a minute confiscating the revenues of the journal, and decreeing that the editor's salary should be fixed at 10,000 livres, the surplus to be devoted to pensions payable to former contributors. The editor assented to the arrangement, for he earned large perquisites by inserting puffs in favour of enriched farmers-general, who wished to be compared to Lucullus and Mecenas, and actresses of more beauty than talent. This was beginning to be recognised as a legitimate branch of profits in a well-conducted newspaper, and a story is told of an actress who visited La Roque, laid ten louis on the table, and said: "Now, Sir, I hope you'll treat me to something fine for this money." "Unquestionably," said La Roque, and he wrote there and then :-"Mdlle. Serlet deserves to have her salary increased by at least ten louis." "What, is that all you're going to put?" asked the actress in astonishment. "You seem to think ten louis a large sum," answered the editor, quietly. Mdile. Serlet took the hint, gave 100 louis, and was conscientiously puffed from that day forth. On another occasion an actress called with a diamond-backed watch, which La Roque much admired, and which she promised to send him when she returned home. She did so, and La Roque wrote in the next Mercure: "Mdlle. Normeilles is an actress full of promise; it is a pity that her memory should be so defective." Of course the lady returned to ask the meaning of this strange sentence, and to protest against it as a breach of contract. "Pardon me," replied La Roque, "you sent me the watch, but you forgot the chain." It must not be inferred from this that the Mercure jobbed its columns throughout, but it has long been a maxim with French journalists, and indeed with others besides Frenchmen, that praise may be sold without harm, for it occasionally converts a poor performer, artist, actor or writer, into a good one by force of encouragement. The Mercure did not require money to praise people who deserved it, neither, as a rule, did it sell its censure to gratify private malice. It simply did what Loret first began to do in his Rhyming Gazette, that is, extolled persons with more money than brains, and left the public to ratify or dissent from the eulogies at its pleasure. There were some editors, however, who were entirely incorruptible. Laplace, Marmontel, and La Harpe, three men of honour, became successively conductors of the Mercure, and the paper attained, in their hands, to the highest character for impartiality. Towards the middle of the eighteenth century, to be a contributor to the Mercure was reputed as great a distinction as to write for the Revue des Deux Mondes now-a-days; and all the writers of eminence in France figured on its staff, turn by turn, most of them writing anonymously. No one can peruse the Mercure of a century ago without feeling that its superiority to all the other periodicals since published in France is indisputable. Not even the Revue des Deux Mondes can compare with it in sustained interest and purity of style, and one may instance the review published shortly after the appearance of Rousseau's Nouvelle Héloïse to show that criticism had reached its climax of perfection under Louis XV.'s reign, and has done nothing but degenerate ever since. The review in question, however, humorous, sparkling, and in every way admirable as it is, forms but one of hundreds of other essays, novelettes, and epigrams, which Parisian journalists of the present generation would do so well to study as models. The wit of the contributors* appears to have been inexhaustible, and it is not the smallest proof of their pre-eminence over their descendants that they should have written so many good things without putting their signatures to them. Thus there are scores of Voltaire's articles scattered anonymously about the columns of the Mercure. Where is the modern French periodical that would be content to possess a contributor but half as illustrious without trumpeting the fact to the whole world from every advertisement hoarding in the capital? III. The publication of the Mercure was not interrupted till the Revolution, but long before that date its exclusive privilege as a social and political organ had been set at nought, and hundreds of newspapers and magazines appeared in imitation of it. However, it must be remembered that until Louis XVI. was dethroned, Paris was officially supposed to possess but three periodicals: the Gazette de France for politics, Le Journal des Savants for literature and science, and the Mercure de France for politics, literature, and social matters mingled. For a time these monopolies were respected, but only for a very short time. Louis XIV. promised Donneau de Visé that any infringement of his rights should be punished with the galleys, but it was difficult to punish with the galleys Frenchmen who went to London, Holland, Flanders, or Geneva, and founded papers there, nor was it easy to seize the numerous copies of these prints which were smuggled into Paris. Moreover, it was not quite fair that Paris should be deprived of its news-sheet because M. Visé happened to have the ague, so the King was obliged to compound. The Mercure retained its nominal privilege, but semi-political journals were allowed to appear by paying it a tax, which varied from 1,000 livres to 5,000 livres a year, and also an equivalent tax to the Gazette de > France. To keep up the fiction of the monopoly, the tributary papers * Chamfort, a dramatic critic, being seated one afternoon correcting a proof in the office of the Mercure, Garat, another critic, walked in and announced his coming marriage to a lady whose perfection of mind and person he enthusiastically described; Chamfort offered his congratulations by writing at the back of his proof these lines: A mon avis, le plus grand des trésors bore the name of some provincial town and purported to be both printed and published there; for it was apparently better, according to official notions, that a journal should tell a periodical falsehood than that the immortal principles of routine should be disturbed. In course of time some laxity occurred in these arrangements; the tributaries grew remiss in their payments, and then ceased to pay at all. During the Regency of the Duke of Orleans (1715-23), the Gazette de France, Mercure, and Journal des Savants combined to bring an action for infringement against all the papers then existing, but they were non-suited on a technical objection; and this was their last attempt at asserting their prerogative. They remained content with the prestige which their connection with Government secured them, and with a fee of 1,000 livres, which new papers paid them at starting, in return for a bond of indemnity guaranteeing the new papers against suits at law. The Journal des Savants was the worst off of the three by this concordat, for it could only claim a fee from purely literary journals, and the prosecution of these was so troublesome and useless a matter that towards the beginning of the eighteenth century Government abandoned the task, and tacitly allowed any Frenchman who pleased to start a paper provided there was no mention in it of politics or religion. This liberty, though, was of a very fitful kind and subject altogether to the whims of the Lieutenant-General of Police and the clerks acting under him. Papers would swarm one day and be confiscated wholesale the next without a shadow of reason. It was a continual cycle of sunshine and storm. As may be supposed, a king so autocratic as Louis XIV. did not relent in his severity towards the Press from any growing love of journalism; he yielded because the Press was simply too strong for him. The papers which were published abroad and found their way into France were most dangerous nuisances. They undermined the royal authority by lauding the institutions of free states like England and Holland, and they turned the King personally into ridicule, by painting him exactly as he was in mind, body, and speech. Louis XIV. has come down to us like many another sovereign, with the halo of grandeur which Court panegyrists and historians have set like a second crown on his head. But kings are not, as a rule, famous for great intellect, or even for common sense or taste; and Louis XIV. was as Thackeray has so well dubbed him, a Royal Snob. Eaten up by his own conceit, talking an inflated jargon of bumptiousness, pompous in little things, peevish, dissolute, ugly and hypocritical, he was just the king to afford humorists an endless subject for jokes; and his successor, Louis XV., was like him, with the additional royal virtue of being stingy. The Gazette d'Amsterdam and the Gazette de Leyde, two papers which are better known under the generic title of the Gazette de Hollande,* took minute note of all the There was never a paper called the Gazette de Hollande. The name was applied collectively to all the French Gazettes printed on Dutch territory for circulation in France. foibles and stupid utterances of this kingly pair. They had correspondents at Court who could never be detected (the Duke de Saint Simon was always suspected of being one of them; hence Louis XIV.'s strong dislike to him; the Duc de Lauzun was suspected too), and they led a mocking chorus, which was kept up by a multitude of other gazettes, some of which were virulent beyond conception. Here is a complete list of the foreign papers printed in French, which made sport of the Majesties of Louis XIV. and XV., and soured their royal minds : Nouvelles Ordinaires de Londres, 1650-54; Gazette de Bruxelles, 16541711; Gazette d'Amsterdam, 1663-1791; Mercure Hollandais, 1672-84; Gazette de Leyde, 1680-1798; Mercure Historique de La Haye, 1686-1728; Lettres d'Amsterdam, 1680-90; Lettres de La Haye, 1692-1728; Journal de l'Europe (Strasburg), 1696; Esprit des Cours de l'Europe (Portsmouth and Brussels), 1699-1710; Nouvelles des Cours d'Europe (London), 1710-15; La Quintessence des Nouvelles (Amsterdam), 1712-27; Memoires Critiques, 1722; Le Nouvelliste sans fard (Cologne and Cleves), 1723-25; Courrier d'Avignon, 1733-88; Gazette d'Utrecht, 1734-87; Nouveau Mercure de la Haye, 1740-54; Magazin des Évènements (Amsterdam), 1741; Épilogueur Politique (Amsterdam), 1741-42; Demosthenes Moderne (Amsterdam), 1746-47; Le Moissonneur (Utrecht), 1741-42; Journal Universel de la Haye, 1748-47; Nouvelliste Suisse (Neufchâtel), 175468; L'Observateur Hollandais (La Haye), 1755; L'Année Politique, 1758; Courrier du Bas-Rhin, 1682 (this paper, published at Strasburg, exists still); Gazette des Pays Bas, 1760-65; Gazette des Gazettes (Bouillon), 1760-89; L'Observateur Français à Londres, 1769-72; Gazette des Deux Ponts (Zweibrucken), 1770; Lettres Historiques de Cologne, 1788-98. That these papers were not foes to be despised may be seen from the long time which many of them lasted; and several volumes might be written about the stratagems employed for introducing them into France, and the diverse methods adopted by the Crown to combat them. They entered France in herring-tubs, in bottles presumed to contain Rhine wine, in bales of cloth, oyster-barrels, boots, coat-linings, and even in the muzzles of cannon returning from war. Coming back to France to winter after a campaign in Flanders, Marshal Vauban ordered a battery to halt and fire a salute to the French flag within sight of the frontier. Of the six pieces that were drawn up for this purpose five were found ramned to the mouth with copies of the Gazette d'Amsterdam, which a captain of artillery had put there "to prevent the damp from getting into the guns," as he laughingly said. Vauban appears to have laughed too, though he ordered the gazettes to be torn up and distributed as wadding. The papers were, in fact, irrepressible. In vain was it that the King's ambassadors complained of them; in vain was it that Louis XIV. conquered Holland, actuated in his hatred for that country principally by the Gazettes it produced: in vain was it that the importation of all foreign journals was declared high treason. The papers filtered across the frontier no one could tell how. One day Louis XIV. marched into the Galère des Glaces at Versailles livid with rage and holding a newspaper clenched in his hand. The whole Court were assembled and quaked at the signs of fury which were unusual with the King, for he seldom went beyond waspishness. "Monsieur de la Reynie," he cried shrilly to the Lieutenant of Police," this must be put a stop to. Any man, no matter what may be his rank, who is found with one of these papers in his possession, shall answer for it with his head." Half-an-hour later, drawing his handkerchief from his pocket, he pulled out a Dutch Gazette which some nimble-fingered courtier had dropped there, probably to show the absurdity of punishing people for what might be a mere accident. As to Louis XV. and his mistresses, Mdme. de Pompadour and Mdme. du Barry, they were continually discovering newspaper extracts thrust by unknown hands in places where they would be sure to find them. The Duc de Richelieu talking one day of the scurrilousness of foreign journalists, Mdme. du Barry answered spitefully, "I should like to see into your heart and find how many of those scurrilous papers you had brought with you to Versailles to put into my Japan vases." "Into my heart, Madame," answered the witty Duke ; "you surely don't imagine your sex has left me heart enough to keep a record there of all the good things I do." On another occasion Louis XV. remarked: "I wish my best friends would save themselves the trouble of putting newspapers under my napkin to prove their love for me. I take their affection for granted without that." Louis XIV. hit upon the idea of publishing papers in Paris which should bear the titles of Gazette de Leyde, Gazette d'Amsterdam &c., hoping thereby to confuse the public, who would buy the loyal papers expecting to find treason there and be deceived for their pains. But the experiment was not of long duration-for the only people confused were the police agents, who could not be at the trouble of examining the newspaper in every reader's hand to see if it was a genuine sheet or a counterfeit. The result was, that everybody bought the disloyal gazettes and pretended, if caught, that the purchase had been made under the impression that it was the loyal print, as the words cum privilegio certified. As a last resource, the licensing of Parisian gazettes under provincial names or dating places, as above mentioned, was attempted, and this was fairly successful. The République des Lettres, Bibliothèque Universelle, Journal de Médecine (half political), and Lettres Historiques, are the most celebrated of the papers launched from 1682 to 1692; and in 1702-4 and 1705 appeared successively the Journal de Trévoux, Journal de Verdun, and Journal Littéraire de Blois, all three well written and highly popular. The Journal de Trévoux was edited by Jesuits and lasted many years; the Journal de Verdun was conducted by a man named Claude Jordan, who passed for a most devoted subject; but who, whilst editing a loyal paper for the King, was secret editor of that very Gazette de Leyde, which he had been commissioned to counteract, as was found out after his death to the stupefaction of all well-thinking minds. The Journal |