Slavery and the Venality of the July Monarchy Press

Abstract

Though much has been written about press censorship following the Revolution of 1830, little concrete information exists on the financing of the July Monarchy press, and even less on its venality.' What we do know about the funding of French newspapers at this time usually amounts to little more than statistics on the receipts and expenditures of individual dailies in given years, such as for La Presse in 1836, L'A telier in 1840-41, and Le Siecle in 1841.2 From these figures scholars have concluded that during the period 1830-48 press revenue still derived overwhelmingly from subscriptions rather than from the sale of individual issues and that advertising income was on the rise for large circulation newspapers. Although it is generally accepted by historians that these early years of French industrialization were tainted by influence peddling and corruption in many sectors of society and industry, from which the journalistic world was not exempt, no works have been able to show conclusively that gratuities, bribes, or payoffs constituted a significant portion of the operating capital of many journals under the Orleanist regime. It was common knowledge to contemporaries that politicians or