success, lowered it with still greater rapidity. When the author of the Memoires d un Bourgeois, Dr Ve"ron, purchased it, the sale had sunk to 3000. Veron gave 100,000 francs for the Juif Errant of Sue, and the Sue fever rewarded him for a while with more than the old circulation. Afterwards the paper passed under the editorship of Ce"sena, Granier de Cassagnac, and La Gueronnifere. La Presse The cheap journalism of Paris began in 1836 (1st July) " . the journal of Girardin, La Presse, followed instantly by Le Siecle, under the management of Dutacq, to whom, it is said not incredibly the original idea was really due. The first-named journal attained a circulation of 10,000 copies within three months of its commencement, and soon doubled that number. The Siecle prospered even more 1 Le Constitutionnel, 16,250 ; Journal des Debats, 13,000 ; La Quotidienne, 5800 ; Le Courrier Francais, 2975 ; Journal de Com merce, 2380 ; L Aristarque, 925. 2 Journal de Paris, 4175 ; L fitoile, 2749 ; Gazette de France, 2370 ; Le Moniteur, 2250 ; Le Drapeau Blanc, 1900 ; Le Pilote, 900. nel. u
[FRANCE. strikingly, and in a few years had reached a circulation (then without precedent in France) of 38,000 copies. The rapid growth of the newspaper press of Paris under Louis-Philippe will be best appreciated from the fact that, while in 1828 the number of stamps issued was 28 millions, in 1836, 1843, 1845, and 1846 the figures were 42, 61, 65, and 79 millions respectively. At the last- mentioned date the papers with a circulation of upwards of 10,000 were (besides the Moniteur, of which the circula tion was chiefly official and gratuitous) as follows : Le Siecle, 31,000; La Presse and Le Constitutionnel, between 20,000 and 25,000; Journal des Debats and L Epoque, between 10,000 and 15,000. If we now cast a retrospective glance at the general characteristics (1) of the newspaper press of France, and (2) of the legislation con cerning it, between the respective periods of the devastating revolu tion of 1793-94 and the scarcely less destructive revolution of 1848, it will be found that the years 1819, 1828, 1830 (July), and 1835 (September) mark epochs full of pregnant teaching upon our sub ject. We pass over, as already sufficiently indicated, the newspaper licence of the first-named years (1793-94), carried to a pitch which became a disgrace to civilization, and the stern Napoleonic censor ship which followed it, also carried to an excess, disgraceful, not, indeed, to civilization, but to the splendid intellect which had once given utterance to the words, "Physical discovery is a grand faculty of the human mind, but literature is the mind itself." The year 1819 is marked by a virtual cessation of the arbitrary power of suppression lodged till then in the Government, and by the substitution of a graduated system of preliminary bonds and suretyships ("cautionnements") on the one hand, and of strict penalties for convicted press-offences on the other. This initiatory amelioration of 1819 became, in 1828, a measure of substantial yet regulated freedom, which for two years worked, in the main, alike with equity towards the just claims of journalism as a profession and with steady development towards the public of its capabilities as a great factor in the growth of civilization. Those two years were followed by a widely-contrasted period of five years. That was a term of entire liberty often grossly abused, and fitly ending with the just and necessary restrictions of September 1835. But that period of 1830-35 was also signalized by some noble attempts to use the powers of the newspaper press for promoting the highest and the enduring interests of France. Not least memorable amongst these was the joint enterprise of Montalembert and Lamennais soon to be aided by Lacordaire, when, by the establishment (October 1830) of the newspaper L Avcnir, they claimed for the church of France her just part in the liberties acquired by the country," and asserted for the sacred symbols of Christianity their lawful place, alike above the tricolor and above the lilies. " Dieu et la liberte " was the motto which Montalembert chose for his news paper, as he had chosen it long before for the guiding star of his youthful aspirations. L Avcnir existed only for one year and ono month. It came to its early end from no lack of energy and patience in its writers, but in part from that mission of the editors to Rome (November 1831) which, at least for a time, necessitated the discon tinuance of their newspaper. Human regrets had higher than human consolations. " Our labours " on L Avenir, wrote Montalem bert, with simple truth, "decided the attitude of Catholics in France and elsewhere, from the time of the July revolution to the time of the second empire." There were many other papers, at this time and afterwards, which, like L Avenir, were, in their degree, organs of ideas, not speculations of trade. But they cannot be even enumerated here. No very notable specially religious paper succeeded L Avcnir until the founda tion in 1843 under widely different auspices, although twice at the outset the editorship was offered to Lacordaire of L Univers Religieux. That journal was edited, at first, by De Coux, then by Louis Veuillot ; it underwent innumerable lawsuits, "warnings," suppressions, and interdicts, for causes very diverse. Several prelates suppressed L Univcrs Religieux in their respective dioceses, amongst them the great bishop Dupanloup in that of Orleans (1853). Napoleon III. suppressed it in 1861, permitted it to reappear as Le Monde, and suspended it many times afterwards ; but it has survived all its misfortunes and still exists, under its new title. Le Monde had the curious fate, at one time, of being conducted jointly by the first editor of L Avenir, Lamennais, and by George Sand, Avho had previously figured in the newspaper annals of France as co-foundress of L fidaireur de I Indre, a journal published at Orleans. The account given by that brilliant writer of her adventures in what was then to her a new department of activity is an instructive one. With that breadth of sympathy which was so characteristic of her, she strove to interest all her friends (however varied in character, as in rank) in the enterprise. There is, perhaps, scarcely anything more amusing in French journalistic annals than is her (contemporary) account of the first
