Lost Illusions (Penguin Classics) Read Free

knaveries of his time.
    The first half of the nineteenth century witnessed the rapid rise to power of the periodical press. Journalism had been active – though dangerous to those engaged in it – during the Revolutionary period. Napoleon had kept the press under his thumb, as Giroudeau points out on page 235. The ‘freedom’ of the press was one of the most controversial issues both under the Restoration and the July Monarchy. Under Louis XVIII and Charles X the struggle between those who, like the Liberals and Bonapartists, wanted to keep the Revolutionary principles and gains intact, and the Conservatives of various hues, especially the ‘Ultras’, who wanted to put the political clock back, was an affair of major importance; likewise, under Louis-Philippe, the conflict between the spirit of stagnation and the parties in favour of ‘movement’. Balzac’s contention is that the majority of journalists under these three monarchs, instead of recognizing that they were called to a serious, even sacred mission, turned the Press into an instrument for self-advancement, prostituted principles to intrigueand used journalism merely as a means of acquiring money, position and power. He is reluctant to admit that there
were
great, responsible press organs, like
Le Journal des Débats, Le Conservateur, Le Constitutionnel
and, from 1824,
Le Globe,
which stood firm on principle; he is above all aware of the vogue which the
petits journaux
enjoyed after the fall of Napoleon, and of the role they played as political privateers.
    The
petits journaux
were so-called because they were produced in smaller format than the important dailies or weeklies, which were more or less grave, staid and ponderous. They proliferated in Paris once the fall of the Empire had given a relative, though still precarious liberty to the Press – precarious because it was constantly threatened by the increasingly reactionary governments of the time. The politicians of the Right found it difficult to keep the newspapers under control even by such means as stamp-duty, caution-money, fines, suspensions and suppressions, the object of these being mainly to put obstacles in the way of would-be founders of hostile periodicals. The ‘little papers’, short-lived as they often proved to be, were much given to journalistic sharp-shooting. They preferred satire, personal attack, sarcasm and scandal-mongering to serious argument or the affirmation of ideals. They were mostly Opposition journals and were a constant thorn in the flesh of the Government. Balzac’s aim was to expose their addiction to ‘graft’, intrigue, blackmail and the misuse of the
feuilleton,
namely the bottom portion of the first page or other pages generally reserved for critical articles and frequently devoted to the malicious task of slashing literary reputations. Andoche Finot – the prototype of such later newspaper magnates as Émile de Girardin and Armand Dutacq, pioneers in 1836 in the founding of cheap dailies which relied on advertisement and serialized novels as a chief source of income – acquires a large share in a big daily and hands on to the equally unprincipled Lousteau the editorship of the ‘little paper’ he already owns. Balzac probably had
Le Figaro
chiefly in mind, a periodical which was constantly going bankrupt or being suppressed but kept popping up again under different editors. Hector Merlin’sroyalist
Drapeau Blanc,
edited by Martainville, really existed, having been founded in 1819; so did
Le Réveil.
Other examples of ‘little papers’ before 1830 were
Le Nain Jaune
(Bonapartist),
Le Diable Boiteux
and
Le Corsaire
(both Liberal),
Le Voleur, La Mode, La Silhouette,
and, under Louis-Philippe, not only the phoenix-like
Figaro,
but also
La Caricature, Le Charivari
(ancestor of our English
Punch),
and once more
Le Corsaire:
a few among many. Louis-Philippe and his Cabinets were easy prey for these stinging gad-flies whose unremitting satire and innuendo remind