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right to so many columns of the journal. erature. In their morality any trick is fair to The head office of the society is in the gain an abonné or an annonce at two Place de la Bourse, No. 8; but there are francs the 'petite ligne,' or, still better at 214 bureaux d'insertion in various quarters twelve francs la grande ligne en petite of Paris, or from five to a dozen in each texte.' Journalism and literature run equal arrondissement, according to its population, dangers from these tricky tradesmen. In commerce, &c. There is a scale of char- seeking to make newspapers books and ges peculiar to the society. What are books newspapers, these men destroy the called 'les annonces agrées,' are charged at distinctive character and nature of books two francs la petite ligne, or twelve francs and newspapers. The book in being cut la grande ligne, en petit texte. It is a great into fragments, and written not to portray problem whether this company will be suc- truth and nature, but to suit the journal and cessful-a problem which time alone can its customers, is written to sample and patsolve; but it is the opinion of an excellent tern. At the end of the tenth, or twelfth, friend of ours-the editor of the Constitu- or seventh column, as the case may be, tionnel'-M. Merruau, that the undertaking there is an interesting situation, where the will be successful. Though the small teas- tale breaks off, on the Monday. The groing and worrying usually thrown at the cer's daughter, the dyer's wife, the baker's English by the 'Presse,' may have made it cousin, and the priest's niece, are in rappopular with a portion of the populace of tures, and look for the paper on Tuesday Paris, yet its greatest success (apart from with eager expectation. The tale or the the roman feuilleton) is owing to its com- novel is therefore like Peter Pindar's ramercial intelligence, its dramatic accounts zors, not made to shave, but to sell; not of robberies, murders, fires, and sudden written to represent life as it really is, but deaths; not forgetting its chronicle of affairs to present it as a series of startling incibefore the Police Correctionelle. dents and surprising contrasts. It will reWhat is the roman feuilleton, our read- sult from this system that as a political auers will naturally ask? It is a novel or thority the journal must be lowered, and as tale, written in the most ad captandum and a literary effort the book discredited. Inexaggerated fashion, from seven to fifteen dependently of this consideration the pubsmall columns of which are published daily, lic taste becomes as a consequence daily with a view to obtain readers, and, by ne- more vitiated and perverted. All relish for cessary implication, advertisements; for serious literature, or matured, well reflectthe advertiser will assuredly go to the journal ed productions, is lost. The moral, the which is most read. The Presse' was the political, and the literary views of the quesfirst to invent this execrable system, by tion are sacrificed to the mercantile, mewhich literature is made alternately the chanical, and money-getting. Romances are prostitute and decoy duck of the most sor- now ordered by the wholesale houses, in the did venality. Before 1830 the main fea- journal line, by the square yard or the square ture and distinguishing characteristic of foot, with so many pounds of abuse of priesteach French paper was its political party craft; so many grains of double adultery; so or color. The greedy spirit of speculation many drachms of incest; so many ounces of has changed this. The desire of the tra- poisoning; so many scruples of simple forders in newspapers now is by the feuilleton nication or seductions of soubrettes; and to absorb all literature, unless such as is so many pennyweights of common sense to published in their own pages, and to render knead together the horrid and disjointed such literature as they put forth tributary masses of parricide, fratricide, incest, murto this soul-degrading money-grubbing. der, seduction, suicide, fraud, covin, gamThe great object of the Girardins and bling, robbery, and rouerie of all sorts, of Cassagnacs is to get money, money, money. which the odious whole is compounded. 'Rem quocunque modo rem' is their ste-The Girardins and Cassagnacs, notwithreotyped motto. In their anxiety to procure standing all their shrewdness and sharpcustomers-i. e. readers and advertisements ness, are of that vulgar order of men who -they may be likened to the Hebrews of Holywell-street, or the old clothesmen of Monmouth-street and Rag-fair, who, to use the cant of the trade, are of the 'pluck you in' school. The Presse' and the Epoque' are of the 'pluck you in' and fripier school in lit

think that with money at command they can do any thing and obtain every thing. Hence it is that the 'Presse' pays nearly 300 francs per day for feuilletons to Alexandre Dumas, George Sand, De Balzac, Frederic Soulié, Theophile Gautier, and

Jules Sandeau.

'M. de Balzac l'écrivain et M. de Balzac le gentilhomme sollicitent de sa Majesté la faveur d'une audience particulière.'

But what will be the re- Russian system, the Czar expressed a desult in 1848? That each of these person- sire that it should be answered by a ages will have made from 32,000 to 64,000 Frenchman. Balzac, on this hint, started francs per annum for two or three years for for Petersburgh, and on his arrival forwriting profitable trash of the color of the warded to his Imperial Majesty a note, of foulest mud in Paris; marked with the mark which the following is a copy :of the beast, and furnished according to sample, as per order of Girardin, Cassagnac and Co. They will have had little labor and much money, it is true; but they will also have for ever lowered their names and fame; and, what is worse, they will have lowered literature and literary men for many a long day to come. To be the hack of booksellers is no doubt to suffer unutterable bondage; but to be the hack of scheming political adventurers and chevaliers d'industrie is the last and worst of huThe fault of Balzac is the incorrigible man calamities. The literary men France may well say, with our own Cow-permanency, notwithstanding ten thousand humiliations and exposures, of leyglowing, yet most despicable vanity. The

of

On the following day, one of the gentlemen in ordinary of H.M. suite delivered to Balzac a letter written in the royal and imperial hand, to the following effect :

'M. de Balzac le gentilhomme et M. de Balzac l'écrivain peuvent prendre la poste quand il leur plaira.'

a most

'Come the eleventh plague rather than this foolish fellow believes himself poet, histo

should be ;

Come sink us rather in the sea,

Come rather pestilence, and reap us down,

Come God's sword rather than our own.

In all the bonds we ever bore

rian, metaphysician, statesman, dandy of the first water, journalist, dramatic author, man of family, man of fortune, and above all, charmant et beau garcon! Not con

We grieved, we sighed, we wept; we never tent with being one of the cleverest ob

blushed before.'

It is not only with existing literary celebrities that the Presse' plays these gainful pranks, but the death of men of eminence is speculated upon during their lifetime, and an ostentatious postobit publication of the memoirs of Chateaubriand, and the souvenirs of La Martine is promised so

soon as these illustrious authors shall have ceased to breathe. That the feuilletonists of the Presse' are all men and women of genius and talent cannot be denied; but one of them, with all his genius and talent, is an arrant literary impostor and quack. Only think of Honoré Balzac, who came to Paris in 1820, a poor printer of Touraine, sporting the gentilhomme d'ancienne souche,' and wearing a cane studded with precious stones, worth £80, to which Mde. de Girardin has consecrated a volume. The pretentious, aristocratical airs of this very foolish man, but who as a writer may be called a literary Rembrandt, or Albert Durer, so burgeoise and Flemish is his style, so detailed and minute his finishing, were properly treated, according to the Gazette of Augsburgh, by a monarch, for whom we have no love, but who, for once in his life, was right. After the admirable and truthful book of M. de Custine had laid bare the infamies and atrocities of the

servers and painters of manners of a certain class or classes, he aspires to be as combined; as poetic as D. Beranger, Chadiplomatic as Talleyrand and Metternich. teaubriand, and La Martine; and as fashD'Orsays, Septeuils, and Canouvilles. This ionable and foppish as the De Guiches, that remained of De Balzac's waning repuniversal pretension has destroyed the little utation; and the man whose productions, a dozen years ago, were read in every clime, is now fast sinking into unpitied obscurity.

"The nations which envied thee erewhile

Now laugh (too little 'tis to smile),
They laugh and would have pitied thee, (alas!)
But that thy faults all pity do surpass.'

To return, however, to the Presse. For a short time Girardin, the editor, was deputy of the Meuse. At his election, his civil rights as a Frenchman were ungenerously and unjustly attempted to be called in question. For many years the influence of Count Molé was paramount at the Presse,' and even still his opinions are visible in some articles; but at present this journal must be considered as the organ of M. Guizot, and of his forty or forty-five personal adherents, who think him the only possible minister. We have said that the Presse' is an authority on commercial

subjects. M. Blanqui writes much on these topics, and his name is sufficient to create a reputation.

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his provincial journal to the Parisian press. He is a writer of considerable talent and ncontestable sharpness, but prone to perAs to general intelligence, this paper is sonalities and utterly unscrupulous. As to well made up. There is not a fact of the Bohain, his associate, he is well knownleast importance, nor a promotion in the too well known in our own metropolis, as army, navy, the clergy, the municipal body, the editor of the Courrier de l'Europe.' &c., which is not published. There is not The Epoque' is an immense journal, the a scientific, mechanical, or commercial size of a Morning Chronicle,' before that discovery, nor an important cause pleaded, journal adopted a double sheet, and consists nor a change in the value of merchandise of ten separate departments; 1. Journal or commodities, of which it does not give politique; 2. Journal de l'armee et de la an account. Yet it is neither a respectable, flotte; 3. Journal des cultes; 4. Journal nor an honorable, nor a truth-speaking, nor des Travaux publics; 5. Journal adminis a purely, nor honestly conducted newspa-tratif et commercial; 6. Journal de l'inper, and it has done more to degrade the struction publique; 7. Journal des scienpress and literature, and to corrupt and de- ces et médecine; S. Journal du droit et des base literary men, than any other journal, tribuneaux; 9. Journal commercial et agrialways excepting the Globe' and the cole; 10. Journal litteraire (feuilleton). 'Epoque.' The price half yearly is 22f. and the price of advertisements is in proportion to the number of abonnés-one centime for every 1000 abonnés for the annonces omnibus ; three centimes for every 1000 abonnés for booksellers' and commercial advertisements; four centimes for railways, &c.

The 'Globe,' commenced in 1841 by Granier de Cassagnac, when that person quarrelled with his co-editor, Girardin, cannot be said to have died, though it never had above 2000 abonnés. The Globe' fell to 1800 before it expanded into the Epoque,' which arose from its ashes. Cassagnac wrote under or conjointly with Girardin in the Presse,' but now they are deadliest enemies, and in their war of ribald personalities have disgraced themselves, and degraded the press.

6

Cassagnac was originally the editor of the journal Politique et Littéraire de Toulouse,' and transferred his services from

sons.

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Cassagnac is the political editor of the Epoque.' He is devoted to Guizot. Desnoyers is the rédacteur of the feuilleton, at a salary of 8000f. a year, assisted by Eugene Guinot.

The theatres are under the supervision of Hippolite Lucas, formerly, of the Siécle.' The redacteur en chef receives 12,000f. a year; and the feuilleton is paid at 150f. or 51. 5s. per day. The circulation of the Epoque' fluctuates considerably; but we believe it has never exceeded 3000.

* Girardin says, that Cassagnac is an impudent Gascon, who was struck at Toulouse, and flogged in the public street till he took refuge in a diligence; and Cassagnac replies, that Girardin, sitting by his wife, the pretty and clever Delphine 'La Democratie Pacifique' is a journal Gay, was struck at the Opera before 3000 per-published at forty francs a year, which is Girardin says, that Bohain, Solar, and not sold, but given away. It is the organ Cassagnac, the proprietors of the Epoque,' sent of the Communists, and is conducted by the about loads of prospectuses of their journal to the subscribers of other papers by itinerant commis disciples of Charles Fourier, of whose life voyageurs; Cassagnac replies, that the electors and theories we should wish to have given of Bourganauf preferred Vidocq, the police spy, some account, but we have already exceedto Emile de Girardin, and twits the latter with the ed the space allotted to us. The doctrines affair of the coal-mine of St. Bérain, and asks proclaimed are not unlike those of Bobert who pocketed the money. Girardin says, that Cassagnac ordered gaiters of a particular cut for Owen. The founder and principal editor the colporteurs of his journal, to excite attention, of this journal is Victor Considerant, an for which gaiters he afterwards refused to pay élève of the Polytechnic School, and an exCassagnac rejoins, that Girardin went on a hot officer of engineers. He is assisted in his July day to his bedchamber, took off his swelter- labors by Dr. Pellarin, author of a life of ing shirt, and thinking clean linen comfortable, clothed himself in one of his (Cassagnac's) best Fourier; by la Vernaud, a native of the chemises. Lest our readers should think we in- Mauritius; De Permont; Victor Daly, an vent or exaggerate, we refer them to the Globe,' architect, of Irish origin; Hugh Doherty, (now the Epoque,') of the 12th August, 1845 Such are the faquins de bas étage,' the Peachums a writing master; Brisbane, an American; and Lockits of the press, who strut and fret their Meill, a German; and a John Journet, a hour now on the great stage of Literature. working man. The Democratie' is, as

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the reader will see, a universal cosmopoli- | proprietary imbued with Napoleonic ideas. tan journal. There are editors of all coun- Subsequently, M. Guillemot, who had mantries. Doherty, an Irishman, writes the aged the Capitole,' the avowed organ French language, if not with purity, at least of Prince Louis, became the editor. It with originality; but when he touches on then passed into the hands of the eloquent religious subjects, he is fou à liér.' Bris- and philosophic De Tocqueville, deputy for bane has established many Fourierist jour-La Manche, and author of the very able nals in America, and comes every year to France, but does not write in the French language. Meill, the German, is a tailor by trade, and a Jew by religion. He is a self-educated man, and writes French like Doherty, more originally (so to speak) than correctly. He is a lively, active, turbulent man, who would play an important part in any civil commotion. Journet is a working man, who travels through France from end to end, proclaiming the doctrines of the sect. He is dressed in a paletot à capuchon, and wears a long beard, like all good Fourierists.

work, 'De la Democratié en Amerique.' It represented the jeune gauche in opposition to the gauche Thiers. Not proving successful, however, it fell into the hands of M. Lesseps, who had formerly been secretary to M. Mauguin. M. Lesseps is a middle-aged Basque, smart, self-willed, and with some talent as a writer, but the Commerce' did not, under his auspices, improve. In fact, it was a journal which had obtained a bad name, and, as we before observed, it requires the pen of an angel to write such a journal up. On the 1st August, 1845, the paper was put up to auction at Every Wednesday evening there is a 100,000 francs, but could find no purchassoirée at the office of the Democratie Pa- ers. It was ultimately sold at 6000 francs, cifique -a soirée of men only,-where the or 2407., with a burden of debt of 400,000 initiated talk and weary themselves and francs, or 16,000l. of our money. Out of others, and drink large tumblers of eau the debris of the Commerce' arose the sucrée and rum cobbler. Sometimes the Esprit Public,' of which Lesseps is the soirées are diversified by a wonder in the acknowledged editor. It is the cheapest shape of a musician, a traveller, a somnam- daily journal in Paris, being published at a bulist, or a mesmerist, who relieves the cost of twenty-eight francs, or 17. 2s. 6d. natural dullness of the assembly. Several yearly. Its capital social is fixed at 500,000 eminent avocats and hommes de lettres are francs. As the Esprit Public' has been members of this sect, and among others, barely six months in existence, it is difficult M. Hennequin, the son of unquestionably to pronounce on its chances of vitality, and the most learned advocate in France. We may be thought to have paid too much attention to the reveries of these enthusiasts, but the professors of these doctrines may play a most important part in France before the end of 1850.

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As the Epoque rose out of the ashes of the Globe,' so did the Esprit Public' out of the ashes of the Commerce. The Commerce,' some years ago, was the property of our friend Mauguin, who purchased it, it is believed, at the request, if not with the money, of the ex-King of Spain. It was then a journal avowedly in the interest of the Bonaparté family; but after the insane attempt of Prince Louis, at Boulogne, in July or August, 1840, this cause seemed hopeless, and the abonnés of the Commerce' rapidly declined. The pecuniary embarrassments of Mauguin induced him to part with the property to a

The Commerce,' we believe, still lingers on, but so much 'in extremis' that it may be said to be dead.

no easy matter to obtain an accurate account of its bonâ-fide circulation. We believe it to be very small-in fact, of the infiniment petit.

'La Réforme' is a journal of extreme opinions, appearing every day. It pays considerable attention to provincial questions, and to matters connected with electoral reform. Godefroy Cavaignac was, till his death, the editor; but it is now chiefly sustained by the pens of Guinard Arago, and Etienne Arago. It is understood that Ledru Rollin, the advocate and rich deputy for Sarthe, pays the expenses. Dupotythe unfortunate Dupoty, formerly editor of the Journal du Peuple,' and who, under the ministry of Thiers, was tried and sentenced to five years' imprisonment as a regicide, because a letter was found open in the letter-box of the paper of which he was editor, addressed to him by a man said to be implicated in the conspiracy of Quenisset-wrote, and, it is said, still writes in the 'Réforme.'

The Univers' is a daily paper quite in

SOUVERAINETE NATIONALE.

ORDRE, LIBERTE, GLOIre.

the interests of the Jesuits. The editor is No account of the French press can M. Jules Goudon, author of a pamphlet on aspire to the praise of fidelity or correctthe recent religious movement; and M.ness without making mention of the 'ReLouis Veuillet, author of Rome Moderne ' vue des Deux Mondes,' one of the best conThe Nation' is a three-day paper, which ducted periodicals in the world, and of as appears every Tuesday, Thursday, and Sun- much authority in France as the Edinday, at a cost of twenty-five francs the year.burgh Review' or 'Quarterly Review' in The programme of this paper is as fol- their very best days-in the days of Sidney lows:Smith, Jeffrey, McIntosh, Horner, and Canning, Walter Scott, Southey, and Gifford. This periodical was established by Count Molé, and the first literary men in France write in its pages. The proprietor of this review is the patentee of the Theatre Français. Within the last three or four years, the 'Revue des Deux Mondes' has litical Chronicle,' which excites much atassumed a political character. The 'Potention, was, a couple of years ago, written by a very over-rated, and eminently servile Genoese, named Rossi, now envoy of France at the court of Rome. A personal favorite of Louis Philippe, and a friend and formerly brother professor of Guizot, this very ordinary person has risen, without commanding talent of any kind, to some of the highest employments in the state.

Le loi se fait par le consentement du peuple
En fait et en droit, les Français ne peuvent être
imposés que de leur consentement.
L'impôt doit etre voteé par ceux qui le paient.
Tout contribuable est électeur, tout électeur est
eligible.

The Nation' therefore proclaims electoral
reform in the largest and widest sense-for
all, in a word, who pay taxes-i. e., eight
millions of Frenchmen; but, knowing that
M. de Genoude, of the Gazette de France,'
is the editor of this journal, we confess we
look on the programme with more than sus-
picion. M. the Abbé de Genoude, hów-
ever, makes every effort to push the paper,
as he also does to push the sale of his trans-
lation of the Bible, in twenty-two volumes!
But though the Nation,' like the 'Figaro'
of Bohain, of 1841, is to be sold in the shop
of every grocer and baker of Paris and the
banlieu, yet it has been found that this
forced sales does not answer the expecta-
tions of the projectors.

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The Revne de Legislation et de Jurisprudence' has been eleven years established, and is also a well conducted miscellany. It is published under the direction of Troplong, Giraud, and Edouard Laboulaye, members of the Institute; Faustin Helié, chef du Bureau des Affaires Criminelles ; Ortolan, professor at the Faculty of Law; and Wolowski, professor of Legislation Industrielle au Conservatoire des Arts et Metiers.

There are in Paris a number of Papers specially devoted to law, the fine arts, &c., but it cannot be expected that we should It were no easy task to fix with preenter at any length into the literary history cision the number of journals at present and circulation of these periodicals. The existing in Paris-a capital in which news'Journal des Tribunaux' and the Cour- paper births and deaths are equally sudden rier des Tribunaux' are both conducted by and unexpected, and in which the journal advocates, and have a very large circula- of to-day may be dead to-morrow, and the tion. There are also a number of small journal of to-morrow may jump, uno flatu, satirical papers, conducted with infinite into a prosperous manhood-but the foltalent, wit, and esprit-as the Figaro,' the lowing resumé approximates nearly to the Charivari,' the Corsaire,' the Corsaire truth:

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Satan.' Articles have occasionally ap

peared in the Figaro' and 'Charivari' There are daily Journals of admitted reworthy of Voltaire, Beaumarchais, or

pute

Champfort; but although these journals Smaller satirical Journals

monthly, &c.)

Journals Religious and Moral, of which

have existed, almost at our door, for a pe-Journals not daily (such as weekly,
riod of more than twenty years, no attempt
was made to imitate them in England,
till our able and facetious contemporary,
'Punch,' entered the field. There are also
a number of small theatrical journals, but
on these it is not needful to dwell.

Journals of Legislation and Jurispru-
twelve are Protestant

dence

of Political Economy and Adminis-
tration .

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