Pagina-afbeeldingen
PDF
ePub

two very attractive and cheap weekly papers. Before issuing the first number, he had communicated the prospectus to a number of distinguished politicians, littérateurs, &c., and the letters which they wrote him in reply, covering a full page of the great daily papers, he inserted in each of the Parisian journals, paying on one day upwards of 40,000 francs for this advertisement. Within the next three days, 375,000 copies of each of the newspapers were sold, and over a hundred thousand regular subscribers secured. Villemessant himself is a writer of great ability, and his articles are always eagerly sought for. He has thus far been at the head of two daily papers, the Événement, which was suppressed by the Government about eighteen months ago after a brief career of unparalleled prosperity, and the Figaro, which he has lately converted into a daily political paper, and which bids fair under his management to outstrip all the other organs of the liberal party. Its circulation is now upwards of 37,000, and will soon surpass that of the Siècle.

He

Villemessant's efforts to direct and to attract the attention of the public to his paper are sometimes marvels of ingenuity. On learning that Victor Hugo had completed his "Toilers of the Sea," and had sold the MSS. to Lacroix, Verboeckhoven & Co., he travelled post-haste to the sea-shore, chartered a special steamship to Guernsey, and reached the illustrious author of Les Misérables before the MSS. had been delivered to the printers. offered Hugo three hundred thousand francs for the book, but Hugo, although no author knows better how to drive a sharp bargain, would not accept the tempting offer, because, he said, the "Toilers of the Sea" should be read at once from beginning to end, and ought not to be issued piecemeal in the columns of a daily paper. I need not add that Villemessant took good care to inform the world of the incidents and objects of this remarkable trip to Guernsey.

instead of Victor Hugo's work was a very fine production, and the way he got it was likewise characteristic of the man. He had been negotiating for some time past for the purchase of the MSS. The author, however, on hearing that Villemessant had at the same time made efforts to obtain Victor Hugo's manuscript, got incensed, entered into negotiations with the publisher of another paper, and when Villemessant came back from Guernsey, and wanted to reopen negotiations with him, he peremptorily refused to see him, and sent him word he could not get the manuscript, it having already been sold to another publisher. Now Villemessant knew full well that, if he could only obtain a single interview with the irate romancist, he would be able to persuade him to let him have the manuscript. But the great question was how to obtain an interview. Do you know how he managed to get it? In the following night the romancist was awakened and received a note, written in a beautiful small hand on perfumed rosecolored paper. "A lady urgently requested an interview with him at the Maison Dorée, room so and so." You may believe that the romancist had never dressed in such a hurry. In five minutes he was already on his way to the Maison Dorée. On entering the designated room of the famous restaurant, he was met, to his utter disgust, not by a lady, but by Villemessant, who burst into loud laughter, locked the door, and told him he had beautifully trapped him. "But," said the romancist, angrily, "you did not write the letter, a lady." "A lady wrote it, to be sure," replied Villemessant; “it was my dame de comptoir (lady bookkeeper), to whom I dictated it." When the two parted company an hour afterward, Villemessant had bought the MSS. Of course, he was not so cruel as to conceal this amusing transaction from the public.

The Courrier Français, the organ of the radical Democracy, was recently sold for seventy-six thousand francs,

The serial novel which he secured although it has a daily circulation of

over sixteen thousand copies. But M. Vermorel, its proprietor and editor-inchief, had had so many difficulties with the Government that it was feared lest the Emperor should order it to be suppressed. The Courrier is a perfect thorn in the side of the Bonapartists, and prosecution after prosecution for violations of the press-law are instituted against it. In consequence of these prosecutions, M. Vermorel will have the pleasure of passing the next three years of his life in prison.

Hardly less radical than the Courrier is M. A. Peyrat's Avenir National, an able journal, edited by Peyrat, Frederick Morin and Taxile Delord. Its circulation is increasing very rapidly, and so is that of the Epoque under the clever management of Clément Duvernois, who was formerly managing editor of the Liberté, and whom Girardin is said to have discharged because his articles attracted almost as much attention as his own.

The Charivari, the humorous dailywhich, though it has lost a great deal of its former prestige and influence, should be mentioned here on account of the political significance attached to many of its articles, and, above all, to the exceedingly clever caricatures with which it abounds-is, perhaps, the Parisian journal whose editors have hitherto had to encounter more difficulties and obstacles in the discharge of their onerous duties than any of their colleagues of the political dailies. The Emperor Napoleon, who, despite his habitual mask of indifference and coldness, it is well known, is keenly sensitive to the attacks made upon him by the newspapers, and especially to the weapon of ridicule, more powerful in France than anywhere else, added to the famous press-ordinance of February 14, 1852, of his own accord, and contrary to the advice and remonstrances of M. de Morny and most of his leading adherents, a section requiring the editors of all illustrated papers to submit the proofs of all engravings of a political character and tendency, prior to their publication, to the Minister of the In

It

terior, or the functionary intrusted by him with the surveillance of the press. At first the proprietors of the Charitari thought it would be utterly impossible for them to go on under a law so exceedingly rigorous, and which, they knew full well, would be carried out in the most inexorable manner, and they contemplated for a while suspending the publication of the Charicari. was solely owing to the efforts and remonstrances of M. Huart, the editor-inchief, that this resolution was not carried into effect; and the Charivari now entered upon the most arduous portion of its checkered and eventful career. It would require a whole volume to narrate all its struggles with the Government censors, the losses which it sustained in consequence of the tameness and lack of spirit which arose from the heavy pressure constantly brought to bear upon it, and the petty, insidious, and harassing persecutions to which it was subjected. Oftentimes the Government censors rejected engravings sufficient to fill half a dozen issues of the paper, and the articles containing political allusions not exactly to the liking of the Minister and his subordinates, always brought in their train hints and warnings that a repetition of the offence would lead to a prosecution or a summary suppression of the paper. A rather strange and unexpected consequence of this unparalleled pressure from above, compensating the proprietors, in a measure, for the loss of influence and prestige, which the Charivari necessarily sustained under the circumstances, was the fact that such political caricatures as it was allowed to publish, especially those relating to foreign affairs, were looked upon by the public as being in consonance with the views and intentions of the Government. Hence, it happened not unfrequently that the public attached considerable importance to these caricatures, and some of them, strange as it may seem, even exerted a marked influence on the stock speculations of the Bears and Bulls of the Bourse. M. Louis Huart, who, though a native of Treves in Germany, was for

many years the managing editor of this journal, if I may say so, more peculiarly and characteristically French than any of its contemporaries, died a year or two ago, and his former assistant, Paul Véron, a clever and incisive humorist, took his place. แ Cham," the famous caricaturist,- -a nobleman by the name of De Noë,—is still the leading artist of the Charivari. Financially, the paper is no longer very prosperous. Its expenses are comparatively heavy, and the circulation has very sensibly declined since 1852. It rarely exceeds three thousand copies, and averages, perhaps, not over twenty-five hundred.

As for the large illustrated papers, the Illustration, the Monde Illustré, the Univers Illustré, etc., etc., it seems, at first sight, strange that their circulation should be so much smaller than that of the illustrated papers of Germany and England; for, while the Leipzig Illustrirte Zeitung circulates upward of fifty thousand copies, and its Stuttgart rival, Ueber Land und Meer, between sixty and seventy thousand copies; and while the London illustrated papers are known to have as large a circulation, the Illustration, as a general thing, sells only between fourteen and fifteen thousand copies, the Monde Illustré, between seven and nine thousand, and the Univers Illustré, perhaps, one or two thousand more. The trouble is that, for a long time past, there has been going on between these papers a rivalry of unparal

leled bitterness, which induced the publishers, not to try to eclipse each other by the merits of their papers, by the artistic value of the illustrations, and the excellent character of the readingmatter, but by reducing the subscription rates to the lowest figures, and to make up for their losses by cutting down their expenses as much as possible. And thus it happens that a great many of the wood-cuts in these papers, published in a city boasting of so many eminent xylographers, are decidedly inferior to those published in the illustrated papers of England and Germany; that they oftentimes publish old clichés of engravings, which were issued years ago in the latter; and, hampered as they are also by the other influences fettering the French press in general, they display a lack of energy and enterprise by no means calculated to increase their circulation and influence. Justice requires us, however, to say that the literary matter of these illustrated journals, as a general thing, is decidedly superior to that of their English and German contemporaries. The most eminent littérateurs of France are among their regular contributors; and their theatrical criticisms, their causeries, their chroniques, are generally very well written, sprightly, and interesting, while the feuilleton, that most important part of the French newspaper, of course, contains the productions of the most popular novelists of the day.

NOTE. Since this article was written, the most important restrictions on the establishment of new journals in France have been removed, and a large number are announced for speedy publication, with the endorsement of many names of weight and influence that have not before been connected with the newspaper world.

It is worthy of note that not one of the new papers proposes to support imperialism as it is.- Editor.

SAVED FROM THE ASYLUM.

I. THE PROMISE.

REV. ASHLEY MULGROVE and Hester Mason stood side by side in the little parlor of the Widow Mason's cottage. He had on his overcoat, while his hat and muffler were in a chair ready for him to take. There was a certain proud bearing in the man that gave him a knightly air rather than a ministerial mien; and as he stepped forward to say good-by, putting his arm gently around her waist, while Hester rested her face and hands upon his bosom, Abelard and Heloise could not have surpassed them in this lover's tableau.

Ashley looked down upon his treasure, and then, turning his eyes heavenward, seemed to invoke God's blessing on the woman he loved.

Thus they stood in silence. Their hearts throbbed with one passion, one thought, one desire. Whether in these moments there was most of pain or pleasure, it is impossible to tell. These are feelings which come to us once in a lifetime, and only once.

Hester was the first to speak: "Ashley, you must go, for you'll have to take the stage early in the morning."

"I know it, Hester," he replied, "but there is something makes me dread to leave you."

"But it won't be long till next October, you know," she said, with an effort at cheerfulness.

"Nine months- nine months," he answered, sadly.

[blocks in formation]

tor a long time, and the sheep are sadly in need of a shepherd."

"You should go, then, Ashley. Be cheerful, dear; you know I shall write you twice every week."

"I don't mean to complain, darling; I am ready and anxious to labor in my Master's vineyard; but I don't like to go without you. Somehow, Hester, it seems as if I had been imperfectly made, and that essential portions of my organism only existed in you. When I'm away from you, my mind is like a machine that has lost its balance-wheel. It may run with great velocity, but it needs something to regulate it and temper its force. Excuse my likening you to a balance-wheel, Hester; but I don't think I shall ever run well without you."

"Dear Ashley," she said, with her dark, gray eyes full of tenderness, and a consciousness of her power over her lover, "it makes me proud to know that I am necessary to your happiness, and I trust I may be to your useful

ness."

"You are to both. And now I must go."

He was holding both her hands in his, when she said: "Remember your promise, Ashley: you are never to study later than ten o'clock at night; then you are to pray, and always mention my name."

[ocr errors]

Well, good-by, dear, sweet Hester, precious wife! Tell me you love me, once more."

"Ashley, all that woman can love, I love you."

"God bless you, Hester!" "His angels guard you, Ashley." Here the lips of the two lovers met, their speech melted into a long, lingering kiss, which sealed the farewell of two souls not to be separated in Eternity, though they part in Time.

Soon the door closed gently, and the steps of the Rev. Ashley Mulgrove crackled upon the crisp snow, which

sparkled like diamond-dust in the cold light of the moon. He walked home sad and sullen, as if he were going into exile.

II. THE TEMPTATION.

The next morning, while the stars were yet shining, the young clergyman was in the stage-coach on his way to the railway-depot, nine miles distant. Before the sun had been up an hour he was rushing on the train towards the flourishing village of Goldburgh, in Northern New York. It now began to snow and drift rapidly on the track. Soon the storm was almost blinding, and he could hardly see the fences from the car-window. The result was blockade, shovelling, backing up, bumping, impatience of passengers, and, finally, a triumphant victory of the Steam-King over the Storm-Fiend who thought to stop him on his way.

The train reached Goldburgh at 1 P. M., just four hours behind-time. This circumstance determined the subsequent events of our story. Two persons had been waiting for Mr. Mulgrove at the depot. One was Charles Dodman, a young merchant, who had been his classmate at college, and who desired him to board with his father; the other was Deacon Rowler, intent on offering the new clergyman the hospitality of his own house. As the train was so late, the young man went home to dinner; but the Deacon did not, and so secured his man.

Ah, how do you do-how do you do! Glad to see you!" rattled the energetic little church dignitary, as he caught the Rev. Ashley Mulgrove by the hand, and snatched his satchel away from him as if he were a highwayman, and had no time to spare. "I tell you, Brother Mulgrove, I'm delighted to see you. I've waited for ye, just as them old Jews waited for a Messiah. Come right up with me; you must be hungry -ministers must eat, you know. I told Mrs. Rowler to keep something warm for you. You got snowed in, did you? Well, you're in time to preach tomorrow, that's lucky;-don't wish to VOL. II.-20

flatter a servant of the Lord, Mr. Mulgrove, but ever since I heard you preach to us as a candidate, I knew that you were one of the chosen, sir-one of the chosen!" He believed somehow that ministers were selected by special act of Providence, and meant to intimate that in this case the choice could not be improved. Without hardly pausing for breath, he continued, "Brother Mulgrove, you are commissioned to do a glorious work for us in Zion."

"I hope so, with your cooperation, Brother Rowler," wedged in the clergyman. "I trust my humble labors will be blest."

"They will be, sir-they will be," kept on the deacon. "You have got the preach in you, and it must come out. You can knock out a sermon just as I used to turn out a tin-pan when I was a tinker. I could beat any two men in the shop, just because I had the knack. Our last pastor, Brother Drawlings, was a good man-a very pious, good man; but his preaching wa'n't particular brilliant. In my opinion he was not chosen. He couldn't make himself terrifying to sinners. We want a man to make the church grow. There is no standing still in this world, sir— must go ahead, or else go backwards. I commenced a tinker, got to be a tinpeddler, then owned a small shop, now I own a big one and have twenty-seven peddlers on the road. This is the style of thing I like to see in the church. When I see a new convert brought in, I say to myself, There is one more peddler on the road; he will leave the bright tinware of Christian example, I hope, along the path of his daily life.'"

As Deacon Rowler concluded this remark, with his large hand he took off his enormous fur cap, and his broad forehead, on which the coarse iron-gray locks still held a place, fairly smoked with perspiration. His short, sturdy figure expressed in every action his compressed and intensified energy. Like a coiled watch-spring, his life was a constant pushing. He was a working Christian.

Deacon Rowler soon led Mr. Mul

« VorigeDoorgaan »