French Political Writers.

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illustrated by Gavarni, a masterly caricaturist, and other artists of extraordinary talent.

M. de Balzac's paper is preceded by a synoptical table, marking every shade of the order 'Gendelettre:' the hint of which name he professes to have borrowed from Gendarme,' implying that he respects one as much as the other: which, by the way, is rather a dull joke. He divides his order into two species-the publicist and the critic; and from these he traces several supposed kinds, as if he were a Cuvier, dealing with some newly-discovered races of animals. For these he invents names arbitrarily, which, as they do not carry with them any very striking sense or humour, we spare our readers the trouble of spelling over.

M. de Balzac tells us, that when the director of the journal is at the same time the chief editor, and responsible proprietor, he is the person with whom each cabinet deals: while, at the same time, the secret influence which absolutely regulates the journal may be that of an actress, or a legitimate wife. To furnish the key to the first allusion would be to deal in a piece of unnecessary scandal; but all the world will easily recognise in the second, Madame de Girardin, the Vicomte Launay of La Presse;' for Madame Dudevant is not the only lady who writes under a masculine name.

Balzac next proceeds to the second variety of the same species, which he calls the tenor-or, to drop the metaphorical name, the editor, simply. With him he thus deals: "At this trade it is difficult for a man not to pervert his mind and sink into mediocrity. Because there are but two moulds, into which are cast the leading articles: the opposition mould, and the ministerial mould. There is a third, but it is rarely used. Let the government act as it will, the writer of the opposition leaders must blame, scold, and advise. The ministerial writer is equally bound to defend. The one is a constant negative-the other a constant affirmative." This is no doubt true enough, and there was no particular necessity to announce it as a discovery. Balzac is better where he describes the part played by the public.

At each event the subscriber goes asleep, saying to himself, "I will see to-morrow what says my journal upon the subject." But there being facts for the public which cannot be told, and a necessity for twisting and distorting those which can, the satirist's conclusion is, that the press is by no means the master of that • liberty' which it is supposed to enjoy. To its shame, says Balzac, it is only free' against weak and isolated classes. And then we have told, by an exquisitely humorous pencil, what M. de Balzac's pen hesitates to give: M. Thiers commanding batteries which are easily recognisable, as the Siècle,' Courier Français,' and 'Constitutionnel.'

Balzac gives a pleasant example of the machinery by which the public mind is kept irritated against England. In a dead calm of the political ocean, this news arrives from Ausburg (Ausburg being for journalism, what Nuremberg is for children, a factory of playthings):

"On dit that the English Legation gave a dinner to Lord Willgoud, on his way to Galucho (Brésil), at which assisted all the corps diplomatique, except the French Consul. Such an omission, under present circumstances, is not without meaning."

Upon this piece of news the opposition papers lash themselves into well-acted indignation, ignorant that there is no such admiral as Willgoud, and no such place as Galucho; and here the reader is presented with admirable imitations of all the leading journals, done with real wit. Balzac adds to his own satirical remarks on this part of his subject, the following very amusing commentary: "One phrase combined thus, after three forms, suffices to enable the majority of the French every morning to form an opinion upon all possible events. After the triumph of July, an old tenor acknowledged that for twelve years he never wrote but the same article. This frank fellow is dead." We believe the author of this whimsical confession was M. Chatelain, editor of the Courier Français,' an extreme liberal.

In his parody of the 'Débats,' Balzac adds, in a parenthesis to each high-flown passage (price 5000 francs per month)'— the supposed subvention' paid to M. Bertin by the government. The ministerialists do not, however, enjoy a monopoly of corruption, for the puritans of the opposition, who cannot accept favours for themselves, harass the government with demands for places for their relatives. The family Barrot, according to Balzac, enjoy among them 130,000 francs of government pay! Before we leave the publicist' division, we must say, that the attacks are made far too indiscriminately; that the editorial talents are rated obviously too low; and that the whole division on the system of reporting the debates in the Chambers (Les Camarillistes'), is a violent exaggeration.

There is an amusing page upon what the French call 'canards' (ducks), which appear to be the very poetry of penny-a-lining. Napoleon had pensioned a man, who for five years published in the Moniteur,' fictitious bulletins of a war of the Affghans against the English; the fraud was discovered, and Napoleon, instead of punishing the fellow, is said to have increased his pension-the cheat'était se bien conçue dans les intérêts de Napoléon.' These bulletins were canards.' The story of Gaspard Hauser was a 'canard;' so was that of Clara Wendel, and the brigand Schubry.

French Critical Writers.

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As M. de Balzac does not give names, we may take upon ourselves to state, that the makers of these canards' were authors of repute, M. Méry and M. Nestor Roqueplan. M. Etienne, of the Constitutionnel,' was, under the restoration, a famous inventor of 'canards.' (He seems meditating one at p. 145!) His line lay in the fabrication of refusals by priests of the rights of burial, and of persecutions of liberal cures.' But he was obliged to give these up, for truth overtook him.

In the division on the critics, M. de Balzac exhausts every form of severity. He sets no bounds to his anger with them, more especially for the neglect with which they treat works deserving of attention, while they reserve their exclusive and fulsome notice for trashy vaudevilles. He assigns for these degrading preferences the most degraded motives: contrasting the pleasurable quid pro quo' of theatres, with the cold comfort of libraries and booksellers. And he goes so far as to say, that the conduct of the critics, in this respect, has caused of late years a sensible diminution in the sale of good books of every class. Upon Janin he deals the severest ridicule, by an admirable mimicry of that writer's torrent of volubility on every kind of subject, while he never once touches the single special subject, which he pretends to be treating. Of. this redoubtable feuilletonist, he also takes another occasion to mention (the allusion, at p. 170, is plainly levelled at Janin), that what he thinks the most eminently droll thing in the world, and in the very highest taste, is to be shaking hands with you, and passing for your friend, when he is all the while stinging you with the poisoned needles of his feuilletons. If, indeed, he has happened to praise you in a Paris journal, you are then quite sure, that in some London journal he has assassinated' you. M. de Balzac fails to add, which particular London journal it is that is honoured by Jules Janin's contributions.

Towards the conclusion of the paper there are some remarks on the professed dealers in bon mots and witty sayings, uninspired by whose gaiety and mirthfulness, Balzac can only heave a sigh. Hélas, la France est colossale jusque dans ses petitesses, jusque dans ses vices, jusque dans ses fautes!' Yet at the Charivari, le Matador des petits journaux,' he finds himself relax a little. Three thousand subscribers, he says, support this délit perpétuel,' and he admits its exhaustless flow of wit and humour. The writers in this class of journals he collects under the term 'le pêcheur à la ligne:' because the wits, like the fishermen, live by their line.' The great characteristic of the trade, Balzac adds, is that the most vigorous mind, once engaged in it, is soon incapable of the sentiment of any thing great. Making every thing little in mockery, it finds in time, as far as itself is concerned, every thing little in reality.

The conclusion will probably interest our readers, by the comparison introduced between the press of Paris and London:

"The press of London has not upon the world the same action as that of Paris: it is in some degree confined to England, which carries its egotism into every thing: such egotism merits being called patriotism, for what is patriotism, but the egotism of a whole country? Thus ought to be observed the wide difference which exists between English journalists and French journalists. An English journalist is an Englishman first, a journalist after. The French journalist is above all things a journalist. Thus the English journalist would never commit the fault of publishing cabinet secrets, if such were calculated to mar a public advantage; while for sake of a few subscribers, a French journal would blab any thing. Abd-el-Kader said his best spies were the French journals. Yesterday a paper advocated the prior right of England to the Marquesas; and that paper calls itself the National. Between the chances of an overthrow and the liberty of the press Napoleon did not hesitate."

Here M. de Balzac falls into the spirit of exaggeration, of which he accuses the press; and indeed it must be said of the whole exposé, that it is rather curious than edifying.

But we cannot leave it without a more explicit mention of the wood-cut illustrations. These have a genius in them, which in the paper itself is certainly not discoverable. The likenesses of the various editors and writers are caught in the most perfect manner of this department of the art. No names are given, no clues are given; but the brethren of the press will recognise each other. There never was such hitting between wind and water!' Observe the agitated frenzy of M. Pierre Leroux (p. 165), with divorce, dissolution, disruption, George Sandism, in every part of his aspect and attire; hair, nose, mouth, and dressing-gown; to say nothing of the awful chasm which yawns between the waistcoat and the portion of dress which may not be named. Contrast it with the sleek satisfaction of M. Hyppolite Lucas, who in the garb of an 'épicier' is mildly serving out inexhaustible lees of sugar; a thing he is currently said to do to every author excepting M. de Balzac. Turn from the stolid, innocent-looking, antediluvian figure (p. 179), which does nothing but praise the past (M. Gustave Planche), to the snarling, snapping, bearded poodle (p. 185: significant tailpiece to a parody on Janin's 'Feuilletons'), which only bites and walks on its hind legs. Then contemplate dans l'inté rieur' (p. 173), the gentleman extended, smoking on the sofa, and the young lady in easy dishabille in possession of the hearth-rug; the young lady reading the book aloud, concerning which the gentleman (whom his friends will recognise) means to be terribly moral, and to cry from the roofs of the houses, Où allons nous ?

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French Caricaturing.

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Others of these inimitable pieces of graphic humour we have noticed before, but a whole article might be written upon them. What a fine satire is that (p. 152), where the Rhine, a jovial old reedy deity, is in an up-lifted state of exaggerated admiration at the great man, who has come all the way from Paris, not to see the good old river, but that the good old river may see him! Wonderful and impenetrable is the collection (p. 137) of heads, constituting the readers of a large circulation, une masse.' Of another style is the laborious abstraction of the old scholar (p. 171), which may not impossibly be thought somewhat affecting. As for the very elegant sketch (p. 207), in which George Sand so affably receives Lamenmais, we defy that lady's admirers (of whom, with due reservation, we profess ourselves), to be other than grateful and contented therewith. And, to conclude, for the very whimsical parley on the closing page, between the press (a very excited and unreasonable old woman), and M. de Balzac himself (a quiet, reasonable, very stout, long-haired, somewhat stooping little man), we cannot but think that the editor or critic who has felt himself most deeply insulted and aggrieved through the other seventy-nine pages of this curious production, will, when he arrives at that eightieth page, lay it down with a burst of good-humoured laughter.

*The conclusion of Janin's criticism of this 'Monographie,' in the Journal des Débats' of a few days since, is so extremely characteristic of the writer, and contains such a pithy summary of the abusive phrases used against the press by Balzac, that we think we shall contribute not a little to the reader's amusement, by appending it here. Translation is, of course, quite out of the question. It contains, it will be seen, the allusion to Balzac's own experiment in journalism to which reference has been made:-"Eh quoi! cet homme, a qui nous avons reconnu tant d'esprit à tant de reprises différentes, vit du journal, et même d'une foule du journaux; il n'eût jamais vécu sans le journal; il a été directeur-rédacteur-en-chef-gérant-tenor-maître-Jacques-camarilliste - premier-Paris-fait-Paris-faiseur- d'articles-de-fond-maître - Jacques-marchand-de-canards - camarilliste homme-politique-attaché-attaché - détaché - politique-à brochures-pamphlétairetraducteur-critique blond - grand critique-euphuiste-prosateur-farceur-universitaire-mondain-thuriféraire-exécuteur-bravo-guerillero-pêcheur à la ligne-blagueur, et même, ce qui est plus grave, banquier d'un journal dont il était ainsi le seul, unique et perpétuel-gendelettre; ce journal si bien administre, si admirablement rédigé, si habilement conduit, si admirablement écrit, et signé par un si grand nom, n'as pas vécu six mois; et maintenant ce journaliste, le plus impuissant, le plus maladroit et le plus dénigrant des journalistes, viendrait, de gaîté de cœur, accabler de ses injures ceux dont il n'a pas pu se maintenir le confrère; il pourrait leur dire impunément: Vous êtes tous des voleurs, des menteurs, des imbécilles, des universitaires, des farceurs, des marquis de Tuffières et des blagueurs; vous êtes laids, vous êtes vieux, vous êtes mal peignés, vous avez de faux toupets, vous êtes des Bohémiens, vous êtes d'ignobles bourgeois; il pourrait les dénoncer dans leurs travaux passés, dans leurs travaux à venir, dans leur position présente; et le pamphlet de cet homme passerait sans examen, sans critique, sans réponse! Véritablement la chose serait trop facile et trop commode; à ce compte-là ce serait pousser trop loin les priviléges du gendelettre,―rienologue,—faiseur de tartines— guerillero et négateur.