GIRARDIN, EMILE DE (1802-1881), French publicist, was born in Paris, the son of General Alexandre de Girardin and of Madame Dupuy, wife of a Parisian advocate. He became inspector of fine arts under the Martignac ministry just before the revolution of 183o, and was an energetic and passionate journalist. In 1836 he inaugurated cheap journalism in a popular Conservative organ, La Presse, the subscription to which was only forty francs a year. This undertaking involved him in a duel with Armand Carrel, the fatal result of which made him refuse satisfaction to later opponents. In 1839 he was excluded from the Chamber of Deputies, to which he had been four times elected, on the plea of his supposed foreign birth (he was wrongly alleged to have been born in Switzerland), but was admitted in 1842. He resigned early in February 1847, and on Feb. 14, 1848• sent a note to Louis Philippe demanding his resignation and the regency of the duchess of Orleans. In the Legislative Assembly he voted with the Mountain. He pressed eagerly in his paper for the election of Prince Louis Napoleon, of whom he after wards became one of the most violent opponents. In 1856 he sold La Presse, only to resume it in 1862, but its vogue was over, and Girardin started a new journal, La Liberte, the sale of which was forbidden in the public streets. He supported Emile 011ivier and the Liberal Empire, but plunged into vehement journalism again to advocate war against Prussia. His most successful coup was the purchase of Le Petit Journal. Girardin married in 1831 Delphine Gay (see above), and after her death in 1855 Guillemette Josephine Brunold, countess von Tieffenbach, widow of Prince Frederick of Nassau. He was divorced from his second wife in 1872.
His writings include: De la presse periodique au XIXe siecle (1837) ; De l'instruction publique (1838) ; Etudes politiques (1838) ; De la liberte de la presse et du journalisme (1842) ; Le Droit au travail au Luxembourg et a l'Assemblee Nationale (2 vols., 1848) ; Les Cinquante-deux (1849, etc.) , a series of articles on current parliamentary questions ; La Politique universelle, decrets de l'avenir (Brussels, 1852) ; Le Condamne du 6 mars (1867), an account of his own differences with the government in 1867 when he was fined 5000 fr. for an article in La Liberte; Le Dossier de la guerre (1877), a collection of official documents ; Questions de mon temps, 1836 a articles extracted from the daily and weekly press (12 vols., i858).