66

as mad as yourself." "My child! my child!" shriex out Mrs. Shum, and clings round missis. But Altamont ran between them, and griping the old lady by her arm dragged her to the door. "Follow your daughter, ma'am," says he, and down she went. Chawls, see those ladies to the door," he hollows out, "and never let them pass it again." We walked down together, and off they went; and master locked and doublelocked the bed-room door after him, intendin, of course, to have a tator tutor (as they say) with his wife. You may be sure that I followed up stairs again pretty quick, to hear the result of their confidence.

As they say at Saint Stevenses, it was rayther a stormy debate. " Mary," says master, "you're no longer the merry, grateful gal, I knew and loved at Pentonwill; there's some secret a pressin on you - there's no smilin welcom for me now, as there used formly to be! Your mother and sisterin-law have perwerted you, Mary; and that's why I've drove them from this house, which they shall not re-enter in my life."

"O, Frederic! it's you is the cause, and not I. Why do you have any mistry from me? Where do you spend your days? Why did you leave me, even on the day of your marridge, for eight hours, and continue to do so every day?"

"Because," says he, "I makes my livelihood by it. I leave you, and I don't tell you how I make it: for it would make you none the happier to know."

It was in this way the convysation ren on more tears and questions on my missiseses part, more sturmness and silence on my master's: it ended, for the first time since their marridge, in a reglar quarrel. Wery difrent, I can tell you, from all the hammerous billing and kewing which had proceeded their nupshums.

Master went out, slamming the door in a fury; as well he might. Says he, "If I can't have a comforable life, I can have a jolly one;" and so he went off to the hed tavern, and came home that evening beesly intawsicated. When high words begin in a famly, drink genrally follows on the genlman's side; and then, fearwell to all conjubial happyniss! These two pipple, so fond and loving, were now sirly, silent, and

full of il wil. Master went out earlier, and came home later; misses cried more, and looked even paler than before.

Well, things went on in this uncomforable way, master still in the mopes, missis tempted by the deamons of jellosy and curosity; until a singlar axident brought to light all the goings on of Mr. Altamont.

It was the tenth of Jennuary; I recklect the day, for old Shum gev me half-a-crownd (the fust and last of his money I ever see, by the way): he was dining along with master, and they were making merry together.

Master said, as he was mixing his fifth tumler of punch, and little Shum his twelfth, or so- master said, "I see you twice in the City to-day, Mr. Shum."

"Well, that's curous!" says Shum. "I was in the City. To-day's the day when the divvydins (God bless 'em !) is paid; and me and Mrs S. went for our half-year's inkem. But we only got out of the coach, crossed the street to the Bank, took our money, and got in agen. How could you see me

twice?"

Altamont stuttered, and stammered, and hemd, and hawd. "O!" says he, "I was passing-passing as you went in and out." And he instantly turned the conversation, and began talking about pollytix, or the weather, or some such stuf.

66

Yes, my dear," said my missis "but how could you see papa twice?" Master didn't answer, but talked pollytix more than ever. Still she would continy on. "Where was you, my dear, when you saw pa? What were you doing, my love, to see pa twice!" and so forth. Master looked angrier and angrier, and his wife only pressed him wuss and wuss.

This was, as I said, little Shum's twelth tumler; and I knew pritty well that he could git very little further: for, as reglar as the thirteenth came, Shum was drunk. The thirteenth did come, and its consquinzies. I was obliged to leed him home to John Street, where I left him, in the hangry arms of Mrs. Shum.

"How the d-," sayd he all the way, "how the ddd-the deddydeddy devil-could he have seen me twice?

It was a sad slip on Altamont's part, for no sooner did he go out the nex morning than missis went out too. She tor down the street, and never stopped till she came to her pa's house at Pentonwill. She was closited for an hour with her ma, and when she left her she drove straight to the City. She walked before the Bank, and behind the Bank, and round the Bank: she came home disperryted, having learned nothink.

And it was now an extrornary thing, that from Shum's house, for the nex ten days, there was nothink but expyditions into the City. Mrs. S., tho her dropsiccle legs had never carred her half so fur before, was eternally on the key veve, as the French say. If she didn't go, Miss Betsy did, or missis did they seemd to have an atrackshun to the Bank, and went there as natral as an omlibus.

At last, one day, old Mrs. Shum comes to our house-(she wasn't admitted when master was there, but came still in his absints) and she wore a hair of tryumf as she entered.

"Mary," says she, "where is the money your husbind brought to you yesterday?" My master used always to give it to missis when he returned.

"The money, ma!" says Mary. "Why, here!" And, pulling out her puss, she shewed a sovrin, a good heap of silver, and an odd-looking little coin.

"THAT'S IT! that's it!" cried Mrs. S. "A Queen Anne's sixpence, isn't it, dear dated seventeen hunderd and three?"

the genteel thing, with a nosegy and a goold stick. We walked down the New Road we walked down the City Roadwe walked to the Bank. We were crossing from that heddyfiz to the other side of Cornhill, when, all of a sudden, missis shreeked, and fainted spontaceously away.

I rushed forrard, and raised her to my arms; spiling thereby a new weskit, and a pair of crimpson smalcloes. I rushed forrard, I say, wery nearly knocking down the old sweeper, who was hobling away as fast as possibil. We took her to Birch's; we provided her with a hackney-coach and every lucksury, and carried her home to Islington.

That night master never came home. Nor the nex night, nor the nex. On the fourth day, an octioneer arrived; he took an infantry of the furnitur, and placed a bill in the window.

At the end of the wick, Altamont made his appearance. He was haggard, and pale; not so haggard, however, not so pale, as his misrable wife.

He looked at her very tendrilly. I may say, it's from him that I coppied my look to Miss He looked at

her very tendrilly, and held out his arms. She gev a suffycating shreek, and rusht into his umbraces.

"Mary," says he, "you know all now. I have sold my place; I have got three thousand pound for it, and saved two more. I've sold my house and furnitur, and that brings me another. We'll go abroad, and love each other, has formly."

INTRODUCTION.

THE JOURNAL DES DÉBATS.

MONSIEUR JACQUES COSTE, the redoubtable founder, director, and every thing else, of Le Temps, once said a good thing, which has been so often repeated that at last every one claims to be its father. He said, that "the press was the fourth power in the state." Of course, the first being Louis Philippe; the second, the Chamber of Life-Peers; the third, the Chamber of Deputies; and the fourth― Monsieur Jacques Coste himself! And why not? He resides in the very house in which Napoleon organised the 16th Brumaire

sleeps in the same room as that in which Napoleon slept — is a little man with a keen eye, as was his predecessor --and addresses himself by turns, as did the Buonaparte of that epoch, to all parties and to all opinions, in the hope of thus securing to himself the continuance of his empire over others.

But when Monsieur Jacques Coste declared that "the press was the fourth power in the state," he had no intention to include all the press. He did not speak of the presses of Firmin Didot--or of the magazine and review press- of the religious press-or the Catholic press-or the Protestant press - of Victor Hugo's press-or Paul de Kock's press—or De Lamartine's, or Chateaubriand's press - or, in fine, of any press but the newspaper press; and, above all, of the newspaper press of Paris.

-

This apophthegm" of Jacques Coste has, at length, found its way into every corner of the world, and has been repeated in almost every language under heaven. Each country has its Jacques Coste-its bellows-blowerits "fourth power in the state;" and the veriest errand-boy who fetches copy from the editor, and runs back with

proofs and revises, feels the dignity of his mission and the importance of his office. If the errand-boy should be unfaithful, the paper could not appear; and if the paper did not appear, all Paris would be in agitation; and if all Paris were in agitation at the nonappearance of the paper, there would be a confusion in the four powers of the state; and émeutes, sommations, municipal guards, drawn swords, paving-stones, genteelly flung at soldiers' shakos, would be the consequence: whilst the little errand-boy who failed in his duty, and lost the editor's copy, would be able to stand on the Pont Royal and exclaim, "I am the fourth power of the state!"

It may not, then, be either uninteresting or uninstructive to examine the organisation, character, conduct, and results of this "fourth power" in Paris; and to see whether, when Jacques Coste, Armand Carrel, and M. Thiers, made the revolution of July 1830, as editors or conductors of this fourth power, they acted from the purest and wisest motives; and whether they have essentially promoted the "progress of civilisation" and the " happiness and honour of their country.' will it be wholly unprofitable thus to supply the materials for a future comparison of the English and French newspaper press, their conduct, character, influence, and management. If we are not much mistaken, the former will greatly gain by that comparison; and the eulogists of the French press will learn, that they have no real foundation for their preference of the Paris over the London newspapers.

Nor

The "Paris newspaper press " must be divided into Two great categories: first, the daily press; and, second, the

weekly press. And these again must be subdivided into, first, the political press; second, the half-political and half-theatrical, and amusing and literary press; third, the literary, theatrical, and miscellaneous press, from which politics are wholly excluded ; and fourth, the legal, or courts of law press.

Before we commence our analysis of those journals which M. Coste describes as the "fourth power in the state," we shall proceed to the classification of all the newspaper press of Paris, up to the middle of October 1837.

I. The Daily Political Press. 1. THE MONITEUR, the official journal of all French governments.

2. THE JOURNAL DES DÉBATS, the organ of the Doctrinaires and Whig aristocracy.

3. THE PAIX, the organ of M. Guizot and of the party of resistance.

4. THE JOURNAL DE PARIS, the organ of M. Fonfrede and of French liberal Tories.

5. THE CONSTITUTIONNEL, the organ of M. Thiers and M. Dupin.

6. THE COURIER FRANÇAIS, the organ of M. Bignon, M. Odillon Barrot, and the opposition of the moderate school--the Globe of France; i. e. what the Globe was in London when the Conservatives were in office.

7. THE JOURNAL DU COMMERCE, the organ of M. Mauguin, the colonial deputy; who, having a good appointment, and a large salary from the colonies, pleads for colonial slavery as he used, before his "brevet" arrived, to plead for the barricades and propagandism.

8. THE TEMPS, the organ of M. Coste and his shareholders. All things to all men. Most happy just now, because paid and supported by Count Molé and Count Montalivet.

9. THE NATIONAL, the organ of the Republican party of the higher order.

10. THE BON SENS, the organ of the Republican party of the lower order.

11. THE MONDE, the organ of the Republican party of the propagandist order; lately conducted by the Republican, Abbé de la Mennais.

12. THE MESSAGER, the evening opposition paper; a combination of the Sun and True Sun: not exactly either, but something like both.

13. THE PRESSE, the organ of Emile

de Girardin, deputy, who married Delphine Gay, and who together have combined, by means of first establishing a journal at 40 francs per annum, to make a bona fide revolution in the Parisian press, as we shall see hereafter.

14. THE SIÈCLE, the cheap organ of the opposition; conducted by men who hold the same principles as those of the Courier Français, but publishing a journal at 40, instead of at 80 francs, per annum.

15. THE JOURNAL GÉNÉRAL DE FRANCE, the organ of nobody, but a cheap paper, selling well in the country, but not at all in the metropolis. Moderate, flat, and stupid.

16. L'EUROPE, a cheap organ of the Legitimist party.

17. THE QUOTIDIENNE, the organ of the Berryer portion of the Legitimists.

18. THE GAZETTE DE FRANCE, the organ of M. l'Abbé de Genoude, who has got a system of his own for being a Radical and a Tory at one and the

same moment.

19. THE FRANCE, the organ of the Duke and Duchess d'Angoulême, of M. de Blacas, and of the Jesuits at Fribourg.

20. THE CHARTE DE 1830, the evening official organ of the govern

ment.

21. THE ECHO FRANÇAIS, a paper published at noon, made with scissors and paste, containing extracts from all the morning papers and the news of the morning. Its colour is Legitimist.

22. L'ESTAFETTE, a paper of precisely the same character as l'Echo Français; with this exception, that its colour is "Juste-milieu."

23. THE JOURNAL DES VILLES ET CAMPAGNES, a scissor-and-paste paper, badly got up for the provinces, without fifty subscribers at Paris.

24. THE FEUILLE FRANÇAISE; of the same character political news, not political discussions.

II. The Weekly Political Press.

1. FRANCE DÉPARTMENTALE, which is specially devoted to the interests and complaints of the departments, to the exclusion of Paris.

2. L'OUTREMER, which is specially devoted to the interests and complaints of the French colonies.

3. THE JOURNAL DU PEUPLE, a

This is a genre of newspapers not known in England.

1. LE CHARIVARI, which means, "Marrowbones and Cleavers," or the hubbub at a dustman's wedding or an Irish wake. Violent opposition. To avoid the caution-money necessary to be deposited for political journals, it professes only to be theatrical and miscellaneous; but the object of the paper is daily to attack the government by quolibets, enigmas, and diatribes.— Though you could read it through easily in twenty minutes, yet its subscription is greater in amount than many large political journals.

2. LE FIGARO; anti-republican. The antipodes of the Charivari as to object, but quite as much a permanent violation of the law.

3. LE CORSAIR; the same class, but opposition.

4. LE MONITEUR PARISIEN; favoured by the government, and supplied, gratuitously, with all telegraphic despatches from Spain which arrive in the course of the day. But for these despatches, it must have long since expired.

5. LA MODE, a Legitimist journal, of vast talent and influence. An attempt was lately made to render it daily (it is only weekly), but the subscription was not filled, though the Duchess de Berri was at the head of the list. La Mode has often been persecuted. It has a large sale, and is witty and

severa.

IV. The Daily and Weekly Literary, Theatrical, and Miscellaneous Press, from which Politics are excluded. 1. TAM-TAM. Very amusing. 2. THE COURIER DES MODES. Stupid. 3. THE PETITES AFFICHES, devoted to advertisements.

4. THE VOLEUR, a literary paper, made up of robbing the best articles from all literary papers and reviews in all countries, but all ground down to French, and to please the French public.

5. THE COURIER DES THÉÂTRES. 6. THE MENÉSTREL, purely musical. 7. VERT-VERT, only theatrical, or nonsensical.

8. THE CABINET DE LECTURE, every five days. A selection, not badly made, of interesting literary articles.

9. THE REVUE DES THÉÂTRES. 10. L'ASPIC. Nothing at all. 11. THE GAZETTE DES THÉÂTRES. 12. ENTRE ACTE; which means, that between the different acts at the theatres you may amuse yourself by reading it. And,

13. THE REVUE DE PARIS, which is published every Sunday, in the form of a book, and is really the best written and best conducted of all the weekly or daily literary publications in the metropolis.

Besides these, there are the Avant Scène and the Moniteur des Théâtres, both penny theatrical papers; the Gratis, an Omnibus paper, which lives by its advertisements, for it has nothing else; and persons advertise in it in consequence of its large gratuitous circulation; and the Affiches Parisiennes and Annonciateur, which are "wall journals," stuck up all over Paris, and containing nothing but advertisements. And then there are Family Weekly Journals: such as the Magasin Pittoresque, and the Musée des Familles, and the Mosaïque, and the Magasin Universel. And then there are "Tailoring and Dress-making Journals:" such as the Revue des Modes de Paris, Follet, Psyche, Bon Ton, Art du Tailleur, and Journal des Tailleurs. And then there are the Journals of the Ladies without heads, as without hearts: such as the Journal des Dames et des Modes, the Petit Courier des Dames, the Journal des Femmes, the Bazar, la Brodeuse, and 'Equipage. But all of these, though belonging to the daily or weekly press.