A return to the freedom of the press was believed in under Charles X. It- was but a slight respite. The government haled before the judges the Constitutionnel and the Courrier Fran cats which had made attacks on the Jesuits. They were acquitted. The Ministry Villele, in 1827, brought in a bill of violent repression, ironically called the °Law of Justice and Love.* The public anger was aroused and the bill was withdrawn; Paris illuminated; the Ministry fell. A new bill was passed freeing the press from the trammels of the censorship. It was the glorious hour of the pamphleteer Paul Louis Courrier. "Let people talk," said he; "let them blame, condemn, imprison you, but publish your thoughts. This is not a right but a duty, a strict obligation on whoever has a thought, to publish and proclaim it for the common good, for, if your thought be good, it helps others, and if it be bad, it gets corrected and it still helps others along. But the abuse? Nonsense! Those who have invented this word of abuse are those who really abuse the press by printing what they wish and by deceiving, slandering or preventing the others from answering." Thenceforward a mortal strife between the press and the power took place. The Con stitutionnel, the Courrier Francais, the Temps (the first Temps), the National, the Figaro (the first Figaro) and the Globe struck daily at the Ministry. On the eve of 1830, a protest by Thiers, signed by 44 journalists, the glory of the French press, proclaimed: "In the situa tion we are placed, obedience ceases to be a duty.° The regulations of July 1830 abolished the freedom of the press. The newspapers raised a protest against this ((coup The police intervened and smashed up the print ing presses of two of the papers; riots threat ened, and three days later the legitimate monarchy fell. The press now believed itself to be free. The monarchy of July, born of a revolt, achieved in the name of the rights of the press, showed no thankfulness toward the journalists. A new era began. In November 1830, the Draconian Law of 1825 was abolished. For the papers this foreboded freedom. The Tribune of Raspail, the Bon Sens of Cauchois Lemaire and Louis Blanc, the Monde of Lamen nais, the Constituionnel and the Globe saw a hope of better days. However, in three years the victors had no less than 400 trials. The government had guaranteed the faculty of printing all opinions within the bonds of the laws. The censor's scissors had been sup pressed. Made eager by its successes, full of confidence in the future, the press multiplied. Within a short lapse of time there were no less than 20 large papers in Paris. The Con stitutionnel, whose yearly subscription amounted to 80 francs, boasted of 23,000 subscribers, a very large number for the times. All these papers, with more or less reserve or passion, made attacks on authority. It was the fight of the legitimists against the authority of Louis Philippe. They were also the first manifesta tions of the young Republican party.
Caricature made its start, helped on by the discovery of lithography (1830-31). The il lustrated comic papers, such as the daily Charivari, the weekly Caricature, mocked the king and his Ministers. The public liked and clamored for the gay drawings of Granville, Daumier, Raffct, Charlet, Descamps, Bellange and Charles Philippon, who was prosecuted for having represented Louis-Philippe dressed as a mason busy erasing the promises of July 1830. The king's head was often represented in the shape of a pear. The government began to chastise: From July 1830 to October 1832, 281 papers were seized. In 1835, the Tribune proudly announced its 114th lawsuit and its 199,000 franc paid in fines. The Revue des Deux-Mondes alone, founded in 1829, all the contributors of which were well known, was not shaken by the tempest. Every opportunity was seized to attack the king, Thus, when the United States claimed an indemnity for the American merchantmen confiscated in French ports during the Empire, the papers accused Louis-Philippe of having bought up at a lu dicrous price the debts he wanted France to pay. The press was called the fourth power in the state.
The law of September 1835 at length claimed a bond of 48,000 to 100,000 francs ($9,600 to $20,000) from all political papers; every offense against the king was considered a crime; it was forbidden to proclaim one's self a Republican or to express the hope in a change of govern ment, There was also a censorship for the drawings. •
But a great journalistic event was about to take place: The Presse of Emile Girardin ap peared on 1 July 1836 at the low subscription of 40 francs. Girardin had already created the Voleur (1828) and the Mode (1829) in which Balzac, Eugene Siie and George Sand had pub lished their first articles; the Journal des Con naissances Utiles (1831), which had found 232,000 subscribers in the space of a year. The Presse was his masterpiece. With "feuilletons) by Alexandre Dumas and Frederic Soulie, and diversity of matter, his paper was admirably edited. In three months, he had no less than 10000 subscribers. Two years later he had advertisements for 150,000 francs. His con tributors were Balzac, Dumas. Delphine Gay, Gautier, Leon Gozlan, Sue and Victor Hugo; Balzac published therein his (Paysans,) Dumas his (Joseph Balsamo) at the rate of 1 franc, 50 centimes per line (30 cents). A gifted jour nalist, Armand Carrel, stormed against the paper as half-penny bazaar.° Girardin took up the gauntlet 'lin the name of popular literature? A duel with pistols followed and Carrel was killed. The Presse continued its brilliant career, imitated by a rival, the Siecle. In 1848, the Presse was suppressed, reappeared two months later, passed from hand to hand and still exists to-day.
Among the "opinion" papers, we find L'Uni vers of Louis and Eugene Veuillot, a Catholic organ founded in 1833 by the Abbe Migne. It aims at freedom for teaching and quarrels with the bishops. Lamennais, in 1830, had founded the Avenir, a sign that the believers forgotten since the Revolution had stepped forth again. Lacordaire and Montalembert contributed to it during its 13 months' ex istence. In it appeared, on 18 Oct. 1830, the sensational article "On the separation of the Church from the State," which invited the Catholics to turn toward the legitimate king and to break with the new rule of the Orleans.
But in 1840 the French °bourgeois" had become a Voltairian, with a taste for anti religious papers, for the writings of Michelet, Quinet, Cousin and Villemain. The authorities were molested by the smaller and larger papers alike: the Guipes of Alphonse Karr, soon the Reforme of Ledru-Rollin (1843) and the Journal du Peuple of Godefroy Cavaignac. In 1845 judicial questions began to be discussed in the papers. In the following year the Paris papers had a total of 200,000 subscribers for 24 sheets. An ever-increasing influence re sulted: in 1848, the Temporary government was organized by the press. At first it showed moderation and preached then claimed new liberties for itself. Within four months 200 papers sprang up. From 1848 to 1851, there appeared 400 new literary papers and 789 political publications, among which were Cause du Peuple, by George Sand, and the Peuple, by Proudhon. L'Avant-Garde offered to its subscribers a retiring pension after 30 years' subscription, the cost of a third-class funeral and 100 francs ($20) to the widow. The Republique des Femmes wanted to free the earth from its tyrants : all the men. Then sprang up the Journal pour Rire, with Nadar, Daumier, Grevin, Cham and Gustave Dore ; the Trompette du Pere Belle-Rose, the Croque-Mont de la Presse, the Lunettes du Pere Duchesne, the Drapeau des Sans-Culottes, the Pilon and the Tocsin des Travailleurs. 'The Liberte informs that it had just made acquisition of Alex andre Dumas and of new printing-presses.' Victor Hugo, on 1 Aug. 1848, published the Evenement, and wrote: 'We shall give the foremost place to the event of the day, what ever it be, whatever region of the soul it come from. . . . If among these unheard of days, came an ordinary day, which would be the most extraordinary of all; if, against all pos sibility, the event came one day to be lacking, that day we would unite in one sheet like a dazzling constellation all the glorious names that stud our staff, and on that day our paper should become its own event." To uphold the social movement, Fournier had created the Phalanstere, and Victor Considerant the Democrate Pacifique. There were then 90,000 Socialists in Paris; they read the Repub lique Rouge and the Salut Social. Lamartine, more moderate, wrote in his own paper Le Bien Public.