THE PRESSE.
The Presse was founded in 1836, about the same time as the Siècle, by Emile de Girardin, a son of General de Girardin, it is said, by an English mother. Till that epoch of fifteen years ago, people in Paris or in France had no idea of a journal exceeding in circulation 25,000 copies, the circulation of the Constitutionnel, or of a newspaper costing less than seventy or eighty francs per annum. Many journals had contrived to live on respectably enough on a modest number of 4000 or 5000 abonnés. But the conductors of the Presse and of the Siècle were born to operate a revolution in this routine and jog-trot of newspaper life. They reduced the subscription to newspapers from eighty to forty francs per annum, producing as good if not a better article. This was a great advantage to the million, and it induced parties to subscribe for, and read a newspaper, more especially in the country, who never thought of reading a newspaper before. In constituting his new press, M. Girardin entirely upset and rooted out all the old notions theretofore prevailing as to the conduct of a journal. The great feature in the new journal was not its leading articles, but its Roman feuilleton, by Dumas, Sue, &c. This it was that first brought Socialism into extreme vogue among the working classes. True the Presse was not the first to publish Socialist feuilletons, but the Débats and the Constitutionnel. But the Presse was the first to make the leading article subsidiary to the feuilleton. It was, even when not a professed Socialist, a great promoter of Socialism, by the thorough support which it lent to all the slimy, jesuitical corruptions of Guizoism, and all the turpitudes and chicanery of Louis Philippism. When the Presse was not a year old it had 15,000 subscribers, and before it was twelve years old the product of its advertisements amounted to 150,000 francs a-year. Indeed this journal has the rare merit of being the first to teach the French the use, and we must add the abuse, of advertisements. We fear the Presse, during these early days of the gentle Emile and Granier Cassagnac, was neither a model of virtue, disinterestedness, nor self-denial. Nor do we know that it is so now, even under the best of Republics. There are strange tales abroad, even allowing for the exaggeration of Rumor with her hundred tongues. One thing, however, is clear; that the Presse was a liberal paymaster to its feuilletonistes. To Dumas, Sand, De Balzac, Théophile Gautier, and Jules Sandeau, it four years ago paid 300 francs per day for contributions. The Presse, as M. Texier says, is now less the collective reason of a set of writers laboring to a common intent, than the expression of the individual activity, energy, and wonderful mobility of M. Girardin himself. The Presse is Emile de Girardin, with his boldness, his audacity, his rampant agility, his Jim Crowism, his inexhaustible cleverness, wonderful fecundity, and indisputable talent. The Presse is bold and daring; but no man can tell the color of its politics to-day, much less three days, or three months hence. On the 25th of July, 1848, it was as audacious, as unabashed, and as little disconcerted as two days before. When the workmen arrived in crowds to break its presses, the ingenious Emile threw open the doors of the press-room, talked and reasoned with the greasy rogues, and sent them contented away.
The number of journals in Paris is greater—much greater, relatively—than the number existing in London. The people of Paris love and study a newspaper more than the people of London, and take a greater interest in public affairs, and more especially in questions of foreign policy. Previous to the Revolution of February 1848, it cannot, we think, be denied that newspaper writers in France held a much higher rank than contributors to the daily press in England, and even still they continue to hold a higher and more influential position, though there can be no good reason why they should have done so at either time. For the last fifteen years there cannot be any doubt or question that the leading articles in the four principal daily London morning papers exhibit an amount of talent, energy, information, readiness, and compression, which are not found in such perfect and wonderful combination in the French press.
For the last three years, however, the press of France has wonderfully deteriorated. It is no longer what it was antecedent to the Revolution. There is not the literary skill, the artistical ability, the energy, the learning, and the eloquence which theretofore existed. The class of writers in newspapers now are an inferior class in attainments, in scholarship, and in general ability. There can be little doubt, we conceive, that the press greatly increased and abused its power, for some years previous to 1848. This led to the decline of its influence—an influence still daily diminishing; but withal, even still the press in France has more influence, and enjoys more social and literary consideration, than the press in England. We believe that newspaper writers in France are not now so generally well paid as they were twenty or thirty years ago. Two or three eminent writers can always command in Paris what would be called a sporting price, but the great mass of leading-article writers receive considerably less in money than a similar class in London, though they exercise a much greater influence on public opinion, and enjoy from the peculiar constitution of French society a higher place in the social scale.
—We see by the last papers from Paris that Veron and the President have quarreled.
From the Cincinnati Commercial Advertiser.
PROPHECY.
BY ALICE CAREY.
I think thou lovest me—yet a prophet said
To-day, Elhadra, if thou laidest dead,
From thy white forehead would he fold the shroud,
And thereon lay his sorrow, like a crown.
The drenching rain from out the chilly cloud,
In the gray ashes beats the red flame down!
And when the crimson folds the kiss away
No longer, and blank dulness fills the eyes,
Lifting its beauty from the crumbling clay,
Back to the light of earth life's angel flies.
So, with my large faith unto gloom allied,
Sprang up a shadow sunshine could not quell,
And the voice said, Would'st haste to go outside
This continent of being, it were well:
Where finite, growing toward the Infinite,
Gathers its robe of glory out of dust,
And looking down the radiances white,
Sees all God's purposes about us, just.
Canst thou, Elhadra, reach out of the grave,
And draw the golden waters of love's well?
His years are chrisms of brightness in time's wave—
Thine are as dewdrops in the nightshade's bell!
Then straightening in my hands the rippled length
Of all my tresses, slowly one by one,
I took the flowers out.—Dear one, in thy strength
Pray for my weakness. Thou hast seen the sun
Large in the setting, drive a column of light
Down through the darkness: so, within death's night,
O my beloved, when I shall have gone,
If it might be so, would my love burn on.