Lost Illusions: The Politics of Publishing in Nineteenth-Century France (Harvard Historical Studies)

Harvard Historical Studies • 167 Published under the auspices of the Department of History from the income of the Paul Revere Frothingham Bequest Robert Louis Stroock Fund Henry Warren Torrey Fund

Lost Illusions the p olitics of publishing in nineteenth- century fr ance

Christine Haynes

harvard university press Cambridge, Massachusetts, and London, England • 2010

Copyright © 2010 by the President and Fellows of Harvard College All rights reserved Printed in the United States of America Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Haynes, Christine. Lost illusions : the politics of publishing in nineteenth-century France / Christine Haynes. p. cm.—(Harvard historical studies ; 167) Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 978-0-674-03576-8 (alk. paper) 1. Publishers and publishing—Political aspects—France—History—19th century. 2. Book industries and trade—France—History—19th century. I. Title. Z305.H39 2010 070.50944'09034—dc22 2009011225

For Mark

My poor boy, like you I came here with my heart full of illusions, spurred on by the love of art, swept forwards by an invincible yearning for fame. I soon discovered the hard facts of the writer’s trade, the difficulty of getting into print and the brutal reality of poverty. My enthusiasm, now deflated, and the effervescence of those early days made me blind to the mechanism which keeps the world moving: I had to see it in action, get caught up in the works, run foul of the shafts, get coated with grease and listen to the rattle of chains and flywheels. You will find out as I did that underneath your beautiful dream-world is the turmoil of men, passions and needs. —Étienne Lousteau to Lucien Chardon, in Honoré de Balzac’s Lost Illusions (1837–1843)

Contents

List of Illustrations

xi

Acknowledgments

xiii

Introduction: The Dawn of the Information Marketplace

1

1 The Birth of the Publisher

14

2 The Battle between Corporatists and Liberals

48

3 Laurent-Antoine Pagnerre and the Publishing Coterie

92

4 The Cercle de la Librairie

120

5 Louis Hachette and the Defense of the Publisher

154

6 The Divorce between State and Market

187

Epilogue: The Effects of Liberalization

232

Notes

247

Index

317

Illustrations

1.1 L’Éditeur 1.2 Le Libraire

20 21

2.1 Printer-bookdealer Firmin Didot

61

3.1 Caricature of the almanac publisher 95 Laurent-Antoine Pagnerre 4.1 Emblem of the Cercle de la Librairie (1847)

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4.2 Title page of the Annuaire de la librairie (1875)

131

4.3 Souvenir from a banquet sponsored by the Cercle de la 132 Librairie (1894) 4.4 Photograph of the Hôtel du Cercle de la Librairie, 133 117, boulevard Saint-Germain 4.5 Detail of the façade of the Hôtel du Cercle de la Librairie 4.6 Assembly hall of the Hôtel du Cercle de la Librairie 4.7 First issue of the Chronique (3 January 1857)

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4.8 The exhibit of the Cercle de la Librairie at the World’s Fair 149 of 1893 in Chicago 5.1 Publisher Louis Hachette

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5.2 A bibliothèque de gare, late nineteenth century 6.1 Printer-bookdealer Ambroise Firmin-Didot

162 196

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Ac know ledgments

Given the topic of this book, I am all too aware of the politics—and economics—of publishing not just historically but today. If I have survived this process with my illusions more or less intact, it is thanks to the material and moral support of a number of individuals and institutions. I remain grateful to my mentors at the University of Chicago: Jan Goldstein, Bill Sewell, and Neil Harris. Model scholars and teachers, they have all shaped my work in innumerable ways. In particular, I am indebted to Jan Goldstein for her encouragement, advice, and friendship throughout my graduate career and in the years since. At Chicago, I also benefited enormously from exchanges with my fellow graduate students, particularly in the Workshop on Interdisciplinary Approaches to Modern France and the Modern European History Workshop. At Chicago, crucial financial support for research and writing was provided by the Division of the Social Sciences, a Department of History Eric Cochrane Traveling Fellowship, a Georges Lurcy Fellowship for Research in France, a Bibliographical Society of America Short-Term Research Fellowship, and a Mellon Dissertation Fellowship. Additional research and writing were supported by a Bernadotte Schmidt Fellowship from the American Historical Association and by the University of North Carolina at Charlotte College of the Liberal Arts and Sciences, which funded two summers of research as well as a semester of leave for writing. In addition, in the spring of 2005 I was lucky to be able to spend a semester as a postdoctoral fellow at the Center for the Study of Books and Media at Princeton University. For this opportunity, I am grateful to Robert Darnton. For their assistance with my research in France, I thank the staffs of the following libraries and archives: the Bibliothèque Nationale; the Archives

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Acknowledgments

Nationales; the Bibliothèque Historique de la Ville de Paris; the Archives de Paris; the Institut de France; the Bibliothèque des Arts Graphiques; the Centre des Correspondances, Mémoires, et Journaux Intimes du Dix-Neuvième et Vingtième Siècles; the Archives de la Chambre de Commerce et d’Industrie de Paris; the Centre des Archives du Monde du Travail in Roubaix; and the Institut Mémoires de l’Édition Contemporaine (IMEC), formerly located in Paris and now at the Abbaye d’Ardenne outside of Caen. At IMEC, I thank in particular Agnès Iskander, who assisted me in navigating the archives of the Cercle de la Librairie from my first visit to the rue de Lille in the summer of 1996 to my last visit to the Abbaye d’Ardenne in the summer of 2007. Also in France, Roger Chartier and Jean-Yves Mollier both gave generously of their time and advice. I am grateful to both of them for initiating me into the field of book history in France. Jean-Yves Mollier made available to me not only the rich master’s and doctoral theses completed by his students at the Université de Versailles SaintQuentin-en-Yvelines but also some documents from the Hachette and Lévy publishing firms in his private collection. In addition, Evrard Hachette and Dominique Renouard, descendants of nineteenth-century publishers, offered information about their family history. Finally, I would like to extend my gratitude to Yvonne Bogdanoff and the Pleimling family for their hospitality and friendship on my visits to France over the years. On this side of the Atlantic, I have benefited from the advice and support of a number of groups and individuals. For their questions and comments on presentations of portions of the material in this book, I thank the commentators and audiences at the following conferences: the Conference on Nineteenth-Century French Studies, the conference on “The History of the Book: The Next Generation” at Drew University, the conference on “The Ambiguities of Work” at the Hagley Library, the Society for French Historical Studies (on several occasions), the Business History Conference, the Social Science History Association, and the American Historical Association. I remain especially grateful for invitations to present my work at the Cornell University European History Colloquium, the Drew University Modern History and Literature Colloquium, and the Davidson College History Forum. In addition, many colleagues and friends have assisted me by reading and discussing my work, obtaining research materials, or just providing moral support. In the early stages of revision, while I was in residence in Princeton, Robert Darnton and Carla Hesse provided advice and encouragement. In

Acknowledgments

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Charlotte, the history department at UNC–Charlotte has provided a wonderful home not just for me but for my husband. I could not have asked for a more supportive, collegial, and engaging group of colleagues. Although I cannot single out every one in the department who has helped me, particular thanks go to the chairs during my first seven years here, John Smail and Dan Dupre. At UNC–Charlotte, I must also thank the Interlibrary Loan Department for helping me to procure numerous primary and secondary sources. Ann Davis deserves special mention for even helping me to cart around folio volumes of the Moniteur universel when I was eight months pregnant. Since graduate school, Melissa Feinberg and Paul Hanebrink have been good role models, challenging interlocutors, and great companions. Thanks to both of them for their advice and encouragement over the years. Dating back even further, I have appreciated the companionship and support of the friends I made during my junior year abroad in Aix-en-Provence: Pete and Karina Frassrand, Heather Powers Sauter, Jeff Rado, and Elias Khalil. By sharing my love of France, they have helped me to sustain my interest in this subject. In the last stages of the project, I benefited enormously from the comments of the two readers for Harvard University Press: one, anonymous; the other, Gregory Brown. Although I have not been able to respond to all of their incisive and thoughtful comments, I very much appreciate the time and care they took with the manuscript. At Harvard University Press, I am grateful for the support of series editor Patrice Higonnet, whose continued interest in the project has sustained me through the long process of review and revision, and editor Kathleen McDermott, whose consummate professionalism has made the publishing process a pleasure—the complete opposite of what Lucien de Rudempré experienced at the hands of the “sultan” publisher Dauriat in Lost Illusions. In addition, I thank editorial assistant Kathi Drummy and copyeditor Julie Palmer-Hoffman for shepherding the manuscript so expertly through the production process. Portions of Chapter 1 appeared in an earlier form in my article “An ‘Evil Genius’: The Construction of the Publisher in the Post-Revolutionary Social Imaginary,” French Historical Studies 30, no. 4 (Fall 2007): 559–595. For permission to reuse that material here, I acknowledge Duke University Press. I also thank the Bibliothèque Nationale de France, the Cercle de la Librairie, and the Photothèque Hachette Livre for allowing me to reproduce images in their collections.

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Acknowledgments

Above all, I am grateful to my family. For their love and support, I thank my brothers, Douglas and Ryan, and my parents, David and Marilyn Haynes. I thank my parents, especially, for introducing me to books and for making innumerable sacrifices of money, time, and energy so that I could indulge myself in reading them. In more recent years, I have appreciated the support of my parents-in-law, Gary and Diane Wilson. I also thank “my boys,” Oliver and Simon, whose arrivals in 2004 and 2007 interrupted the revision process temporarily but whose smiles and words have brightened my life immeasurably. Finally, I thank my husband, Mark Wilson, to whom this book is dedicated. I met Mark just before taking my first trip to the archives in Paris. In the dozen or so years since, he has read and discussed this project with me ad nauseum. He has also taken time from his own research and writing to accompany me to France and to care for our children so that I could work on this book. I appreciate his genuine egalitarianism. More important, I treasure his constant companionship.

Lost Illusions

Introduction: The Dawn of the Information Marketplace

In the nineteenth century, the book trade in France was transformed from a restricted craft into a freewheeling business. This transformation was immortalized in a novel called Lost Illusions, by Honoré de Balzac, who had himself worked in the trade as a publisher and printer toward the beginning of his career as a writer in the late 1820s. A satire of the commercialization of publishing under the Restoration (1815–1830), Lost Illusions follows the divergent paths of two young friends: one a naive poet from the provincial town of Angoulême named Lucien Chardon (or de Rudempré, as he calls himself), who moves to Paris to pursue a career as a writer; the other, his brother-in-law David Séchard, who despite his own literary ambition remains behind in the countryside to manage a small printing shop owned by his father. In their misadventures with a supporting cast of speculating book publishers, scheming newspaper editors, cutthroat printers, and unscrupulous writers, both Lucien and David become disillusioned with their Romantic ideals about authorship. Through the travails of these two antiheroes, Lost Illusions offers a trenchant portrait of the postrevolutionary book trade.1 At the center of this trade was a new figure, the publisher, who in contradistinction to the artisanal printer and the merchant bookseller specialized in acquiring and marketing the work of authors. A speculator in literary capital, the publisher was the first modern “producer,” in the sense of being a financier or entrepreneur of a cultural commodity. In an era when print was the dominant form of entertainment as well as the dominant medium of information, the publisher exerted considerable cultural influence. This new figure spurred the transformation of the book trade into a big business, shaping the development of what is often called the “literary marketplace”: a system in which printed

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matter is manufactured and distributed by capitalist enterprises, subject to the laws of supply and demand. The publishing business was of obvious economic importance. As early as 1819, Jean-Antoine Chaptal estimated that the publishing industry (including the periodical press) generated 21,652,726 francs per year in France. In 1827, it reportedly employed some 33,750 people and generated some 33,750,000 francs. By 1860, in Paris alone it yielded some 94,166,528 francs, or close to 3 percent of the capital’s total industrial output. Although contemporary claims that the publishing industry constituted 10 percent of the Parisian economy were probably exaggerated, this business did engender some of the biggest fortunes of the time.2 Yet such crude economic measures do not fully capture its significance. Along with art and theater, with which it shared many characteristics in the postrevolutionary period, publishing was the first modern “culture industry.” Foreshadowing the development of film, radio, television, and other mass media, it shaped popular mentalities. Integral to such other nineteenth-century developments as individual selfhood, democratic citizenship, and national identity, the publishing business has played a key role in the formation of the modern world. Despite its importance to modern business and culture, the development of the literary marketplace has been slow to attract the attention of scholars. In comparison to the book trade of early modern Europe, which has been vividly reconstructed by Robert Darnton, among other scholars, the publishing business of the nineteenth century remains relatively obscure.3 In recent years, cultural historians and literary scholars have begun to examine the biographies of some of the major publishers of the period, along with the technological innovations in printing-related industries, the laws regarding press and censorship, and the practices of readers. In their focus on these topics, however, they have often neglected the broader context of the rise of the literary marketplace. To the extent that they do discuss its origins, cultural historians and literary scholars tend to view it as a product of technological and structural change. They characterize the literary marketplace as a natural concomitant of industrialization and modernization.4 However, there was nothing natural about the literary marketplace. Contrary to the assumptions of many scholars, the “laws” of this market were by no means fixed in the nineteenth century.5 In fact, the notion that the production of literature should be left to the market, as opposed to being regulated by

Introduction

3

the state, was often highly contested among members of the book trade and the government. In the nineteenth century, authors, printers, booksellers, publishers, legislators, and administrators disagreed about the nature of literature as a product and about the extent to which it should be regulated. Some argued that literature was a commodity like any other, which should be exchanged in a free market and protected on the same terms as every other property. Others, however, insisted that because it involved ideas that had the potential to influence the public and threaten the state, literature was a unique sort of product, requiring special protections and restrictions. In many places, such protectionists prevented the establishment of a free market for literature well into the nineteenth century. Rather than being a natural product of economic and technological change, the literary marketplace was a contingent outcome of political struggle, on both the professional and national levels. Nowhere was this more true than in France, where the political struggle over the literary marketplace was particularly divisive and protracted. In France, which by many measures was long the world center of cultural production, the monarchical state had viewed print—as well as art, music, and theater—as important to national identity as well as public security. For these reasons, it had exerted tight control over the book trade, along with the rest of the culture industry. During the French Revolution of 1789, state regulation of print was briefly overthrown. Although this deregulation was ultimately reversed by Napoleon, the Revolution still had a lasting effect on the book trade. Among other things, it encouraged an influx of new men into the trade. These men, many of whom called themselves éditeurs or “publishers,” remained committed to revolutionary liberalism. Asserting that literature was a commercial product like any other, they lobbied the postrevolutionary state to liberalize the legislation on publishing. These liberal publishers were opposed, however, by traditional printers and booksellers, who maintained that literature was a unique kind of product, which required continued—and even increased—regulation. For much of the nineteenth century, liberals and protectionists in the book trade battled each other to determine the character of the literary market, particularly regarding the law on entrance requirements and property rights. The battle between these two groups is the subject of this book. In the end, as we will see, this battle was won by the liberal group, because of a shift in both professional and national politics. In the last third of the

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nineteenth century, publishers succeeded in persuading the state to liberalize the literary market. They were able to do so for two reasons. First, they proved more successful than their counterparts in printing and bookselling at organizing themselves to lobby government officials. In particular, they formed a businessmen’s association called the Cercle de la Librairie, founded in 1847. A hybrid between a traditional trade guild, a bourgeois leisure club, and a modern professional syndicate, the Cercle de la Librairie proved to be very effective at influencing state policy on publishing. Second, government officials themselves changed their priorities. They became less concerned with public safety and more interested in economic growth, which made them more receptive to the demands of publishers for liberalization of publishing. Paradoxically, this shift in state policy occurred under the Second Empire of Louis-Napoléon (1852–1870), the nephew of Napoleon Bonaparte, who had reregulated the book trade in the first place. Despite its authoritarian character, the Second Empire played a key role in the establishment of a free market for literature in France. While this book emphasizes the role played by politics in the establishment of the literary marketplace, it does not mean to suggest that the business of literature was unaffected by structural and technological change. Between the late eighteenth and late nineteenth centuries, the literary marketplace was certainly shaped by the growth of the reading public, a rise in consumption, the development of new sources and forms of credit, the mechanization of papermaking and printing, the invention of stereotypography and lithography, the spread of the railroad, and the institution of mass education. As early as the eighteenth century, a growing public for print spurred a number of marketing innovations by such pioneering entrepreneurs as Charles-Joseph Panckoucke, publisher of the Encylopédie, among other works of the Enlightenment. In the nineteenth century, there were numerous examples of publishers who invented new products and made large profits, despite the persistence of state controls on the book trade. But their activities were constrained by state regulation until late in the nineteenth century. Moreover, the structural and technological developments that underlay the literary market in nineteenth-century France are now well known, thanks to the work of Jean-Yves Mollier, Frédéric Barbier, and others.6 The political struggles that shaped this market, by contrast, have received little scholarly attention. In an effort to correct this scholarly imbalance, this book

Introduction

5

focuses on political debates instead of economic developments or technological innovations. To illuminate these debates, it concentrates on the book trade (rather than the periodical press) in the city of Paris, where this trade has long been centered. By focusing on politics, the book yields some novel conclusions, not just for book history but for modern European business, social, and political history. First of all, this study counters the old stereotype of the French businessman as conservative and protectionist. By illuminating the struggles undertaken by publishers to legitimize and facilitate their own work, it suggests that they celebrated rather than denigrated entrepreneurialism. Showing how they advocated for commercial freedom even as they relied on state protection, the study emphasizes that this group of capitalists employed liberal discourses, sometimes for corporatist ends.7 Second, the book demonstrates the importance of networking among businessmen and between businessmen and government officials in the construction of a market economy. While such networking has often been overlooked and underestimated by business historians in their focus on macroeconomic trends, on the one hand, and on firm biographies, on the other, it was instrumental in determining the shape of the market, not just in France but throughout the West. Through a pioneering analysis of the Cercle de la Librairie, whose archives permit a rare glimpse at a nineteenth-century businessmen’s association in action, the book contributes to our understanding of bourgeois sociability and its role in economic as well as political change in the nineteenth century.8 Finally, this study highlights the role of the Second Empire in liberalizing the literary market in France and abroad. Reinforcing the conclusions of recent work on the history of liberalism in France, it shows how republican principles and institutions predated the advent of the Third Republic in 1870. At the same time, however, it suggests that, because the deregulation of literature was motivated less by radical, universalist political ideology than by moderate, instrumentalist economic liberalism, the place of intellectual freedom and property in modern French political culture has remained insecure. Like the periodical press and the theater industry, which followed a similar pattern of revolution, reregulation, and deregulation in the century between the fall of the Old Regime and the establishment of the Third Republic, the publishing business illustrates the prolonged struggles and persistent tensions surrounding the establishment of a market for cultural goods in France.9

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From the Old Regime to 1810 The political struggles surrounding the literary market in the nineteenth century date back to the Old Regime in France. Under the Old Regime, the book trade was regulated by the French monarchy, which viewed print as a threat to public order and state security. In an effort to contain this threat, the monarchy established a formal Administration of the Book Trade, which employed a network of inspectors and censors, as well as royal intendants, police agents, and guild officers, to control the production and distribution of print. This administration limited and surveyed the membership of the book trade, with the help of a system of privileges and guilds. By law, printers and bookdealers were required to obtain a “privilege” from the royal administration for each new work that they published. This privilege, which constituted a title of possession as well as a sign of permission, granted its holder temporary, but renewable, ownership over the work in exchange for submission to government censorship. Over time, such privileges came to be monopolized by a patriciate of bookdealers in Paris. In addition to requiring that publications carry this sign of official approval, the monarchy demanded that practitioners of the book trade belong to a chambre syndicale, or guild. Like all other craft guilds, the guilds in the book trade were responsible for ensuring the skill of practitioners and the quality of products. By the eighteenth century, there were over twenty such guilds across France. Of these, the most important was the Chambre Syndicale de la Librairie et de l’Imprimerie de Paris, or Guild of Bookdealers and Printers of Paris, where the French book trade was centered. Founded in 1618, the Paris Book Guild enjoyed a monopoly on the production and distribution of printed matter in the capital. This monopoly was reinforced by a number of royal decrees, including in 1686, when the number of printers in Paris was limited to thirty-six, and in 1723, when the entrance requirements for both printers and bookdealers were tightened. Dominated by a handful of families, the Paris Book Guild was one of the most closed corporations of the Old Regime.10 Of course, even with this system of privileges and guilds, the monarchy never enjoyed complete control over the book trade in France. By the eighteenth century, this system was under serious threat by entrepreneurs both within France and abroad. As Robert Darnton has shown, in addition to the official sector of the book trade, there was a vast “literary underground” of printers and bookdealers who operated outside of the guild system, especially

Introduction

7

in the provinces and along the borders of France. While the exact size of this underground is unknown, evidence on the best sellers of the eighteenth century suggests that the clandestine sector of the book trade had challenged the primacy of the official sector by the end of the Old Regime. Moreover, even within the guild system, there was increasing tension between printers and bookdealers, between masters and journeymen, and between Parisians and provincials. Despite these fissures, the guild system in the book trade remained in place through the end of the Old Regime. When the reformist minister Anne-RobertJacques Turgot abolished the trade guilds in 1776, he excepted the chambres syndicales of printers and bookdealers (along with apothecaries and gold- and silversmiths), on the grounds that they were vital for the protection of the public interest.11 The Old Regime in the book trade was overthrown, however, by the French Revolution. With its attack on corporate distinction of any kind, the Revolution spelled the end of both the privileges and the guilds in this trade. In the summer of 1789, the new revolutionary assembly declared freedom of the press, and within a year, it had suppressed the royal Administration of the Book Trade. By abolishing all privileges, it also nullified the monopolies of printers and bookdealers over individual works. In 1791, with the D’Allarde and Le Chapelier laws against trade corporations, the assembly overthrew the Paris Book Guild. The book trade was now a free field. In an effort to impose responsibility on authors and bookdealers, the revolutionary government recognized the rights of authors, which were now characterized as a “property” rather than a “privilege,” in a “Declaration of the Rights of Genius” in July of 1793. This measure, which aimed to balance the rights of the individual creator with the needs of the public interest in texts, guaranteed the property of authors to their descendants and assigns during their lifetime and for ten years afterward. With the exception of this declaration, however, the book trade remained unregulated. As a result, between the early 1790s and the early 1800s, the trade experienced considerable upheaval: new men from outside of the guild rushed into publishing, authors and publishers found themselves without protection against piracy, and competition increased to the extent that a number of members of the trade were forced to declare bankruptcy. In the face of this upheaval, many members of the trade began to demand some form of reregulation.12 In response to these demands, Napoleon reregulated the book trade with a decree dated 5 February 1810. This decree instituted a number of new state

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controls on the industry. In addition to establishing a new Administration of the Book Trade and a new corps of inspectors, the decree required official licenses of all printers and booksellers. For printers, the number of these licenses was limited—in Paris, for example, first to sixty and then to eighty. At the same time, however, the regulation of 1810 extended the term of literary property rights for authors (and, by extension, their publishers) slightly, to twenty years after they and their spouse had died. While it restricted access to the book trade, the regulation of 1810 thus also provided incentive for individual enterprise. In short, Napoleon’s regulation of 1810 represented a compromise between proponents of strict control and advocates of open competition in the book trade. As Carla Hesse characterizes it, this regulation constituted a “marriage of state regulation and the commercial market.”13 Deliberate as it was, this “marriage” between state regulation and commercial competition was not satisfactory to members of the book trade. The decree of 1810, which remained in force long after the fall of Napoleon and the restoration of monarchy, divided members of the trade (as well as of the state administration) into two competing camps: what I have termed a “corporatist” camp, which demanded additional protection, and a “liberal” (defined in the nineteenth-century sense of being for individual freedom and against government intervention) one, which advocated more liberty. The corporatist camp was composed largely of printers and booksellers who were descended biologically or ideologically from members of the old guilds. It insisted that the regulation of 1810 did not go far enough to protect either the book trade or the public interest. The liberal camp, on the other hand, was composed mainly of men who had taken advantage of the deregulation of the revolutionary era to enter the book trade—men who frequently adopted the relatively new title of éditeur, or publisher, as opposed to printer or bookseller. This group wanted not less but more freedom from state regulation. The corporatist camp and the liberal camp in the book trade would battle each other over state policy on publishing for much of the nineteenth century.

The Nineteenth Century To introduce the battle between liberals and corporatists in the book trade, the book begins by examining a development that transformed the trade in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries: the emergence of the publisher

Introduction

9

(éditeur) as a new figure separate from the traditional printer-bookseller. Chapter 1 (“The Birth of the Publisher”) describes the origin and work of this figure, who specialized in commissioning, financing, and coordinating the creation, production, and marketing of books by others. In contrast to the long-standing assumption among book historians that the publisher was a product of technological changes, I emphasize the political causes of this specialization. By freeing the book trade from the constraints of the old guild and by replacing perpetual privileges over texts with limited property rights, the French Revolution promoted the emergence of a new occupation whose main focus was to cultivate new literary capital. Although the publisher long remained subordinate to members of other occupations involved in the book trade, he was often attacked—most famously by Balzac in Lost Illusions—as an unskilled and unscrupulous middleman speculator. In attacking the publisher, authors, printers, and booksellers were really attacking the Revolution, which had upset the old order in the book trade. Over the succeeding decades, the new publishers would battle traditional printers and bookdealers over the legacy of the Revolution. The battle between new publishers and traditionalist printers and bookdealers is introduced in the next two chapters, which examine the politics of the book trade in the period between the advent of the Restoration (1814–1830) and the fall of the July Monarchy (1830–1848). Chapter 2 (“The Battle between Corporatists and Liberals”) explains how the aftermath of the Revolution—and especially the reregulation of the press by Napoleon in 1810— divided the book trade into a corporatist and a liberal camp. These camps formed around two issues in particular: licensing requirements for printers and bookdealers, which had been instituted by Napoleon, and literary property rights, which had been guaranteed for ten years after the death of the author during the Revolution and extended to twenty years during the Empire. While liberals demanded the abolition of licensing requirements and advocated the extension of literary property rights, on the grounds that the book trade was a business like any other, traditional printers and bookdealers maintained that the book trade required limits on entry and property, in the name of public safety and education. The desires of both camps remained unmet through the first half of the nineteenth century. Under both the Restoration and the July Monarchy, the state refrained from altering either the licensing system or the literary property law. Although it occasionally flirted with

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liberalization, the government ultimately maintained the status quo, out of concern for the public interest. As publishers struggled to influence state policy on licensing and literary property between the late 1820s and the late 1840s, they began to network with each other as well as with members of the government. As they became increasingly organized, they were accused by their competitors in printing and bookselling of forming a “coterie” at the expense of the “corporation” of the book trade as a whole. Through the case of one of the main instigators of organization among publishers, Laurent-Antoine Pagnerre, Chapter 3 (“Laurent-Antoine Pagnerre and the Publishing Coterie”) describes the associations forged among publishers and between publishers and statesmen, as well as the reactions to these associations by corporatists. In particular, the chapter focuses on a conflict between Pagnerre and a bookdealer named Victor Bouton over a series of projects in which a select group of publishers benefited from state favoritism, including a government loan to the publishing business in the aftermath of the Revolution of 1830; a joint-stock corporation to distribute books in the provinces founded in 1842; a sub-branch of the national discount bank created under the auspices of the government of the Second Republic (of which Pagnerre was a member); and a scheme to offer lottery tickets as “premiums” for purchases of books in the late 1840s. In the end, the opposition of corporatists such as Bouton proved no match for the “coterie” of publishers led by Pagnerre. The story of the conflict between these two members of the book trade suggests that publishers proved more successful than their competitors in printing and bookselling at forging connections with each other and with representatives of the state. By 1847, when Pagnerre and several other publishers founded a formal trade association, the Cercle de la Librairie, de l’Imprimerie, et de la Papeterie (Circle of Publishing, Printing, and Papermaking), the liberal camp in the book trade was well organized to promote its interests. Breaking from the chronological narrative of the rest of the book, Chapter 4 (“The Cercle de la Librairie”) describes in detail the trade association established by publishers. Based on new research in the archives and publications of this association, the chapter argues that the Cercle de la Librairie combined elements of three different kinds of organizations: the prerevolutionary book guild; a new type of bourgeois social organization, imported from England, called the “circle”; and a modern professional syndicate, a form of organization

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that became legalized only in 1884. In a political context that was hostile to association between members of a single occupation, this mix of associational idioms enabled the Cercle to operate with the approval of the state across a number of changes in regime. By reinventing the Paris Book Guild as a cross between a social circle and a professional syndicate, the Cercle de la Librairie survived—and thrived—through the second half of the nineteenth century, across the twentieth century, and up to the present day. This hybrid association proved remarkably effective at influencing state policy in favor of publishers. Although it included printers, booksellers, paper manufacturers, and members of a number of other occupations, the Cercle de la Librairie was founded by and for publishers. With the help of this new association, the liberal camp in the book trade renewed its campaign for liberalization of the market for literature. The fifth and sixth chapters examine the politics of the book trade in the decades following the establishment of the Cercle de la Librairie, under the Second Empire (1852–1870). Chapter 5 (“Louis Hachette and the Defense of the Publisher”) analyzes the continuing power struggle between printers and publishers, through the lens of a conflict between a prominent éditeur of the time, Louis Hachette, and a rival printer, Napoléon Chaix. For almost a decade between the mid-1850s and the mid-1860s, Hachette and Chaix battled over two separate but related issues: whether a publisher had a right to monopolize a sector of the market for print, as Hachette had recently done by establishing with state approval a network of bookstands in railroad stations, and whether he had a right to participate alongside the printer of a work at the international industrial exhibitions. At stake in these two issues was the relative jurisdiction and status of the work of the publisher versus that of the printer. In both arenas, Hachette argued that the publisher who conceived a book, no less than the printer who manufactured it, deserved the title of “producer.” Endorsed by both the Cercle de la Librairie and the state administration, this view prevailed. By the mid-1860s, Hachette had secured both his own monopoly over the railroad station bookstands and the inclusion of publishing at the international exhibitions. Important not just for the Hachette firm but for the entire publishing occupation, these victories served to legitimize the role of the éditeur. They signified a shift in the balance of power in the book trade from corporatists to liberals. Chapter 6 (“The Divorce between State and Market”) concludes the story of the debate between corporatists and liberals over licensing and literary

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property. Following the story from the Revolution of 1848 through the advent of the Third Republic (1870–1940), this chapter shows how the “marriage” between state and market in the book trade that had been instituted by Napoleon was dissolved by his nephew, Louis-Napoléon. Under the Second Empire of Napoleon III, the liberal camp in the book trade came close to obtaining its two main demands: literary property rights were extended to fifty years after the death of the author, not just for native writers but also for foreign ones whose work circulated in France, and licensing requirements were on the verge of being abolished when the Second Empire fell during the Franco-Prussian War. These requirements would be definitively overturned by the new republican government. There are two main reasons for the timing of these measures. First, since the first half of the nineteenth century, the liberal camp of publishers had become more organized. In particular, the Cercle de la Librairie played a major role in lobbying the state to liberalize the literary market. At the same time, though, the state was also reevaluating its priorities. Whereas before it was concerned with protecting public order, now it was interested in promoting commerce. As part of a broader move to deregulate business, including the theater, the Second Empire acceded to the demands of publishers to abolish licensing requirements and strengthen literary property rights. After sixty years of struggle, publishers finally succeeded in persuading the state to divorce itself from the market for print. Given that this “divorce” was motivated by economic as opposed to political liberalism, however, press freedom and literary property would remain compromised in France. What were the consequences of the liberalization of the literary market? The Epilogue sketches the effects of the abolition of licensing and the extension of literary property on printers, booksellers, and authors. Contrary to the expectations of publishers, these measures did not revolutionize the literary market in France, in part because this market was restricted in other ways, often by publishers themselves. To be sure, liberalization did promote growth in the book trade. In the decades following the abolition of licensing, the number of booksellers and printers increased, as did the number of new titles per year and the size of the average print run per title. The extension of literary property also promoted the production of print. However, by enabling producers to monopolize such property in virtual perpetuity, the extension of literary property empowered publishers over authors. This shift in the balance of

Introduction

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power between the creator and the producer of literature had obvious implications for books and readers. Contrary to its reputation as a haven for artists and intellectuals, fin de siècle France was often less than hospitable to literary creativity, due to the dominance of publishers over the book trade. At the same time, liberalization did not vanquish protectionism in the book trade. In the aftermath of deregulation, protectionism persisted, even among the most liberal publishers. In the face of a “crisis” of the book trade in the 1890s, publishers began to impose their own voluntary controls on the book business: for example, they instituted uniform discounts and model contracts to govern their dealings with booksellers and authors, respectively. In the twentieth century, they would even call for the revival of state intervention in the literary market, especially to control prices. Long after the liberalization of the book market, the politics of publishing left a legacy on literature in France. The story of the politics of publishing in nineteenth-century France is of more than just literary or historical significance, however. It also serves to illuminate contemporary struggles over the information marketplace. Many of the issues that divided corporatists and liberals at the dawn of this marketplace in the nineteenth century—including licensing and intellectual property— remain controversial today. In the context of the current “information revolution,” producers, distributors, and regulators continue to debate the age-old question of whether information is an ordinary commodity, subject only to the market, or an exceptional product, requiring special protections and restrictions. By examining the history of this debate in France, where it resulted in a distinctive approach to the market for print, we can better understand and shape the politics of information, both domestically and internationally, today.

1 The Birth of the Publisher

In Balzac’s novel Lost Illusions, the commercialization of the book trade is exemplified above all by one character: the book publisher Dauriat. Labeled the “king,” “sultan,” and “pasha” of the book trade, Dauriat reigns in despotic fashion over the authors, journalists, illustrators, papermakers, and printers who come to court him in his shop in the Wooden Galleries of the Palais Royal in the center of Paris. A speculator in literature, he is interested in the work of authors not for its artistic merit but for its financial potential. As he tells Lucien de Rudempré, whose poetry manuscript he has just rejected, “I don’t publish books for fun. I don’t risk two thousand francs just to get two thousand francs back. I’m a speculator in literature. . . . I use the power I have and the articles I pay for [in the press] to launch a three hundred thousand francs venture rather than a volume in which only two thousand francs are invested. . . . I am not here to be a springboard for future reputations, but to make money for myself and to provide some for the celebrities.” After Lucien acquires fame as a journalist (in part by slandering a rival author published by Dauriat), however, the publisher comes begging for the young writer’s work. As a result of his experiences with Dauriat, Lucien loses his illusions about the literary life. In Balzac’s novel, Dauriat embodies a significant change in the structure of the book trade. Modeled after a flamboyant entrepreneur named Pierre-François Ladvocat, whose shop in the Wooden Galleries was a center of literary activity during the Restoration, Dauriat represents a new type of producer in the postrevolutionary book trade, the libraire-éditeur, or bookseller-publisher.1 In the postrevolutionary era, Balzac was far from the only commentator to notice this new social type. In his depiction of the publisher, Balzac echoed themes developed by many other writers. From the 1820s through the 1840s,

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the new publisher was a frequent subject of plays, novels, satires, essays, and pamphlets by members of the literary and book professions. Typically, these commentators situated the libraire-éditeur in a hierarchy of “merchants” of thought, ranging from the étalagiste or sidewalk salesman at the bottom, through a variety of kinds of wholesalers and retailers, to the publisher at the top. The category of publisher was often then further subdivided into particular types, such as the classical publisher or the romantic publisher. Such categorization of the publisher, which was part and parcel of a broader cultural obsession with occupational typology during the social upheaval caused by both the French and industrial revolutions, indicates that the éditeur was establishing himself as a distinct figure in the world of work in the early nineteenth century. By the mid-nineteenth century, this figure was so common that it had become a source of concern for many commentators in the book trade. Bemoaning the profusion of publishers, these commentators complained that the new éditeur now dominated the book trade, at the expense of the traditional libraire, or bookdealer. In 1860, for example, a former booksellerpublisher named Edmond Werdet remarked in a history of the book trade in France that “there are no more libraires [bookdealers], just éditeurs [publishers].” The latter he derided as “manufacturers of plaster figurines” and “industrialists who peddle productions of the spirit.” In the opinion of Werdet, the title of éditeur, previously honorable, had become “the prey of everyone; it belongs to anyone who will parade it around, and it is today so banal that the first merchant to arrive assumes it.” In a short period of time, the publisher had become a ubiquitous feature of the French book trade.2 Who was this figure? When and why did he first emerge? What effect did he have on the book trade in early nineteenth-century France? And how did authors and other members of the trade react to him? These questions, which are of obvious importance to the history of the literary market in the nineteenth century, have not yet been answered by scholars. Although book historians have certainly noted the emergence of the publisher as a separate social type in France, they have not fully explained the causes or consequences of it.3 In an effort to elucidate the history of the specialization of publishing, this chapter examines the meaning, origin, and effect of the éditeur in early nineteenthcentury France.

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The Definition of the Éditeur In his complaint about the abuse of the term éditeur, Werdet suggested that there had been a linguistic revolution in the book trade. In fact, although the word éditeur was not new in the nineteenth century, it had undergone a change in meaning. Derived from the Latin word editor, meaning “author” or “founder,” the term was first used in French in the early eighteenth century. Originally, the term signified “editor,” that is, a scholar who translates, compiles, corrects, annotates, and introduces the work of a (usually deceased) writer. In contrast to the libraire, who was a merchant and often a producer of books, the éditeur was a man of letters. In 1734, the Dictionnaire de Trévoux defined the term éditeur as follows: “Author, scholar who takes care of the publication of the work of another, and ordinarily of a classic author; because Éditeur is not used with regard to either a printing worker or an Author who publishes his own works.” As an example of an éditeur, the Dictionnaire cited Erasmus. Several decades later, the Encyclopédie of Diderot used the example of the Benedictines, who had edited the works of the church fathers, to define the term. According to the Encyclopédie, an éditeur required considerable knowledge, including training in foreign languages. A similar conception of the éditeur appeared in the Dictionnaire de l’Académie française in the editions of both 1762 and 1778: “The person who takes care to review and to have printed another person’s work.” As an example of the way in which the term could be used, the Dictionnaire added, “This Work appears with a nice Preface by the Éditeur.”4 In the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries, however, the term éditeur began to acquire a new meaning: the capitalist who assumed the risk of producing the work of a (dead or living) author. The word began to connote what in English was already called a “publisher.” As early as the 1760s and 1770s, the term éditeur began to refer to bookdealers who undertook the publication of new literary enterprises, such as the Encyclopédie. As the Encyclopédie itself suggested, this new meaning of the term was a derivation of the ancient Latin word editores, the title given in Rome to officials who were charged with producing spectacles for the people out of their own pockets. In the first third of the nineteenth century, this new meaning of the term began to appear in dictionaries. A new edition of the Dictionnaire de l’Académie française, published in 1835, supplemented its old definition (“The person who takes care to review

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and to have printed another person’s work”) with a second usage: “By extension, libraires [bookdealers] sometimes assume the title of éditeurs of the works that they publish at their own expense.” By the end of the nineteenth century, this second definition would become the primary meaning of the term. In the last quarter of the nineteenth century, the Dictionnaire Larousse maintained that “in current usage, the word éditeur applies almost exclusively to the type of libraire [bookdealer] whose role consists of undertaking the printing, the marketing, and the success of a work to which he has some right to dispose.” Thus, between the late eighteenth and late nineteenth centuries, the meaning of éditeur had shifted from a savant to a speculator.5 As the definition from the Dictionnaire Larousse suggests, the new meaning of éditeur centered on the function of “undertaking” or entrepreneurship. The primary role of the éditeur was not to manufacture or to sell a book himself. Rather, it was to finance and coordinate the production and distribution of a book by others. The work of the éditeur involved procuring funding from subscribers, financiers, notaries, merchants, and other members of the book trade (who, given the difficulties of obtaining loans from banks, remained the main source of credit); acquiring or commissioning work by authors and artists, to whom he offered increasingly detailed contracts; overseeing the writing and illustrating of manuscripts; obtaining a supply of paper; coordinating the activities of engravers, printers, and binders; marketing publications, by means of subscriptions, catalogs, prospectuses, reviews, and eventually advertisements and posters; and distributing products via wholesalers, commission agents, and retailers. An intermediary between all of the other occupations involved in publishing, the éditeur concentrated on developing new products for new markets. Aiming to create a house “fund” or collection, he focused on publishing new literary works, referred to in the trade as nouveautés, or “novelties,” as well as new editions of old classics. In short, the éditeur was defined by his role in investing capital, both financial and human, to create literary commodities—and monetary profits. In his function of capitalist, the éditeur was similar to a number of other types of cultural entrepreneurs, including the art dealer and the theater manager, who emerged as distinctive figures at about the same time. Like these other entrepreneurs, the éditeur specialized in the work of speculating on new cultural capital.6 Such work was by no means new in the nineteenth century. It had been a fundamental part of the book trade since at least the invention of printing.

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Prior to the emergence of the new éditeur, however, this work had usually been performed by a printer (imprimeur) or a bookdealer (libraire). Through the eighteenth century, the book trade remained relatively unspecialized: printers often acted as booksellers and vice versa, and both printers and booksellers served in the capacity of publishers by financing the production of new literary enterprises. The overlap in function between these figures, especially between booksellers and publishers, was a result of the prevailing mode of credit in the book trade: the so-called exchange system, whereby booksellers paid for orders not with cash but with sheets of books. In order to be able to acquire an assortment of books for his customers, a libraire had to publish at least a few works, to offer in exchange for the products of other bookdealers. Of course, there were always exceptions to the general pattern of lack of specialization. As early as the sixteenth century, a number of entrepreneurs were acting as publishers (although they were not yet called such), especially in such commercial centers as Paris, Lyon, Anvers, and Amsterdam. Moreover, following the incorporation of the book guilds in the seventeenth century, there was increasing division between printers and bookdealers. Through the eighteenth century, though, a single craftsman or merchant was usually responsible for most, if not all, of the steps in the production and distribution of a publication, including conception, financing, and marketing. As late as the 1820s, a directory of the book trade categorized a number of bookdealers as libraires-imprimeurs, suggesting that they combined the functions of bookselling and printing as well as publishing. Between the mid-eighteenth and mid-nineteenth centuries, however, the function of publishing gradually became a specialization unto itself. Instead of being a small part of the job of a printer or a bookseller, it became the sole occupation of a new member of the book trade, the éditeur.7 Because the division between the functions of printing, bookselling, and publishing occurred so gradually and remained so murky, the title of éditeur was long combined and confused with that of imprimeur and, especially, libraire. Initially, the term éditeur was a modifier or type of libraire. The two words were used together or interchangeably. The compound noun libraire-éditeur was one of several categories of book occupations. In the typology of these occupations, the libraire-éditeur, or bookseller-publisher, was distinguished from the retail bookseller (libraire-détaillant), the wholesale bookseller (libraire-commissionnaire), the antique bookseller (libraire-

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bouquiniste), the used bookseller (libraire-étalagiste), and the booksellermoneylender (libraire-escompteur). The addition of the term éditeur to the title of libraire indicated that the bookseller not only distributed books but also funded and managed the publication of manuscripts. The use of the compound noun libraire-éditeur is exemplified by a guidebook to Paris published in 1824, which said that among the maisons de librairie (book houses) of Paris there were several establishments of a “colossal extent,” but that “most limit themselves to the sale of works published by the libraireséditeurs.” The overlap between the titles of éditeur and libraire, which is seen in literary sources and publishing contracts as well as trade directories and dictionaries, persisted through at least the first half of the nineteenth century.8 Gradually, however, the two titles began to diverge. As early as the last decade of the eighteenth century and the first decade of the nineteenth century, the term éditeur was used alone, in its new sense, in book trade publications and directories. In the 1820s and 1830s, it appeared in trade exposition catalogs, publishing contracts, judicial documents, and literary texts, including plays, novels, and satires of social types. In 1823 and 1834, for example, the catalogs of the national industrial exhibitions used the term éditeur in reference to several of the exhibitors in the category of typography, and in 1839 the publisher Léon Curmer devoted his report on the book trade for the jury of the national industrial exhibition to a description of the work of the éditeur. By the 1840s and 1850s, use of the term éditeur alone was even more common. In 1841, both the specialized book trade directory Annuaire Dutertre and the general business directory Almanach Bottin included a category for “libraires and éditeurs.” Around the same time, the dictionary of professions edited by Édouard Charton recognized that, although the functions of libraire and éditeur were sometimes combined, “generally, the libraire is not an éditeur, he limits himself to doing the commerce of books: he is a bookseller.” Perhaps the most vivid evidence of the separation between the publisher and the bookseller was the essay on “L’Éditeur” written by Élias Regnault for a collection of sketches of social types called Les Français peints par eux-mêmes (“The French as Painted by Themselves”), published by Léon Curmer in 1841. This essay, which characterized the publisher as the “supreme chief of the merchants of thought” and as a “baron of the new industrial feudalism,” distinguished the entrepreneurial éditeur from the simple libraire, or bookseller,

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[To view this image, refer to the print version of this title.]

Figure 1.1. L’Éditeur: Illustration by Paul Gavarni for the essay of the same name by Élias Regnault in Les Français peints par eux-mêmes, ed. Léon Curmer (1841). Département des estampes et de la photographie, Bibliothèque nationale de France.

who did not risk money on the publication of new work but confined himself to the operation of a retail shop. Accompanying the essay by Regnault was a portrait of the éditeur, bent over a desk, which contrasted with the contemporary image of the libraire, behind the counter or at the door of his shop. (For illustrations of the éditeur and the libraire, see Figures 1.1 and 1.2.) By 1860, when Werdet complained about the explosion in the number of publishers, éditeur had supplanted libraire as the most common label for a specialist in publishing.9

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[To view this image, refer to the print version of this title.]

Figure 1.2. Le Libraire: Anonymous lithograph, ca. 1841. Département des estampes et de la photographie, Bibliothèque nationale de France.

As Werdet’s comments suggest, the label of éditeur was adopted most often by pioneers in the book trade. In contrast to established heirs of the prerevolutionary trade, it designated self-made entrepreneurs. The earliest example of the new type of éditeur was Charles-Joseph Panckoucke (1736– 1798). Although he inherited his trade from his father, who was a booksellerprinter in Lille, Panckoucke reconceived it as a business. Rather than responding

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to the traditional “logic of demand,” he operated by what Jean-Yves Mollier terms the “logic of offer.” In other words, he did not just supply existing markets but cultivated new ones. Between the 1760s and the 1780s, Panckoucke built a publishing empire, whose holdings included the Encyclopédie of Diderot and the government newspaper, the Moniteur universel, among numerous other philosophical and periodical publications. To disseminate these products, he employed a number of innovative marketing practices, including lower prices; smaller formats; installments and subscriptions; new publicity techniques, such as prospectuses and advertisements; and the extension of credit to booksellers. Characterized by his biographer as a “man of action,” Panckoucke was a forerunner of the modern type of publishing entrepreneur.10 The other quintessential example of the new type of éditeur was PierreFrançois (nicknamed Camille) Ladvocat (1791–1854), the model for Dauriat in the novel Lost Illusions, as well as for numerous other caricatures of the éditeur in early nineteenth-century French literature. Son of an architectengineer at Le Havre, Ladvocat entered the book trade by way of marriage in 1817 to Constance Sophie Aubé, a divorcée who owned a cabinet littéraire, or reading room. Between the late 1810s and the early 1830s, from his shop in the Wooden Galleries of the Palais Royal, Ladvocat published a number of major playwrights, poets, and memoirists, including Casimir Delavigne, Victor Hugo, Lord Byron, François de Chateaubriand, Madame de Genlis, the Duchess d’Abrantès, and the criminal-turned-police detective François Vidocq. Like Panckoucke before him, Ladvocat revolutionized the book trade with new marketing techniques: in addition to cultivating relationships with journalists, he was one of the first publishers to use posters to advertise books. Often labeled the “prince of publishing,” Ladvocat was famous for his energy and flair in dealing with authors. As his competitor Edmond Werdet later said of him, “Ladvocat was the man of the modern book trade. Gifted with an audacious intelligence, with an indefatigable activity of body and spirit, animated with a lively love for his occupation of éditeur, he knew how to give to commerce in books, to literature itself (I am in a position to prove it), a thrust, a height, a life, which without a doubt would have occurred without him, but much later; and that in itself is a great merit, to be ahead of one’s time.” In the end, Ladvocat’s extravagant lifestyle undermined his publishing business. Beginning in the early 1830s, the publisher declared bankruptcy on three

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separate occasions. Despite the effort of a group of authors to save his business, by donating for publication a collection of essays called the Livre des cent-et-un (“Book of the 101 Authors”), in 1840 Ladvocat left the book trade and became a merchant of furniture and art objects. In his prime, however, Ladvocat epitomized the new type of publisher. When his portrait was exhibited at the Salon of Paris in 1826, as Martyn Lyons has noted, it represented “the consecration of his success and also the accession of the occupation of éditeur.”11 In addition to these two forerunners of the modern publisher, many other entrepreneurs in both book and periodical publishing in Paris in the early nineteenth century adopted the title of éditeur, including Charles Gosselin, Léon Curmer, Eugène Renduel, Gervais Charpentier, Émile de Girardin, François Buloz, Pierre-Jules Hetzel, Michel Lévy, and Louis Hachette. Because the title of éditeur overlapped for so long with that of libraire, it is difficult to determine the exact number of publishers per se versus the number of booksellers (or printers) at any given moment. Until late in the nineteenth century, these categories were not separated in trade directories, making a precise count impossible. The Almanach du commerce of Bottin for 1841, for example, did not distinguish publishers from booksellers in its list of 490 “libraires and éditeurs” in Paris. Nonetheless, it is clear that the number of publishers grew substantially—especially in comparison to the number of printers, which remained fixed at eighty in Paris after 1810—between the late eighteenth and mid-nineteenth centuries. Between the 1770s and 1810s, the number of libraires in Paris doubled, from about 160 or 170 (plus another 120 peddlers and 50 “merchants of books” outside of the official guild) to over 300. From about 330 in 1816, it increased again to 435 by 1821, 478 by 1826, and 514 in 1831, before stabilizing around 500 for several decades. Although not all of these libraires engaged in publishing, many of them did specialize in the function of the éditeur.12 By the middle of the nineteenth century, this title was pervasive enough to attract the notice of commentators such as Balzac and Werdet.

The Origins of the Éditeur Why did the title of éditeur become so prevalent in the early nineteenth century in France? What caused this new figure to emerge in the book trade in

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that time and place? Traditionally, the emergence of the éditeur has been interpreted as a side effect of structural and technological modernization. The division of labor between the occupations of publishing, printing, and bookselling has been explained as a natural outgrowth of the shift from an artisanal system of production to an industrial one in the book trade. It has been linked to what Roger Chartier called the “new typographical regime” and Frédéric Barbier termed the “Second Printing Revolution” circa 1830. This “revolution,” which began roughly three centuries after the “first” printing revolution instigated by Gutenberg, involved a conjunction of a number of developments, including an increase in demand for print, the expansion of credit, the mechanization of printing and papermaking, the invention of stereotypography and lithography, and the establishment of nationwide distribution networks with the help of railroads, all of which spurred innovation in the form and content of products. According to the standard view of the emergence of the publisher, these developments combined to create a functional need for an entrepreneur to finance and coordinate all of the creative, manual, and commercial tasks involved in the production and distribution of books.13 This explanation for the birth of the publisher was first given by contemporaries of the new figure. For example, in his report on the occupation of the éditeur to the jury of the national industrial exposition in 1839, the publisher Léon Curmer attributed the appearance of this figure to new techniques for reproducing illustrations, which required someone to negotiate between authors and illustrators. According to Curmer, in recent years the book trade had become more than a simple commerce, due to the “profession of Éditeur that has come to implant itself there since the introduction of illustrated books.” Insisting that only the éditeur could prepare the illustration of a book, Curmer described this figure as the liaison between the intellectual and material processes involved in producing and distributing a book, “the point toward which converge a crowd of industries.”14 Since the mid-nineteenth century, the same explanation for the birth of the publisher has been recycled by cultural historians and literary scholars. The connection between the emergence of this figure and the invention of new illustration techniques, for instance, has been repeated almost verbatim by the authors of the essay on the éditeur in volume 3 of the Histoire de l’édition française. According to them, “It was only under the July Monarchy that one began to become conscious of the originality of the function of éditeur. The

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realization of illustrated books played a large role in this consciousness.” More generally, scholars have tended to link specialization with industrialization in the book trade. As Barbier says, “Of course, the emergence of the industrial book trade and the process of massification that accompanies it push toward the specialization and thus toward the individualization of the different functions developing around the printed book.”15 This explanation for the specialization of the publisher is not without merit. The appearance of this figure did coincide with a number of structural and technological changes in the book trade. The birth of the éditeur was fueled by such developments as a rise in readership, the increased use of bills of exchange, the invention of mechanical papermaking and printing, the adoption of stereotypography and lithography, and the opening of cabinets de lecture, or reading rooms. In particular, the emergence of the éditeur was connected to the “consumption revolution,” which increased the demand for books and periodicals as well as other goods. Beginning in the eighteenth century and continuing into the nineteenth, this increase in demand, which was itself connected to a growth in population and literacy, encouraged producers in France (and elsewhere) to specialize in the entrepreneurial function, developing cheaper book formats and new marketing techniques, such as subscriptions and serials. Exploiting the expansion of the market for print, the publisher began to replace the patron as the financier of the work of the author.16 Nonetheless, the traditional explanation for the emergence of the éditeur leaves something to be desired. In emphasizing the role of structural and technological modernization, this explanation tends to reverse cause and effect: it characterizes the publisher as an outcome of innovations that were in fact promoted by him, in his work to develop new products for new markets. In fact, the éditeur began to be noticed as a social type separate from the printer and the bookseller well before the Second Printing Revolution had taken off in France. Although the existence of this figure had been noted in trade publications and literary sources by the 1810s and 1820s, the book trade was not fully industrialized until several decades later. New technologies of papermaking, printing, illustration, and binding began to be invented as early as the late eighteenth century, but they were not widely adopted in France until the mid-nineteenth. In 1827, there were only four papermaking machines in all of France; in 1833, there were only twelve. Printing had begun to

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industrialize by 1830, when printing workers involved in the July Revolution destroyed the mechanical presses of the Royal Printing Establishment, but steam presses remained exceptional and rotary presses were not even invented until the 1850s. A real industrial revolution did not occur in the book trade until the 1860s and 1870s, when rotary presses were adopted and, perhaps even more important, techniques for making paper from wood chips (as opposed to cloth rags) were perfected. The lack of correlation between the specialization of publishing and the Second Printing Revolution is further borne out by a comparison with England, where the “publisher” emerged as a separate figure at the beginning of the eighteenth century, well over a century before the industrialization of the book trade. (By contrast, in the German lands the specialized publisher did not emerge until much later in the nineteenth century, as a result of the decentralization of the book trade.) Such international comparison suggests that the new publisher was at least as much a cause as a product of the Second Printing Revolution. In his quest to cultivate new markets, he promoted the adoption of machine-made papers, stereotype plates, and rotary presses, for example.17 If the éditeur actually predated some of the changes that are usually said to have spawned him, what exactly did cause his entry onto the social scene in late eighteenth- and early nineteenth-century France? The éditeur emerged in conjunction with a major transformation in the regulatory framework of the book trade. This new social type was a product less of industrial revolution than of political revolution. Between 1770 and 1830, the éditeur was engendered by a number of liberal reforms in the law on the book trade, regarding intellectual property rights, trade restrictions, and censorship controls. Together, these reforms encouraged outsiders from the book guild to risk money on—and required them to assume responsibility for—the production of new literary material. The éditeur first emerged in the cracks of the Old Regime and then flourished as a result of the effects of the French Revolution. Under the Old Regime, the opportunities for specializing in publishing were limited, because of the way in which the book trade was structured and regulated. Since the invention of the printing press, the French monarchy had restricted the trade through a system of privileges and guilds. This corporatist system was consolidated under Colbert, who in an effort to restore order to the book trade following the political and economic turmoil of the mid-seventeenth century limited the number of printers and, to a lesser extent, booksellers

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throughout France. As a result of this corporatist policy, the book trade was dominated by a small oligarchy of bookdealers in Paris, who monopolized the privileges for most authorized works, often in perpetuity. With little incentive to innovate, these bookdealers tended to reproduce the same old works—mostly religious and legal texts in luxurious formats—again and again. Outside of Paris, printers and bookdealers were left with producing only local publications, ephemeral works, or pirated editions, to supplement their printing and retailing operations. The corporatist system, which was not effectively enforced by local authorities, did not preclude all innovation, however. In fact, by restricting printing and bookselling to guild members in large cities in France, the absolutist policy may have encouraged entrepreneurialism among (often illicit) producers in provincial and international towns, who were more responsive than their authorized peers to the growing demand for print. As Robert Darnton has shown, by the eighteenth century there had emerged alongside the official book trade a vast “literary underground,” which produced much of the literature of the Enlightenment, in clandestine shops in Paris, in provincial towns, and, especially, in neighboring countries such as Switzerland and Holland. Under pressure from this literary underground, even members of the guild in Paris began to undertake the production of increasing numbers of new works—or new editions of old classics—in new formats for new audiences. From within the guild, Panckoucke, for example, published a number of nouveautés, including encyclopedias, periodicals, and collected works by living authors. Until the late eighteenth century, though, such entrepreneurialism remained constrained by the state.18 Toward the end of the Old Regime, however, the constraints on entrepreneurialism began to be loosened. Responding to criticism from disgruntled authors, provincial printers, and entrepreneurial bookdealers, including Panckoucke, the monarchy reformed the corporatist system. In a series of six decrees issued on 30 August 1777, it broke the monopoly of the Paris Book Guild on the publication of officially authorized texts. Among other things, the decrees of 1777 declared that privileges belonged not to printers or bookdealers but to authors and their families. If a given author ceded his privilege to a printer or bookdealer, the latter could enjoy it for the lifetime of the author or for ten years, whichever was greater. Afterward, the work fell into a public domain, where it was open to competition. The decrees of 1777 also stipulated that privileges would be granted only to new works or reprints whose text had

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been augmented by at least a quarter. With these reforms, the monarchy not only recognized the personage of the author for the first time, as previous studies have emphasized, but also engendered the figure of the éditeur, or publisher. By limiting the term of privileges over individual works, it provided an incentive for producers to develop new paratextual material—such as introductions or annotations—for reprints of classics. It also gave producers a motivation to acquire or commission entirely new works, to which they could assert a temporary claim. In other words, the decrees of 1777 encouraged specialization in the pursuit of new literary capital—the very definition of the occupation of the éditeur.19 Although it began toward the end of the Old Regime, however, the specialization of publishing remained limited before the French Revolution. The decrees of 1777 did not break the monopoly of the Paris Book Guild. Opposed by the guild, the decrees were never registered by the Parlement of Paris. Moreover, even though they challenged the privileges of the book guild of Paris, these decrees did not remove the barriers to entry into the book trade. In order to practice this trade, producers were still required—at least officially—to belong to one of the corporations of printers and bookdealers. Perhaps the most important factor in the emergence of the éditeur, then, was the abolition of the book guilds, along with all other corporations, by the revolutionary Constituent Assembly in March 1791. Following the outbreak of the Revolution, the Paris Book Guild was defended by its members—including Panckoucke, who despite his interest in reform of the book trade wanted to preserve some version of the corporation as a means of policing the property of publishers. Despite their efforts, however, the guild did not survive the attack on privilege by the French revolutionaries. With the abolition of the Paris Book Guild, the book trade was opened to newcomers, including men who had already been practicing it clandestinely and men who chose now to enter it for the first time. Over the next decade, hundreds of such men flooded the trade, causing Balzac later to complain (in terms similar to many other commentators at the time) that “following the Revolution, a crowd of ignorant men, peasants the day before, libraires the next, rushed into a commerce that presented an opportunity for immense profits: the fall of the chambre syndicale of booksellers had given away the secret of blackened paper.” In fact, according to Carla Hesse, between 1789 and 1799 in Paris the number of printers quadrupled and the number of publishers (libraires and éditeurs) increased by at least one-half. Although the

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vast majority of the printers and bookdealers of the old guild survived at least through the first decade of the Revolution, they were joined by a new group of publishers, who entered the trade in two big waves, first between 1789 and 1792 and then between 1795 and 1799. Whereas on the eve of the Revolution there had been 47 printers and 179 bookdealers in Paris, by 1810 there were 157 and 588, respectively. Many of the newcomers specialized in the publishing of new works, particularly newspapers, ephemera, and novels, which were relatively inexpensive to produce.20 The work of these new publishers was promoted by another revolutionary measure, the so-called Declaration of the Rights of Genius, passed by the legislature of the First Republic on 19 July 1793. A response to the anarchy unleashed in the book trade since the beginning of the Revolution in 1789, this declaration redefined the royally granted privileges of authors (and bookdealers) as naturally given rights. In an attempt to balance the individual claims of the author against the collective needs of the public, it limited the right of property in ideas to the lifetime of the author, plus ten years. This term would be extended to twenty years beyond the life of the author and his spouse by the Empire of Napoleon, as part of the reregulation of the book trade in 1810. As a result of this new legislation, much of the literature of the Old Regime fell into the public domain, from where it could be reproduced— in new formats, with new paratextual materials—by anyone. By placing the legal claim to a book less in the text than in the paratext or edition, the revolutionary and imperial legislation on literary property encouraged specialization in the development of new literary capital. As Carla Hesse says of the decree of 1810, this legislation “marked the institutional consecration of the power of publishers.” Like the regulation of 1777, the declaration of 1793 and the decree of 1810 contributed to the birth not only of the modern author but also of the modern publisher.21 Although the regimes of the Empire and the Restoration reversed much of the revolutionary liberalization of the book trade, they did not challenge the status of the new publisher. With the regulation of 1810, the book trade was subjected to a number of state controls. However, these controls proved less restrictive of entrepreneurship than had the privileges and guilds of the Old Regime. The licensing requirement, for example, did not prevent newcomers from entering the book trade. In the postrevolutionary period, as Christophe Charle has demonstrated, publishing was one of the most open occupations.

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Although certain sectors of the trade (for instance, nouveautés) were more open to newcomers than others (such as classics), dozens of men established themselves as publishers in the first half of the nineteenth century, in spite of the licensing requirement. In fact, the licensing requirement may actually have promoted the rise of the éditeur: this title itself seems to have been a means to evade the new rule. Because the state required a license only of the imprimeur, who printed books, and the libraire, who sold them, it often allowed the éditeur to operate without one, as long as he did not participate in the manufacture or distribution of his products. In the early nineteenth century, there were numerous examples of éditeurs who remained in business for years without a license, including Ladvocat, who practiced the book trade for a decade before he was finally forced by the administration to complete the formalities for a license. In June 1830, the minister of interior noted, in a circular to the departmental prefects, that there were a number of merchants who had adopted the title of éditeur of works in the public domain in order to practice without a license. Such unlicensed publishers were pervasive enough to become a source of complaint among law-abiding printers and bookdealers. As a former printer named J.-R. Plassan remarked in 1839, the new éditeurs were “people clever in the art of evading the law; who, by circuitous means, introduced themselves in the book trade, where they maintain themselves in a state of flagrant violation [of the law], by refusing to fulfill one of the principal conditions of the right to exercise the profession of bookdealer: the obtention of a license.”22 Not only did the new regime not challenge the status of the éditeur, but it actually reinforced it—for example, in new legislation on policing of the press. Whereas before such policing had relied on prepublication censorship, under the constitutional regimes of the early nineteenth century it began to center on postpublication liability. In assigning liability for the content of a publication, the law now targeted the éditeur alongside—and sometimes above—the printer, the bookseller, and even the author. The responsibility of the éditeur was highlighted for the first time in the Serre Laws, a trio of measures on the press passed by the legislature in May 1819, which were named after the minister of justice who proposed them. These three measures, which represented a step toward liberalism in comparison to the press law of the Empire and early Restoration, specified the offenses that could be committed via the press; the procedures for prosecuting press crimes; and the requirements

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for publishing a periodical. Among these requirements was the designation of an éditeur responsable, a “responsible publisher,” who assumed liability for everything printed in the periodical. Although it originated in the context of periodical publishing, the notion of the éditeur responsable extended to book publishing, too. In the wake of the Serre Laws, which governed the policing of the press for much of the nineteenth century, press law centered at least as much on the publisher as on any other person involved in the publication of a text, including the author. In exchange for obtaining the right of property in his work, the publisher (like the author) was required by the state to assume responsibility for it. As the Dictionnaire Larousse noted, “the libraire éditeur of a book affixes his name to it and thereby becomes responsible toward both the authority and the public for what is published.”23 The responsibility of the publisher was confirmed in jurisprudence, which made explicit the connection between the rights and the duties of producers of publications. As Annie Prassaloff has shown in a study of court cases regarding literary property reported in the Gazette des tribunaux, by the time of the July Monarchy the judiciary had attributed liability as well as property over publications to the éditeur. By virtue of his censorial responsibilities as well as his property rights, the publisher, not the author, was viewed by the courts as the central personage in the production of literature. To underscore the role of the publisher, jurisprudence often employed the term éditeurpropriétaire (“publisher-owner”) as well as éditeur responsable (“responsible publisher”). The rights and responsibilities of the publisher were highlighted especially in cases involving works of a derivative nature, such as reeditions or collections, where the innovation and direction of the éditeur were paramount. In case after case, the courts ruled that contributors to periodicals or textbooks, for example, retained no right over either the property or the content of their work once it had been submitted to the publisher, who was the true “inventor” of the publication. The primacy of the éditeur in postrevolutionary jurisprudence on literary property and responsibility was paradoxical, given that romanticism was at the same time celebrating the “genius” of the author. As Prassaloff concludes, “in an era when the intimate connection between the author and his work inspired the most lyrical flights of fancy, where one could not find an image pious enough to consecrate it, an author could be declared completely foreign to the fate of his work,” in favor of the éditeur.24

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Between the 1770s and the 1830s, the emergence of the éditeur was facilitated by a series of decrees, laws, and judgments, which provided a financial incentive for the undertaking of new literary material, opened the production of such material to new talent, and assigned responsibility for the content of this material to the entrepreneur who financed it. As a result of these measures, the revolutionary era witnessed “an unprecedented expansion and democratization of publishing,” in the words of Carla Hesse. During this era, as Frédéric Barbier confirms, established printers and bookdealers in both Paris and the provinces lost their business, their citizenship, or even their life as a result of their association with the Old Regime. In their place emerged numerous newcomers, who benefited from the liberalization of commerce. Although the book trade contracted again following the reregulation by Napoleon in 1810, it was still double its prerevolutionary size. By the end of the first decade of the nineteenth century, a new band of publishers had replaced the old corporation of bookdealers at the center of the trade in Paris. This band expanded during the Restoration, when enterprising men could found a publishing firm with limited capital. Of the 118 éditeurs whose biographies were included in Edmond Werdet’s history of publishing in 1860, 85 had established themselves in business between 1815 and 1830.25 As their origins in the upheaval of the revolutionary era suggest, these newcomers were by and large self-made men. In contrast to printers and bookdealers who had inherited their trade from members of the old guilds, the new éditeurs came from families outside of the book trade, in the petty and middle bourgeoisie. In general, they possessed little or no formal training in the production and distribution of print. Gervais Charpentier, for example, was the son of a sublieutenant in the army, and Pierre-Jules Hetzel was the son of a saddler and a midwife, while Charles Gosselin was an orphan. Although some éditeurs had served apprenticeships as clerks for other bookdealers, others entered publishing from unrelated occupations, including government, military, trade, and finance. For instance, Urbain Canel, who was one of the first éditeurs to publish the work of Balzac, worked as a bookkeeper for a florist before demanding a bookselling license and undertaking a number of publishing enterprises, of both classical and new works. Despite periodic infusions of capital from outside investors as well as government subscriptions, Canel lasted little more than a decade in publishing, before running out of money and returning to his previous occupation of bookkeeper. As Canel’s case suggests, the

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financial situation of the new éditeurs was often precarious. The liberal legislation of the revolutionary era, which had made it easy and attractive to enter the publishing trade, also left the trade vulnerable to competition.26 Although the political causes of the emergence of the éditeur have since been overlooked by cultural historians and literary scholars, they were recognized by contemporaries of this new social type. In the postrevolutionary period, a number of commentators remarked that the Revolution had facilitated entrepreneurship in the book trade. Contrasting the freedom of occupation of the postrevolutionary era with the Old Regime, for example, Edmond Werdet wrote, “Until then [the Revolution], the most restrictive prohibitions, inspired by all the previous legislations, did not cease to oppose to great bibliographical enterprises continual obstacles, which, very fortunately, almost always remained powerless.” Other writers noted that the legislation on literary property had empowered the publisher at the expense of the author. In his sketch of the éditeur, Élias Regnault remarked, “The inventors of literary property should reevaluate this type that they have engendered.” In similar terms, Balzac protested that since the Revolution the law on literary property had promoted the interests of “entrepreneurs,” or publishers, over those of writers.27

The Consequences of the Rise of the Éditeur The complaints by Regnault and Balzac raise the question of the consequences of the rise of the éditeur for the book trade—and especially for authorship. To what extent did the new publisher alter the size and nature of the trade? How did he affect the condition and work of the author? These questions are difficult to answer given the paucity of sources on publishers in the period stretching from the outbreak of the Revolution to the fall of the constitutional monarchy. The era has left nothing comparable to the archives of the Société Typographique de Neuchâtel, which Robert Darnton has used to reconstruct the workings of the prerevolutionary book trade, or to the records of the Calmann-Lévy and Hachette firms, which Jean-Yves Mollier has employed to trace the shift from the individual publisher to the publishing house in the second half of the nineteenth century. Nonetheless, with the help of some statistics on the book trade as well as the surviving letters and contracts of a handful of writers, we may draw some general conclusions about

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the effects of the éditeur on books and authors during the first half of the nineteenth century. Although in the long term these effects proved dramatic, in the short term they remained limited, because innovation in publishing was constrained by the postrevolutionary political context, especially the regulation of 1810. The rise of the éditeur did not correlate with any significant change in overall book production, for example. Between the mid-eighteenth and midnineteenth centuries, output in publishing saw only slow and modest growth. In the period from 1760 to 1775, production of books in the French language totaled 2,000 titles (or 3,000 volumes) per year at maximum, excluding the foreign trade. During the Revolution, this number declined to fewer than 1,000 titles per year on average. At the end of the First Empire, it rose again to between 3,000 and 4,000, and under the Restoration it grew to the unprecedented level of 7,000 to 8,000 titles per year. Not until the Second Empire, though, did it see another marked increase, to 12,000 titles per year. Moreover, even though the number of titles increased, the size of print runs (which is really a more precise measure of production) did not. At the end of the Old Regime, the typical print run was somewhere between 750 and 2,000 copies, and most of the “classics” published in Paris averaged between 1,000 and 1,800 copies. This number remained more or less unaltered before 1830, after which it rose gradually to between 1,500 and 2,000 and then, after 1840, to between 2,000 and 5,000. As late as 1860, though, the average printing remained only about 2,800. As Frédéric Barbier has emphasized, before the late nineteenth century (when the average print run finally passed the 10,000 mark) the number of titles grew at a faster rate than did the average printing. Although diversity of publications increased in conjunction with the emergence of the éditeur, availability did not.28 Nor did the rise of the éditeur revolutionize the content of literature as much as might be expected. Although he was often associated with the production of “novelties,” the newest member of the book trade was actually responsible for establishing a canon of “classics” between the last decades of the eighteenth and the first decades of the nineteenth century. As William St. Clair has demonstrated in the case of the British book trade, the overthrow of the corporatist system encouraged publishers to issue reprints of old works, which had previously been monopolized by guild members but had now fallen into the public domain. In contrast to novelties, which were sold at high prices so

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that publishers could recoup their investment in the capital of the author, these reprints were marketed at cheap prices for new readerships, including educational institutions and popular audiences. They thus tended to dominate the market for print at the expense of new literature, whose public remained limited to the elite. In France, literary output was no less influenced by the regime of literary property. The restriction of such property first to ten and then to twenty years after the death of the author created a vast public domain of “classics,” which the new éditeurs rushed to exploit. Although they did indeed launch several new authors, including Victor Hugo, Alexandre Dumas, and Eugène Sue, these éditeurs also produced countless reeditions, abridgements, translations, anthologies, and collections of existing works. To take one example, the éditeur Baudouin offered for subscription no fewer than six editions of the complete works of Voltaire in the octavo format between 1825 and 1830. At the height of romanticism, the literary market was thus saturated by classicism, as Martyn Lyons has shown. Through the first half of the nineteenth century, the best seller list (reconstructed from lists of titles in the Bibliographie de la France and declarations of print runs in the Archives Nationales) was dominated by eighteenth- and even seventeenth-century authors, including Voltaire, Rousseau, Molière, Racine, Fénélon, and La Fontaine, whose collection of fables may have been the most read book during the Restoration in France. As Carla Hesse has emphasized, the rise of the éditeur encouraged consolidation as much as it did innovation in literature.29 In the short term, the new éditeur may have had less of an effect on the number and content of books than on their marketing. By the early nineteenth century, the publisher had introduced a number of new publicity techniques, including subscriptions, prospectuses, catalogs, advertisements, illustrations, and posters. In contrast to the traditional libraire, who let his wares speak for themselves, the new éditeur worked to “puff ” his books, by circulating notices and soliciting reviews. As he developed his own fund or list of titles, each éditeur cultivated a house look or brand—for instance, by creating a unique binding and cover for his publications. To build brand identity, publishers began to group their books into series or collections, some of which were targeted at a petit bourgeois (if not yet working-class) audience. Under pressure from foreign piracies and newspaper serials (called feuilletons), publishers also began to lower book prices, which had remained high despite a decline in costs with the beginning of industrialization. In 1838, the

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publisher Gervais Charpentier instigated a veritable revolution in the book trade by introducing a new collection (called the “Bibliothèque Charpentier”) in the compact octodecimo (in-18) format priced at 3 francs 50, or half of the usual cost, per volume. His example would be followed by a number of other publishers, who began to market their own collections of books at 3 francs 50—or less—and to sell books in parts, priced at twenty sous per installment.30 Recognizing that marketing alone would not get books into the hands of readers, the new éditeurs also introduced a number of distribution practices. While continuing to rely on such customary practices as exchanges with other bookdealers, trade fairs, colporteurs (peddlers), étalages (literally “shelves,” erected along the streets), and cabinets de lecture (reading rooms), they began to develop some new sales tactics. In the 1810s, publishers began hiring commission agents to market their products to booksellers in the provinces. They also began using wholesalers (many of whom had begun their career as a commission agent for a single publisher) to serve as intermediaries between publishers in Paris and retailers in the countryside. To the extent possible, though, they tried to circumvent such intermediaries by dealing directly with retailers, including new “bazaars” and grands magasins, to whom they offered incentives in the form of discounts of 10 to 20 percent and treizièmes (“thirteenths”), or one free copy for every twelve purchased. In the 1840s, publishers also began to form associations, such as a Dépôt Central de Librairie, to distribute their new publications to provincial booksellers. Hence began the practice of envoi d’office, or deposit on commission, a kind of franchise system. As éditeurs concentrated on the acquisition of manuscripts from authors, they left the sale of books to libraires, who specialized in retailing.31 The rise of the éditeur also transformed the occupation of authorship, though it had less of an effect on this occupation than commentary by contemporaries of this new figure would suggest. Contrary to the Balzacian image of the éditeur as a “sultan” or tyrant, the new publisher in fact exerted little power over the author, at least in the short term. Through at least the middle of the nineteenth century, publishers were forced as a result of the limited term of intellectual property to engage in a constant chase after new literary capital. Because publishers were so dependent on their work, authors enjoyed considerable freedom of contract. If authors disapproved of their treatment by one publisher, they were free (at least upon expiration of their contract, whose term was

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usually short) to switch to another one. The most notorious example of this behavior is Balzac, who abandoned one publisher after another, at the slightest dispute or offense, over the course of his thirty-year career. Yet, Balzac was certainly not the only writer to treat his publishers in this fashion. At the time, the average author dealt with thirteen publishers over the course of his career. This pattern, which has been labeled by book historians as pluri-édition (multiple publishers, simultaneously and/or sequentially) in contradistinction to mono-édition (one publisher over a long term), persisted until the second half of the nineteenth century. According to Jean-Yves Mollier, “Contrary to what would become the rule several years later, authors still imposed their conditions on libraires-éditeurs. Wandering from one merchant to another, in function of the offer or of the reputation of the professional, they generally conserved the property in their works.” Long after the emergence of the éditeur, writers held the upper hand in author-publisher relations.32 Given their leverage over the new publishers, authors tended to profit from the specialization of the book trade. The effect of the éditeur on the material condition of authorship was gradual. However, the emergence of this figure did make writing a viable career option for the first time. Prior to the late eighteenth century, writers were not usually paid for their work. For their livelihood, they depended on outside sources of income, such as family wealth, royal protection, or noble patronage. Following the birth of the éditeur, however, writers could at least hope to receive monetary compensation (as well as other perks, including gifts, dinners, theater tickets, and free books) for their labor. Such compensation originated with the pioneering éditeur Charles-Joseph Panckoucke, who was one of the first to guarantee payments to authors in notarial contracts as opposed to personal letters. By the early nineteenth century, it was common for a publisher to offer a writer at least a token payment for a manuscript.33 Initially, this payment took the form of a lump sum, in exchange for which the publisher obtained the right to publish a limited edition of the work during a short period of time. (Not until the second half of the century would this payment be based on a proportional fee—or royalty—for each copy printed.) According to author-publisher contracts from the early nineteenth century, the average compensation for a book-length manuscript was between eight hundred and two thousand francs, usually divided into two or more payments. In exchange for this sum, the publisher obtained the exclusive right to print an edition of between one and two thousand copies of

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the work, for a term of one to two years. In the case of Balzac, for example, the contract for his first novel (Clotilde de Lusignan, which appeared under a pseudonym) dated 22 January 1822 entitled him to two thousand francs, to be paid in three installments, for a first edition of fifteen hundred copies (in four volumes, duodecimo). From this sum, Balzac was supposed to pay for his own publicity—a common stipulation at the time. A similar amount of fifteen hundred francs (to be paid in installments of two hundred francs per month, starting from the publication date) was offered to Théophile Gautier for fifteen hundred copies of his novel Mademoiselle Maupin by the publisher Eugène Renduel, in a contract dated 10 September 1833. Even higher payments were commanded by better established and more popular authors, especially for work for the theater and the press. For instance, the best-selling Romantic poet Alphonse de Lamartine received fourteen thousand francs for a second volume of poetry, Nouvelles méditations, in 1823, and even as a young man the popular playwright and novelist Victor Hugo was able to impose “leonine conditions” on such publishers as Eugène Renduel. By the 1840s, Balzac earned eleven thousand francs for the book version of Modeste Mignon, plus an additional 9,500 francs for the feuilleton version in the Journal des débats, while the most popular novelist of the time, Eugène de Sue, received the unprecedented sum (for a work of fiction) of one hundred thousand francs from the newspaper Le Constitutionnel for his novel Le Juif errant.34 Of course, not all authors profited to this extent from the rise of the éditeur. Well into the nineteenth century, many writers—especially beginning ones— still were not paid for their work. In 1813, Charles Paul de Kock, for example, paid over eight hundred francs out of his own pocket to publish five hundred copies of his first novel, The Child of My Wife, in two volumes, and Théophile Gautier’s first work, a volume of poems distributed by the éditeur Marie in 1830, was published at the expense of Gautier’s father.35 Before the development of royalty payments and large print runs in the late nineteenth century, the earnings of authors remained limited. Given these limits, perhaps as few as 10 percent of authors in this era were able to live from writing alone.36 Nonetheless, most authors were better off after the emergence of the éditeur than they had been before. The positive effect of the éditeur on the material condition of authorship was acknowledged by contemporaries. In 1836, for example, the satirical

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newspaper Le Corsaire credited publishers for the prices now fetched by manuscripts: “It is to [us publishers] that literature owes the enormous price which the productions of the spirit have attained. . . . In 1818, a tragedy was purchased for 600 francs, in 1824, we paid 14,000 francs for a comedy and 7,000 francs for a demi-volume of poetry. The progression is prodigious, as one sees. The other publishers are forced to follow the trend, and men of letters today sell their works at whatever price they want. It is true that the publishers pay when they can; but in the end, it is all the same, the prices are magnificent, and it is to us that it is owed.” Other commentators agreed that as a result of the new entrepreneurial “patrons” of literature, the early nineteenth century was a “golden age” for writers.37 Even as they began to earn money from publishers, authors maintained authority over their work. The first publishers did not exert much influence over the writing of authors. Like Panckoucke, whose biographer concludes that he gave only general advice “without a rigid program of authoritative and regular intervention,” most early nineteenth-century publishers did not modify texts in a systematic fashion. Evidence from the correspondence between authors and publishers during this period suggests that the former brooked little interference from the latter. Balzac would sometimes solicit writing advice from a fellow author, such as Eugène Sue, but he would rarely accept it from a publisher. In December 1839, for instance, he withdrew a sketch of “The Notary” from the newspaper Le Siècle (whose editors were worried about offending the notaries among their subscribers) rather than alter it. To avoid such conflict with his publishers, Balzac often specified in his contracts that they were not allowed to alter his submissions. To take another example, George Sand repeatedly insisted that her work be published without changes. In one of many similar letters to her publisher François Buloz (among others), she demanded: “Hold a place in your number [of his literary journal, the Revue des deux mondes]. . . . I insist mainly that it appear right away and without a single word being changed, even under pretext that they are literary corrections. . . . Provided that I do not make myself condemned [for offenses against the law on the press], you have no right to respond to my ideas, and even if I were [condemned], since I sign [my own articles], I would assume myself all responsibility and you would be protected against any fine.” Comparable demands were made of Buloz by the authors Stendhal and Alfred de Musset. To Buloz, Musset wrote in October 1837, “Here is my

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proof, my dear friend, and I beg you to change nothing more.” As late as the early 1860s, Alfred de Vigny succeeded in blocking editorial changes to his collected works, in a contract with the publisher Michel Lévy, which specified that “One will never add a page, a line, a word, in the form of a note, preface, explanation or announcement to any of my works (in whatever format they are printed) to the exact text reviewed and corrected in 1860 and 1861, in my hand. . . . Never will a new editor be chosen for a new edition without imposing on him this condition.” Of course, there were exceptions to this general pattern of authorial resistance to editorial intervention. Early nineteenth-century writers did acquiesce to some cuts and modifications to their writing, especially from publishers of periodicals, who were more vulnerable than publishers of books to state prosecution. Even the cantankerous Balzac acceded on occasion to suggestions and alterations from newspaper editors such as Amédée Pichot, Louis Desnoyers, and Armand Bertin, for moral and political reasons, and he accepted editing from the book publisher Pierre-Jules Hetzel, who was a popular author in his own right and a notoriously interventionist editor. For example, Hetzel reworked an essay by Balzac on “The Lion” for a collection called “The Public and Private Life of Animals.” The apologetic tone of the letter in which the publisher informed the author of the changes he had made to the essay, however, suggests that this kind of editing was exceptional. Such exceptions simply prove the rule: in general, authors in the early nineteenth century did not tolerate editorial changes.38 Over time, the balance of power between authors and publishers would shift in favor of the latter. Due in part to legislative reform in their favor, publishers would gain in authority over authors. Monopolizing literary capital for a longer period of time, they would develop close—and often influential— relationships with a “stable” of authors. As the practice of pluri-édition gave way to a system of mono-édition, the average author’s overall number of publishers would decline to about ten over the course of a lifetime.39 As editorial practice became more systematized, the publisher would exert more control over the work of the author. In short, the author would be subjugated to the publisher. By the end of the nineteenth century, the real éditeur would bear a closer resemblance to the fictional Dauriat, the tyrannical “sultan” of the book trade. When he first emerged in the early nineteenth century, however, the éditeur was far from omnipotent.

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The Reaction to the Éditeur Despite the limits of his powers, however, the new éditeur attracted considerable attention, much of it negative. This figure sparked a strong reaction, out of all proportion to his actual influence. During this period, the éditeur was the object of extensive—and often vitriolic—criticism by authors, booksellers, and printers. Much of this criticism came in the form of satire. Between the 1820s and the 1840s, the éditeur was a ubiquitous personage in literature. The character of Dauriat in Balzac’s Lost Illusions is the most famous example. However, it was by no means the only—or even the first— representation of the publisher in the literature of the time. In fact, the éditeur was portrayed in a number of plays, novels, essays, memoirs, and sketches (or “physiologies,” as they were called), often as a materialist antithesis to the idealist poet-martyr. Like gens de lettres and journalists themselves, who were frequently derided as mercenaries and prostitutes, publishers were chastised by authors for treating texts as commodities.40 At the same time, the éditeur was also targeted by printers and booksellers in a number of pamphlets on the current state of the book trade. Whether fictional or nonfictional, most of the commentary on the newest member of the trade contained the same basic litany of complaints. One of the most frequent complaints about this new figure was that he had degraded the title of éditeur. While this title had previously applied only to erudite and respectable editors, critics of the new type of éditeur asserted, it was now adopted by uneducated and disreputable entrepreneurs. Well before Edmond Werdet, who complained in 1860 that the “honorable title of éditeur has become the prey of everyone,” numerous other members of the book trade decried the shift in the connotation of the word. In 1841, for example, a provincial bookdealer named Victor Fouque grumbled, “In no era besides our own have there existed so many éditeurs, and who merit so little this title, which once was so honorable. There are some who manufacture and sell a book like others sell pepper or clogs, without worrying whether they have published a useful work or not.” In similar terms, the critic F. de Lagenevais decried the degeneration of the title of éditeur, in a piece on illustrated literature for the Revue des deux mondes in 1843: “In the last century,” he wrote, “the functions of the éditeur presumed some literary knowledge, a judgment, a formed taste, but these men who loved literature, who understood it, who encouraged it, have been replaced

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by the coarse and greedy generation of men of affairs, bankers, picturesque publishers, pure merchants without taste and without instruction, interior pirates, so to speak, of the true éditeurs of before.”41 As the comment by Lagenevais suggests, another common criticism of the éditeur was that he was ignorant or even illiterate. This criticism was made by both Werdet and Fouque, for example. While Werdet asserted that French publishers were less well educated than their British and German counterparts, Fouque cited the example of a licensed libraire-éditeur “who is totally illiterate, to the point that he cannot even read the titles of the books that he sells.” The supposed ignorance of publishers was a frequent object of satire by authors. For example, Honoré de Balzac and Frédéric Soulié each caricatured the libraire-éditeur as indifferent to the content of a book, and Hippolyte Bonnellier concluded a novel entitled “The Bookdealer’s Daughter” with the following denunciation of the éditeur by a retiring bookdealer: “[T]he creator of printing would have blushed for his sublime work, if he had been able to predict that one day it would fall under the domination of stupid and coarse men who, adorned with the name of éditeurs, bring to the profession that you are going to exercise ingratitude, ignorance, shamelessness, brutality, and speculation, companion of theft.” To remedy such ignorance, both authors and bookdealers recommended that the government impose additional requirements on aspirants to the title of éditeur, including university-level examinations equivalent to those for the baccalaureate. Of course, the stereotype of the éditeur as unintelligent was exaggerated. In reality, most publishers had been educated at least at the primary, if not also the secondary, level. Nevertheless, they were often portrayed as unlettered.42 Even more commonly, the new éditeurs were characterized as materialist and unethical. Associated with speculation, they were denigrated as greedy and dishonest businessmen, who treated authors and books as nothing more than “deals” and “operations.” Over and over, éditeurs were smeared with terms such as “courtiers,” “industrialists,” “merchants,” “pirates,” “rogues,” “harpies,” and (the worst insult of all at the time) “grocers.” Accused of caring not about art but only about money, the new publishers were condemned by traditional bookdealers and Romantic authors alike for marketing books as if they were ordinary commodities, like spices, bonnets, or shoes. For example, the writer Alphonse Karr asserted that while some publishers were “men of spirit, the vast majority—and not the least successful—sell books like others sell coal.”

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In similar terms, the author of a caricature of the libraire-éditeur for the newspaper L’Universel in 1829 suggested that a publisher advertised his authors in the same manner as a wine merchant marketed his vintages: “Chateaubriand-Champagne, Casimir Delavigne-Mâcon, Lamartine-Bordeaux Lafitte . . .”; book publishers, like wine distributors, were “merchants of drugs.” As such, publishers were identified in the minds of both bookdealers and authors with deception and dishonesty. Éditeurs were repeatedly charged by their critics with “fraud,” “mischievousness,” “piracy,” “disloyalty,” and, especially, “charlatanism.”43 More specifically, the new éditeurs were accused of a long list of shady practices, including defrauding subscribers with fake prospectuses or neverending collections; padding volumes with blank spaces and excessive ellipses; supplementing texts with elaborate frontispieces, chapter headings, and illustrations; reissuing books with new formats, covers, or titles; displaying false edition numbers on title pages; discounting prices for booksellers; offering premiums to book buyers; requiring booksellers to buy an unknown work along with a popular title; and depositing books with merchants other than specialized booksellers. Intended to force sales, such marketing tricks were denounced by Romantic authors and traditional bookdealers as “disloyal” commerce. In 1824, for example, a fictive visitor to the Palais Royal in Paris was horrified at the “charlatanism” of the lavish vignettes, gothic letters, and blank pages in the books for sale in the shop of a publisher who, though unnamed, resembled Ladvocat. The new éditeur was also criticized—or at least caricatured—for his advertising techniques, including prospectuses, catalogs, newspaper advertisements, book reviews, sandwich men, and, especially, posters, which were introduced by Ladvocat in the 1820s. In his attack on the éditeur, for example, the provincial bookdealer Victor Fouque complained that “one of the principal causes of the discredit of the book trade was the profusion of announcements and especially advertisements made at great expense in the newspapers; because their exaggeration and their alleged appreciation of books are almost always dishonest, or imprinted with a charlatanism which inspires defiance in the minds of the least suspecting.” In a more lighthearted tone, the writer Frédéric Soulié satirized the advertising techniques of the éditeur in a description of the occupation of publishing: “. . . the publishing book trade, the book trade of Ladvocat, which Ladvocat pushed to its Herculean columns, this type of book trade that marches, flanked by prospectuses,

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by large posters; straight, audacious, greeting the public, putting the title of a book under his eyes, at all hours, in all places, on his door, in his newspaper, at the theater, at the stock exchange, under his napkin, everywhere.” For such audacious marketing practices, the new publishers were resented by traditionalists in the book trade.44 Above all, publishers were resented by traditionalists because of their role as intermediaries. In contrast to the “real” creators and producers of a book, publishers were viewed as useless and parasitical middlemen between the author and the public. For many commentators, specialization between publishing and retailing had caused inefficiency and exploitation in the book trade. Balzac, for example, decried the division of labor between publishers, wholesalers, and retailers in his article on the state of the book trade in 1830: “We are going to arrive at the true scourge [of the book trade],” the author wrote. “The libraires are divided into three classes: 1. The libraires-éditeurs [publishers] who buy manuscripts, or reprint old authors, and produce them as books; 2. the libraires-commissionnnaires and de détail [wholesale and retail bookdealers], to whom the first deliver considerable portions of their editions; 3. the libraires [small booksellers] of the provinces or of Paris who communicate directly with the buyer. . . . This absurd hierarchy, which has as its goal to charge three taxes on a book, before it reaches the public, is the cause of all of the troubles of this deplorable commerce.” According to Balzac, such specialization profited the publisher, at the expense of the author and the public. To remedy such exploitation, he argued, “It is a matter of constraining a man who has printed a book to pay the author, the printer, and the paper-maker, to sell the work himself to the public, without making it pay three ransoms. Finally, it is necessary to ensure that a volume is produced exactly like bread, and is sold like bread, that there be no intermediary between an author and a consumer besides the [combined bookseller-publisher] libraire.”45 Like Balzac, other critics of the new éditeur also complained that he enriched himself at the expense of others in the book trade. Over and over, the publisher was chastised for his “luxury,” which was a familiar epithet against the new rich in late eighteenth- and early nineteenth-century France. Most commentators characterized the éditeur as extravagant in his habits of dress, housing, and dining. They described him as a lavish entertainer who conducted business more often over dinner or at a ball than in his office. Often labeling him a “fat cat,” they satirized his “English cravat,” pocket watch, plush

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furniture, and comfortable carriage. In particular, the publisher was caricatured for his mode of transport. Almost invariably, the commentary on the éditeur remarked that he rode in a cabriolet, or convertible carriage, while his authors were forced to walk. In the eyes of his critics, the cabriolet was symbolic of the éditeur’s extravagance—and of his greed. Exemplary of the sin of luxury was one publisher in particular: Ladvocat. As one legal brief against him charged, Ladvocat was deemed to exhibit a “luxury indecent for a merchant.” In both fictional and nonfictional accounts of the éditeur, however, Ladvocat was just the most egregious example of the extravagance that was perceived to be endemic in publishing. In point of fact, the new publishers were by no means all rich. Nonetheless, they were charged with living “fat” off the work of authors, printers, and booksellers.46 Not all reactions to the new publisher were so negative. The éditeur was praised for publicizing—and financing—the work of writers. As Frédéric Soulié wrote, “[Publishing] is one of the arteries [of Paris] that carries blood to the extremities . . . that which pumps for us [authors], that which distributes and brings to the surface of humanity our thought, our life, our name.” Similarly, the printer Paul Dupont acknowledged that the rise of the éditeur had benefited authorship by liberating writers from dependence on patronage: “[I]f authors have not always had reason to appreciate their publishers, if recriminations have arisen on both sides . . . it is however necessary to agree, to be fair, that many writers would never have been able to make themselves known in literature or in science, if they had not found a publisher who, at his own risk and peril, charged himself with the publication of their works.” Even Victor Fouque, the provincial bookdealer who was the biggest critic of the new type of éditeur, admitted that there was a category of publisher deserving of honor: one who was “constantly occupied in establishing at great expense books that are useful and conscientiously produced; employing honest and licit means for distributing his products, for which he has sacrificed his sleep, his health, and his pocketbook.” As the prime example of the new type of éditeur, Ladvocat was often singled out for special praise as well as for condemnation. This particular publisher was recognized for helping to “consecrate the independence of the occupation of man of letters,” as a group of authors wrote in the introduction to the collection of essays on Paris that they produced in an effort to save him from bankruptcy in 1832.47

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Over time, this more positive description of the éditeur would prevail in the social imaginary in France. In part as the result of a campaign undertaken by publishers themselves (including Panckoucke’s son Charles-Louis-Fleury) to defend their role as entrepreneurs, these new figures would come to be accepted by other members of the book trade, including authors. By the end of the nineteenth century, the éditeur would become naturalized or “sacralized,” in the words of Jean-Yves Mollier. However, this process would require decades of struggle on the part of publishers.48

In the wake of the French Revolution, there emerged a new class of entrepreneurs in the book trade. Labeled éditeurs, these new entrepreneurs specialized in supplying the financial and human capital necessary to produce new (or revised) publications. Promoted by revolutionary-era legislation that abolished perpetual corporate privileges and instituted temporary individual rights in texts, éditeurs were ubiquitous by the 1830s, when they were immortalized by Balzac in Lost Illusions. Although their influence long remained limited, the new publishers were viewed with suspicion by the rest of the book trade. When they first emerged, these entrepreneurs were resented by printers, bookdealers, and authors for introducing new strategies and habits into the trade. Characterized as unlettered, immoral, materialistic, and devious, they were denounced as charlatans. Despite the resistance they faced when they first emerged in the book trade, the new publishers would come to play a major role in reshaping the book trade in nineteenth-century France. Following the Revolution, they would reconfigure the politics of publishing. Under the Old Regime, publishing entrepreneurs such as Charles-Joseph Panckoucke supported the guild system, even as they advocated moderate reform. In the wake of the Revolution, however, they became proponents of individual freedom and property, against corporatist regulation. The publishers of the era of Balzac shared a number of characteristics with their predecessors in the age of Diderot, including a reliance on state patronage. Like their forerunner Panckoucke, they often cultivated government favors in the form of subventions and loans, for example. But the new éditeurs departed in significant ways from the libraires and imprimeurs of the Old Regime, in their political goals as well as their business practices. Products of the Revolution, they remained committed to economic,

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if not always political, liberalism. Following the Restoration, they would continue to champion revolutionary-era economic reforms—especially free trade and intellectual property. In line with their interests as entrepreneurs, they would campaign for these causes. In this campaign, they were opposed by more corporatist-minded printers and bookdealers, who now saw their enemies not as the monopolists of the Paris Book Guild but the capitalists who had emerged in the wake of its downfall.

2 The Battle between Corporatists and Liberals

Behind the pointed attack on the figure of the publisher lay a deeper anxiety about the state of the book trade in postrevolutionary France. For authors, journalists, printers, and bookdealers, the éditeur was a scapegoat for the effects of the Revolution in this trade. In the eyes of his critics, this new personage symbolized everything that had gone wrong with the production of literature since 1789: the rampant speculation on literary work; the introduction of immoral marketing tactics; the profusion of advertisements and reviews of books; the prevalence of literary piracy; the lack of qualification among bookdealers; the decline in the quality of printing; the cutthroat competition among printers and retailers; in short, the deregulation of the book trade. According to these critics, before the Revolution the trade had been an honorable profession; since then, it had fallen into “anarchy” and “decadence.” As late as 1847, a libraire named J. Hébrard, for example, complained in a pamphlet entitled “On the Book Trade, Its Former Prosperity, Its Current State, Causes of Its Decadence, Means of Its Regeneration,” “Truly, to see the book trade as it is today, is to see an invalid, covered with sores from head to feet, and on which the investigating eye of the doctor discovers everywhere the signs of death.”1 For a traditional bookdealer like Hébrard, the éditeur was just one symptom of the general illness afflicting the production and distribution of print in the aftermath of the Revolution. As Hébrard’s diagnosis suggests, the Revolution left a deep and long-lasting fissure in the book trade. Despite the attempt by Napoleon to mitigate the effects of the Revolution in publishing with the decree of 1810, this fissure persisted long into the nineteenth century. Reconfiguring the old divisions between Parisian monopolists and provincial outliers and between masters and journeymen, the Revolution split the book trade into two main camps: one nostalgic

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for the Old Regime and the other committed to revolutionary liberalism. The first camp, which consisted mainly of established printers and bookdealers, aimed to further reverse the effects of the Revolution on the book trade. The second camp, which was composed mostly of new publishers, or éditeurs, wanted to free the trade from state restrictions. These two camps divided especially over two aspects of the decree of 1810: licensing requirements for printers and bookdealers and property rights over literary texts. Torn between these two camps, the French state long remained paralyzed. At several points between 1810 and 1848, it did reevaluate the legislation related to the book trade. Before mid-century, however, it moved neither to restore the Old Regime nor to advance the revolution in the trade. Under both the Restoration and the July Monarchy, the government toyed with further liberalization of publishing. In the end, however, it decided against altering the regulation of 1810. Throughout the era of constitutional monarchy, the state aimed to protect public order and enlightenment. In the interest of these priorities, both the Restoration and the July Monarchy maintained strict limits on the practice of the book trade. In the first half of the nineteenth century, the battle between corporatists and liberals over the Revolution in the trade thus resulted in a draw. In addition to providing evidence of the persistence of corporatism into the nineteenth century, the story of the debate between corporatists and liberals in the book trade illuminates the ambiguity of liberalism in postrevolutionary France. For example, it shows that French liberals—both within and outside of government—were willing to compromise intellectual freedom for economic freedom and to balance the goals of individual liberty and property with the interests of public order and access. At the same time, the story of the debate between corporatists and liberals calls into question the social identity of the postrevolutionary constitutional monarchies, especially the so-called bourgeois monarchy of Louis-Philippe (1830–1848). Despite their connection to a new “notability” of commercial as well as landed elites, these constitutional monarchies remained resistant to the liberal demands of capitalist entrepreneurs.2

The Napoleonic “Marriage” between State and Market The Revolution of 1789 did not just inaugurate a new political system. It also transformed the world of work. During this revolution, many occupations

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suddenly lost the institutions and privileges that had structured their work for centuries under the Old Regime. The book trade was no exception. Like most occupations, including other culture industries such as art, journalism, and theater, it was left in a state of disorganization by the Revolution. In the general attack on corporate distinctions, the book trade lost its traditional regulatory moorings. By 1791, both the literary privileges and the book guilds were abolished. Although the revolutionaries eventually replaced the literary “privileges” of the Old Regime with property rights, they otherwise left the book trade unregulated. While the revolution in publishing was welcomed by many entrepreneurs from outside of the guilds, it was opposed by many others in the book trade. Like doctors, lawyers, pharmacists, butchers, and bakers, to whom they explicitly compared themselves, most printers and bookdealers worried about the effect of deregulation on their occupations. By the early 1800s, these printers and bookdealers complained that the Revolution had brought “license,” “anarchy,” “stagnation,” and “deterioration” to the book trade. Issuing pamphlets with titles such as “General Ideas on the Causes of the Devastation of Printing, and on the Necessity of Restoring to this Occupation as well as that of Bookselling, the Honorable Rank that They Have Both Always Occupied among the Liberal Arts,” they compared the state of affairs since 1789 unfavorably to (what they viewed as) the “golden age” of the book trade under the Old Regime. As one former printer-bookdealer put it in 1807, “During and since [the Revolution], ignorance, cupidity, and bad faith, inseparable companions of disorder, installed themselves in these two occupations; the property of the man of letters, this sacred right, is violated without respect; typography, that brilliant art, which admitted in its breast only enlightenment and morality, is prey to the caprice of he who has no more consulted his ability than his fortune.” To remedy such “disorder,” many members of the book trade demanded that the state reestablish regulatory institutions along the lines of the old guilds.3 It was in response to such demands that Napoleon reregulated the book trade with the decree dated 5 February 1810. Although this regulation did not revive the old guilds, as some members of the book trade had requested, it instituted a number of new state controls on the trade. Among other things, the decree of 1810 established a new governmental department to oversee the production and distribution of printed matter, the Direction Générale de la

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Librairie et de l’Imprimerie, or Administration of the Book Trade. Placed under the jurisdiction of the minister of the interior, this department monitored the work of printers and bookdealers, with the help of a corps of auditors, censors, and inspectors. To facilitate the monitoring of printed matter by this department, the decree of 1810 obligated printers to make a “legal deposit” (dépôt légal) of five copies of each new publication at their local police prefecture, which would in turn announce the title in an official trade journal, the Bibliographie de la France, or Journal général de la librairie et de l’imprimerie, as it came to be called. The centerpiece of the regulation of 1810, however, was the requirement that all printers and bookdealers obtain a brevet, or license, from the state administration. By limiting the number of such licenses— by law for printers and in practice for bookdealers—the administration was able to control entrance to the book trade. To reward printers and bookdealers for acceding to such control, the decree of 1810 also extended the duration of literary property, from ten to twenty years after the death of the author and his widow, for immediate descendants and third-party assigns. While this measure encouraged the publication of new textual material, it still maintained a large public domain of literature, free for reprinting. Like the Declaration of the Rights of Genius of 1793, it defined the rights of authors not as a universal and perpetual property but as a sui generis and temporary concession from the state. By simultaneously restricting and promoting the production of literary work, the decree of 1810 attempted to reconcile critics and advocates of the effects of the Revolution in the book trade. In the formulation of Carla Hesse, the imperial policy on publishing constituted a “marriage of state regulation and the commercial market.”4 However, this “marriage” proved happy for no one. Despite its effort to appease both proponents of regulation and supporters of competition, the decree of 1810 satisfied neither. Instead, the decree divided members of the book trade—and the state administration—into two basic camps: a “corporatist” camp, which demanded additional protection, and a “liberal” camp, which advocated more liberty. Whereas the corporatist camp maintained that the regulation of 1810 did not go far enough in reversing the effects of the Revolution, the liberal one asserted that the regulation went too far. Of course, there were overlaps between and divisions within these two camps. As recent scholarship has shown, liberalism and protectionism were not always diametrically opposed categories in France, either before or after the Revolution.5

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Nonetheless, such terms serve to characterize the conflict in the postrevolutionary book trade, which persisted through the nineteenth century. In the conflict over the regulation of 1810, the corporatist camp was composed largely of established artisanal printers and merchant bookdealers. Many of these printers and bookdealers were members of families who had belonged to the old guilds—including the prominent Didot, Delalain, Barrois, and Plassan clans. Alongside these former guild members, the corporatist camp also included petty and provincial printers and bookdealers. Many of these were located in and around the city of Lyon, a historic center of printing, which had lost out to Paris as the locus of the book trade in France. Under the Old Regime, many of these petty and provincial producers and distributors had been at odds with the privileged elite of the Paris Book Guild. In the postrevolutionary era, however, they joined former guild members in opposing the entrepreneurial éditeurs who had come to dominate the book trade. Like the former guildsmen, these petty and provincial printers and bookdealers were interested both in limiting competition in the book trade and in preventing monopolization of this trade by the new publishers. Echoing the language of the printers and bookdealers who had complained of “anarchy” and “license” during the revolutionary and Napoleonic eras, the new corporatists campaigned long into the nineteenth century for a return to prerevolutionary regulations and guildlike institutions. Defending their own role in the trade, which often consisted of producing and distributing reprints rather than new works, corporatists maintained that the book trade necessitated special restrictions and protections, including a large public domain of literary capital. In contrast to the corporatist camp, the liberal one was comprised mainly of new, entrepreneurial éditeurs, or publishers. Whereas the printers and booksellers of the corporatist camp could trace their lineage in the book trade back decades or even centuries, the publishers in the liberal one had entered the trade only recently. They had taken advantage of the relative liberalization of the book trade since 1789 to establish themselves in business. The liberal camp included such new publishers as Charles Gosselin, Léon Curmer, Louis Hachette, Laurent-Antoine Pagnerre, and J.-B. Baillière. Beneficiaries of deregulation, these publishers tended to favor not more but less state intervention in the book trade. Although they certainly welcomed government protection and patronage of their business, they generally supported free trade. Interested above

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all in decreasing their production costs, increasing their sales outlets, and maximizing their property rights, publishers advocated individual freedom and property in the book trade. However, their liberalism was more economic than political: they were committed to press freedom less for its own sake than as a concomitant of freedom of commerce. In line with their material interests, the two camps in the book trade employed very different political idioms. On the one hand, publishers appropriated liberal individualist economic doctrines, sometimes for decidedly corporatist ends. On the other, printers and bookdealers tended to adopt a more collectivist and democratic worldview. Where publishers invoked Enlightenment principles of natural rights, printers and bookdealers employed more traditional or radical idioms of public interest. On a fundamental level, the two camps disagreed about the very nature of the book and of the work of producing and distributing it. While liberal publishers argued that the book was an ordinary product whose manufacture and circulation should be subject to the same postrevolutionary guarantees of freedom and property as any other, corporatist printers and bookdealers insisted that it had always been a unique commodity that was of potential danger to the public and thus of special concern to the state. For publishers, the book trade was an ordinary business or industry. For printers and bookdealers, conversely, it was a special “art” or “liberal profession.” Beginning in the 1820s, the liberal and corporatist camps would battle each other in an effort to persuade the state to reform policy in their favor. For example, they struggled to influence state policy on such matters as customs rates, stamp taxes, and press laws. However, the battle between these two camps centered on two arenas of debate: one, over the licensing requirements established by Napoleon and, two, over the definition of literary property rights. More than any other topic related to the press, these two issues preoccupied and divided members of the book trade in the postrevolutionary period. On the one hand, liberal publishers lobbied the state to abolish licensing requirements for printers and bookdealers and to recognize literary property rights as inviolable, universal, and perpetual—or virtually perpetual, for at least fifty years after the death of the author. Corporatist printers and bookdealers, on the other hand, demanded that the state preserve—and even strengthen—restrictions on entry to the book trade and on literary property rights. They asked the government to protect both a small “corporation” of

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trained producers and a large public domain of free ideas. The two issues of entrance requirements and ownership rights, which had been linked together since the Old Regime as complementary instruments for policing the press, remained inextricably connected for members of the book trade in the nineteenth century.

The Debate over Licensing From the beginning, the licensing system instituted by Napoleon failed to satisfy either established printers and bookdealers or new publishers. While printers and bookdealers found the system too lax, publishers found it too restrictive. By the 1820s, both camps were demanding that this system be reformed. Under pressure from both sides, the government would begin to reconsider the legislation on licensing in the late 1820s and early 1830s. Before 1848, however, the state declined to reform the licensing system in any substantial way. In the end, its interest in freedom of commerce was outweighed by a concern for public order and a commitment to private property. As conceived by Napoleon, the licensing system was the cornerstone of the press law. In lieu of (or in addition to) censorship, it was the primary tool by which the state controlled the production and distribution of printed matter. According to the decree of 5 February 1810, no one could practice the occupations of printing or bookdealing without a brevet signed by the minister of the interior. To obtain such a license, an aspiring printer or bookdealer had to submit to the Administration of the Book Trade a formal written request, along with his birth certificate; an attestation of his moral standing issued by his mayor and signed by four of his friends or neighbors; a certificate of his skill signed by four other printers or bookdealers; and, if possible, letters of recommendation from members of the book trade, his local community, and/or the state administration. Then, he had to be investigated by the local authorities. He also had to pay a licensing fee and to swear an oath to obey the constitution, to respect the king, and to refrain from distributing any work “contrary to the duties of subjects toward the Sovereign and the interest of the State.” Even if he completed these requirements, there was no guarantee that an individual printer or bookdealer would receive a license. If the aspirant to a license was a printer, he had to compete for one of a limited number of licenses in his town. (When this system was first established in 1810, any

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practicing printer who did not obtain one of the new licenses was indemnified by the state, with the help of the fees paid by the printers who were licensed.) If the aspirant was a libraire, he did not have to compete for a limited number of licenses, but he was still subject to a certain amount of arbitrariness on the part of the administration, which monitored the quantity as well as the quality of bookdealers. As a result of such limitations on the number of printers and bookdealers, the license was a valuable form of personal property, worth between twenty and thirty thousand francs (for printers, at least) and transferable to family members or outside bidders. This property was insecure, however. For any infraction of the law or negligence of his responsibility, a printer or bookdealer could lose his license. For example, if he failed to print his name and address on a work or to deposit the required number of copies of a publication with the authorities in a timely fashion, his license could be revoked by the state.6 Although it originated with Napoleon, the licensing system survived the fall of the Empire in 1814. In fact, this system was strengthened by the new government of the Restoration. Although its constitutional charter guaranteed the “right to publish and print” any opinion within the limit of the law, the new regime insisted that the press required some protections and controls, including the licensing requirement. In a law “relative to the freedom of the press” passed on 21 October 1814, this regime reconfirmed the licenses that had been awarded under Napoleon and reiterated the prohibition against practicing the occupation of printing or bookdealing without official authorization. The law also required printers to declare the title and print run of every work that they intended to manufacture. Furthermore, the administration reserved the right to revoke the license of any printer or bookdealer who was convicted of breaking the law. It also possessed the right to punish any printer or bookdealer who failed to obtain a license, to deposit a publication, or to print his name on a work.7 Although the licensing requirement was upheld by the new regime, it was often violated within the book trade. Through the first half of the nineteenth century, many printers and booksellers worked without a license. In particular, booksellers who distributed their wares outside of formal retail shops— such as country peddlers, managers of kiosks on the streets or in railroad stations, and owners of reading rooms—operated on the margins of the law, which (at least until 1830) was not clear about whether they were obliged to

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obtain a brevet. In addition, unlicensed printers in the suburbs of Paris worked as subcontractors for licensed printers in the capital by using prêtenoms (borrowed names) or opening succursales (branches). Finally, since the decree of 1810 required licenses only of imprimeurs and libraires, many new éditeurs operated without them. In fact, as noted in Chapter 1, the title of éditeur often served as a means of circumventing the licensing requirement. Although such violations of the licensing requirement did not go unnoticed, they often proved difficult for the government to rectify or punish.8 In part because of such violations, the licensing system came under criticism from members of the book trade. At first, such criticism came mainly from corporatist printers and bookdealers. No sooner had the licensing system been established by the imperial regime in 1810 than printers and bookdealers began to complain about it. In a series of pamphlets and petitions issued from the 1810s through the 1840s, they called for reform of this system.9 In the eyes of corporatists, the licensing system was both too arbitrary and too lax. Although the system placed considerable responsibility on licensed printers and bookdealers, it offered them little protection against competition. In their attacks on the licensing system, corporatist printers and bookdealers often objected to the way in which it made them liable for the content of the works that they published. In particular, they balked at the provision of the law of 21 October 1814 that gave the administration the right to revoke the license of a printer or bookdealer whose products were judged to be offensive in some way. In their view, this provision kept printers and bookdealers at the mercy of the state. It left them in constant danger of losing their license and hence their business. In order to avoid this fate, printers especially were forced to spend precious time reading and evaluating the texts that were submitted to them by authors and publishers (who, they argued, were the ones who should actually be held accountable for the content of these texts). They were required to be “more knowledgeable than the most distinguished jurists,” as the former printer and bookdealer J.-C. Lebègue asserted in a pamphlet published in 1843.10 Most printers and bookdealers in postrevolutionary France were willing to assume a significant amount of responsibility for their work in exchange for a certain amount of protection from the government. But they resented the seeming arbitrariness with which the administration granted, enforced, and revoked licenses. If they were to be held responsible for their work, corporatist printers and bookdealers thought, they should also be protected from excessive competi-

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tion. In exchange for their help in surveying printed matter, they expected to exercise a monopoly over their trade. When, despite their cooperation with the state, they encountered competition from unlicensed enterprises, they protested. In particular, printers often complained that they faced unfair competition from the government-run printing house, the Imprimerie Impériale (as it was called under the First Empire) or Imprimerie Royale (as it was renamed under the Restoration and July Monarchy), which was granted exclusive rights over certain kinds of publications.11 But the most common complaint of corporatist printers and booksellers with regard to the licensing system was that it left the book trade too open to new private practitioners. In the years following the decree of 1810, corporatists continued to protest that entry to the trade was too easy. As they had before the reregulation of the trade in 1810, they expressed concern that printing and bookdealing were being invaded by incompetent and unscrupulous speculators. According to a protectionist imprimeur-libraire named Galland, for example, in a letter to the chancellor of France circa 1815, the licensing requirement had not put an end to “this horde of printing shops that have covered the soil of France during our political troubles,” nor had it kept Paris from becoming “one vast bookstore, if one can call thus this collection of clowns and of inept merchants who obstruct the capital, down to the banks [of the river].”12 In the opinion of the corporatists, the licensing requirement failed to prevent unqualified men from practicing the book occupations. In spite of this requirement, they asserted, many members of these occupations—especially those calling themselves éditeurs—operated without a license, and even those who did bother to obtain one often lacked education and skill. Typical of the language of this type of complaint was the following tirade by the provincial bookseller Victor Fouque in 1841: But returning to the subject of the book trade, I could easily say that many individuals devote themselves to this genre of commerce without being licensed; but to what good? Whenever they want, they can immediately obtain a license, just by asking for one: today, anyone who asks for it can obtain this favor without difficulty. The administration has thus contributed, more than anyone, to the decadence of the book trade by delivering licenses without discernment to individuals who are often incapable.13

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As this quotation suggests, corporatists worried that, due to the ineffectiveness of the licensing system, the book trade was being degraded. Once an honorable “art,” it was in danger of becoming just an ordinary industry. This concern was expressed by the former printer Plassan: “Thus, the art illustrated by the [esteemed printers] Étienne would become a trade, and a trade all the more vile in that it would be exercised by the most ignorant of men; to whom, however, and in the name of the king, the minister of the interior would find himself obliged to grant licenses!”14 To remedy this problem with the licensing system, corporatists demanded stricter qualifications for the book occupations along the lines of those required by the old guilds. Often invoking the royal regulation of 1723 as their model, corporatists insisted that all aspiring printers and bookdealers be required to pass exams in Latin and Greek and to serve terms as apprentices and journeymen, in addition to obtaining certificates of their skill and morality and swearing oaths to their king and country. Corporatists also suggested that shop visits and inspections should be resurrected as a means of surveying practitioners of the book trade. According to their proposals, all of these controls would be overseen by members of the trade themselves, organized into chambres syndicales, similar to the old guilds.15 To justify the reestablishment of corporate controls over their trade, printers and bookdealers argued that their products were of vital interest to the public and therefore the state. Insisting that the book occupations should be classified not as ordinary industries but with the liberal arts, they compared themselves to members of other professions that had been regulated by the postrevolutionary state, such as notaries, lawyers, doctors, and pharmacists. Like these other professions, they asserted, their occupations concerned the public health—whether literal or, in this case, figurative—and therefore necessitated special controls. Such an argument was by no means new. It had constituted the basis for the guild system under the Old Regime as well as for the reregulation of the book trade by the Empire. In 1806, a printer-bookdealer named Jacob the Elder had used a comparison between printing and pharmacy in the effort to persuade Napoleon to reregulate the book trade: “What would you say, for example,” he wrote, “about a Government that would let practice pharmacy someone who could not distinguish marshmallow from jalap [a laxative] and who, by his lack of foresight, made you a victim of his ineptitude? Really! Printing and Bookselling may be assimilated to this Occupation as well as to many others of this

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nature. One must be instructed and enlightened in order to practice all of them.”16 Following the reregulation of the book trade (as well as of law, medicine, and several other professions) by the imperial regime, however, this argument remained current among corporatists who were dissatisfied with the Napoleonic compromise between state and market. For example, it was employed by a group of bookdealers from Bordeaux, who wrote in a petition to the Chamber of Deputies in 1822, “Certainly, no one complained when entrance requirements were instituted for notaries, lawyers, attorneys, commercial brokers, and pharmacists [all of whom were strictly regulated by the postrevolutionary state]; so why would one see a privilege in the restrictions imposed on an occupation [such as the book trade] which, on its side, likewise owes some guarantees to society?”17 This argument was recycled yet again in a similar petition addressed to the Chamber of Deputies in 1839 by a printer named Amédée Gratiot: “You require apprenticeships, studies, and ranks for the doctor who cares for the body,” Gratiot pleaded. “Won’t you also require initiation rites and studies for the practice of printing, whose mission is to instruct the people and nourish the soul?”18 From the perspective of traditional printers and bookdealers, the book trade was not an ordinary business but a public service. Its practitioners thus required special protections and regulations, stronger even than those instituted by Napoleon. While corporatist printers and bookdealers sought to strengthen the licensing system, liberal publishers wanted to abolish it. In general, liberals agreed with corporatists that the licensing requirement was arbitrary as well as ineffective. However, they thought the solution to this problem lay not in reestablishing corporate controls over the book trade but in freeing the trade from all restrictions. From their perspective, freedom of commerce would facilitate the business of publishing, by increasing the number (and thus decreasing the cost) of producers and distributors of print. In the decade or so following the regulation of 1810, as printers and bookdealers continued to call for more protection, publishers began to advocate deregulation of the production and distribution of printed matter. In 1816, for instance, they joined with authors in protesting the formalities and taxes to which the book trade was subjected in its relations with foreign countries.19 By the late 1820s, they had launched a formal campaign for the repeal of licensing in the book trade. At first, the campaign for deregulation focused on the occupation of bookdealing, as opposed to printing. Given that most members of the liberal

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camp were publishers, they were more concerned about the limitation of libraires—under which fell publishers as well as booksellers—than they were about any restriction of printers. Even as they demanded that the occupation of bookdealing be open to anyone who wanted to practice it, many liberals in the book trade admitted that the number of printers might need to be limited, so that the administration could more easily monitor, trace, and, if necessary, prosecute offenses committed by means of the press. This compromise position on licensing was exemplified by the printer-publisher Firmin Didot, who was also a deputy to the legislature from the Eure-et-Loire in the late 1820s and early 1830s. (For a portrait of Firmin Didot, see Figure 2.1.) Descendant of a prominent family of printers and bookdealers who had belonged to the Paris Book Guild under the Old Regime, Didot was a moderate who fell in between the positions of the liberal and the corporatist camps in the book trade. On the issue of entrance requirements, he urged the government to remove the restrictions on bookdealers but cautioned it against abolishing the licenses of printers. Although he worried that printers were subject to excessive responsibilities under the current law, he thought that they still required special qualifications.20 Didot was not the only one to adopt this position on licensing. During the Restoration, a number of other publishers supported licensing requirements for printers while opposing them for bookdealers. Over time, however, publishers became less willing to compromise on the issue of licensing. By the 1830s and 1840s, the liberal camp in the book trade began to demand that the state abolish licenses not just for bookdealers but for printers, too. In support of their demand for the abolition of licenses, liberal publishers sometimes invoked the revolutionary principles of intellectual freedom and public education. They asserted that revocation of the licensing requirement in the book trade would help to establish the free press promised (but not really delivered) by the constitutional charter of 1814 as well as to facilitate the instruction of people throughout France. As Firmin Didot argued against the arbitrary limitation of the number of bookdealers, “Return freedom to commerce, and soon you will see active young people put their instruction and capital to use, not only in propagating in our departments the taste for studies and for books, but also in engendering, as one sees in the provinces of England and Germany, the taste for bibliography.”21 Such arguments were first articulated by publishers in response to a series of attempts by the

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[To view this image, refer to the print version of this title.]

Figure 2.1. Portrait of the printer-bookdealer Firmin Didot (1764–1836). Département des estampes et de la photographie, Bibliothèque nationale de France.

administration of the reactionary King Charles X (1824–1830) to impose additional responsibility on publishers and printers, especially a repressive “bill on the policing of the press” (nicknamed the “law of justice and love”) proposed by the minister of justice, Count Peyronnet, in late 1826 and approved by the Chamber of Deputies early the next year. Although this bill was eventually defeated by the Chamber of Peers, it prompted members of the book trade to organize against state regulation of the press. Against this bill, for example, some 230 members of the trade signed a petition to the Chamber of Deputies. Labeling the bill a “grave attack on the freedom of the press . . . , on the sacred rights of property, on the eventual progress of enlightenment, [as well

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as] on the existence of an important and honorable branch of French commerce,” the petitioners argued that the press required not more regulation but, rather, more liberty. During their struggle against this bill, liberals in the book trade first began to campaign for abolition of the licensing system.22 In demanding abolition of the licensing system, however, publishers were motivated less by a commitment to intellectual liberty than by an interest in economic liberty. In comparison to newspaper editors such as Émile de Girardin, who opposed the licensing requirement as well as every other restriction of the press on the principle of freedom of opinion, book publishers tended to ground their argument against the licensing requirement in the creed of freedom of commerce. Categorizing book production as an ordinary, “industrial” occupation, not a special, “liberal” profession, they insisted that this occupation should be free and open, like any other, as stipulated by the d’Allarde Law of 1791. This perspective on licensing is best exemplified by a report prepared by a “commission of inquiry on publishing in Paris” for the ministers of King Charles X in 1829. This commission, which was organized along with a number of similar commissions in other branches of industry (including printing and papermaking) as part of an official investigation of the state of commerce in France initiated by the minister of commerce in 1828–1829, was composed of a group of prominent libraires-éditeurs in the capital, including Charles Gosselin, Jules Renouard, Treuttel and Würtz, and the Bossange family. Intended to examine the probable causes of and possible remedies for a recent decline in sales of books, this commission focused on three issues: customs procedures and taxes, literary property, and licensing. In its final report to the administration on 1 June 1829, the commission recommended the following liberal reforms: one, that customs duties should be reduced for all foreign books that were not mere reprints of French ones; two, that literary property should be assimilated to and protected like all other kinds of property; and three, that licenses should be abolished, at least for bookdealers. In support of its demand for the abolition of licenses, the investigative commission on publishing did cite the “need for public instruction.” But mostly it emphasized the principle of freedom of commerce. As explanation for its opposition to the licensing requirement, the commission argued: The license appeared to the commission to be an institution opposed to the principles of liberty consecrated by the [constitutional] Charter [of

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the Restoration government] and enjoyed by all the industrial occupations. Such licenses, which were first created in the time of the corporations and privileges, and which, since they were reestablished in the epoch of military despotism [under Napoleon] have permitted so many troubles and compromised so many existences, should not have survived the establishment of liberty in law: when so many industrial occupations may be practiced freely without a license, it seems difficult to justify such exceptional measures for publishing, whose commerce, so important for the progress of civilization, far from being hampered by the regime of laws, cannot be encouraged enough. Insisting that bookdealing was an “industrial” occupation like any other, the commission of publishers demanded that this occupation be governed by the “common law” and opened to anyone who judged himself capable of practicing it and who paid a uniform entry fee. As the report by the commission of 1829 suggests, liberals in the book trade wanted not to return to the protections of the Old Regime, as did corporatists, but to overthrow all remnants of it.23 The demands of liberals in the book trade did not go unheard by members of the government. From the beginning of the Restoration, liberal legislators and ministers supported—and even preceded—publishers in opposing the licensing system. Like their counterparts in the book trade, liberals in the state contended that this system was contrary to the principles of natural law and constitutional government, including freedom of press and freedom of commerce. In the government, the most vocal advocate of the abolition of licensing was Benjamin Constant, the Romantic writer and liberal theorist who served as a deputy from the beginning of the Restoration until his death in December 1830. Long a proponent of press freedom, Constant first raised the issue of licensing during the debates on the Serre Laws between March and May of 1819. In comparison to the press legislation of the Empire and early Restoration, the Serre Laws were liberal. For example, they repudiated prepublication censorship, gave juries rather than judges jurisdiction over press trials, and allowed anyone to publish a periodical as long as he filed a declaration and paid a security deposit to the administration. But the Serre Laws also held printers responsible alongside authors and publishers for the content of their publications and threatened them with loss of license for any crime or misdemeanor. These laws thus left printers too vulnerable, for Constant’s

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taste. In his interventions in the debates over the Serre Laws, Constant opposed the regulation of printers as inimical to freedom of opinion. Employing metaphors that were common in his many other speeches and writings on the subject, he proclaimed, “[A]s long as they are menaced as they are, exposed in their fortune, in their industry, there cannot be freedom of the press; that is to seek to annihilate it from its base. To pretend to grant freedom of the press, while enchaining the movement of the instrument of the press, is to ask us to labor without a plow, to navigate without a vessel.” Insisting that there would never be freedom of the press without “formal and sufficient safeguards for printers,” he asked that the bills before the legislature be amended, initially, to prevent the arbitrary revocation of licenses from printers and, then, to abolish the licenses altogether. In support of the abolition of the licenses, he argued: I had presumed that there was something in the occupation of printers that demanded from them particular conditions and required them to be subjected to guarantees not at all tolerated by other industries. But since then I have come to understand that it could appear contrary to the principles of the Charter, to the protection and to the liberty that it grants to all industries, maybe even to the intentions of the ministers, to prolong this state of affairs. I thus believe that I must change my amendment [which had originally proposed only that the licenses could not be revoked arbitrarily], and I demand that printers no longer be subjected to the formality of licenses and that they may exercise their industry like other citizens.24 As Constant’s amendment suggests, as early as the late 1810s, liberals in the government were beginning to find fault with the licensing requirement in the book trade. Yet, these liberals were still outnumbered in the administration as well as the legislature by more conservative statesmen, who adhered to the traditionalist line that the book was a unique commodity whose production and distribution required special guarantees. Against Constant’s assertion that (unlike authors and publishers) printers could not be expected to read everything that they published and thus should not be held responsible for the content of the work that they printed, these more conservative statesmen maintained

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that printers were complicit in the act of publication and therefore liable for any offense it caused. According to them, printers were not just “mechanical instruments” but public servants, whose privileges (i.e., licenses) were revocable by the state. For example, the archconservative Louis-Gabriel-Ambroise, Count de Bonald argued in support of the restriction of the press, “The printer who knowingly prints a dangerous writing may be as guilty as the pharmacist who dispenses poison, knowing that one will make criminal use of it.” In the debates over the Serre Laws, even moderate “doctrinaire” liberals such as François Guizot agreed that printers were responsible, at least in certain cases, for their work. Comparing printers to arms dealers, Guizot stated, “The case is the same as that of an arms dealer who has sold an arm with which a crime has been committed. If he ignored the intention of the buyer, he cannot be reproached; if he knew it, he contributed to the crime; it is the same with the printer.” In the face of such arguments about the responsibility of printers, Constant’s amendment to abolish the licensing requirement failed to attract much support in the legislature. As soon as it was proposed, the amendment was rejected by the minister of justice, Pierre-François-Hercule, Count de Serre, as outside the purview of the proposed laws, which were intended to define and punish crimes of the press, not to remake the law on freedom of the press or policing of the book trade.25 At this point, the government of the Restoration was far too concerned about public order to consider reforming the licensing system. Not until the late 1820s did the state begin to reconsider this system. In the wake of the debate over the bill “on the policing of the press” in 1826–1827, the administration of Charles X came under increasing pressure from publishers and their allies in business and government to abolish the licensing requirement. In March 1828, for example, Benjamin Constant presented the Chamber of Deputies with a resolution to ask the monarchy to reform the legislation on printing and bookdealing and especially the law of 21 October 1814. While it did not go so far as to demand the abolition of licenses altogether, Constant’s resolution did request that the procedures for acquiring and losing brevets be made less arbitrary. Before it could be considered by the legislature, however, this proposal was tabled by Constant himself, in the hope that more comprehensive legislation on the book trade was soon to be introduced by the moderate Viscount de Martignac, who had recently replaced the ultraroyalist Count de Villèle as minister of the interior.26

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Following this change in ministry, the liberal camp pressured the government to overhaul the policing of publishing. In response to a petition to the Chamber of Deputies from a printer named Cordier, for example, the printer-publisher and deputy Firmin Didot gave a speech to the legislature in favor of reform of the legislation on the book trade and especially of the licensing requirement for libraires. About the same time, the Chamber of Commerce (of which Didot’s son Ambroise Firmin-Didot was a member) sent a letter to the minister of the interior in favor of the relaxation of entrance restrictions for bookdealers. As justification for its position on the question, the Chamber wrote, “The sale of books is a business like any other.” These demands were not satisfied by the new minister of the interior, however. In May 1828, Martignac did propose a new, slightly more liberal bill on the periodical press. But this bill, which focused mainly on eliminating prepublication censorship, said nothing about the licensing requirement for printers and bookdealers. It thus disappointed liberals in both the book trade and the government, including Didot and Constant. Denouncing the minister of the interior for ignoring their demands, both Didot and Constant requested that the bill be amended to protect printers and bookdealers against the revocation of their licenses. In response, Martignac claimed that he had never promised, either formally or tacitly, to develop a comprehensive law on the book trade. The press bill passed both the Chamber of Deputies and the Chamber of Peers without the provision to prevent printers and bookdealers from losing their licenses.27 The concerns of Didot and Constant were addressed the next year by a pair of bills on bookdealing and printing presented by the minister of justice, Pierre-Alpinien-Bertrand Bourdeau. Introduced to the Chamber of Peers a mere five days after the investigative commission on publishing in Paris recommended the abolition of licensing in its report to the government, the bills of 6 June 1829 aimed to prevent the administration from arbitrarily annulling the license of a bookdealer or printer. Intended to clarify the law of 21 October 1814, these proposed laws stipulated that a license could be revoked only by judgment of a court. In addition, the bill on bookdealing relaxed the restrictions on this occupation. Although it maintained that bookdealing was a type of commerce that needed to be regulated in the public interest, this bill also emphasized that a license to practice this occupation should be “neither a privilege, nor a favor.” The bill on bookdealing still required aspiring libraires to provide proof of their capacity and morality, unless they were graduates of

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the University, in which case they were deemed “naturally qualified to exercise an occupation for which literary instruction is the principal component of aptitude.” The bill also specified that any bookdealer caught operating without a license would be subject to punishment. But, insisting that no one who had fulfilled the qualifications for the occupation could be denied a license, the bill stipulated that the number of libraires must be unlimited. The bill on bookdealing did not satisfy all of the demands of publishers as articulated in their “request” to the government in 1829. Together with the bill on printing, however, it would have made the regulation of the book trade less arbitrary. But these twin bills fell victim to the contingencies of politics. Before they could be considered by the legislature, the relatively liberal cabinet of Martignac that had proposed them was replaced by the more conservative ministry of Jules-Auguste-Armand-Marie, Prince de Polignac. As the regime of Charles X became more reactionary, liberalization of the book trade became increasingly unlikely.28 When this regime fell in July 1830, however, the hope of liberals for reform of the law on the book trade was renewed. In the aftermath of the July Revolution, another effort to abolish licensing requirements in printing and bookdealing was made by the legislature’s most steadfast champion of the cause, Benjamin Constant. In September 1830, Constant introduced to the Chamber of Deputies a new bill on the book trade. The first article of this bill read, “Every citizen is free to practice the occupation of printer and bookdealer, without having to obtain authorization and with no other formality than a declaration made by him to the mayor of his arrondissement.” In defense of his proposed legislation, Constant emphasized the principle not just of freedom of press but of freedom of commerce. Lauding the role that the press had played in overturning the regime of Charles X, he asserted that the benefits of a free press outweighed the inconveniences. The license, in contrast, had numerous disadvantages. For one thing, it hindered trade: “It is a monopoly, and every monopoly is contrary to the true principles of political economy,” Constant argued. “I do not want to anticipate here on the question of determining whether, for certain particular occupations, special guarantees are necessary; but, in any case, the government should not be able to refuse, to anyone who has provided these guarantees, the right to practice the industry chosen by him.” While he admitted that those printers in possession of the limited number of licenses might have to be indemnified for the

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loss of their privileges, Constant insisted that such privileges were antithetical to a constitutional government and free market.29 Constant’s proposal was endorsed by the committee appointed by the legislature to examine it. In its report to the Chamber of Deputies on 8 November 1830, this committee concluded that the public interest did not require licenses but only simple declarations of printers or bookdealers. Although it suggested that a security deposit be demanded of printers (but not bookdealers) to cover any fines that they might incur for their publications, the committee maintained that no other test of their morality or capacity was necessary. “The occupation of printer or of bookdealer is a commercial or industrial enterprise which must be free like the others,” it insisted. “If other professions, like those of lawyer and of notary, have been subjected to restrictions on their numbers, that is because one considers those who practice them to be public officers whose incapacity would compromise the fortune and the peace of families. Nothing similar may be alleged with regard to the two occupations that occupy us here.” In the opinion of this committee, it was up to the public, not the state, to evaluate the quality of the products of particular printers and bookdealers. On the issue of whether printers would have to be indemnified for the loss of their licenses, the legislative committee concluded that because such licenses did not really qualify as properties, they would not.30 As the bill to abolish licensing requirements in the book trade passed to the floor of the legislature, however, it came under criticism. Constant’s proposal provoked a flood of petitions and pamphlets on licensing by members of the book trade, especially by corporatist printers and bookdealers. On the whole, these printers and bookdealers opposed the abolition of licensing. If licenses were to be abolished, they insisted, printers would have to be indemnified. In their opinion, a license was a form of property, which could not be usurped without compensation by the state. Among corporatists, the leading opponent of the abolition of licensing was Georges-Adrien Crapelet, a second-generation printer who had obtained one of the limited number of licenses accorded by the imperial regime in 1811 and served (with another printer, Charles Lahure) as official printer for the Cour de Cassation and the Chamber of Peers. In a series of pamphlets published in 1830 and after, Crapelet defended the licensing system on the grounds that it was needed for “general security” and “public order.” Insisting that some occupations required special guarantees, he wrote,

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“It is necessary, in effect, to recognize that printing has never been and cannot be assimilated to all the other types of industries that do not demand a certain level of instruction.” Against Constant’s proposal, Crapelet asserted that the relaxation of entrance requirements in the book trade would do nothing to liberate the press, which had managed to trigger the Revolution of 1830 in spite of the licensing system. In his view, it was not the licensing system that was hindering the press but the excessive responsibility placed upon printers. If the state nonetheless insisted on abolishing the licensing requirement, he continued, it would have to indemnify printers for the loss of this property. In the opinion of corporatists like Crapelet, such property was at least as deserving of the state’s concern as free trade.31 The issue of whether printers would need to be indemnified for the loss of their licenses divided members of the Chamber of Deputies. While most deputies were sympathetic to the liberal proposal that entry to the book trade should be opened to anyone who wanted to practice it, they were split on how to implement that proposal. Some supporters of the proposal by Constant maintained that licenses could be abolished without any indemnities for the printers who had purchased them, whether from the administration in 1810 or from a license-holder in the years since. In the opinion of this faction, indemnities (like licenses themselves) were contrary to the common law and free trade, not to mention difficult for the state to administer. According to these deputies, the establishment of freedom of commerce would more than compensate practitioners of the book trade for the loss of their licenses. As the liberal deputy Eusèbe Salverte argued in a speech to the legislature on 17 November 1830, after the turmoil of the Revolution, Empire, and Restoration, not just printers but all of the people of France were due an indemnity, yet the only means of indemnifying them was to guarantee liberty for everyone.32 Other supporters of the abolition of licensing in the Chamber of Deputies, however, insisted that printers would have to be indemnified for the loss of their licenses. For example, the printer-bookdealer Firmin Didot, who was an advocate of the abolition of licensing for bookdealers but not for printers, insisted that printers would have to be compensated for the loss of their licenses. Although he was a member of the legislative committee that recommended the bill by Constant, Didot disagreed with the committee’s conclusion that no such compensation was necessary. Asserting that the license was not a privilege but a property, he introduced an amendment to the bill that proposed to

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indemnify all printers whose licenses were abolished, through fees (scaled to the size of the locality) to be collected from all new entrants to the occupation until 1850. “If the unrestrained liberty of the press is necessary for the public good,” Didot argued, “the government must abolish the privilege of printers; but justice, fundamental foundation of liberty, forbids annihilating in their hands their property, without giving them a preliminary indemnity, not only for the cost of the license that they already paid or that they still owe, but especially for the resulting damage [to their business].” This position was endorsed, with minor modifications, by a majority of legislators. After passing the first article of the bill, which abolished licensing in printing and bookdealing, the Chamber of Deputies voted to send the second article (which demanded that anyone who wanted to practice the occupation of printer or bookdealer make a declaration and pay a security deposit to the local mayor or prefect) back to committee for amendment, to require new printers to pay indemnities to licensed ones. As the Chamber continued to discuss the details of such payments, however, the support for indemnification began to dissolve. In particular, the deputies disagreed about how much (if at all) provincial printers should be indemnified for the loss of their licenses.33 In the end, the indecision about indemnification doomed the proposal by Constant to abolish the restrictions on entry to the book trade. In the face of uncertainty about whether and how to compensate printers for the loss of their licenses, the Chamber of Deputies voted first against the article on indemnification and then against the bill as a whole. Concerned that the abolition of licensing without effective indemnification would exacerbate the economic crisis experienced by the book trade in the wake of the July Revolution, even many deputies who favored liberalization of the book trade hesitated to overturn the licensing requirement. Once again, the government postponed reform of the regulation of the book trade. Its reasoning was summarized by the liberal deputy Baron Charles Dupin at the close of debate on the matter: “It is necessary to wait for a more prosperous moment, in order to grant, without detriment to printing, all the liberty that we wish for it.”34 During the eighteen-year reign of the July Monarchy, this “more prosperous moment” never came. Following the failure of Constant’s bill in late 1830, the regime of Louis-Philippe declined to modify the licensing system established by Napoleon, to the chagrin of both corporatists and liberals in the book trade, who continued to clamor for reform of this system. Such reform

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was considered—but rejected—by the July Monarchy on only one other occasion. In late 1845, the administration appointed a commission to prepare “the foundations of a regulation complementary to the regime [i.e., the decree of 1810 and the law of 1814] on printing and bookdealing.” In its report, this commission urged the government not to liberalize the current regulation on the book trade but to strengthen it. Among other things, it recommended that the administration require more “proof of capacity” from printers, such as certification by a special “consultative” committee of members of the book trade.35 However, this recommendation to strengthen qualifications for printers was not enacted by the July Monarchy, which hesitated to endorse any kind of institution that resembled a trade guild of the Old Regime. Concerned about protecting public order but also about avoiding corporate privilege, the constitutional monarchy hesitated to alter the licensing system. When the July Monarchy was overthrown in February of 1848, this system remained in place.

The Debate over Literary Property While they were struggling over the issue of licensing requirements, corporatists and liberals in the book trade were also battling over another legacy of the Revolution in the book trade: literary property rights. Historically, these two issues had been linked through the institution of the privilege, which constituted a title of ownership as well as a mechanism of control over print. As a result of the Revolution, privilege was redefined as property and severed from censorship. However, like the new instrument of government surveillance, the license, the new regime of literary property provoked debate among members of the book trade. In both cases, the debate centered on the proper relation between the state and the market in the dissemination of literature. In the debate over literary property, at issue was the definition and duration of individual as opposed to public claims to texts: Were texts social goods, to which individuals could assert only a temporary title, or were they private properties, to which they should enjoy a perpetual right? To the extent that intellectual work constituted certain rights, were these rights based on genius and hence inalienable from the author, or were they grounded in labor and thus transferable to a third party such as a publisher? In other words, was the definition of such rights founded in the personality of the author or the

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commodity of the text? Indeed, were such rights best termed “rights of authors,” or could they be labeled a form of property, comparable to real estate? These questions preoccupied the book trade in the aftermath of the Revolution. These questions had become a subject of debate in the late eighteenth century. Until then, there had been no legal recognition of “property” in texts nor of “rights” of authors, but only privileges for publications, which were monopolized by members of the Paris Book Guild. The term droits d’auteur, which originated in the realm of the theater, referred not to natural (and transferable) rights to the text as a commodity but to honorific (and inalienable) prerogatives inherent in the person of the author. As the privilege system came under challenge from authors as well as provincial printers and bookdealers in the late eighteenth century, however, new conceptions of the rights of authors began to emerge. In 1777, the absolutist monarchy decreed as part of a broader move to decentralize the book trade that privileges belonged not to printers or bookdealers but to authors. According to this measure, an author could transfer his privilege over a work to a printer or bookdealer, but only for the duration of the lifetime of the author, after which the work fell into a public domain. This decree, which constituted the first legal recognition of the rights of authors (but as a royal grace, not as a private property), provoked considerable debate in the book trade. While it was welcomed by provincial entrepreneurs as well as by authors, who benefited from the limitation of the privileges of the Paris Book Guild, it was opposed by guild members, who defended their privileges as perpetual property rights. This debate was joined by some of the most eminent thinkers of the Enlightenment, as Carla Hesse has explained. On one side stood Denis Diderot, who argued in defense of the privileges of the bookdealers in the Paris Book Guild that ideas were the most inviolable form of property, because they originated in the individual mind. On the other side stood the Marquis de Condorcet, who maintained that, because they inhered in nature, ideas did not belong to individuals, either as a privilege or as a property, but rather to society as a whole.36 This conflict persisted into the Revolution. On the one hand, most guild members, along with some unprivileged playwrights, demanded absolute protection of literary property as an individual right—although they increasingly couched this demand in terms not of an exclusive title but of a temporary

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reward for their contribution to the public good. On the other hand, antimonopolist bookdealers and philosophers defended state restriction of such property, in the interest of public access. In an effort to reach a compromise between these two positions, the revolutionaries passed the Declaration of the Rights of Genius, which despite its title framed the rights of authors as temporary incentives in the interest of public enlightenment. Limiting the rights of individuals to texts to ten years after the death of the author, this law created a large public domain. This balance between individual and collective claims on texts was maintained by the imperial decree of 1810, which extended the term of literary property only to twenty years after the death of the author and his spouse. However, as Carla Hesse acknowledges, the revolutionary compromise between individual and public claims on texts was contradictory and unstable. In its effort to combine a natural right theory of authorship with an instrumentalist notion of public enlightenment, it undermined the notion of property it sought to guarantee. Satisfactory to neither corporatists nor liberals, this compromise measure would remain subject to debate long into the nineteenth century.37 In the wake of the revolutionary and imperial legislation, there was a shift in the sides of the debate on literary property—as in the debate on property more generally. On the one hand, protectionist printers and bookdealers now asserted that individual rights to texts needed to be limited in favor of the public domain. In the early nineteenth century, corporatists were made up largely of petty and provincial printers and bookdealers. Heirs of the prerevolutionary guildsmen (and revolutionary sans-culottes), they retained the Old Regime notion of property as “a quasi-collective and publicly regulated” title, as William H. Sewell Jr. has characterized it. Given that much of their business consisted of reprints of previously published works, these corporatists did not defend perpetual privileges, as had members of the Paris Book Guild, but rather opposed private claims to texts. Concerned that individual rights in texts would be monopolized by big publishers, they insisted that such rights were not perpetual properties but only temporary privileges, granted by society to authors to encourage the publication of new work. Asserting that ideas belonged to no one individual but to society as a whole, they claimed that literary property was different from other kinds of property. In fact, they often rejected the term “literary property” in favor of that of the “rights of authors.” Resisting the commodification of these rights, they claimed to be concerned

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less with the profit than with the reputation of authors. In defending a large public domain, corporatists thus helped to engender the notion that authors have moral as well as material rights.38 In contrast to corporatist printers and bookdealers, liberal publishers took the position that ideas were a property of the most intimate, sacred, and inviolable kind. Belying their origin in the overthrow of the old Paris Book Guild, the new éditeurs appropriated the arguments of guild members in favor of perpetual monopolization of literary work. Asserting that the right to such work was not just a limited grant from society but an absolute property by nature, comparable to property in real estate, they maintained that this property should be guaranteed as perpetual and universal, at least in principle. While they acknowledged that the rights of authors might need to be limited in practice, in the interest of society, they insisted that these rights be defined not just as a privilege or remuneration but as a property. Aiming to monopolize such rights as much as possible, most publishers demanded that literary property be extended beyond the term of twenty years after the death of the author, as guaranteed by the decree of 1810. In their campaign for greater legal protection of the rights of authors, publishers were joined by writers as well as by artists and musicians. However, for much of the nineteenth century, this campaign was initiated and dominated by publishers. As Geoffrey Turnovsky and Gregory Brown have argued, authors did not necessarily embrace the notion of literary property before the nineteenth century: to the extent that they demanded recognition of their rights, they emphasized their disinterest rather than their interest. Not until after the Revolution did they begin to develop a sense of ownership over (as opposed to status in) their work. During the debate over literary property in the 1830s and 1840s, a number of writers—including Honoré de Balzac, François-René de Chateaubriand, Alfred de Vigny, Alphonse Karr, Alphonse de Lamartine, and Victor Hugo—published editorials and lobbied legislators in favor of greater protection of the rights of authors. Balzac, for instance, penned several essays (including a note to the Chamber of Deputies) in favor of recognition of such rights as a perpetual property, and in 1841 Karr proposed a bill on the matter, which read simply, “Article one and only: Literary property is a property.” Inspired by such sentiments, a group of writers founded a professional association, called the Société des Gens de Lettres, in 1838. This association, which counted among its leaders a number of prominent

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writer-statesmen who would play a role in government commissions and legislative debates on the matter, supported the efforts of publishers to obtain further protection of literary property. Despite such examples of support for the extension of literary property, though, authors played only a secondary role in the fight for new legislation on the issue. Even the Société des Gens de Lettres was concerned more with collecting reproduction fees from periodicals than with campaigning for government action on literary property. On this issue, it tended to follow the lead of publishers, at least until the 1870s. In France as elsewhere, the debate over literary property took the form of a commercial struggle between entrepreneurial publishers and small printers and bookdealers. In this debate, the “rights of authors” really served as a cover for the interests of publishers. As David Saunders writes, “In France as in England, a rhetoric of the author’s right in literary property was a routine instrument of publishers’ interests.”39 Among members of the book trade, the debate over the rights of authors took place against a backdrop of nationalization and especially internationalization of commerce in literature. This debate was particularly intense in France during the first half of the nineteenth century, because of a growing problem with literary piracy. Between the 1820s and the 1840s, the works of publishers in Paris were often reproduced without payment or attribution by printers in provincial towns and neighboring countries, especially Belgium. Labeled contrefaçon, or counterfeiting, this piracy encompassed the manufacture not just of exact replica but of any unauthorized editions. Unlike the original editions, which were marketed mainly in multivolume formats to reading rooms, these unauthorized editions were generally small and cheap. Because the unauthorized producers saved on author fees and paper costs, they were able to undersell the original producers, both domestically and internationally. Such piracy was by no means new. Not just technologically but legally, it had long been easy for producers in one locality to reprint the work of those in another. Given that there was little official protection of literary property within individual countries and none between nations before the nineteenth century, piracy was not technically illegal. Under the Old Regime, it had even been welcomed by some bookdealers in France as a means of circumventing the state censorship system. To avoid persecution, controversial works were often reproduced in the countries bordering France, especially Switzerland

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and Holland, and then smuggled “under the cloak” into France.40 In the wake of the Revolution, however, piracy was increasingly resented by French publishers, as well as by authors, as a threat to their literary capital, which they now viewed not as a privilege but as a property. Parisian producers were not entirely innocent of the offense of piracy. Such publishers as the Galignani, Barrois, Baudry, and Bossange firms often pirated English or Spanish works. However, because of the dominance of French language and culture in Europe at the time, French producers claimed to suffer disproportionately from literary piracy.41 In particular, French publishers and printers complained about literary piracy by the Belgian book trade or, as they called it, la contrefaçon belge. Especially after 1830, when it became independent from Holland, Belgium was home to a number of publishing firms whose production consisted mostly of unauthorized reprints of books and periodicals from France. These unauthorized reprints, which were often published as préfaçons even before the originals on which they were based had appeared, were not just sold within Belgium but, especially after 1830, exported to France and other countries where there was a market for French-language publications. Such piracy was not only tolerated by the Belgian government, which did not restrict the number of printers nor protect the property of foreign authors, but was actually encouraged by it. Before the liberation of Belgium from Holland, the Dutch king William I actively promoted such piracy by chartering and financing (through the national bank) a number of joint-stock corporations for the production of unauthorized reprints of French works, as well as by providing subsidies for exporters of printed materials. After Belgium became independent, the production of these firms skyrocketed. Between 1830 and 1845, when these firms began to drive each other out of business, exports of books from Belgium quintupled, from 300,000 to 1.6 million francs— whereas those from France only doubled, from 2 million to 4.5 million, between 1830 and 1842. According to most estimates, at least one out of three books published in Belgium at the time was destined for export. Most of these books were pirated. At the height of the wave of Belgian literary piracy in 1840, over 80 percent of the titles published by two of the most prominent publishers in Belgium, Méline and Hauman, were illicit reproductions of French works. Most scholars now conclude that Belgian piracy did not really harm the business of French publishers and printers. Inside France, high customs

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duties prevented these pirated books from challenging the publications of domestic publishers; outside of France, the illicit works were marketed to a different (lower-class) audience than that targeted by exports from French publishers. In fact, Belgian counterfeiting may actually have helped the book trade in France by pushing it to develop new marketing strategies, especially the compact and cheap format called the “Charpentier,” named after the publisher who was credited with inventing it. Nonetheless, la contrefaçon belge constituted a major grievance among producers of printed matter in France.42 Rather than uniting them against their foreign competitors, the problem of literary piracy divided corporatists and liberals. Printers and publishers disagreed about both what had caused literary piracy and what should be done—by either the French book trade or the government or both—to remedy it. On the one hand, printers and bookdealers persisted in defining literary property as limited, even in the heyday of Belgian literary piracy in the 1830s. Often condoning and even practicing literary piracy themselves, corporatists insisted that ideas belonged not to individual authors or producers but to society as a whole. According to them, piracy was actually a service to the public, which benefited from the cheap reproduction and wide circulation of texts. In the interest of public enlightenment as well as their own business, they opposed the extension of literary property rights either domestically or internationally. To the extent that they viewed piracy as a problem, corporatists saw it not as a legal but as a commercial one. In their opinion, Parisian publishers had only themselves to blame for the illicit reproductions of their works. Because they tended to produce books in large formats and multiple volumes at high prices (for their main customers at the time, the cabinets de lecture), they failed to reach lower-class readers, particularly in other countries. They thus left a market untapped for pirates. To compete with these pirates, corporatists argued, publishers needed to manufacture cheaper editions, especially for export.43 On the other hand, liberal publishers in France denounced literary piracy as a crime against property. From the liberal perspective, literary piracy was not a justifiable means of spreading ideas among the public but a flagrant violation of the right of authors and publishers to profit from their own work. While they admitted that they could do more to compete with their provincial and foreign counterparts, Parisian publishers insisted that the only real solution to literary piracy was stronger legal protection of literary property.

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Beginning in the 1820s, publishers campaigned for the enforcement and extension of literary property rights, both domestically and internationally. Sending numerous petitions and delegations to French and even to foreign ministers and legislators, they demanded stricter restrictions on imports of printed matter as well as greater guarantees for literary property of both national and foreign authors and their assigns. In their report to the administration of Charles X on the state of publishing in 1829, for example, publishers requested that literary property rights be increased from twenty to twenty-five years after the death of the author and accorded not just to French nationals but also to foreigners whose governments had agreed to provide reciprocal protections for authors in France. Over the next decade, publishers became more and more insistent that literary property was perpetual and universal. By the late 1830s, they demanded that literary property be extended to at least fifty years after the death of the author and that such property be guaranteed unilaterally as opposed to reciprocally for the works of foreigners.44 In response to the growing concern about literary piracy, the postrevolutionary state soon began to reevaluate the compromise between individual and public rights to texts that had been instituted by the revolutionary and imperial regimes. No more than fifteen years had passed when the government of the Restoration first reconsidered the decree of 1810. In November 1825, King Charles X appointed a commission to study the issue of literary property, with a view toward drafting new legislation on the matter. Chaired by the ultraroyalist Viscount Sosthène de la Rochefoucauld, who was director of beaux-arts, the commission included a number of men from the realms of politics, science, and the arts who had a long-standing interest in the matter of literary property, including the writer and professor Abel-François Villemain, the peer Count Joseph-Marie Portalis, and the doctrinaire liberal deputy Pierre-Paul Royer-Collard (all former directors of the Administration of the Book Trade), as well as the naturalist Baron Georges Cuvier, the royal commissioner of the Théâtre Français Baron Isidore Taylor, and the actor François-Joseph Talma. After members of the book trade in Paris requested that they be represented in the discussion, two bookdealers, Antoine-Augustin Renouard and Firmin Didot, were added to the commission as well. Despite its intention to reform the law on the matter, the commission of 1825–1826 did not challenge the existing definition of literary property in

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any fundamental way. In his opening statement to the commission, the president La Rochefoucauld criticized the laws of 1793 and 1810 for limiting the duration of the rights of authors. Nonetheless, he concurred with the basic premise of these laws: that the state’s mission in regulating literary property was to balance the rights of the individual author with the rights of society as a whole. In his report to the commission, La Rochefoucauld described the goal of literary property law as follows: “It is necessary to bring together two opposing principles: the compensation due to immortal geniuses and the imprescriptible right acquired by the public to benefit from the works of genius.” With this goal in mind, the commission examined two different ways for strengthening the rights of the author and his family while still preserving those of the public. Initially, the commission focused on protecting the rights of heirs beyond the limited term of literary property, through a system that would soon come to be called a “paying public domain.” As outlined by one of its main proponents, Baron Cuvier, this system would work as follows: literary property would be limited to a term of, say, thirty years after publication of a work, for all heirs and assigns of the author. Once this property became public domain, though, the author’s heirs would still receive a perpetual “retribution” for every reprinting, to be paid by the publisher of the reproduction. From the perspective of its supporters, this system was the best means of strengthening the rights of individual authors without infringing on the rights of society as a whole. However, it was opposed by several members of the commission—above all, by the representatives of the book industry, Renouard and Didot—who objected that the retribution fee would be logistically complicated for the state and financially ruinous for the book trade. Unable to resolve the difficulties involved in administering such a fee, the commission then turned to another means of readjusting the balance between the interests of the public and the interests of the individual: the extension of the term of literary property. In its final report, it recommended that the duration of such property be increased to fifty years after the death of the author, for his spouse, descendants, and/or third-party assigns. The commission’s recommendation was more in line with the interests of publishers than of authors. However, although this recommendation strengthened the right of literary property for the individual creator and producer, it left unchanged the fundamental definition of such property as a special and temporary grant from society.45

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Yet, even this compromise proposal on literary property proved too radical for the regime of the Restoration. The final recommendation of the commission was not implemented by the government of Charles X. Buried in the files of the administration, it was mentioned by a member of the Chamber of Deputies in June 1828 in support of a petition from a printer named Delort for new legislation on literary property.46 But neither the report by the commission nor the petition by Delort was acted upon by the government of the Restoration. This government also ignored the plea for extension of literary property to twenty-five years after the death of the author, made by publishers in their report to the administration on the means of improving the book trade in 1829.47 The issue of literary property failed to command the attention of either the executive or the legislative branch before the fall of the Restoration government in July 1830. As literary piracy became a more pressing problem for the book trade, however, the new regime of Louis-Philippe undertook a more serious reappraisal of literary property law. Following the Revolution of 1830, publishers increased their calls for state action against literary piracy. In 1834, for example, the publisher Treuttel and Würtz addressed a letter about the problem of literary piracy to the Chamber of Commerce, which in turn referred it to the ministry of commerce. About the same time, a group of publishers in Paris (which included Treuttel and Würtz as well as such other prominent publishing entrepreneurs as J.-B. Baillière, Germer Baillière, Firmin Didot Frères, Charles Gosselin, Hachette, and Paulin) sent a letter to the ministry of public instruction, demanding action against Belgian counterfeiting.48 In response to these demands, the administration of Louis-Philippe initiated another investigation of the issue. In October 1836, the minister of public instruction, François Guizot, appointed a commission to study the problem of literary piracy under the presidency of Abel-François Villemain, the writer and professor who had served on the commission on literary property in 1825–1826 and would serve as the first president of the Société des Gens de Lettres in 1838. In addition to Villemain, this new commission included the author Victor Hugo, the printers Le Normant and Ambroise Firmin-Didot (son of Firmin Didot, who had served on the commission of 1825–1826), and the publishers Charles Gosselin and Louis Hachette, as well as representatives of the government, the Academy of Sciences, the University of France, and the Royal Library. When publishers demanded that the government address

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literary piracy not just outside France but inside it, too, a parallel commission on literary property was established by the minister of interior. This second commission, which was chaired by Philippe-Paul, Count de Ségur, a general and historian who was a member of the Chamber of Peers under the July Monarchy, included several authors and journalists as well as Ambroise Firmin-Didot, the newspaper publisher Émile de Girardin, and the book publisher Würtz.49 During several months of discussion, these two parallel commissions navigated between the corporatist and the liberal positions on literary property. The commission on literary piracy, for example, divided over whether and how to protect the literary property of foreigners. Although several liberal members of the commission (including, presumably, the publishers Gosselin and Hachette) argued for a unilateral declaration of the rights of authors everywhere, other members objected that such a declaration would harm French producers whose business often depended on reprints of foreign works, while it would do nothing to stop foreign counterfeiters. In the end, the commission compromised between these two positions on international literary property. In its final report, it recommended that such property be guaranteed only on a reciprocal basis to foreign authors whose governments had offered the same protection to French writers. In addition to requesting a number of new customs procedures to staunch the flow of pirated books into France, it proposed the following measure to be included in a new law on literary property: “All works, in French or foreign language, published for the first time abroad, may not be reprinted in France, whether during the lifetime of the author or after his death, before the expiration of a term fixed by treaty, without the consent of the author or his representatives. Every reproduction of said works, in violation of this prohibition, will be labeled piracy and punished accordingly. This measure will be applied exclusively with regard to states that will have provided the same guarantee to works in French or foreign language published for the first time in France.” This proposal by the French commission on literary piracy inspired the British government to enact a law for the reciprocal protection of the copyright of foreign authors and publishers, dated 31 July 1838, which would in turn increase pressure on the French administration to provide similar protection for the British and other foreigners.50 Like the commission on literary piracy, the commission on literary property appointed by the interior minister balanced the demands of liberals and

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the concerns of corporatists. Although in theory it asserted that a literary work was the “absolute property” of its author, in practice it concluded that once the work was published, this property could not be held in perpetuity by the heirs and assigns of the author but had to be shared with society as a whole. In its final report, the commission on literary property recommended that the duration of this property be limited to fifty years from the date of first publication (rather than the death of the author, which was seen by publishers and their supporters as too variable). This recommendation represented a new, more liberal compromise between individual and public claims to texts.51 With the recommendations of these two commissions in hand, the administration of Louis-Philippe began to draft new legislation on literary property. Early in 1838, in response to another petition from the publishers of Paris, the minister of the interior proposed to the Conseil d’Etat a bill on the “property of works of art, science, and literature,” which adopted most of the recommendations of the twin commissions of 1836–1837. After receiving the approval of the Conseil d’Etat, this bill was then presented, in a slightly modified form, to the Chamber of Peers on behalf of the minister of public instruction (who was now Narcisse-Achille de Salvandy), first in January, then again in April 1839.52 As presented to the legislature, the bill was an attempt to renegotiate the “marriage” instituted by the decree of 1810 between state and market, ever so slightly in favor of the latter. Within France, it proposed to extend the term of literary property to thirty years after the death of the author— a compromise between the twenty years guaranteed by the decree of 1810 and the fifty years recommended by the commission of 1836–1837, as well as by the commission of 1825–1826. Internationally, this bill promised to protect the literary property of authors from countries whose governments provided reciprocal guarantees for French authors. Encompassing authors not just of literary but of dramatic, musical, and artistic works, the bill aimed to discourage intellectual piracy by increasing the punishment for counterfeiting. While it was intended to strengthen the rights of authors and their assigns against literary piracy, however, the bill of 1839 was still grounded in a democratic, not a liberal, conception of literary property. In the mold of the Declaration of the Rights of Genius of 1793 and the decree of 1810, it continued to balance the interests of individual creators and producers with the interests of society at large. Based on the assumption that literary property was not a

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property like any other but outside of the common law, this bill maintained strict limits on the rights of individuals to monopolize ideas from the public domain. Such limits were justified, according to the authors of the bill, on the grounds that works belonged not just to their authors but to the public. As the reporter for the committee that was appointed by the Chamber of Peers to study this measure, Viscount Siméon, argued: In effect, as long as a work remains in the hands of its author, it has the character of an ordinary mobile property. The author may keep it, give it, sell it, destroy it, in a single word, use it as he likes. But, as soon as he delivers it to the public, society acquires a right to the work; it becomes a sort of property indivisible between the author and society. The one and the other should benefit from the portion that is due to them: the author, from the product of his work; the public, from the pleasure and the instruction that it brings.53 Although it proposed to extend the rights of authors, the bill of 1839 continued to define literary property as a temporary concession from the state in the public interest. Because it represented a compromise between the corporatist and liberal positions on literary property, this new moderate bill came under fire from both the left and the right. During debate, it provoked sharp divisions between liberals and conservatives in the Chamber of Peers. On the one hand, liberal peers thought that the bill did not go far enough in recognizing literary property as a natural and absolute right. At the head of the liberal opposition to the bill was Count Joseph-Marie Portalis (the first director of the dministration of the book trade under Napoleon and a member of the first commission on literary property in 1825–1826), who worried that, under guise of strengthening the right of literary property, the measure in fact undermined this right, by defining it as a temporary privilege accorded by society. In order to guarantee this right according to principle in quasiperpetuity, Portalis proposed that the Chamber of Peers amend the bill to extend the term of literary property to fifty, rather than just thirty, years after the death of the author, in line with the recommendations of the commissions of 1825–1826 and 1836–1837. In defense of this amendment, Portalis maintained that literary property was no different than any other. “One should not

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misunderstand,” he argued, “that the right of authors is a right of property. It is important to note that this right, even though it may be constrained within tight limits, is no less a right of property, that it belongs to authors, on their own initiative, and not by concession of the law, from the munificence of society, and that, henceforth, it may be regulated, limited, but never abolished or expropriated without indemnity.” The amendment to extend the term of literary property to fifty years beyond the death of the author was seconded by Abel-François Villemain, who had been president of the commission on literary property in 1836–1837 and was now minister of public instruction. Although he rejected the principle of perpetual and unlimited literary property, Villemain still thought the term of such property should be increased by more than just ten years, in order to encourage individual creation and production of literature as much as possible. The minister of public instruction also agreed that the French government should guarantee such property for foreigners, on a reciprocal basis with other nations. These demands were supported by a number of other liberals in the Chamber of Peers.54 The extension of literary property both at home and abroad was resisted, however, by more moderate and conservative members of the Chamber of Peers, who insisted on a more limited notion of the rights of authors. Asserting that literary property was not a natural right but a temporary privilege accorded to authors by society to promote the exchange of ideas, these peers opposed the proposal by Portalis to extend the term of literary property to fifty years after the death of the author. While most supported the term of thirty years stipulated in the original bill, some maintained that the term of such property should be left alone, at twenty years after the death of the author. These moderates and conservatives also opposed the recognition of the rights of authors from other countries, even on a reciprocal basis. Before the bill even reached the floor of the Chamber, the committee that had been appointed to examine it rejected the article that would have guaranteed the rights of foreign authors on a reciprocal basis, on the grounds that the countries from which France most wanted to obtain such reciprocal protection (especially Belgium) would never renounce piracy, while those from which it wished to remain free to steal (such as England) would force it to grant this protection. The committee also opposed the use of the term “literary property” with regard to the work of authors. In the title of the bill, it requested that this term be replaced with “rights of authors.” Although the original title was in the end maintained,

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other liberal provisions were blocked by moderate and conservative peers during the final vote on the bill. On 31 May 1839, the Chamber of Peers approved the new legislation on literary property, but without either the amendment to extend the term of such property to fifty years after the death of the author or the provision to guarantee the rights of foreigners to such property on a reciprocal basis.55 The bill on literary property passed to the Chamber of Deputies, where it sat for almost two years before it was finally introduced by the minister of public instruction, Villemain. In the meantime, the government was barraged with comments on the matter of literary property by members of both the liberal and the corporatist camps in the book trade. Between 1839 and 1841, authors, jurists, newspaper editors, book publishers, and printers sent numerous petitions and delegations to the government in an effort to influence the final legislation. Liberal publishers lobbied the government to extend the term of literary property to at least thirty, if not fifty, years after the death of the author. They also pressed it to reconsider the provision to protect the property of foreign authors. In May 1840, for example, a number of prominent publishers in Paris visited the minister of public instruction to demand that the law include a universal declaration of literary property, and in January 1841, another group of publishers, including J.-B. Baillière, Léon Curmer, FirminDidot Frères, Charles Gosselin, Louis Hachette, and Jules Renouard (son of Antoine-Augustin, who had served on the commission of 1825–1826), petitioned the legislature to modify the bill to guarantee the rights of authors outside of France not just on a reciprocal basis but on a unilateral one, in a manner “absolute and without restriction.” Some of these publishers later appeared before the commission appointed by the Chamber of Deputies to examine the bill. To generate international support for a unilateral declaration of literary property, these same publishers also sent a form letter to their colleagues abroad, asking them to endorse such a declaration. In response to these moves by publishers to encourage the Chamber of Deputies to strengthen the law on literary property, corporatist members of the book trade asked the government to leave this law alone. In some “observations” on the bill of 1839, the printer Crapelet, for example, opposed the protection of the rights of foreign authors, either reciprocally or unilaterally. Arguing that the publishers who had advocated universal recognition of literary property were not representative of the majority of the book trade, Crapelet insisted that if such

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property were guaranteed internationally on either a reciprocal or a unilateral basis, many printers and bookdealers in France would lose a significant source of business: reprints of works from abroad.56 After considering the opinions of a number of publishers and printers as well as writers and artists, the committee appointed by the Chamber of Deputies to examine the measure proposed a more liberal version of the bill “relative to the rights of authors of works of literature, science or art,” as it was now entitled. Under the influence of its secretary, the Romantic poet and liberal politician Alphonse de Lamartine, this committee modified the version of the bill passed by the Chamber of Peers to strengthen the rights of authors within France and abroad. Although it did not go so far as to proclaim the principle of perpetuity, the legislative committee did insist that once intellectual work took material form, it was a property, comparable to real estate or any other commodity. In response to the counterargument that such work belonged to no one individual but to all of society, the committee distinguished between the disembodied idea, which was a gift of God or genius available to all of society, and the material object, which was a property possessed by the individual producer. As the reporter for the committee, Lamartine, said in presenting the revised bill to the Chamber of Deputies in March 1841: “The idea comes from God, serves men and returns to God, leaving a luminous wrinkle on the forehead of him to whom genius has descended and on the name of his sons; the book falls into commercial circulation, and becomes a value producing capital and revenue like any other value, and is susceptible under this title to be constituted as property.” In line with this definition, the committee recommended that the bill guarantee the rights of authors for fifty (as opposed to just thirty) years after their death, a period of time that would encompass the lifetime of their immediate heirs and would encourage publishers to invest in new works. In defense of this extension of the term of literary property, Lamartine explained to the Chamber of Deputies: “Your committee has amended the proposal of the Government in the direction of an arbitrary [term] that is more liberal, more generous, more equitable, and more in keeping with the true processes of speculation.” In an effort to make France a leader in the fight against literary piracy, the legislative committee also demanded that the bill include the provision for recognizing the property of foreign authors, on a reciprocal basis, which had been rejected by the Chamber of Peers.57

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Although it thus satisfied a number of the demands of liberals in the book trade, the committee’s version of the bill on the rights of authors faced considerable opposition in the Chamber of Deputies. Against Lamartine and his supporters were arrayed a number of deputies, including Augustin-Charles Renouard, son of the bookdealer Antoine-Augustin Renouard who had served on the commission on literary property in 1825–1826 and brother of the publisher Jules Renouard who had served on the commission on literary piracy of 1836–1837; Frédéric Portalis, son of Joseph-Marie Portalis who had unsuccessfully demanded liberalization of the bill passed by the Chamber of Peers in 1839; and Narcisse-Achille de Salvandy, who as former minister of public instruction had introduced the original bill to the Chamber of Peers. These deputies argued that the revised bill granted excessive rights to individuals, particularly publishers, at the expense of legitimate interests of society. Chastising the commission headed by Lamartine for surpassing the intentions of the government, they maintained that, while the legislation on the rights of authors might need to be improved, it did not need to be reconceived from scratch. Asserting that knowledge, like light or air, belonged to no one once it was published, they argued that the rights of authors were not a perpetual property but only a temporary remuneration. Rejecting the term “literary property,” they insisted on calling this remuneration “right of author” or “right of copy.” These deputies asserted that the increase in the duration of such rights to fifty years after the death of the author would constitute a new form of privilege, antithetical to the principles of the postrevolutionary regime. Like the privileges of the Old Regime, they suggested, these increased rights would stifle competition, increase prices, encourage piracy, degrade literature, and hinder intellectual exchange. These rights would benefit not authors, but only speculators. As Augustin-Charles Renouard argued before the Chamber: When free competition was introduced in our general legislation on the debris of old privileges, a new industrial right was founded. Today we are quietly conquered by a reaction which exercises its wits in finding new ways of killing competition. . . . The love of money, which has already too much invaded literature, will re-double in intensity, and will degrade it completely. One will enrich the families of authors; but one will impoverish their glory. I am wrong to say that the families of authors will be enriched: speculation will have soon absorbed these breeding grounds

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of intelligence by the attraction of its capital. The old book privileges, against the prolongation of which the parlements, in the sixteenth century, rendered memorable decrees, will be reborn, young in form, better guaranteed by the more effectively repressive force of our modern societies and armed with a longer duration.58 To prevent the revival of privilege feared by Renouard, opponents of the revised bill insisted on limiting the rights of authors to thirty years after the death of the author. This shorter term, they argued, would keep French law in line with that of most other countries (such as Prussia, whose law of 1837 guaranteed the rights of authors for this term) and would thus facilitate international negotiation on the issue. Opponents of the bill presented by Lamartine also objected to the extension of such rights to foreigners, even on a reciprocal basis. Insisting that this was a matter for diplomacy rather than for legislation, they argued that the reciprocal recognition of literary property between countries would not help but actually harm the book trade in France. In sum, a number of deputies opposed the strengthening of literary property either at home or abroad, on the grounds that it would harm the public interest. As the deputy Dubois (of the Loire-Intérieure) argued on the first day of general debate on the revised bill, “[T]his law, which one presents as the emancipation of thought, is, in the eyes of many people, an obstacle to the movement and the progress of enlightenment.”59 Responding to the opposition to the bill presented by Lamartine, several moderate members of the Chamber of Deputies attempted to remodify it along the lines of the original bill passed by the Chamber of Peers. At the suggestion of the minister of public instruction, Villemain, who (though not opposed to the extension of literary property to fifty years after the death of the author) endorsed the term of thirty years as a significant improvement over the current legislation, these moderates moved to amend the first article of the bill, to restore the more limited term approved by the Chamber of Peers. While some deputies defended the longer term of fifty years and others advocated the current term of twenty years after the death of the author, in the end a majority approved the compromise term of thirty years. In its discussion of the article related to the protection of the rights of foreign authors (number 18), the Chamber of Deputies likewise retreated from the relatively liberal position of the committee headed by Lamartine. In response to the lobbying of

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publishers, one deputy, the Marquis de La Grange, proposed to amend this provision to make such protection unilateral as opposed to just reciprocal, but this amendment was rejected in favor of one by Augustin-Charles Renouard, which made even reciprocal protection not automatic but only possible. Rather than guaranteeing such protection by legal statute, Renouard’s amendment said only that reciprocity could be accorded at the discretion of the government by diplomatic treaty.60 Even in its watered-down form, however, the bill on the rights of authors did not garner enough support to pass the Chamber of Deputies. After more than two weeks of debate, this house of the legislature rejected the bill in its entirety, by a vote of 154 to 108. In the assessment of the deputies themselves, the bill had been made unworkable by the various contradictory changes to it. In their effort to protect artistic and musical as well as literary works, the deputies had not been able to agree on the nature of the rights of authors. In some places of the bill, they seemed to define these rights as an inviolable form of property; in other places, they sought to limit them in the interest of the public domain. As one observer later explained, “After a confused, embarrassed discussion of eight days, in which each detail created new difficulties, the chamber, vanquished by its powerlessness, rejected the project as a whole.”61 In failing to reform the law on the rights of authors, the Chamber of Deputies opted for the compromise between private and public claims on texts established by the law of 1793 and modified by the decree of 1810. After five years of discussion of the issue in government commissions and legislative debates, the legislation on literary property remained unchanged. In the mid-1840s, the French state would take some small steps to strengthen the protection of literary property both domestically and internationally. In addition to addressing the problem of literary piracy in customs laws and treaties, the government enacted some new measures on literary property. In 1844, the legislature passed a law that extended the rights guaranteed to the families of authors by the decree of 1810 to the spouses and children of dramatic authors, who had previously remained under the law of 1793. Under continued pressure from publishers to combat foreign literary piracy, the administration also began to negotiate a series of treaties for the reciprocal protection of literary property with individual nations, starting with Piedmont-Sardinia in 1843. During discussion of these measures in the legislature, members of both houses asked the government to draft a new,

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more comprehensive law on literary property. Before the end of the July Monarchy, however, such pleas for a new law went unanswered. Reluctant to upset the delicate balance between individual and public claims to texts that had been instituted during the Revolution and Empire, the state refrained from altering the legislation on literary property.62 Through the middle of the nineteenth century, then, individual claims to texts remained limited in the public interest. Contrary to the long-standing assumption that an idealist, author-centric definition of intellectual property had emerged by the end of the revolutionary era in France, an instrumentalist, public-oriented notion of the rights of authors persisted here. Moreover, to the extent that it recognized intellectual property, French law grounded such property in the materiality of the text rather than the genius of the author. In an effort to provide commercial incentives for publishing, it treated texts as transferable but temporary commodities, which could be “owned” by individual producers only for a short time before falling into a public domain. Much like Anglo-American law, French law continued to adopt a commodity-based rather than a personality-based definition of literary property.63

As this chapter has shown, the Revolution of 1789 divided members of the book trade. The division in this trade was by no means healed by the “marriage” of state regulation and market competition instituted by Napoleon in 1810. In fact, this marriage proved unsatisfactory to almost everyone involved in the book trade. In the eyes of traditional practitioners of the book occupations, it did not go far enough toward reversing laissez-faire. Conversely, in the eyes of new éditeurs, the compromise went too far in tempering individual competition. By the 1820s, both the corporatist and liberal camps in the book trade were demanding reform—if not outright repudiation—of the compromise regulation of 1810. Despite the dissatisfaction with this marriage, however, it remained intact through both the Restoration and the July Monarchy. Although each regime considered measures that would have relaxed government limits on the book trade, neither was willing to risk the consequences of divorcing the state from the market. Committed to protecting public order and public access, and stymied by the difficulties of funding indemnities for printers or of administering retribution fees for the families of authors, the early nineteenth-century French state

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hesitated to renegotiate the compromise established by Napoleon. In the end, neither the Restoration nor the July Monarchy significantly altered the legislation on either licensing or literary property. As a result, the law on these issues continued to strike an uneasy balance between individual rights and public interests. Prior to 1848, the story of the battle between corporatists and liberals in the book trade thus illustrates the continuity across political regime in approach toward the literary market. The supposedly bourgeois July Monarchy, for example, proved no more responsive to the demands of publishers for liberalization of licensing and literary property than did the authoritarian Napoleonic Empire or restored Bourbon monarchy. Despite this continuity in state policy, however, the battle between corporatists and liberals in the first half of the nineteenth century was not without effect. Out of the struggle for reform of the regulation of 1810, both camps emerged more organized. In particular, liberal publishers began to form a number of different kinds of associations—from joint-stock corporations, to mutual aid funds, investment banks, investigative commissions, and trade organizations. Often inspired by concern about Belgian literary piracy, these associations would make publishers more effective in their campaign for reform of state policy on the book trade.

3 Laurent-Antoine Pagnerre and the Publishing Coterie

In the wake of the Revolution of 1848, a writer and bookdealer named Victor Bouton launched a campaign against a group of publishers in Paris. In the name of provincial booksellers, Bouton attacked these publishers for their business practices, especially the use of primes, or premiums, to market their books. Following the revolution, this group of publishers had formed a business partnership, called the Union des Éditeurs, to purchase tickets to a lottery that had been organized for the benefit of artists and writers, which they then offered as bonuses to purchasers of their books. To Bouton, this marketing scheme was anticompetitive as well as unethical. By privileging a small elite of publishers, he asserted, it constituted a “monopoly,” to the detriment of the “corporation” of the book trade. For Bouton, this “monopoly” of publishers was all the more threatening, because it had previously benefited from a state loan to industry following the Revolution of 1830 and it was now connected to the leadership of a new trade association, the Cercle de la Librairie, founded in 1847. Noting the overlap between the officers of the trade association and the organizers of the lottery, Bouton challenged the right of these publishers to represent the book trade as a whole. In the second of two pamphlets that he published against the lottery, he criticized the big entrepreneurs associated with the new Cercle de la Librairie for pretending to help the small booksellers of the provinces, while really acting to steal their business. Depicting these entrepreneurs as mustachioed bourgeois, he satirized them as “big fish” who swallowed the small fry in the book trade: It has come to my attention that the Cercle de la Librairie is meddling [in the lottery] and pretends to be the expert: “Little booksellers,” it says, “Ingrates that you are, let yourselves join the lottery. Don’t you know that the

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big fish are made for eating the little ones and that the Cercle de la Librairie is composed of big eaters? Come, you are not content with the dinners that they organize and with [their trade publication] the Journal de la librairie, which commemorates them. But when these citizens drink, eat, embrace each other, and give each other compliments, it is for you that they eat, it is for you that they drink, it is for you that they embrace each other, and their compliments should flatter you. When they sponsor lotteries, it is for you! See how fat they are! Doesn’t it make you cry for joy, die of happiness? And you say afterward that publishing is not prospering and that other industries are not jealous of it! Come, you are ingrates who are not convinced that, in order to give such good dinners and such beautiful speeches, they need the lottery, quickly, one lottery, two lotteries, three lotteries—that will pick up business and that will provide bread to the artists and to the men of letters who work so hard for the publishers!1 With biting sarcasm, Bouton attacked the big éditeurs of Paris for colluding with each other at the expense of the rest of the book trade. In his attack on the entrepreneurs behind the lottery, Bouton singled out one publisher in particular: Laurent-Antoine Pagnerre. A publisher of republican pamphlets and almanacs, Pagnerre had begun his career as a clerk for Charles Gosselin, who was a successful éditeur of Romantic literature. When Gosselin retired to the countryside in 1845, Pagnerre acquired his license and business. A moderate republican who would later support LouisNapoléon Bonaparte, Pagnerre was a leader of the opposition to the July Monarchy. In the late 1840s, he helped to orchestrate the banquet campaign in favor of the extension of suffrage. Following the Revolution of 1848, he was the secretary of the provisional government as well as a member of the constituent assembly of the Second Republic. In this capacity, he was involved in the establishment of a Comptoir National d’Escompte, or National Discount Bank, to aid small business in the wake of the revolution. In addition to serving as director of this discount bank, Pagnerre also founded (along with the publisher Louis Hachette) a sous-comptoir de garantie, or subsidiary guarantor, of the bank specifically for the book trade. At the same time, he was the first president of the Cercle de la Librairie and a founder of the Union des Éditeurs. In the eyes of Bouton, Pagnerre epitomized the “big fish” in publishing. In the first of his pamphlets against the lottery scheme,

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Bouton assailed this particular “big fish” for exploiting his position to benefit a small coterie in the book trade: Fifteen years ago the house of Gosselin (today Pagnerre) owed the State 60,000 francs; the house Lecointe-Furne 250,000 francs, etc. After February [1848], industry demanded a discount bank. The provisional government delegated Pagnerre [to organize it]. Always the same old dive and the same companions. Pagnerre passed on 50,000 francs to this one, 30,000 to another, 60,000 to the neighbor, Furne himself absorbed close to a quarter of a million. . . . Damn! The same suffering industrialists had cost the government of July [1830, following the revolution that replaced King Charles X with Louis-Philippe] an enormous capital; from the first day of the Republic [established in February 1848] one finds them again with their hand in the purse. Calling for the police to arrest Pagnerre, Bouton continued: If the Lottery of Artists is authorized with such-and-such a goal, at suchand-such address, under the patronage of such-and-such, it is not authorized in the sordid hands of a Pagnerre; Pagnerre is under the threat of the law for having organized a private lottery: It is a scandal that must be repressed. We are waiting for the Prosecutor of the Republic. I ask you, Monsieur the Minister of the Interior, to order an inspection of the shop of Pagnerre, and I beg you, R. P. Carlier [the chief of police], to make a raid there. Seize for me this devil. For his role in the lottery as well as the loan of 1830, the discount bank of 1848, and the Cercle de la Librairie, Pagnerre was denounced by Bouton as an unscrupulous monopolist.2 (For a caricature of Pagnerre, see Figure 3.1.) The attack by Bouton on Pagnerre was motivated by personal animosity. Himself a shady character, Bouton (who sometimes went by the pseudonyms of René Didier or Vaute) had come into conflict with Pagnerre on several occasions in the past. A native of the Vosges region, he had arrived in Paris in the 1830s. A painter as well as a writer, he was a radical republican but also a vehement antisocialist. On several occasions, he was imprisoned for his provocative publications. Under both the July Monarchy and the Second Empire, however,

[To view this image, refer to the print version of this title.]

Figure 3.1. Caricature of the almanac publisher Laurent-Antoine Pagnerre (1804–1854): “Ex member of the Provisional Government, and continuing to follow attentively the march of political events, the libraire Pagnerre understood that the moment had come to occupy himself seriously with the sale of the Comic Almanach.” Département des estampes et de la photographie, Bibliothèque nationale de France.

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he was himself suspected of being a police informer. At the same time, he tried, with limited success, to establish himself in the publishing business, first as a salaried employee and then on his own as an editor of almanacs. In the early 1840s, Bouton worked for Pagnerre as a clerk. In 1845, after being fired from this position, he was charged by Pagnerre with stealing and publishing personal letters from the republican writer and politician Louis de Cormenin, who was one of Pagnerre’s authors. In the resulting trial, which attracted a large crowd from the milieus of literature and politics, Bouton was acquitted of theft but was required to return Cormenin’s letters and to pay damages to Pagnerre. The acquittal did nothing to quell the animosity between Bouton and Pagnerre. Following the Revolution of 1848, Bouton assailed his former boss in a sketch of Pagnerre for a series of “Revolutionary Profiles by a Red Pencil” that he published against the leaders of the new republican government. In the conclusion of this sketch, Bouton issued a declaration of war against the republican publisher: “In sketching this portrait of Pagnerre,” he wrote, “I assure him that I would never have flogged him so, if he had not, since the 24th of February [the establishment of the Second Republic], thought himself above reproach. He has an egoism and a presumption such that I wanted to drive this arrow right into his wing. I reserve for him one last stroke: I swear, if he doubts my skill, to send this last stroke right into his heart. The game has begun. One knows my card.” In response to this provocation, Pagnerre charged Bouton with libel. Again, though, Bouton avoided a guilty verdict, this time on a technicality. Given their history, the attack by Bouton on Pagnerre over the lottery scheme may be seen as a quest for revenge.3 On closer examination, however, the conflict between Bouton and Pagnerre is part and parcel of a bigger struggle over the organization of the book trade in France in the mid-nineteenth century. In accusing publishers of forming a privileged “monopoly,” Bouton was not just being paranoid; this accusation had some basis in fact. Between the late 1820s and the late 1840s, publishers had indeed begun to collaborate regularly and effectively. Overcoming the state’s resistance to organization among members of the same occupation, publishers formed a number of associations, for social, charitable, lobbying, and business purposes. Despite their varying aims, these associations contained the same basic group of publishers, centered around Pagnerre. Although it sometimes invoked the memory of the old trade guild, this group bore more resemblance to a modern business cartel. Out of this loose combi-

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nation emerged one of the first durable trade associations in publishing, or any other industry, the Cercle de la Librairie. In organizing itself, the new cartel of publishers benefited from state protection. Although the state at first blocked the collective activities of this group of publishers, it came to tolerate and even favor them, for example, with subsidies and loans. Government patronage proved critical to the new association of publishers, even as the group lobbied for economic liberalism. As they engaged in collective enterprises under state auspices to promote their business, publishers came under attack by printers and booksellers, who were less successful at organizing themselves, in part because of government repression of any association that resembled a prerevolutionary trade guild. Printers and booksellers accused publishers of forming a “patriciate” or “coterie” at the expense of the trade as a whole. They charged publishers with “unfair competition” and “disloyal trade,” in violation of the postrevolutionary principle of free trade. Mixing protectionist and liberal idioms, they criticized the “coterie” of publishers for violating both corporatist unity and commercial liberty. Arguing that this coterie travestied the ethos both of the old corporate order and of the new liberal economy, printers and booksellers denounced such collusion. Although collusion among entrepreneurs has long been a feature of capitalism, it has not received much attention from business historians.4 By analyzing the “coterie” of publishers, this chapter aims to highlight the role of business associations and state protections in the development of a “free” market. In order to understand the struggle over association between old and new members of the book trade, I focus on four episodes involving the coterie of publishers: an attempt to found a “circle” for publishers in 1829; the participation by publishers in a state loan to commerce and industry following the Revolution of 1830; a wave of association among publishers in the 1830s and 1840s, which culminated in the foundation of a second, permanent, “circle,” the Cercle de la Librairie, as well as the sous-comptoir in publishing in the late 1840s; and, finally, the use of “premiums” in the form of tickets to lotteries to market books, especially by the Union des Éditeurs, from the mid-1830s to the early 1850s. Although these activities of publishers have been described before, particularly by Nicole Felkay in her book on the publishers of Balzac, they have not been placed in the broader context of the struggle between corporatists and liberals in the book trade.5 Together, these four episodes reveal

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that by the late 1840s, publishers had succeeded in organizing themselves, first into a loose business combine and then into a formal trade association. In contrast to printers and bookdealers, who failed to combat this organization, publishers were better positioned to influence state policy on the book trade. The battle between Bouton and Pagnerre illustrates the beginning of a shift in power in the book trade, from corporatists to liberals, which would have significant consequences for the literary market.

The “Circle” of 1829 The origins of the battle between Bouton and Pagnerre dated back almost twenty years, to the late 1820s, when publishers first began to form associations to defend and promote their occupation. As they became more and more prevalent in the book trade, the new éditeurs began to cooperate with each other. Gradually and haphazardly, they began to organize meetings, petitions, committees, social events, and business enterprises together. Such organization was facilitated by a number of trade journals and directories, especially a supplement to the official trade journal, the Bibliographie de la France, called the Feuilleton. Created in 1825, the Feuilleton functioned as a bulletin board for the book trade: it publicized sales of goods and services, job openings, trade auctions, address changes, inventions, bankruptcies, deaths, laws, treaties, and meetings of interest to people in the trade. With the help of such publications, publishers began to undertake a number of collective activities. In 1826 and 1827, for instance, they joined with printers and booksellers in writing collective petitions against the reactionary press bill proposed by Charles X. In 1828, they planned a party for the book trade, which was held on the premises of the restaurateur Grignon and attended by some five hundred notables in publishing. Following this special event, which was deemed a big success, they established a society for “book trade balls” to plan similar activities. In 1829, publishers organized a commission to investigate the state of the book trade, which submitted a report to the government in favor of abolition of licensing requirements for bookdealers and extension of literary property rights. About the same time, they also began forming joint-stock corporations with each other to fund business enterprises. Many of these corporations were intended to combat the problem of literary piracy by facilitating distribution. In October 1828, for instance, several éditeurs in Paris

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established a joint-stock operation called the Librairie Parisienne Française et Étrangère, to market their books in Brussels. Such collective action was often provoked by the debates over literary property rights as well as over licensing requirements. In their effort to obtain absolute freedom and property in the book trade, publishers relied increasingly on associations, both formal and informal.6 These early associations were composed of a relatively constant group of publishers. Over and over in the rosters of the petitions and associations organized by publishers, the same names appeared: J.-B. Baillière, Bossange (both Martin and Hector, his son), Didot (both Firmin and Ambroise), Charles Gosselin and later his successor Laurent-Antoine Pagnerre, Louis Hachette, Victor Masson, Panckoucke (first C. L. F., then Ernest), and Treuttel and Würtz. Most of these publishers were located in the 11th (now 6th) arrondissement of Paris. They were thus neighbors as well as colleagues. Members of the generation of éditeurs who came of age with the Restoration, these men would rise to dominance in the book trade by the 1830s and 1840s. As business leaders, many of them served in official institutions such as the Chamber of Commerce, the Bank of France, and the Chamber of Deputies. Firmin Didot, for instance, was a representative in the legislature in the late 1820s and early 1830s. He also served on the government commission on literary property established by Charles X in 1825. His son Ambroise Firmin-Didot was a member of the Chamber of Commerce, as well as of the government commission on literary property of 1836–1837. Drawing on their experience in civic affairs, these men were instrumental in forming associations among publishers.7 In the late 1820s, this core group of publishers attempted to formalize their relationship with each other by establishing a cercle, or circle, in the book trade. Founded on 26 February 1829, the first cercle de la librairie was organized by many of the same publishers who participated in the commission of 1829, including Charles Gosselin, Ambroise Firmin-Didot, and Martin Bossange. Founded by forty-two bookdealers, the circle was to be composed of one hundred members, of which seventy would be publishers or bookdealers, twenty would be printers, and ten would be paper manufacturers. According to its statutes, new members had to be recommended by three members, and all members had to pay a one-time fee of sixty francs as well as annual dues of one hundred francs. In order for a vote to be held, at least fifty-one

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members had to be present. The circle was to be administered by an executive committee of nine members, including a president, two vice presidents, a secretary, and a treasurer, who would be named each year by a general assembly. The first president of the circle was the publisher Würtz, and the first secretary was Charles Gosselin. Within a few months, the new association rented a meeting place at 15 rue Saint-Germain-des-Près, just down the street from Gosselin’s publishing house.8 Modeled after a type of businessmen’s association developed by the English, the cercle was intended to be part trade organization, part leisure club. The association sought to prevent bankruptcy, combat piracy, arbitrate conflict, and stimulate trade, while also promoting sociability in publishing. According to its organizers, the circle in publishing was conceived as a “family meeting,” which would facilitate business. As they wrote to the prefect of police in Paris in an effort to obtain official approval for their association, “In Germany and in England, there is no town of any significance that is not provided with a circle, place of relaxation for some, occasion to do business for others; the cercle de la librairie, by offering to the practitioners of that occupation as well as those connected to it the occasion to see and to know each other, will contribute greatly to expanding one of the most extensive branches of industry in France.” Insisting that this was a business and not a political organization, the founders of the circle emphasized that it would be a boon to commerce in books.9 When the circle was first organized, it seemed likely to obtain the approval of the state. In March 1829, the government newspaper editorialized that this new association of publishers had “nothing in common with the old chambre syndicale [trade guild of the Old Regime],” but would nevertheless be a tool for “discipline” among its membership. After considering the letter he had received from the organizers of the circle, the prefect of police recommended to the minister of the interior that the association be permitted. While the prefect did ask that the statutes of the circle be amended to ban card games, liquor, pamphlets, and political discussion from its meetings, he said that he saw “no other obstacle to according authorization” to this organization.10 Within just a few months, however, the administration reversed its position on the book trade cercle. Before the minister of the interior had acted on the recommendation of the prefect of police, King Charles X replaced his relatively liberal cabinet with a reactionary one, thus jeopardizing official authorization

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of the association. On 16 September, a new prefect of police wrote to the minister of the interior, who was also new, to inform him that the leaders of the new circle had rented a space in the rue Saint-Germain-des-Près, which they intended to open to the membership on the first of October. In response, the minister of the interior asked the prefect of police for his opinion about the legality of the circle. In mid-October, the new prefect concluded that the purpose of the proposed cercle de la librairie was too imprecise and thus suspect. According to him, because the circle was potentially not just a commercial association but also a political one, it endangered public order. At the same time, he asserted, it also threatened to constitute a monopoly, which might harm freedom of commerce as well as freedom of opinion. As the prefect argued in a letter to the minister of the interior: If this association of the principal bookdealers and printers of the Capital has as its goal to establish in their favor a kind of monopoly to the detriment of their brothers, whom they would then maintain in their dependence; if the proposed establishment had as its result to place in the hands of its associates the entire book trade, giving them an influence over this portion of the industry of a great city that could then be exploited not only at the expense of other publishers but to the profit of a single opinion or coterie; if it was, finally, a coalition, at first only commercial, but capable of soon becoming political, Your Excellence [the minister of the interior] would doubtless see more than one disadvantage in approving a vague request about which one can suppose all kinds of things. One could even see in that request a design to establish a kind of corporation, completely contrary to the current legislation. Fearing a return to something like the book guild of the Old Regime, the prefect of police urged the minister of the interior to forbid the book trade circle. The minister did not hesitate to follow the prefect’s advice. In late October 1829, he officially refused permission to the circle, on the grounds that it threatened freedom of commerce. As the minister of the interior explained in a letter to the prefect of police in early November, the state’s view at this point was that such a circle in publishing constituted “a sort of coalition to the prejudice of the other printers, bookdealers, and paper merchants in the capital.”11

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The first major attempt by publishers to form a trade organization was thus obstructed by the government. Through the end of the Restoration, the circle of publishers remained informal. Although they managed to form ad hoc commissions to address particular issues, they failed to establish a durable trade association. Because such an association was too reminiscent of a prerevolutionary trade “corporation” or guild, it was not tolerated by the Restoration Monarchy, which prohibited any meeting of more than twenty people in the same occupation, in line with the Napoleonic Code. Although the new éditeurs had begun to cooperate with each other, they were prevented from formalizing their association by the political context before 1830.

The Loan of 1830 Following the Revolution of 1830, the political context became more favorable to the collective activities of publishers. This revolution, which was sparked by a crackdown on the press, was supported by most members of the book trade. In fact, a number of printers and publishers fought alongside writers and workers on the barricades to overthrow the Bourbon King Charles X. As a result of the revolution, many of these printers and publishers saw their business disrupted: during the revolution itself, several printers had their mechanical presses destroyed by workers, and between July and December of 1830, some twenty-five libraires-éditeurs were forced to declare bankruptcy.12 In recognition of their effort and suffering, the new regime of the Orléanist King Louis-Philippe assisted members of the book trade, especially publishers. This new regime, which was sympathetic to the interests of commerce and finance, was friendlier than its predecessor to the big publishers who had founded the first cercle de la librairie. For instance, the government purchased official subscriptions to a number of their publications. Unlike its predecessor, it also tolerated organization among these entrepreneurs. In a law dated 10 April 1835, the government of Louis-Philippe officially prohibited associations of more than twenty people, but it tacitly allowed such associations among middle-class businessmen, including publishers. As state officials became more favorable to organization among publishers, however, printers and booksellers became more resistant to it, causing conflict within the book trade. In the 1830s and 1840s, the corporatist camp in the trade began to attack the big publishers of Paris as a “coterie.”

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One of the first measures of the new regime that provoked conflict within the book trade was a loan granted to commerce and industry. Intended to alleviate the financial crisis that had befallen France in the wake of the Revolution of 1830, this loan was approved by the legislature in October of that year. Totaling thirty million francs, it was to be distributed by the minister of finance, who would be assisted by a commission of prominent businessmen and financiers. This commission was in turn to be advised by the chamber of commerce in each locality. According to the regulation governing the loan, all recipients had to deposit merchandise or equipment with the state as collateral as well as pay interest of 4 percent. A large portion of this loan was given to the book trade. As soon as the loan was announced, members of the trade applied for a share of it. In a petition to the commission responsible for distributing the loan, several notable publishers requested that their trade be given three million of the thirty million francs to be granted by the government. In support of their request, they argued that because the book trade constituted 10 percent of all industry in crisis, it deserved 10 percent of the loan. This request, which was backed by the minister of finance as well as by the official newspaper the Journal des débats, was fulfilled to a large extent. In the end, the government commission granted to publishing and printing over 2.7 million francs, or 9 percent of the total loan. At least half of this amount went to publishing.13 Within the book trade, the loan was divided between a small number of entrepreneurs, most of whom were publishers. Out of a total of 440 members of the book trade who requested aid, only seventy-four (or 16.5 percent) received it. Of these, forty-nine were publishers. Many of these were the same publishers who had been involved in the commission and the circle in publishing in 1829. For example, Hector Bossange received first sixty thousand francs and then an additional forty thousand; Charles Gosselin received sixty thousand; Jules Renouard, sixty thousand; J.-B. Baillière, forty thousand; and Aimé André, thirty thousand. Of the other recipients of the loan, most were also prominent publishers, such as Pierre-François Ladvocat (the flamboyant éditeur in the Wooden Galleries at the Palais Royal who was immortalized in Balzac’s Lost Illusions), who received forty thousand francs; the Widow Béchet (a publisher of Balzac), who received one hundred thousand francs; and Alphonse Levavasseur (a renowned literary publisher), who received forty thousand francs. The periodical publisher Paulin, in whose offices the July

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Revolution had started, received thirty thousand francs. Some loans went to more traditional members of the book trade, such as the printers Georges Crapelet, Didot father and son (who together received three hundred thousand francs, by far the largest sum awarded), and Paul Renouard. For the most part, however, the money granted by the government was concentrated among a select group of new entrepreneurs in Paris.14 Despite their success in obtaining a large share of the loan to commerce and industry, these publishers were not free of financial insecurity. Less than a year after he received a government loan, for example, Pierre-François Ladvocat was on the verge of bankruptcy, despite the assistance of his authors, who donated a collection of satirical essays, Le Livre des cent-et-un, for publication. Likewise, bankruptcy befell the publisher Hector Bossange, who had received a loan not only from the government but also from the financier Jacques Laffitte. As their shares of the loan began to fall due, many of these publishers claimed that they were unable to repay them. In 1833, the government began to sell the collateral that had been deposited as a guarantee for the loan. In the case of publishers, this collateral consisted mainly of books. Fearing that a sudden release of these books onto the market would further damage their business by causing a price decrease, these publishers lobbied the government to forgive their loans.15 This lobbying was spearheaded by a publisher named Martin Bossange, who proposed that the books that had been deposited as collateral should be donated to the ministry of public instruction, which could in turn use them to supply libraries in the provinces. Known as Bossange Père, the publisher was the head of a family of bookdealers who specialized mainly in the foreign book trade and who participated actively in the campaign for extension of literary property. Although Martin Bossange himself had not received a portion of the loan to commerce and industry, his son Hector had. Like his son, Martin Bossange was connected to the financier Jacques Laffitte, who was both a minister and a legislator in the early years of the July Monarchy. His proposal to forgive the loans to publishers was presented to the Chamber of Deputies by Laffitte, as an amendment to a bill on the budget in April 1833. Echoing Bossange, Laffitte argued in defense of this measure that it was “in the interest of the book trade, as well as in the interest of the government and the departments to which books would be given.” In the legislature, Bossange’s proposal was supported by a number of deputies, including the printer-publisher

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Firmin Didot, whose family had received a large share of the government loan. The proposal was opposed, however, by several deputies on the grounds that it favored a select group of publishers (and their financiers in the private sector) at the expense of the entire book trade, while giving provincial libraries only the “dregs” of their products. In response to this concern, Bossange wrote a second pamphlet, in which he insisted that the books now held by the government as collateral were some of the finest works produced by their publishers and suggested that in any case they could be exchanged for other works by the same publishers.16 Outside of the Chamber of Deputies, Bossange’s proposal garnered some support, for example, from the Journal des débats and in a petition by a number of publishers who had not benefited from the loan (but who were nevertheless close associates of those who had). But the proposal also met with vehement opposition. The main opponent of this measure was a bookdealer named Warée. The official publisher of the Royal Court and the Order of Lawyers, Warée had not participated in the loan to commerce. In a pamphlet against the proposal to forgive the loan, he asserted that this measure benefited not “the general interest of the commerce” of publishing, as Bossange and Laffitte had suggested, but only a handful of privileged publishers with connections to high finance in France. Calling the proposal to forgive the loan a “bill of indemnity accorded to speculators,” Warée suggested that these “speculators” had been favored by the commission that administered the loan because of their connection to “the so-called cercle de la librairie, a cercle whose members were not all solvent libraires.” In a second pamphlet, Warée again insisted that the recipients of the loan constituted a “coterie,” at the expense of the rest of the book trade. Moreover, he accused this “coterie” of unfair competition. Any penny granted to the coterie, he argued, was “borrowed from the sweat of the honest industrialist.”17 Despite the efforts of Bossange and other publishers to counter such assertions, the government sided with Warée. Hesitant to accord any more special privileges to the publishers who had benefited from the loan of 1830, the Chamber of Deputies ended its session without acting on the amendment by Laffitte. Over the next few years, a number of people in politics and publishing, including Bossange himself, would continue to lobby the government to forgive the loans to publishers. But the government refused to reconsider the issue. It is not known what happened to the books deposited by publishers as

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collateral for the loans. Over time, they were probably sold by the government to private buyers. This move may have contributed to the collapse of several publishing houses in the 1830s. In the absence of government forgiveness of the loans to publishers, Bossange’s own business suffered: in 1833, he exchanged the best works of his fund for a government grant of twenty thousand francs; in 1843, he ceded his business to Paulin, founder of the periodical L’Illustration.18 Even more significant was the effect of this episode on the book trade as a whole. In the wake of the debate over the loan, opposition to the “coterie” of publishers began to mount among traditional printers and booksellers.

The Second Cercle de la Librairie and the Publishing Sous-Comptoir Although they had failed to persuade the government to forgive their debts, the “circle” of publishers who had benefited from the loan of 1830 did not cease to organize in defense of their interests. Despite the law of 10 April 1834, which forbade association within a single trade, collective activity among publishers increased under the July Monarchy. In December 1835, for instance, they formed a commission to raise money for the victims of a fire in the rue du Pot-de-Fer that had destroyed a printing shop and book bindery containing unbound sheets of the works of numerous publishers. Intended as a retroactive mutual insurance fund, this fund-raising commission endured for almost a year, raising over sixty thousand francs. This cooperative effort in turn inspired more mobilization among publishers. Issues of the Feuilleton of the Bibliographie de la France from the late 1830s and early 1840s contain numerous references to petitions, meetings, commissions, and delegations organized by publishers.19 As the last chapter suggested, many of these activities were a response to the problem of literary piracy, especially by Belgian printers and publishers, which preoccupied the book trade in France during the 1830s and 1840s. In 1834, for example, the publishers Furne, Gosselin, and Firmin-Didot Frères formed a distribution company called the Sociétés de Paris, Londres et Bruxelles pour les Publications à Bon Marché to export cheap editions of their publications to England and Belgium. In 1836, following the establishment of the government commissions on literary piracy and literary property by the ministers of education and the interior, publishers in Paris formed their own private commission

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to investigate the commercial (as opposed to legal) strategies that they might employ to defend their business against foreign competition. One of the strategies proposed by this commission was the establishment under the protection of the French government of a Société Nationale de la Librairie Française to market inexpensive editions of French works abroad. This “national company,” as it was called, was endorsed by a number of publishers, including Bobée and Gosselin. To counter literary piracy, publishers also formed more informal associations to monitor infractions, undertake lawsuits, and organize boycotts against suspected pirates in the provinces (which, unlike foreign countries, were governed by French law on literary property). Between 1831 and 1837, one such group of publishers made over thirty seizures of pirated books from diverse booksellers in France.20 In addition to organizing to combat piracy, Parisian éditeurs also cooperated to undertake publishing enterprises. In so doing, they relied increasingly on the institution of the joint-stock corporation. Although this form of business partnership was still subject to strict legal restrictions in France, it was used extensively by members of the publishing business. In 1833, for example, something like half of the joint-stock corporations registered with the commercial court of Paris involved the publication of newspapers, periodicals, or books. In fact, these corporations became so common in publishing that they became objects of caricature in the press. In July 1836, the satirical newspaper Le Corsaire ran a spoof of such a corporation, which was headed “Prrrospectusss: Share-holding Company for the Exploitation of the Book Trade; under the legal name: BLAGOSCAT and COMP. Current capital: 000,000 francs. Future capital: 300,000 francs.” Although many of the jointstock corporations in publishing were short-lived, they were nonetheless prevalent enough by the late 1830s and early 1840s to attract the attention of critics.21 Of the joint-stock corporations in publishing, the most notorious was a partnership called the Comptoir Central de la Librairie, which was founded by Charles Gosselin and Laurent-Antoine Pagnerre in 1842. Modeled on the centralized book exchange of the German Confederation, this “central counter of the book trade” was intended to serve as a clearinghouse between the publishers of Paris and the booksellers of the provinces. This corporation lasted only three years. It was dissolved and liquidated in 1845. Critics of the Comptoir Central de la Librairie blamed its failure on the greed and depravity of the

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publishers involved. In his history of the book trade in France, the bookdealer Edmond Werdet, for example, attributed the demise of this association to the individualism and “isolation” of publishers. Given the legal and cultural obstacles to association in France at the time, however, what is remarkable about the “comptoir” is that it was organized at all. The mere existence of such a partnership indicates that publishers were cooperating to a surprising degree in the early nineteenth century.22 Like the early associations of publishers in the late 1820s, the trade commissions and business corporations of the 1830s and 1840s involved a core group of publishers. Again, the list of organizers of such associations featured familiar names: J.-B. Baillière, Ambroise Firmin-Didot, Louis Hachette, C. L. F. Panckoucke, Paulin, Pillet Senior, Eugène Renduel, Treuttel and Würtz, and, especially, Charles Gosselin and his successor, Laurent-Antoine Pagnerre. Gosselin initiated many of the collective activities and organizations in publishing from the late 1820s to the mid-1840s. In addition to being a founder of the cercle of 1829 and a beneficiary of the loan of 1830, he was an organizer of the commission to raise money for the victims of the fire of 1835, the private commission on literary piracy in 1836, the “national company” created to produce inexpensive books for export in 1837, and the Comptoir Central de la Librairie of 1842. He also was responsible for sending numerous petitions and delegations to the government on behalf of the publishing industry. When Gosselin retired from publishing in the mid-1840s, his partner Pagnerre assumed leadership not only of his firm but also of the publishing occupation. Drawing on his experience with Gosselin, including in the Comptoir Central de la Librairie, Pagnerre would continue to organize publishers.23 In comparison to new publishers, traditional printers and bookdealers were less successful in organizing. Contrary to the common assumption that they demonstrated a strong sense of trade solidarity, master printers, for example, struggled to forge an effective organization before the last third of the nineteenth century. The relative weakness of organization among printers was due to opposition by the state, which sought to prevent the resurrection of anything like a trade guild. In 1838, a commission of printers in Paris did propose the establishment of a chambre syndicale, modeled on the prerevolutionary printing guild. Led by the printers Ambroise Firmin-Didot, Georges Crapelet, and Henri Fournier, this chamber aimed to monitor qualifications, survey workshops, arbitrate disputes, and negotiate wages in the printing indus-

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try. However, the organization failed to obtain the approval of the government. Arguing that “the creation of this Chamber . . . would call to mind the corporations [of the Old Regime] which one could not think of reviving,” the minister of commerce urged the minister of the interior to refuse to authorize such a chamber of printers. Despite this official prohibition, the group of printers in Paris continued to cooperate informally and unofficially. Calling itself an “association” rather than a “chambre syndicale,” it organized a number of banquets and negotiated a series of wage agreements with printing workers on behalf of master printers in the 1840s. During this period, printers also published a number of trade journals, which editorialized in favor of state policies in their interests, such as the maintenance of licenses. However, such collective action among printers continued to be opposed by the state. In the mid-1840s, for instance, the government commission that had been appointed to examine the regulation of the book trade rejected the institution of a chambre syndicale of printers as contrary to “freedom of industry.” As late as the 1850s and 1860s, the Parisian association of printers was still operating in an irregular fashion, with only fifty-some members and without government authorization. In an annual report to the general assembly in early 1857, for example, the president of this association, Thunot, could say only, “Our institution has survived, and it has been useful by that alone. The efforts that we have made for twenty years, to obtain legal recognition of our Chamber, have not yet born their fruit; let us, however, protect ourselves from discouragement.” In the provinces, associations of printers were similarly weak.24 Booksellers were no more successful than printers at organizing. In comparison to their counterparts in the German lands, for instance, retail booksellers in France were unable to form a pressure group to resist the domination of the book trade by publishers. Not until the early 1890s would book retailers establish a durable trade association. As late as 1899, a leader of this association of booksellers, called the Chambre Syndicale des Libraires de la France, was still calling for a “tighter connection and union” among its members. For much of the nineteenth century, the corporatist camp in the book trade was much less organized than the liberal one.25 While printers and booksellers were discouraged from forming a chambre syndicale, publishers were allowed to establish a formal trade association, toward the end of the July Monarchy. In the spring of 1847, a group of publishers in Paris founded a new Cercle de la Librairie. Unlike the circle of 1829,

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the new Cercle de la Librairie proved to be a durable and successful trade association. Benefiting from a political climate that was more favorable to association, at least among the liberal bourgeoisie, the new Cercle de la Librairie was tolerated by the authorities of the July Monarchy as well as of the succeeding regimes. The new Cercle de la Librairie involved the same “coterie” of entrepreneurs who had been undertaking collective activities and receiving government favors since the late 1820s, including J.-B. Baillière, Pillet Senior, Ambroise Firmin-Didot, and Laurent-Antoine Pagnerre. Pagnerre, in particular, played a large role in the foundation and organization of the new association. In addition to helping to draft the statutes and rent some rooms for the association, he was elected secretary, and then president, of the Cercle.26 Pagnerre was the orchestrator—along with the prominent publisher Louis Hachette—of one of the first acts of the new Cercle de la Librairie: the establishment of a credit institution for the publishing business, following the Revolution of 1848. After this revolution, the leaders of the Cercle petitioned the state to issue a loan to commerce as it had done in 1830 or, barring that, to establish a special bank, to revive credit. In March, the provisional government charged Pagnerre with creating and administering a Comptoir National d’Escompte (National Discount Bank) to assist small business owners who had trouble obtaining cash from existing banks and financiers in the wake of the crisis. The capital of this discount bank, which totaled twenty million francs, came in equal parts from state bonds, municipal obligations, and subscriptions from businessmen, especially in the Chamber of Commerce of Paris, which was instrumental in the creation and management of the Comptoir. In this new institution, publishers played a large role: they constituted one of the largest groups of subscribers, after bankers and merchants, and they had several representatives on the executive “discount council,” including Jean-Baptiste Baillière (who would later become a board member of the Bank of France), Langlois, and the Didot brothers. The new credit institution operated by discounting (i.e., exchanging for cash, after subtracting a “discount,” or fee, of about 5 percent) bills from businesses in Paris and the provinces that had been affixed by at least two signatures of reputable merchants. Because small businessmen often had trouble meeting this condition, the national discount bank created a number of branches, or souscomptoirs, for particular localities and industries, which served as guarantors for businessmen in exchange for deposits of deeds or goods. Not surprisingly, given Pagnerre’s role in establishing this system, one of the sous-comptoirs was de-

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voted to the book trade in Paris. Located at the Cercle de la Librairie, the souscomptoir in the book trade was administered by many of the same publishers involved in the leadership of the new trade association. Its board was composed of Baillière, Dupuy, Gratiot, Guillaumin, Joubert, Laboulaye, Langlois, Lecoffre, Mathias, and Plon, all prominent members of the Cercle. With the help of the sous-comptoir, which was organized as a share-holding corporation, substantial loans were obtained by several publishers, including Furne, Masson, Mathias, and Plon.27 The sous-comptoir in the book trade may not have made a significant difference to the finances of most publishers. Faltering as early as 1849, when a meeting of its general assembly failed to obtain a quorum, it seems to have disappeared by the mid-1850s. Out of sixty-four million francs in deposits in the sous-comptoirs of Paris from July 1851 to July 1852, only one million were in publishing. As Jean-Yves Mollier has concluded, the sous-comptoir proved “incapable, due to lack of sufficient capital, of stimulating business” in publishing. Nonetheless, the sous-comptoir de garantie reinforced the organization and identity of publishing as a branch of industry. It thus became symbolic of the influence of the “patriciate” of publishers, especially Pagnerre. Like the Cercle de la Librairie itself, it fueled criticism among printers and bookdealers of the “coterie” in publishing.28

The Lottery of 1848 Following the establishment of the Cercle de la Librairie, the attacks on this “coterie” increased in number and vehemence. Corporatist printers and booksellers denounced the publishers involved in the new association as monopolizers who engaged in “dishonest,” “immoral,” and “unfair” competition. In the late 1840s and early 1850s, the campaign against publishers was focused on one of their most controversial marketing practices: primes, or premiums, for book buyers, in the form of novelty trinkets or, more frequently, lottery tickets. In mid-nineteenth-century France, the use of a prime to market a product was by no means new. The term prime, which can mean either “venal charge” or “supplementary bonus,” originally connoted an insurance premium or export incentive. In addition, it was used to designate the return on a stock investment. By extension, a prime came to mean any kind of return—or

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bonus—for the purchase of a product. Often, the bonus took the form of a chance at winning a jackpot in a lottery. In publishing, this strategy was used to market books as early as the mid-1830s. In the spring of 1835, for example, a publishing house run by the Pourrat brothers offered premiums to subscribers of the collected works of the Romantic writer Chateaubriand. This example was imitated by a number of other publishers. In the fall of 1835, two groups of publishers (one called the “Librairie Moderne” and the other called the “Société des Éditeurs Unis”) organized lotteries to entice consumers to buy their books. According to the scheme of the Librairie Moderne, each buyer of a book priced at seven or seven and a half francs would receive a ticket good for forty-eight chances in twelve monthly drawings of five thousand francs (divided into lots of 2,000, 1,500, 1,000, and 500) or a total jackpot of sixty thousand francs. As many as twelve other such projects were organized in late 1835 and early 1836. In defense of these schemes, publishers argued that premiums in the form of lottery tickets would redistribute profits from the middleman to the customer, in the manner of a joint-stock corporation, while also encouraging reading. However, the organizers of these lotteries met with considerable opposition, both within and outside the book trade. For example, a group of booksellers in Paris signed an agreement to refuse to stock books with premiums, and in a speech to the Councils of Commerce, Manufacturing, and Agriculture in Paris, the prominent printer-publisher Ambroise Firmin-Didot denounced lotteries as an immoral and anticompetitive business practice. In response to such criticism, in May 1836 the government outlawed lotteries.29 The law against lotteries, however, left a loophole: according to Article 5 of this law, exceptions would be made for subscriptions whose proceeds were destined exclusively for charitable or artistic causes, as long as they were authorized by the administration. In the wake of the Revolution of 1848, this loophole was used by a number of publishers to market their wares, often at discounted prices, with tickets to a lottery that had been authorized by the government to benefit artists and writers. While this scheme was initially blocked by the minister of the interior under pressure from a group of printers and bookdealers, after a change in minister it was later revived under the name Union des Éditeurs. Led by Laurent-Antoine Pagnerre, the president of the Cercle de la Librairie and the founder of the sous-comptoir in publishing, this group purchased some two hundred thousand francs’ worth of tickets in

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the lottery, to offer as premiums to buyers of their books. (According to a later judicial brief, only twenty-five thousand francs’ worth of these were actually distributed with books.) Given oral approval by the minister of the interior on two separate occasions, the Union des Éditeurs overlapped in its membership with the new trade association in publishing, as well as with the various petitions, commissions, and joint-stock corporations that had been organized by publishers since the 1830s.30 Like the earlier schemes to market books with premiums, the lottery tickets offered by the Union des Éditeurs in 1848 were criticized by antiestablishment members of the book trade, especially Victor Bouton, the former employee and die-hard enemy of Laurent-Antoine Pagnerre. In a number of pamphlets and petitions, printers and bookdealers attacked the Union des Éditeurs. These critics made three basic arguments against the lottery. First, they opposed the lottery on legal grounds. Insisting that the loophole in the law of 1836 permitted lotteries only in the interest of art, not of commerce, critics of the Union des Éditeurs insisted that it was illegal. In the words of the legal publisher Warée, who had earlier opposed forgiveness of the loan of 1830 to publishers, “One cannot assimilate to an act of charity, to an encouragement to art, a speculation having for its object the well-being of a few industrialists, at the expense of the commerce of the book trade.”31 Printers and bookdealers also opposed the lottery on moral grounds, asserting that it was harmful to public order and legitimate competition. As Bouton claimed, “It is also for order [that I am preaching]. And truthfully, strange things are happening [as a result of the lottery] in the departments of France, to the detriment of public order and security.” In particular, critics argued that the lottery posed a threat to workers, who would be tempted to gamble rather than save their money. Others emphasized the anticompetitive and unethical nature of the lottery organized by the Union des Éditeurs. Repeatedly, printers and bookdealers accused the publishers involved in the lottery of “dishonest” or “unfair” competition. This argument was made, for example, by a traditional bookdealer named Louis-Théophile Barrois, a vehement opponent of the Cercle de la Librairie, who called the lottery a “disgusting traffic” that would harm “honest commerce.” Barrois aimed to prevent the lottery from “ruining” and “dishonoring” the book trade. Likewise, Victor Bouton criticized the lottery as antithetical to “honest” commerce in France. Because the members of the Union des Éditeurs employed their own agents

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or peddlers to distribute books with premiums, Bouton argued, the lottery stole business from retail booksellers, especially in the provinces. Labeling this marketing scheme a “perturbation of true work,” he insisted that it hindered “the liberty of transactions” and destroyed “the loyalty of industry” in the book trade.32 Above all, opponents of the Union des Éditeurs argued that it constituted a “coterie.” Moreover, they linked this coterie to the same group of publishers who had used collective action to win favor with the state since at least 1830. The publisher Gervais Charpentier, for example, denounced the publishers behind the lottery of 1848 as a patriciate. “If one follows the path of many of these éditeurs during the last twenty years,” Charpentier wrote in a pamphlet against the lottery: one sees them, in 1830, soliciting and obtaining a portion of the loan of thirty million francs granted by the State to commerce. In 1833, they petitioned the legislature to return their collateral to them, without paying of course, and to absolve them of their debt. In 1835, they placed their establishments up for lottery for exaggerated sums of money, and both the judiciary and the legislature were forced to intervene. Later, they flooded all of the ministries, that of M. Guizot, as well as that of M. Thiers, with requests for public subscriptions [to their works], and they obtained them. One of them thereby received more than a million francs. In 1841, several of them founded, under the name of Comptoire [sic] central de la librairie, an establishment that was, according to their prospectus and their speeches, supposed to give to publishing a formerly unheard of prosperity and splendor. Two years later, this establishment was closed, after having devoured more than one hundred thousand francs, paid, as always, by the small to the profit of the great, and the liquidation [of this establishment] will never end. In 1848, one finds again the same men demanding the creation of a [national] “comptoir d’escompte,” in large part at the risk of the State: it was granted; then, a [trade] “sous-comptoir” of loans against guarantee: it was granted. Today, it is three million francs that they need; and, as this sum would not suffice to satisfy them, they address themselves to the most insatiable of all vices, counting on the infirmity of human reason to triple and even sextuple this sum.

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Similar terms were used by the bookdealer Barrois to attack the publishers in the Union des Éditeurs. “They published advertisements worthy of charlatans,” Barrois wrote in one of his pamphlets against the lottery: They hung over the shops of the Éditeurs-Unis calico banners, as do entertainers, when, wanting to attract the money of the public, they announce the extraordinary exposition of some marvelous trick. These messieurs, I agree, are the big wigs of the book trade. We others are only the small people; but we have the law on our side, it is clear, it is positive; the judicial power, which has governed us almost single-handedly for the last twenty years, is independent of all of the calculations of money of a coterie that wants to procure some for itself at any price. The same argument was repeated by the bookdealer Warée: “In 1830, after the revolution of July, the book trade endured the commercial crisis, it also received its share of the loan of 30,000,000. The publishers admitted then are again today the most devoted partisans of the subscription with premiums. . . . In 1848 as well as in 1830, the publishers who are members of the Cercle de la Librairie resplendent in luxury have exploited political events, by looking to connect them to the causes of their distress.” While Warée admitted that this was a clever move, he argued that these publishers were responsible for their own difficulties. The connection between the lottery and the elite in publishing was also made by Victor Bouton, in his attack on the “big fish” of the Cercle de la Librairie. Elsewhere, Bouton accused “Sir Pagnerre and his consorts” in the Union des Éditeurs of forming “a monopoly to the detriment of a corps d’état.”33 Encouraged by Bouton, printers and booksellers throughout France campaigned against the Union des Éditeurs. In 1849, a group of bookdealers in the town of Le Mans sent a petition to the minister of the interior against the participation by publishers in the “lottery for artists.” According to Bouton, this petition was supported by bookdealers in other provincial towns, including Nantes, Metz, Tours, and Blois. A similar complaint was forwarded to the Chamber of Deputies by a group of bookdealers in Paris, including Barrois and Charpentier. This petition, which denounced the Union des Éditeurs as a “gaming monopoly” whose end was “enriching themselves by ruining others,” was signed by several members of the Cercle de la Librairie, who were

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subsequently taken to task by the administrative council for violating the association’s “goal of maintaining between all the members sentiments of union and of fraternity.” As this example suggests, the debate over the lottery exacerbated the divisions in the book trade, between Paris and countryside as well as between big publishers and small bookdealers. During the controversy over the lottery, the bookdealers of Le Mans, for instance, attacked the trade journal the Journal de la librairie for failing to represent the interests of provincial as opposed to Parisian members of the book trade. In response, the publishers in the Union des Éditeurs implied that at least one of the Le Mans bookdealers had pirated their work on behalf of Belgian publishers. As the accusations between the two sides flew back and forth, Bouton wrote to the Journal to reiterate his “support [for] the lambs against the wolves, the right of the weak against the abuses of the strong.” Finally, after the publishers Bohain and Mirès, who had used lottery tickets to market remaindered books, were found guilty by a correctional court in Paris of violating the law, Bouton initiated his own lawsuit against the Union des Éditeurs.34 To counter the campaign against the lottery, the Union launched a campaign of its own against Bouton and his associates. First, in late 1849, it sued Bouton for libel. About the same time, the Union decided that all proceeds from sales of books with lottery tickets would be donated to the Cercle de la Librairie. In early 1850, following the verdict against Bohain and Mirès for distributing remaindered books with lottery tickets, the Union des Éditeurs wrote a letter to the prosecutor of the Republic to defend the legality and morality of the publishers’ actions. In response to this verdict, these publishers announced that they would cease offering lottery tickets as premiums. Reacting to the attacks by the booksellers of Le Mans, the Union des Éditeurs also published a letter to the editor of the official trade publication, the Journal de la librairie, in which they claimed that the lottery was not an “odious monopoly” but “only an application of the principle, common in the book trade, that the discount should increase in proportion to the size of purchase.” In their effort to defend themselves, the publishers in the Union des Éditeurs were supported by the Cercle de la Librairie, of which they themselves were prominent members. In the summer of 1850, the officers of the Cercle appointed a committee to determine whether these publishers had committed any wrongdoing. Not surprisingly, given that many of the officers of the Cercle de la Librairie were involved in the Union des Éditeurs, the committee found nothing wrong with the lottery. Of course, such support from

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the Cercle de la Librairie only fueled criticism among printers and booksellers that this association represented a coterie in the book trade.35 Initially, the campaign against the lottery met with success. In the case brought by Bouton against the Union des Éditeurs (in which Charpentier, Barrois, and other bookdealers were called as witnesses), the eighth chamber of the court of correctional police for the department of the Seine ruled that the sale of books with tickets for a lottery was a crime, according to the law of 21 May 1836 as well as Article 410 of the Napoleonic Penal Code. For this crime, the publishers in the Union des Éditeurs were sentenced to fines of one hundred francs each, plus damages. According to a new electoral law passed shortly thereafter, they also lost their voting rights. The judgment against the Union des Éditeurs was upheld on appeal to the Cour d’Appel de Paris. However, on 9 August 1850, it was annulled by the highest court in France, the Cour de Cassation, and sent for retrial to the Cour d’Appel d’Orléans, which ruled in favor of the Union des Éditeurs. In its decision, the court argued that because the lottery had been authorized by the government and did not infringe on freedom of commerce, it was legal. In addition to losing his case against the Union, Bouton was found guilty of libel, in two separate cases, for his publications against these publishers. In April 1850, in a case initiated by the publisher Bixio, Bouton was sentenced to six months in prison, damages of four thousand francs (reduced to two thousand francs upon appeal), and fines of one thousand francs. In another libel case brought by the Union des Éditeurs later the same year, Bouton was sentenced to another six months in prison plus five hundred francs in fines. His printers, Beaulé and Meignan, who were presumed to have known that their client was “defamation incarnate,” as the prosecutor asserted, were also sentenced to pay fines and damages. Following these verdicts, publishers were allowed to continue offering premiums—including tickets to authorized lotteries—with their books. There is evidence from the early 1850s that both the minister of the interior and the prefect of police remained concerned about publishers who were marketing books with premiums, often without the proper licenses. But their concern never resulted in any systematic action against publishers offering premiums. On the issue of lotteries, the “big fish” of the Cercle de la Librairie had defeated their opponents.36

In the end, the corporatist rebel Bouton proved no match for the liberal entrepreneur Pagnerre and his cohort. Following the conclusion of their legal

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battle over the lottery of 1848, Pagnerre and Bouton went their separate ways: Pagnerre into the heights of the business world, Bouton into the depths of the radical underground. At one end of the spectrum was Pagnerre, who remained a leader of the book trade. Resigning from the government upon the election of Louis-Napoléon Bonaparte as president of the republic in December 1848, he devoted the rest of his life to the publishing trade association that he had helped to found. In addition to retaining his position as director of the sous-comptoir in publishing, he held the office of president of the Cercle de la Librairie until his death at the age of forty-nine on 29 September 1854. At that point, his mantle as leader of the book trade was assumed by various other members of the “coterie” in publishing, including his partner in the administration of the sous-comptoir, Louis Hachette, who would become increasingly powerful in the trade in the late 1850s and early 1860s. At the other end of the spectrum was Bouton, who remained a denizen of Grub Street. When he could not pay the fines and damages associated with his libel case, he was imprisoned for debt in 1853. Remaining in prison for five years, he was apparently pressured into becoming a secret informer for the government of the Second Empire. Once out of prison, he struggled on the margins of the book trade and the art world, undertaking the production of various periodicals and collections related to heraldry. More and more embittered, he continued to rail against the establishment until his death several decades later. In a “Testament” published in 1870 to warn the new republican government to defend itself against reactionaries, Bouton wrote, “I will fall, one will kill me; but at least when I am no longer here, you will say to those who will strike me down that I remained a revolutionary, and that I conducted myself like an old member of the Convention [of 1793], repeating these words: Perish my memory, as long as my country is saved!”37 The divergent paths of Pagnerre and Bouton foreshadow the history of the book trade in the second half of the nineteenth century in France. Despite the attack on the “coterie” described in this chapter, publishers would remain better organized than printers and booksellers. With the help of their new trade association, the Cercle de la Librairie, they would increase the pressure on the state to deregulate the market for books. This association would prove instrumental, for example, in persuading the government to extend the term of literary property rights and to abolish the licensing requirement for printers and bookdealers several decades later.

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However, the criticism of publishers as a coterie was not without effect. As the next chapter will show, such criticism pushed publishers to link their association to the “corporation” of the book trade as a whole. To defuse the attack on the Cercle de la Librairie, they adopted elements of the “corporate idiom” of more traditional printers and booksellers. Into their new businessmen’s association, they incorporated language and symbolism from the trade guild of the Old Regime. Combining this corporate idiom with the structures and practices of both a bourgeois leisure association and a modern professional syndicate, the leaders of the Cercle de la Librairie forged a new kind of trade organization, which proved highly effective at protecting the interests of its main constituency: publishers.

4 The Cercle de la Librairie

In the development of the conflict between corporatists and liberals in the book trade, a decisive factor was the foundation, in 1847, of the Cercle de la Librairie. One of the first publishing trade organizations anywhere, this association purported to represent all of the book occupations.1 Its official title was the Cercle de la librairie, de l’imprimerie, de la papeterie, de la fonderie, et de toutes les industries qui se rattachent à la publication des oeuvres de la littérature, des sciences, et des arts (or Circle of Publishing, of Printing, of PaperManufacturing, of Type-Founding, and of All the Industries Connected to the Publication of Works of Literature, Science, and Art). From the beginning, however, this association was organized by and for publishers. Most of its members were partisans of the liberal as opposed to the corporatist camp in the book trade. Under the influence of these publishers, the Cercle de la Librairie pursued the liberal agenda, including the abolition of licensing requirements and the extension of literary property rights. During the second half of the nineteenth century, it proved to be an effective promoter of the interests of publishers. Despite its importance to the history of the book in nineteenth-century France, however, the Cercle de la Librairie has not been studied in any depth. Aside from a few brief overviews and scattered references, this association has received little attention from book historians, in part because its records were unavailable to researchers until the mid-1990s, when they were acquired by the Institut Mémoires de l’Édition Contemporaine (Institute for the Memory of Contemporary Publishing). Based on extensive research in the heretofore unexploited archives of the association, this chapter tells the story of the Cercle de la Librairie, from its establishment in 1847 until the end of the nineteenth century. Situating this organization within the broader context of

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associational life in nineteenth-century France, I show how the Cercle de la Librairie negotiated the official restrictions on trade organizations to become a successful institution for publishers.2 When the Cercle de la Librairie was founded in 1847, association within a single trade was constrained by the political culture. Following the abolition of privilege during the Revolution, any kind of “intermediary body” between the individual and the state was viewed with suspicion. In 1791, organization by workers in the same trade was prohibited by the Le Chapelier Law. This constraint on association was reinforced by Article 291 of the Napoleonic Code in 1810, which outlawed any meeting of more than twenty people without official authorization, and by a law of April 1834, which prohibited the subdivision of associations into sections of fewer than twenty members to circumvent the Napoleonic Code. By the end of the nineteenth century, in contrast, the political culture was more accepting of the notion of collective representation within a trade. The first step toward the recognition of occupational associations was taken in 1868, when the Second Empire legalized meetings of chambres syndicales, or trade unions. Then, in 1884, the government of the Third Republic created a new juridical entity called the syndicat professionnel, or professional syndicate, which soon became widespread as a form of association among entrepreneurs as well as workers. Following this law, the number of such syndicates among employers alone grew from 101 to almost 1,400 in the next decade.3 Through this shifting political landscape, the Cercle de la Librairie was able to maneuver, thanks to a peculiar and fluid amalgamation of institutional forms. The Cercle succeeded by combining the structures, discourses, and practices of three different types of associations: a prerevolutionary trade corporation, a bourgeois leisure association called a “circle,” and a modern professional syndicate. Despite the fact that it represented liberal entrepreneurs, the Cercle de la Librairie reappropriated elements of what William H. Sewell Jr. has termed the “corporate idiom”: the language, symbolism, rituals, and activities of the old craft guilds.4 With this backward-looking idiom, however, it mixed the more modern discourses and practices of the bourgeois circle and the professional syndicate. Depending on the context, the Cercle might emphasize one of these idioms over the others. In the beginning, for example, the idiom of the old “corporation” helped the Cercle to defuse criticism from corporatist printers and bookdealers that it represented only the

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elite of publishing, while the idiom of the circle helped it to avoid repression by the authorities, which were more tolerant of social organizations than of occupational ones. As the institution of the professional syndicate gained acceptance in the political culture, the models of the guild and the circle became less important to the Cercle. Through the end of the nineteenth century, however, the leaders of the Cercle continued to mix all three idioms. In this way, they forged a durable institution for publishers. This association survived across the Revolution of 1848, through the Second Empire, into the Third Republic, and beyond. Although it is no longer as influential as it was during its heyday at the turn of the nineteenth century, it still exists as a professional association today. The story of the Cercle de la Librairie challenges some common assumptions about association among businessmen in nineteenth-century France. First, it shows that the so-called corporate idiom was by no means limited to workers. This idiom was also appropriated by employers, including new entrepreneurs who had no connection to—or interest in—the old guilds. Second, the story of the Cercle illustrates that nineteenth-century French businessmen were not as individualistic and unsociable as the long-standing stereotype of them suggests. Despite the obstacles to association, they cooperated together to a significant extent. In fact, if the book trade is any indication, French entrepreneurs were more effective at organizing than their English and American counterparts. Moreover, the story of the Cercle demonstrates that not all employers’ organizations were protectionist. Such organizations were not necessarily motivated by fear of workers or support for tariffs. In the case of the Cercle, businessmen associated in support of free trade, at home and abroad. Such association among businessmen thus contributed to the establishment of a free market. It also contributed to the growth of a civil society. A distinctly bourgeois and masculine form of sociability, the Cercle de la Librairie educated its members in democratic practices while also integrating them into civic affairs—for example, through its connections with such commercial institutions as the Chamber of Commerce, the Tribunal de Commerce, and the Comptoir National d’Escompte. By illuminating the role of such business associations in civil society, the history of the Cercle de la Librairie reinforces the conclusions of recent scholarship that the development of associational life was instrumental in the emergence of representative government.5

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The Foundation and Organization of the Cercle de la Librairie Paradoxically, the new association of liberal bourgeois publishers was initiated by a corporatist bookdealer named Hébrard. A commission agent and used bookseller, Hébrard specialized in the sale of stocks of books obtained at public auction. From July 1846 to June 1847, he also published a monthly trade advertiser called the Bulletin de la librairie, which was intended to provide bookdealers with an alternative to the official Bibliographie de la France for publicizing their wares. Like many traditional bookdealers, Hébrard was nostalgic for the Old Regime in the book trade. In the winter of 1847, he initiated a campaign to restore the old corporate order in this trade. The motives for this campaign were outlined in his pamphlet “On Publishing, Its Former Prosperity, Its Current State, Causes of Its Decadence, Means of Its Regeneration,” published in the spring of 1847. In this pamphlet, Hébrard argued that the book trade had degenerated since the French Revolution. Locating the “height of the splendor” of the book trade in the eighteenth century, he bemoaned the “ruin” of the trade since 1789. To remedy this “ruin,” he proposed a combination of state regulation and corporate reorganization. In particular, he advocated the creation of a new chambre syndicale, along the lines of the prerevolutionary book guild. In the conclusion to the pamphlet, he wrote, “Let us first rebuild on the foundation of the old edifice, men will come spontaneously, capable of reconstructing it and returning it to its former luster. . . . Under the benevolent protection of the government, a chambre syndicale will do the rest.” To discuss the creation of such an organization, Hébrard had already called a series of meetings of members of the book trade at his shop at 13, rue de Savoie.6 Responding to Hébrard’s call for a chambre syndicale, several major publishers in Paris began to organize a new association for the book trade. Toward the end of January 1847, seventeen members of the book trade held a preliminary meeting at Hébrard’s shop to discuss his proposal. In a subsequent meeting at Hébrard’s on 23 March, nineteen members of the trade voted to found a new “cercle de la librairie.” To draft the statutes of this association, they appointed a committee of five publishers: J.-B. Baillière, Jules Delalain, Charles Hingray, Mathias, and Laurent-Antoine Pagnerre. On 1 April, the statutes proposed by this committee were approved by an assembly of seventy-one members of the book trade at the mairie of the 11th (now 6th) arrondissement in

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Paris. Electing the scientific publisher J.-B. Baillière as president of its “committee of organization,” this assembly decided that the new circle would be established as soon as it had one hundred members, of whom at least fifty must be “founders” who had purchased a share in the association. Immediately, sixty members of the book trade joined the association. Of these, half agreed to be founders. Over the next few weeks, a number of meetings were held to attract new members to the organization. By 22 April, the goal of over one hundred members, including fifty founders, had been attained. On 5 May, the association held its first general assembly, again at the mairie of the 11th arrondissement. Attended by sixty-seven members, this assembly signed the association’s act of incorporation and elected its first officers: Ambroise Firmin-Didot, president; J.-B. Baillière and Charles Hingray, vice presidents; Laurent-Antoine Pagnerre, secretary; and Pierre-Augustin-Jacques-François Pillet (known as Pillet Senior), treasurer. By the end of May, a committee led by the secretary Pagnerre had found a meeting place for the group, at 5, rue des Petits-Augustins (now rue Bonaparte). On 6 August, the association was inaugurated with a party attended by some 150 people. Less than a year after the first meeting called by Hébrard to found a chambre syndicale for the book trade, the Cercle de la Librairie was constituted.7 The new Cercle de la Librairie, however, was not the kind of chambre syndicale that Hébrard had envisioned. A voluntary association rather than a statesponsored guild, it was a social club as much as a professional organization. For its organizers, the Cercle de la Librairie had two distinct, albeit overlapping, goals: to encourage relations between members of the book trade and to promote the trade’s interests. The Cercle was organized like a shareholding corporation. According to its statutes, it was funded by subscriptions from founding members who purchased shares in the association priced at two hundred francs each, in exchange for interest of 5 percent per year. The capital generated by these subscriptions was used to fund the facilities and amenities of the Cercle, which were open to members from 8 a.m. to midnight daily. Like other bourgeois associations, the Cercle de la Librairie embodied a tension between exclusion and equality. Membership in the Cercle was selective. It was restricted to practitioners of the book trade who had been sponsored by two members of the association and then approved by secret ballot in a general assembly. Membership was also limited by the association’s dues, which were initially set at one hundred francs, plus a facility fee of fifty francs (reduced to

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twenty-five francs for “founders” who had purchased a share in the association), per year. Within its membership, however, the association was democratic. The Cercle was governed by a conseil d’administration, or administrative council, of fifteen members: one president, two vice presidents, one secretary, one treasurer, and ten counselors. These officers were elected by a majority vote of the general assembly of the association on an annual basis. Meetings were run according to parliamentary procedure.8 In contrast to the earlier attempt by publishers to found a cercle, the new Cercle de la Librairie was a durable and successful organization. Surviving the Revolution of 1848, the association grew in size and influence over the next several decades. By May 1848, it had 157 members. By 1868, this number had grown to 209, plus another 200 corresponding members in the provinces. By 1881, the Cercle had 317 regular members. In 1856, the association did face a serious crisis, when it discovered that its salaried manager had misappropriated its funds. As a result of this crisis, the association reconstituted itself, with a new group of founders and a new set of statutes. At the same time, the association moved its premises down the street, to 1, rue des PetitsAugustins (Bonaparte). In the late 1870s, the Cercle de la Librairie realized a long-time dream of obtaining a building of its own. Under the leadership of the chiefs of the Hachette publishing firm, Louis Bréton and Georges Hachette, a separate shareholding association was formed to raise money for the construction of such a building, on the corner of the new boulevard SaintGermain and the rue Grégoire-de-Tours. The total cost was 640,000 francs, which was divided into shares of one thousand francs. Designed by the renowned architect Charles Garnier, of Paris Opera fame, the new building for the Cercle de la Librairie was inaugurated in December 1879. It was expanded in 1895 and again in the twentieth century. It is still standing at 117, boulevard Saint-Germain today.9 Although its legal status remained somewhat questionable, the new Cercle de la Librairie was accepted by the authorities. In 1854, it received official authorization from the prefect of police in Paris. For years, the association tried but failed to obtain identification as an institution of “public utility,” a status that would have allowed it to own property. With the legalization of professional syndicates in 1884, however, the Cercle de la Librairie was recognized as a trade organization. After a slight modification of its statutes, it obtained the legal status of a “civil personality,” which enabled it to buy, sell, and inherit

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property. But alongside this new function as a professional syndicate it retained its role as a social organization, at least until the early 1890s, when a new tax on leisure associations pushed it to abandon the amenities that classified it as such. Although the association maintained its title as a cercle, it transformed itself into an umbrella organization for a number of specialized syndicates in the book trade, including a Syndicat des Éditeurs (Syndicate of Publishers), a Syndicat des Libraires Détaillants (Syndicate of Retail Booksellers), and a Union des Maîtres Imprimeurs (Union of Master Printers). By 1899, the Cercle de la Librairie had approximately thirty such affiliates.10 As its official title suggests, the Cercle de la Librairie, de l’Imprimerie, de la Papeterie, et cetera, was supposed to embrace and represent members of all of the occupations involved in the book trade. From the beginning, however, it was controlled by publishers. With the exception of a few printers and bookdealers who were descendants of members of the old guild, most of the founders of the Cercle were new publishing entrepreneurs. The main corporatist behind the association, Hébrard, quickly disappeared from its ranks. Disgruntled that the chambre syndicale he had proposed had degenerated into “a place of dissipation, a reason for spending and gambling,” he was no longer a member of the Cercle in late 1848. Soon afterward, Hébrard apparently went bankrupt, then died of cholera. The new association’s leadership also consisted mainly of publishers. Although the first president, Ambroise Firmin-Didot, was a printer-publisher whose family had been in the book trade since the eighteenth century, he was soon succeeded by the republican publisher Pagnerre (the “big fish” who was denounced by the radical bookdealer Victor Bouton), who served in this office until his death in 1854. During the first half-century of its existence, the Cercle de la Librairie was presided over by some of the most prominent publishers in Paris, including the educational and trade publisher Louis Hachette and several of his associates and descendants (Louis Bréton, Georges Hachette, and Armand Templier), the scientific publisher Georges Masson, and the literary publisher Louis-Jules Hetzel. Likewise, the rank and file of the association were dominated by publishers. The requirements for membership alone restricted involvement in the Cercle de la Librairie to the most prominent members of the book trade, many of whom specialized in publishing. Of the original 119 members, sixtyeight were libraires-éditeurs, compared with eighteen printers and fourteen paper manufacturers. Publishers consistently constituted at least one-third of

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the membership of the Cercle, while printers constituted less than 20 percent. In 1881, for instance, 119 out of 317 members were libraires, while only sixtyseven were some type of printer. In 1886, 35 percent of the members were libraires, while only 18 percent were imprimeurs; another 7 percent were hybrid libraires-imprimeurs. Of course, the category of “libraires” included booksellers as well as publishers. Although precise information on the occupational identity of the membership of the Cercle is difficult to obtain, however, it is clear that publishing was the prevailing specialization in the association, especially in its administration.11 In addition to being dominated by publishers, the Cercle was also centered in Paris. From the beginning, it did invite members of the book trade in the provinces to visit the Cercle whenever they came to Paris. However, the association never effectively involved provincials in its activities. Although it claimed that “it was not in the exclusive interest of the bookdealers, printers, paper-manufacturers, and type-founders, etc., of Paris that our Cercle was founded, [but] in the general interest of all the industries that are included there,” the Cercle de la Librairie really represented the publishing business in the capital.12 Because it was dominated by elite Parisian publishers, the Cercle de la Librairie came under criticism from other members of the book trade. No sooner had it been established than the association was opposed by traditional printers and booksellers. One of the first critics of the Cercle was the bookdealer Théophile Barrois, whose family had been in the book trade for centuries. In a series of pamphlets written in response to the efforts by Hébrard to reorganize the book trade, Barrois maintained that a circle was the wrong approach to take to improve the trade, because it would inevitably be limited to an elite of rentiers, or pensioners, who were the only people who could afford the money and leisure required to participate in this type of association. Attacking the “luxury” of such a circle, he instead proposed the establishment of a “lloyd,” a sort of commercial exchange, where businessmen could trade information about their correspondents and goods. This “lloyd,” which would be open exclusively to bookdealers, not printers, would require dues of only five francs per month. Despite Barrois’ opposition, the Cercle was established. However, his criticism of the Cercle de la Librairie was echoed by numerous other printers and bookdealers, especially in the provinces, over the years.13

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The Corporate Idiom of a Guild To counter such criticism, the Cercle de la Librairie relied heavily on the idiom of the “corporation” of the book trade. Ironically, one of the main inspirations for the new bourgeois circle was the corporate idiom of the prerevolutionary book guild. Although the new association was composed largely of entrepreneurs in publishing who had no connection to the old guild, it made extensive use of the forms and practices of the corporation of the book trade. The organizers of the Cercle did not—and could not, given the political context— resurrect whole cloth the chambre syndicale of the Old Regime, as the corporatist founder Hébrard had hoped. Nonetheless, they incorporated into their new association numerous elements of the old corporation, including language, symbolism, historiography, rituals, and activities. Although the new association was by no means a reincarnation of the guild, it represented “an honorable tradition of the former corporation of printing and bookdealing and of the paternal administration of its guild,” as the industrialist printer Paul Dupont wrote in a history of printing published in 1854. The corporate idiom enabled the Cercle de la Librairie to invent a tradition for itself, as a descendant of the Paris Book Guild.14 The corporate idiom of the Cercle de la Librairie is most obvious in the rhetoric used by its leaders. Much like workers in mid-nineteenth-century France, the entrepreneurs in the Cercle reappropriated the language of the prerevolutionary craft guilds in their effort to forge a new kind of association for themselves. In meetings, assemblies, publications, and events, they employed such words as “family,” “corps,” “solidarity,” “loyalty,” “brotherhood,” and “fraternity” to characterize their organization. Such language was especially pervasive in the speeches given by the leaders of the Cercle before general assemblies and on special occasions. For instance, it was used by the first president Ambroise Firmin-Didot in a report to the membership in June 1849, in which he urged the members of the Cercle to “tighten more and more those ties of brotherhood [confraternité] that unite us, in order to obtain by mutual assistance results which isolated efforts could not attain.” To take another example, a similar report in January 1853 by the second president, Laurent-Antoine Pagnerre, used a number of corporate terms to advocate the utility of cooperation: “And if new perils necessitated new efforts,” he admonished, “it is again to the ties that bind together our diverse industries, to the

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habits of brotherhood [confraternité] that bring us incessantly together, to the sentiments of union that animate us, finally, to the institution that tightens these ties, creates these habits and fortifies this union, on which it would be necessary to call, certain to find in this bundle [faisceau] of all our forces the spontaneous, active, and persevering initiative which, alone, could yet save us.” In this speech, a particularly noteworthy term is faisceau. Derived from the Latin word fasces, the word literally connoted a bundle of sticks but also symbolized the power of cooperation. Although this term was rare in the discourse of the leadership of the Cercle, it suggests the strength of corporatism in the association.15 A more common word in the records of the Cercle was corporation. Like workers, the entrepreneurs in the Cercle used this word (which, as Sewell emphasizes, came into usage during and after the Revolution) to mean both the trade as a whole and the guild—or other institution—that represented it. For example, they referred to the Cercle as the “corporation” of the book trade, to deflect criticism that the association was elitist. In another imitation of the language of the old guild, the members of the Cercle called each other confrères, or brothers, as in this address by Pagnerre in November 1851: “This year as in the preceding ones, we are happy, dear Confrères, to note the relations of benevolence, friendship, and fraternity, which have been established between the members of our Society.” On occasion, the members of the Cercle even called their president a syndic, the title of the chief officer of the old guild.16 The symbolism of the Cercle de la Librairie was also reminiscent of that of the prerevolutionary book corporation. In fact, the founders of the Cercle took as their emblem a medal created by the Paris Book Guild on the occasion of the royal decree on the book trade in 1723: on one side of the medal was the coat of arms of both the city and the University of Paris; on the other side was a sun and a book, accompanied by the words Ex Utroque Lux (“Out of This, Light”). These words became the motto of the Cercle. The iconography of the medal of 1723 was used over and over, in mementoes and monuments for the Cercle. For example, it appeared on jetons, or tokens, given to its officers and honorees; on the title pages of its publications; and on the programs for its special events. It was also incorporated into a frieze above the door of the hôtel that was designed by Garnier for the Cercle de la Librairie on the boulevard Saint-Germain. The hôtel incorporated other references to the

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[To view this image, refer to the print version of this title.]

Figure 4.1. Emblem of the Cercle de la Librairie (1847), inspired by the medal of the Paris Book Guild issued in 1723 on the occasion of the promulgation of the royal regulation on bookselling and printing. Fonds Cercle de la Librairie, Archives IMEC.

prerevolutionary book corporation, too. Around the outside of the edifice were carved the names of the masters of the early printing trade, including Didot, Gutenberg, Manuce, Elzevier, and Estienne. Inside the building, over the mantle of the fireplace in the billiard room was a painting of the “tree of science,” with the arms of the former guilds of bookdealers and public writers of Paris suspended from its branches. Around this same room, a frieze displayed the monograms of the first printers and booksellers of Paris. With such imagery, the Cercle de la Librairie positioned itself as a descendant of the old Paris Book Guild.17 (See Figures 4.1–4.5.) The Cercle also continued the tradition of the old guild by commemorating and researching its history. For example, it elected as its first president a member of the Didot family of printers, which had been prominent in the Paris Book Guild before the Revolution, in “memory of the services rendered by [his] ancestors to the diverse branches of the typographical art.” In 1885, as the descendant of the old guild the Cercle de la Librairie participated in the groundbreaking ceremony for an addition to the Sorbonne, whose history was intertwined with that of the corporation. For its library, the Cercle collected

[To view this image, refer to the print version of this title.]

Figure 4.2. Title page of the book trade directory, Annuaire de la librairie, published by the Cercle de la Librairie in 1875, with emblem of the Cercle. Fonds Cercle de la Librairie, Archives IMEC.

[To view this image, refer to the print version of this title.]

Figure 4.3. Souvenir from a banquet sponsored by the Cercle de la Librairie, 23 April 1894, with the emblem of the Cercle. Fonds Cercle de la Librairie, Archives IMEC.

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[To view this image, refer to the print version of this title.]

Figure 4.4. Photograph of the Hôtel du Cercle de la Librairie, 117, boulevard Saint-Germain, Paris. Département des estampes et de la photographie, Bibliothèque nationale de France.

records and memorabilia from the prerevolutionary book corporation, including medals and trademarks. In its trade journal, it reproduced documents related to the history of the book trade, such as a charter between the stationers and the University of Paris dating from 1275. It also published numerous historiographical articles and pamphlets on such topics as the trademarks

[To view this image, refer to the print version of this title.]

Figure 4.5. Detail of the façade of the Hôtel du Cercle de la Librairie, by Charles Garnier, from the Revue générale de l’architecture et des travaux publics (4th series, vol. 7, 1880). Département des estampes et de la photographie, Bibliothèque nationale de France.

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used by early modern printers and bookdealers, the locales occupied by the Paris Book Guild, and the origins of the Bibliographie de la France. Many of these publications were authored by Paul Delalain, a fourth-generation printerpublisher who acted as unofficial historian for the Cercle de la Librairie from the 1870s until the 1910s. Among his most important historical publications was a directory of printers and bookdealers during the French Revolution (from 1789 to 1811), which traced the membership of the trade between the publication of the famous catalog by Augustin-Martin Lottin in 1788 and the official directory commissioned by Napoleon in 1813.18 In addition to reviving the language, symbolism, and history of the Paris Book Guild, the Cercle de la Librairie assumed some of the functions of the old guild, including credit and training. For instance, it revived the corporate practice of facilitating loans to members of the book trade: following the Revolution of 1848, it sponsored the sous-comptoir d’escompte, or branch discount bank, in publishing. In keeping with the tradition of the old guild, the Cercle also provided information and education to members of the book trade. For instance, it published semiregular trade directories, which were modeled on those “published each year, before 1789, by the old community of printers and booksellers of Paris, whose chambre syndicale was located on the rue du Foin Saint-Jacques [in the neighborhood of the University].” Although it did not resurrect the apprenticeship system in the book trade, the Cercle did assume some of the educational function of the old guild by sponsoring lectures on topics of interest to members of the trade, by granting scholarships to vocational schools to the sons of workers in the trade, and (in the early twentieth century) by organizing courses on bookselling and publishing for employees in the trade. Of course, such activities were now voluntary and informal, rather than obligatory and official as they had been under the guild. Moreover, they were organized on behalf not of traditional artisans and merchants but of liberal entrepreneurs in publishing. The lectures, for example, often promoted liberal policies in the book trade. Nonetheless, many of the activities of the Cercle were inspired by the corporate practices of the Old Regime.19 The revival of corporate practices in the Cercle de la Librairie was most apparent in its charitable activities. Like the Paris Book Guild before it, the Cercle provided both paternalist and mutual aid for members of the book trade and their families. For example, it routinely offered secours, or financial

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assistance, to people affiliated with the trade who were in need, especially retirees and widows. Soon after it was founded, the Cercle established a special caisse, or fund, for such assistance. To maintain this fund, it persistently requested donations and occasionally organized fund-raisers. In addition, the Cercle helped to create separate mutual aid and retirement funds for workers and employees in the book trade. Finally, it administered nonmonetary assistance to families in the trade. For instance, during the Franco-Prussian War, it distributed foodstuffs donated by British publishers to workers in the trade; beginning in the 1880s, it placed elderly employees and widows in a retirement home established by the will of the publisher Galignani; and in the early twentieth century, it administered an orphanage for the book industries. With these various charitable activities, the Cercle de la Librairie continued the guild’s tradition of providing for the “family” of the book trade.20 Like the guild before it, the Cercle de la Librairie constituted a “moral community.” Following the tradition of the guild, this community observed the annual holiday of the old patron saint of the book trade, Saint-Jean-PorteLatine, on 6 May, with banquets and alms. In a spirit of solidarity, the membership of the Cercle also rejoiced and mourned together through all of the major events of their lives. When a member married off a child (often to an offspring of another businessman in the book trade), for example, he usually invited his “brothers” in the Cercle to the wedding, and he sometimes made a charitable donation to the association’s aid fund. The association also celebrated the careers of “elder” members and loyal employees. In 1868, for instance, it participated in a “family party” for one of its founders, J.-B. Baillière, on the occasion of the fiftieth anniversary of his publishing firm. The previous year, a similar “family party” was held in honor of a bookstore clerk named Pierre Roussel, on the occasion of his retirement after forty-one years of service to the Aillaud firm.21 In solidifying the moral community of the book trade, the Cercle de la Librairie played an even more important role at the time of death. Although the new association did not usually pay for the funeral of a member, as the old guild had done, it still exhibited the “seemingly obsessive concern with funerals” that was characteristic of the corporate idiom, according to Sewell. The Cercle commemorated its deceased members with eulogies, obituaries, mementoes, and statues. It also sent formal condolences to the deceased’s families

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and dispatched collective delegations to their funeral services and processions. In 1864, for example, most of the members of the Cercle attended the funeral of its president, Louis Hachette, at which one of the eulogies was given by the prôte, or chief, of the printing shop of Lahure (who had printed most of the books published by Hachette), in the name of “all those who contribute to the manufacture of the book.” At the funeral for another leader of the association, Ambroise Firmin-Didot, in 1876, the cortège was followed by the administrative council of the Cercle (as well as of the Chambre des Imprimeurs, to which Firmin-Didot had also belonged), and a eulogy was given by the current president of the Cercle, Jules Basset. Such rituals were intended not only to honor the dead but to reunite the living, as the speeches delivered on these occasions reveal. Take, for example, the eulogy for the publisher Charles Furne (who had produced Balzac’s Comédie humaine in the 1840s), delivered at his funeral in 1859 by the printer Jules Claye on behalf of the Cercle, which began, “All of us, Messieurs, whom this tomb brings together, all of us who represent a family, friends, confrères, let us associate our regrets and our tears.” In emphasizing the familial and fraternal nature of the funeral, Claye (like other members of the Cercle on other such occasions) echoed the corporate idiom not just of the prerevolutionary guilds but of contemporary workers’ associations, which likewise used death as an occasion to increase their sense of moral solidarity.22 Long after Hébrard’s nostalgia for the Paris Book Guild inspired the foundation of the Cercle de la Librairie, the corporate idiom persisted in this new association. Although it was dominated by a new brand of éditeur who was by no means nostalgic for the order of the Old Regime, the Cercle nonetheless borrowed elements of the prerevolutionary book guild in an effort to legitimate itself. Countering criticism that it represented a “coterie” in publishing, the Cercle employed language such as “corporation,” “family,” and “fraternity” to demonstrate that it embraced the entire book trade. To solidify this “corporation,” it adopted some of the functions of the old guild, including arbitration, almsgiving, and funeral rituals. As a means of inventing a tradition for itself, the Cercle also revived the symbolism and history of the prerevolutionary book trade. In the context of postrevolutionary France, the corporate idiom of the Cercle may seem antiquated or quaint. But it played a crucial role in forging what was ultimately a very modern trade association.

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The Bourgeois Idiom of a Cercle As its very name indicates, though, the Cercle de la Librairie was never a replica of the old corporation in the book trade. However much they employed the corporate idiom in their new association, the new éditeurs in the Cercle realized that it was not possible—let alone desirable—to resurrect the old book guild in mid-nineteenth-century France. With the exception of Hébrard, the founders of the Cercle de la Librairie harbored no regrets about the demise of the guild since the Revolution. Recognizing that the form of the guild was no longer feasible in the postrevolutionary context, they adopted another, more liberal, mode of organization in their effort to forge a community in the book trade: the voluntary association. This mode of organization was more compatible with the political culture of individualism—and hence more palatable to the state. Under both the July Monarchy and the Second Empire, the idiom of the voluntary association enabled publishers to fraternize and cooperate with each other, despite severe restrictions on trade organizations.23 In publishing, the new voluntary association took the form of a cercle, or circle. Imported during the Restoration from England (where it was often called a “club,” a term that was anathema to the French as a result of the Revolution), the cercle was a leisure association. According to the preeminent historian of associational life in nineteenth-century France, Maurice Agulhon, the cercle was the “typical form of bourgeois sociability.” It was defined as an “association of men organized to practice together a disinterested (non-lucrative) activity or even to enjoy together non-activity or leisure.” Originally, the term derived from court life, where groups gathered around the sovereign for conversation and gaming. By extension, it referred to the kind of socializing that occurred among acquaintances in salons and cafés. Gradually, the word came to designate a formal organization devoted to leisure. Like an English gentlemen’s club, the cercle offered amenities, such as refreshments, games, and newspapers and magazines. The cost of these amenities was shared equally by all of the members through a subscription. In France, this form of association first became popular in the provinces, where salons and cafés were scarcer than in Paris. Following the Revolution of 1830, however, it spread to the capital, where such fashionable cercles as the Jockey Club and the Cercle Agricole were founded. By the 1840s, the cercle was a very popular form of organization. In

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1843, there were some two thousand cercles throughout the country. By the late nineteenth century, when the cercle began to be supplanted by other, more specialized, types of associations, there were almost five thousand cercles in France, leading Gustave Flaubert to note in his Dictionary of Received Ideas, “One [meaning the bourgeois] must always belong to a cercle.” In Paris, there were still only twenty-one cercles in 1860. By 1865, however, there were thirtythree. In the capital, this form of association reached its height of popularity in 1885, when seventy-three cercles were counted. Although most of these cercles were consecrated exclusively to recreation, others assumed multiple functions, including mobilization for political or professional causes. In the early 1830s, for example, a Cercle Général de Commerce was founded among merchants in the clothing trade, and in the mid-1840s, a Cercle de l’Industrie was established for heads of industry. Like these other cercles of businessmen, the Cercle de la Librairie was a hybrid social-professional organization.24 Given its multivalent form, the cercle proved to be a useful instrument of organization for the book trade. To combat competitive individualism in this trade, the Cercle de la Librairie relied heavily on the circle’s function as a leisure association, especially in its early years. Designed as a “place of relaxation for some, occasion to conduct business for others,” it aimed to counter “isolation” and encourage “cooperation” among businessmen in publishing. According to the statutes of the Cercle, one of its primary goals was to “establish habitual and daily relations between those who compose it.” With this goal in mind, the Cercle sponsored a number of amenities and activities to encourage members to spend their leisure time together, including refreshments, reading materials, games, lectures, musical and dramatic performances, banquets, and balls.25 One of the main functions of the association was to maintain a space where members could fraternize. Within a few months of its foundation, the association rented an apartment at 5, rue des Petits-Augustins, with room for leisure activities as well as business meetings. In 1856, it moved to another, more commodious, apartment down the street at 1, rue des Petits-Augustins. The importance of socialization to the association is seen in the repeated efforts by its leaders, beginning with Louis Hachette in the early 1860s, to undertake the construction of a building for the Cercle.26 In 1879, this goal was finally realized when the association moved into the new hôtel designed by Charles Garnier on the recently constructed boulevard Saint-Germain. This building was a

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physical embodiment of the bourgeois idiom of the cercle, or leisure association. A monumental structure, it contained a reading room, a game room, and a ballroom, as well as a number of meeting rooms. All of these rooms were furnished in comfortable, if not luxurious, style. (For a photograph of the general assembly hall in the Hôtel du Cercle, see Figure 4.6.) A portrait of everyday life at the Cercle de la Librairie may be glimpsed between the lines of the “internal regulations” of the association. According to a version of these regulations issued in 1856, the premises were open from morning until midnight. Upon entering, members were required to leave their coats, canes, and umbrellas in the antechamber and, on days when the general assembly was meeting, sign a register and wait to be announced by one of the servants kept by the association. Inside the Cercle, no hats or dogs were allowed, and smoking was permitted only in the entryway or the game room. In the library, members were to remain silent and leave books and periodicals in the room. Members were technically—though certainly not practically—forbidden from discussing politics or religion and from organizing plots or coalitions. No nonmember was allowed on the premises of the Cercle, unless he was a visitor to Paris who had obtained temporary permission from the administrative council to frequent the association during his stay. No subscription could be collected and no placard could be posted without the prior authorization of the administrative council. No gift or tip was to be given to the servants of the Cercle. These regulations suggest that the Cercle was a rather staid gentlemen’s club.27 To encourage members to frequent this club, the association provided refreshments, reading materials, and games. Every evening, members were offered drinks, such as coffee, cognac, rum, Bavarian beer, and (in winter) tea, initially for free and then for a small charge. On Wednesdays, they could have dinner if they requested it in advance. Day or night, they could use the library of books and periodicals acquired by the Cercle through subscription or donation, which was organized and cataloged by the founder J.-B. Baillière. In the evening, they could also play (for a fee) “games of skill,” such as cards, chess, checkers, dominoes, or billiards. Although “games of chance” were strictly forbidden in accordance with the law, the Cercle did sponsor “pools of honor,” in which prizes were awarded to the winners of a game or lottery, to raise money for the association. Of the various activities organized by the Cercle de la Librairie, the most popular seems to have been billiards. The minutes of the

[To view this image, refer to the print version of this title.]

Figure 4.6. Photograph of the assembly hall at the Hôtel du Cercle de la Librairie. Fonds Cercle de la Librairie, Archives IMEC.

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administrative council suggest that the association was obsessed with this game. One of the main concerns of the officers was to ensure that the association had the necessary space and equipment for billiards. In December 1849, the officers even authorized a visit by an expert pool player to give the members tips about the game. Billiards remained an attraction of the association from its beginning through the 1890s, when the taxes on leisure associations pushed it to get rid of its pool tables. At the beginning of the twentieth century, the self-appointed historian of the Cercle, Paul Delalain, fondly remembered the billiard games that occurred after meetings of the general assembly or, more regularly, on Friday evenings, for “pools” funded by the association’s entry fees. In particular, he recalled a competitive match with the head of the Hachette publishing firm, Louis Bréton. For his victory in this match, Delalain was awarded a copper-embossed wooden cigar box.28 Such attractions were not always enough to draw visitors to the Cercle on a regular basis. In an addendum to the history of the association published in 1881, Baillière remarked, “It is rare that the Cercle receives visitors during the day; from time to time, in the evening, a few whist players, and on Fridays, several billiard players.” By way of explanation for their lack of participation in the association, members of the Cercle often complained that their business left them little time for leisure. As Alfred Firmin-Didot, the son of the association’s first president, wrote in a letter to Baillière in 1882, “I am the first to deplore, like you, that the Cercle de la Librairie is not a more frequented meeting place. But I believe that it suffers the same fate as all the other cercles of a single industry or a single profession. We are so busy, in effect, with our business during the day, that evenings are generally consecrated to family or to social duties. Hardly only bachelors may therefore take advantage of the cercle.” In addition, participation in the Cercle was hindered by the numerous political crises of the nineteenth century. For instance, the June Days of 1848 disrupted the association to such an extent that its officers issued a plea to all members “to resume the habitual course of their former distractions and to return, with more assiduity than ever, to the meetings of each evening that have begun to establish between us sentiments of confraternity, which it is important to maintain, which it is important even to increase.” Following this plea, attendance did increase. By September 1849, the publishing trade journal noted that despite the fact that it was vacation season, “the soirées of the Cercle have been rather regularly attended for some time.” Even in periods of

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relative calm, however, attendance at the Cercle tended to be sporadic and light. In the early 1850s, for example, it averaged around a dozen members (about 10 percent of the total) per day. Looking back on the 1860s and 1870s, when he was a new member of the Cercle, Paul Delalain remembered that the regular gatherings on Friday nights “attracted only a small number of members, from 10 to at most 25; but they had also the charm of intimacy.” In 1898, some 252 meetings were held on the premises of the Cercle, by some four thousand visitors, but most of these were for professional rather than social purposes.29 To increase attendance at the Cercle, the leadership would from time to time organize special events, such as lectures or soirées. These special events proved very effective at promoting relations between members of the Cercle. From the outset, the association organized a wide variety of leisure activities, including lectures, musical and dramatic performances, magic shows, exhibitions, charity auctions, banquets, and balls. On a semiregular basis, the association threw soirées, many of which ended with lotteries or billiards, for various prizes offered by the administration. In February 1859, for instance, the Cercle hosted a “celebration of fraternity,” which concluded with a tombola, or drawing. According to a report in the trade journal, this drawing excited the “most uninhibited hilarity.” In addition to such parties, the association organized occasional banquets in honor of members who had received recognition at the international expositions, who had been nominated to the Legion of Honor, or who had served the Cercle in some noteworthy way. Banquets were also held to celebrate important occasions for the association, such as anniversaries. In 1860, for instance, over a hundred members attended a dinner in honor of the thirteenth anniversary of the Cercle. (Figure 4.3 shows an invitation to one of these banquets.) More regularly, the Cercle offered guest lectures, musical concerts, theater performances, and exhibitions of book and graphic arts. Such events, which increased in frequency following the construction of the new hôtel in the late 1870s, drew large numbers of members and guests to the Cercle. The annual ball in the winter of 1850, for example, was attended by five to six hundred notables of Paris, including not just members of the book trade but also writers, lawyers, artists, journalists, members of the Institute of France, representatives of the legislative assembly, members of the municipal council, governors of the Bank of France, officers of the Comptoir National d’Escompte, and officials of the 11th arrondissement

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(according to the pre-1860 division of the city), where the Cercle was located. A more spontaneous party in the winter of 1870, attended by most of the notable members of the book trade, was reported by the trade journal to have been both “very numerous and very brilliant.” A public exposition of the works of the popular illustrator Gustave Doré in 1885 drew hordes of visitors to the Cercle. Such activities were deemed a success by the leadership of the Cercle. At the dinner to celebrate the thirteenth anniversary of the association in 1860, for example, the president at the time, Jules Delalain, credited the sociability of the cercle with improving relations in the book trade: The creation of our Cercle, which today enters into its fourteenth year, has been the primary cause of our good relationships and our frank friendships. Before the foundation of the Cercle, though our work aimed in the same direction and though our intellects were tuned toward the same goal, we lived in isolation, we knew each other only by name and we met each other only in an unproductive spirit of competition. The more intimate relations that have been established between us have fortunately modified this situation, and have caused us to embrace our business in a manner more broad and less personal. As this quotation suggests, the Cercle de la Librairie relied heavily on the “intimate relations” of a leisure association to promote cooperation in the book trade.30 The idiom of voluntary association remained important to the Cercle, until at least the beginning of the twentieth century. Despite the difficulty of attracting visitors on a regular basis, the association maintained its identity as a social club. On at least one occasion, it was almost transformed into a purely professional organization. In the midst of the crisis in 1856, when the association’s funds were embezzled by its manager, its leadership considered changing the Cercle into a simple “syndicate,” which would meet only on certain days, to defend the interests of the book trade. This proposal, which was introduced by the publisher Louis Bréton of the Hachette firm, was opposed, however, on the grounds that the Cercle in its current form served a valuable function. As the council member Eugène Roulhac said in defense of the current form of the Cercle, “Outside of the inarguable services rendered to the [book] industries by the diverse commissions named in its breast in days of

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great crisis, the Cercle incessantly produces a great good, by uniting confrères who appreciate each other better, by extinguishing hostile rivalries, by maintaining equity in relations. There is reason to believe that the creation of a syndicate of the book trade, by distancing the frequent relations between former members of the Cercle, would dissolve the bundle [faisceau] of our associations.” Instead of transforming the Cercle into a syndicate, the administrative council decided to reconstitute the association in its same form, with new founders and new statutes, on 25 April 1856. In the succeeding decades, the Cercle went to great pains to maintain its status as a social club. Although this status made it subject to a tax on leisure associations, it fought to keep its salons and (until 1895) its billiards, which it deemed a “pleasant resource.” Not until the end of the nineteenth century would it relinquish its role as a social organization. Once the association was designated a professional syndicate, in accordance with the law of 1884, it gradually abandoned most of the accoutrements of a leisure association, until it remained a “circle” in name only. Through the end of the nineteenth century, however, the bourgeois idiom of a cercle remained integral to the Cercle de la Librairie.31

The Professional Idiom of a Syndicate Just as it was not a true “corporation,” however, the Cercle de la Librairie was never a typical cercle. In fact, the Cercle de la Librairie often behaved less like a social club than like a trade syndicate—of bourgeois entrepreneurs rather than of proletarian workers. From the beginning, the Cercle de la Librairie sought to defend the interests of the book trade, vis-à-vis the rest of the business community, the public, and especially the state. In addition to facilitating “relations” among members of the trade, the association’s primary goal was “to constitute a real, complete representation of all of the occupations that contribute directly or indirectly to the publication and the propagation of works of literature, science, and the arts.”32 In the beginning, the Cercle subordinated its role as a trade representative to its function as a social cercle for political reasons. Over time, however, this role was tolerated—and even encouraged—by the state. Under first the Second Republic and then the Second Empire, the association came to be considered a legitimate agent of the book trade. By the time the Third Republic legalized the professional syndicate in

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1884, the Cercle de la Librairie had long been recognized as the official organization of the publishing business in France.33 In its role as a professional syndicate, the Cercle undertook a number of initiatives on behalf of the book trade, from organizing trade exhibits to producing professional periodicals and business directories, from arbitrating legal disputes to advising the government on international commercial treaties, from participating in conferences on literary property law to campaigning against stamp and paper taxes. To oversee these initiatives, the association established a number of regular committees, including a committee for the trade journal and a committee on literary property. On occasion, it also appointed special committees, for instance, to organize its library or to investigate conflicts between individual members of the trade. The Cercle also delegated members to represent the book trade in a number of municipal and national institutions, including the Chamber of Commerce and Tribunal de Commerce. With the help of the connections that it formed with political leaders in these institutions, the association was able to influence government policy on publishing. One of the main services performed by the Cercle was to disseminate information about the trade. From the beginning, the association used the official trade publication, the Bibliographie de la France, as well as its advertising supplement, the Feuilleton, to publicize products, sales, deaths, positions, and events of interest to people in publishing. In October 1856, it acquired the Bibliographie from the printer Pierre-Augustin-Jacques-François Pillet (Senior), who had been publishing it since it was founded by Napoleon in 1811. Under the auspices of the Cercle, the publication was expanded to include another supplement, the Chronique, to report on meetings, laws, and debates relevant to the book trade. (For the cover of the first issue of the Chronique, see Figure 4.7.) Beginning in 1858, the Cercle published special editions of these publications (which were collectively referred to as the Journal de la librairie et de l’imprimerie) to advertise the lists of new books published for la rentrée (i.e., the back-to-school season) in September and les étrennes (i.e., the New Year’s holiday) in January. With a circulation of between one and two thousand (or more, for the special advertising editions), the Journal de la librairie et de l’imprimerie constituted the single biggest source of revenue for the Cercle. In addition to the trade journal, the Cercle published business directories, exhibition catalogs, and historical works relevant to the book trade. It also compiled and disseminated information about domestic and foreign

[To view this image, refer to the print version of this title.]

Figure 4.7. Cover of the first issue of the Chronique supplement to the Bibliographie de la France, 3 January 1857. Fonds Cercle de la Librairie, Archives IMEC.

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legislation on literary property. Following the implementation of international protections for literary property, it operated a “declaration bureau,” where members could complete the paperwork necessary to protect their publications abroad. Beginning in the 1860s, the Cercle posted lists of employment requests and offers. In the 1880s and 1890s, it also collected and cataloged a “technical library,” which unlike the more general reading room created by the founders of the association was devoted exclusively to professional publications. In short, the Cercle de la Librairie served as an information clearinghouse for the book trade.34 The role of the Cercle as a professional syndicate is also seen in its participation in trade exhibitions at the local, national, and international levels. From its beginnings, the association encouraged its members to exhibit at the national industrial exhibitions, which had been held in France on a regular basis since the First Empire. It also hosted a number of expositions of products of the book trade on the premises of the Cercle, especially following the opening of its hôtel on the boulevard Saint-Germain. In 1880, for example, it organized a display of the works published by its members, which drew more than six hundred visitors to the new building. Beginning with the first international exposition in London in 1851, the Cercle was instrumental in helping members of the French book trade to exhibit their wares at the world’s fairs of the second half of the nineteenth century. Viewing these expositions as opportunities to advertise the products of the trade, the administrative council of the Cercle took numerous steps to facilitate the participation of its members: it informed members of the formalities and deadlines for obtaining exhibition space, it paid some of the expenses involved in shipping materials to the expositions, it delegated or hired people to display these materials abroad, and it publicized and honored the winners of prizes. In addition, prominent members of the Cercle served on the admission committees and prize juries of the sections of the expositions related to the book trade. Beginning with the Exposition of 1867 in Paris, the council oftentimes organized a collective display on behalf of the membership of the Cercle de la Librairie. (For a photograph of one of these displays, see Figure 4.8.) Typically, such a display included examples of the publications and activities of the association, as well as a sampling of the products of its individual members. Through its participation in the international expositions, the Cercle earned recognition, both nationally and internationally. For its collective display at the

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[To view this image, refer to the print version of this title.]

Figure 4.8. Photograph of the exhibit of the Cercle de la Librairie at the World’s Fair of 1893 in Chicago. Fonds Cercle de la Librairie, Archives IMEC.

Exposition of 1873 in Vienna, for instance, it won a “diploma of honor.” As the president of the association at the time, Georges Masson, said of this diploma, it signified that the Cercle, “already recognized in France as the representative of our industries and of our interests, has now received abroad a precious consecration of its value as an institution.” Individually, the members of the Cercle also won many prizes for their displays at the international expositions, leading the author of the history of the association published in 1881 to remark (with particular regard to the results of the Exposition of 1878 in Paris), “Such a number of prizes, is it not the most eloquent demonstration of the power of our association and of the authority that it possesses when it intervenes in the name of the industries grouped in its breast?” As its involvement

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in the trade exhibitions demonstrates, the Cercle de la Librairie acted as a promoter of the book trade.35 As a professional syndicate, another important function of the Cercle was to regulate the book trade. Because it was a voluntary association as opposed to a state-sponsored guild, it did not exercise official control over the trade. However, it still monitored and disciplined members of the trade in a semiofficial capacity. Following the corporate tradition of ensuring the “honesty” and “quality” of the trade, the Cercle de la Librairie developed a number of new techniques for systematizing business practices. For example, parères, or guidelines, were issued by the administrative council in response to questions raised by members about the proper or usual way to handle a given issue in their business. Concerning such matters as how to define “complete works” and whether a publisher had the right to alter the work of a writer, these guidelines were usually published in the Journal de la librairie. By articulating the customary practices of publishers, such parères helped to regulate the book trade. When these guidelines failed to prevent conflicts between members of the trade, the Cercle de la Librairie had another tool to control its members: arbitration. Initially, the Cercle referred such conflicts to the Tribunal de Commerce of Paris, a court of businessmen elected by the “notables” of the municipality, which included representatives of the book trade. Beginning in 1863, however, it established its own “judicial committee” of arbitrators from the trade to resolve such disputes internally. The brainchild of the president of the Cercle at the time, Eugène Roulhac, this committee handled 150 cases in its first year alone. Within a few years, it was settling between two and three hundred cases a year. In the late 1870s, the authority of the judicial committee of the Cercle was challenged by the minister of justice, who insisted that only individuals, not chambres syndicales, could serve as arbitrators in a trade. As a result, the Cercle was forced to submit a list of individuals from its ranks to whom the Tribunal de Commerce could refer disputes involving members of the book trade. However, it still maintained its judicial committee for members to use voluntarily. Finally, in 1883, this committee was once again designated as the main arbitrator in publishing (although not in printing, which was placed under the jurisdiction of the recently established Chambre Syndicale des Imprimeurs). One of the most successful undertakings of the Cercle, the judicial committee helped to establish the association as a player in commercial politics.36 As its relationship with the Tribunal de Commerce suggests, the Cercle de la Librairie was an active participant in civic and political affairs. As Chapter 3

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demonstrated, members of the book trade had cultivated connections with local and national officials prior to the foundation of the Cercle. However, this association formalized the relations between the trade and the government. From its outset, the Cercle had representatives on both the Chamber of Commerce and the Tribunal de Commerce, who were elected by a select group of “notable merchants” in Paris. Because a significant portion of the membership of the Cercle (consistently around one-third to one-half) was eligible for the list of notable merchants, the association was able to influence the elections to the Chamber and the Tribunal—at least until the 1870s, when these elections were democratized. In addition to being represented in these two commercial organizations, the Cercle could often count on having a voice on the municipal council, in the national legislature, in various government ministries, in the administration of the Comptoir National d’Escompte as well as its sous-comptoir in publishing, and on the board of governors of the Bank of France. The association also appointed delegates to the Conseil des Prud’hommes, the commission of workers and employers that arbitrated labor disputes. In 1850 alone, three members of the Cercle were serving as judges on the Tribunal de Commerce; another member, Louis Hachette, had been elected to the Chamber of Commerce; one member had been delegated to the Conseil des Prud’hommes; seven members were serving on the board of the Comptoir National d’Escompte, including Laurent-Antoine Pagnerre, who had helped to found the institution as a member of the provisional government in 1848; ten members had been appointed administrators of the sous-comptoir in publishing; two members, including Louis Hachette, were serving on the Central Commission of Public Assistance; another two members, Ambroise Firmin-Didot and Jacques-Alexandre Bixio, had been elected to the municipal council; and one member, the same Bixio, was a deputy in the Legislative Assembly. Previously, the founders Pagnerre and Hingray had also served in the National Assembly. Noting the extent of involvement by its members in commercial and governmental institutions, the president of the Cercle at the time, Pagnerre, asserted that the association could “rightfully be considered as a most complete and real representation of our industries.”37 With the help of its connections in these institutions, the Cercle de la Librairie indeed constituted itself the official representative of the book trade vis-à-vis the state. From its founding, this association was regularly consulted by state officials on such issues as literary property, textbook choices, school libraries, and customs policy. By 1850, when the minister of the interior informed the leadership

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of the Cercle of negotiations between France and England for a treaty on literary property, the government had recognized the association as the agent of the book trade. According to the history of the Cercle written in 1881, “This procedure, which was flattering for the association, was not an exceptional occurrence. The Cercle enjoyed already, in that era, a very extensive respect.” Following this early recognition of its authority, the Cercle continued to advise the government on matters concerning the book trade. As one president of the Cercle, Georges Masson, said of the association’s role as a representative of the book trade, “The Administration, certain always to find in you an enlightened and expedient assistance, addresses itself voluntarily to us as a natural intermediary, each time that it is a question of your interests; and several affairs have been sent to us by the minister of the interior as well as the minister of public instruction.”38 The Cercle de la Librairie was quickly and widely recognized as the official voice of the book trade. Its status as representative of the trade enabled the Cercle de la Librairie to pursue what was ultimately its most important goal: to influence state policy on publishing. Although the term is anachronistic, the organization acted as a lobbyist for members of the book trade, especially publishers. Supplanting the haphazard associations of libraires-éditeurs that had formed since the late 1820s, the Cercle worked to advance the interests of the book trade vis-à-vis the state. By means of letters, petitions, delegations, and meetings, it pressured the government to reevaluate its policies on such matters as commercial treaties, stamp taxes, paper duties, postal regulations, textbook choices, and restrictions on peddlers of printed matter. In the 1890s, it mobilized against legislation to protect women and children workers, as well as against establishment of a tax on income. Above all, however, the Cercle de la Librairie campaigned for abolition of licensing and for extension of literary property. From the foundation of the Cercle in 1847 until the last decade of the nineteenth century, these two aims of the liberal camp dominated the agenda of the association. As a lobbyist, the Cercle de la Librairie proved to be quite successful. In its role as a professional syndicate, the Cercle de la Librairie would play a major role in the liberalization of the market for literature in France.

Through its unique mix of idioms, the Cercle de la Librairie was able to defuse opposition from traditionalist bookdealers and postrevolutionary state

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officials to become a powerful lobbyist for the publishing business. In contrast to earlier organizations of publishers, the Cercle proved remarkably adept at unifying and representing the book trade. This hybrid social-professional association constituted one of the first successful examples of a modern business organization in France. Although it was a particularly precocious and fluid sort of business association, the Cercle de la Librairie nonetheless serves to deepen our understanding of bourgeois sociability in postrevolutionary France. If this particular example is any indication, the institution of the cercle did more than just contribute to the formation of class and gender identity, as previous work on this form of sociability has emphasized.39 Relying heavily on corporatist as well as bourgeois discourses and practices, it played a vital role in business politics and civic affairs. Under the cover of a voluntary leisure association, it formed a commercial interest group. By describing the activities of this interest group, this analysis of the Cercle de la Librairie has shown the importance of association for businessmen, who collaborated for liberal as well as protectionist aims. Highlighting the extent of cooperation as opposed to competition among even the supposedly individualistic French, the story of the Cercle suggests that the role of such association in the development of a market economy as well as a liberal polity deserves further investigation. While it proved instrumental in shaping state policy on publishing, the Cercle de la Librairie did not end conflict in the book trade. In the decades following its establishment, the struggle between corporatist printers and liberal publishers continued to rage, both within and outside the association. In this struggle, the leadership of the association sided with the liberal camp in the book trade. As the next two chapters will show, despite its claim to represent the “corporation” of the trade, the Cercle de la Librairie promoted the interests of publishers. This reinvention of the old Paris Book Guild shifted the balance of power between corporatists and liberals in favor of the latter.

5 Louis Hachette and the Defense of the Publisher

On 19 January 1860, the administrative council of the Cercle de la Librairie hosted a banquet at the Hôtel du Louvre for the membership of the association. Intended by its organizers to “tighten and augment the ties of good brotherhood [bonne confraternité] that should always exist between the members of the same corporation,” the banquet was attended by over one hundred members of the book trade. Over dessert were given a number of toasts by prominent members of the Cercle. Among the speakers was the éditeur Louis Hachette, who had built what was at the time—and would remain to this day—one of the largest publishing firms in France. In a toast to the “long life and progressive development of the Cercle,” Hachette praised the association for tempering individualism in the book trade: “Do I need to remind you,” he said, “what the Cercle has done to establish between us good relations of fraternity? By giving to its members the occasion and the facility to meet each other every day and to exchange their ideas, it prevents, softens, even extinguishes entirely those suspicions and those antagonisms that isolation between men of the same occupation can engender and maintain.” Such harmony was possible in the book trade, Hachette continued, because the market for literature (unlike most every other product) was unlimited. “In this happy situation,” he argued, “there is a place for everyone under the sun. One can live peacefully and happily in a country where the earth can nourish generously all of its inhabitants.” Concluding that the Cercle de la Librairie “ensures us the benefits of association, which increase tenfold [our] individual forces,” Hachette suggested that this organization had unified the book trade.1 Despite such assertions to the contrary, however, the establishment of the Cercle de la Librairie had by no means ended conflict within the book trade. Although this association embraced printers, booksellers, and paper

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manufacturers as well as publishers, it did not heal the division between corporatists and liberals in the trade. In fact, at the very moment that Hachette was toasting the “relations of good fraternity” in the Cercle, the tensions between corporatists and liberals had resurged. For the resurgence of tensions in the book trade, Hachette himself was largely responsible. At the time, the publisher was embroiled in a bitter dispute with a printer named Napoléon Chaix. This dispute began in the early 1850s, when Hachette acquired from a number of railroad companies the exclusive right to sell books at kiosks in railroad stations. Chaix, who had since the mid-1840s been printing and distributing publications for the railroad companies, challenged Hachette’s right to monopolize this sector of the book market. For the next decade, Chaix and Hachette waged a battle over the railroad bookstalls—and, more generally, over the role of a publisher versus a printer. The dispute between Chaix and Hachette was exacerbated in the early 1860s, when the publisher launched a campaign for the inclusion of éditeurs in the international industrial exhibitions, which had previously featured only printers in displays of the typographical arts. In response to this campaign, Chaix grew even more defensive about the jurisdiction and status of the printer. Like the battle between Pagnerre and Bouton in the 1840s, the dispute between Hachette and Chaix was more than just a personal conflict. It was a professional power struggle, which polarized the entire book trade, including the new Cercle de la Librairie. At stake in this struggle was again the balance of power in the trade between publishers, on the one hand, and printers and bookdealers, on the other. Like Pagnerre before him, Hachette exemplified the dynamic and reformist outlook of the new type of éditeur. Defending his business practices against charges of “unfair competition” by established printers and bookdealers, he sought to legitimize and facilitate the work of this kind of entrepreneur. In the interest of encouraging speculation and innovation in publishing, he promoted individual freedom and property. Against the printer Chaix, who defended the corporatist position, Hachette represented the liberal camp in the book trade. In this case, however, the struggle between the corporatist and the liberal camps took the form of a debate over the definition of “producer.” For a printer such as Chaix, the term applied only to the actual manufacturer of a material product. Hachette, however, insisted that it extended to the entrepreneur who conceived the idea and coordinated the execution of the product,

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too. In both the controversy over his right to establish bookstores in railroad stations and the campaign for the inclusion of publishers at the international exhibitions, Hachette sought a reappraisal of the work of the publisher, who as Chapter 1 showed had long been denigrated as a parasitical and unethical speculator-middleman. In the end, Hachette’s conception of the work of the publisher as a bona fide “producer” was endorsed by both the profession and the state. The Cercle de la Librairie, as well as the state administration, sided with Hachette in both the debate over the railroad station bookstores and the question of the place of publishers in the international exhibitions. By winning his struggle with Chaix, Hachette did not just transform his own firm and influence the public sphere, as previous studies of his railroad bookstore enterprise have emphasized.2 He also legitimized the work of the publisher as a producer. In his usage of “producer,” Hachette was at the forefront of a larger historical shift in the meaning of the word to encompass entrepreneurial as well as—or even more than—mechanical labor. By the twentieth century, this usage of the term would predominate in the business world, especially in the culture industry, where the title is given not to the manufacturer but to the financier of films, television programs, theater productions, and music albums, for example. Although it has been overshadowed by the economic and cultural impact of the firm, this legacy of Hachette is no less important. It influenced not just relations of power in the book trade in France but conceptions of work in the culture industry throughout the contemporary world.

The Battle over the Railroad Station Bookstalls At the time he began to establish a network of bookstalls in railroad stations, Hachette was a newcomer to the field of general literature. For the previous quarter-century, he had specialized in the publication of classical and educational works. Born in 1800 in the Ardennes, Louis Hachette was the eldest son of a pharmacist who had served in the revolutionary army and of a textile merchant’s daughter. The young Hachette was educated in Paris at the Lycée Impérial (Louis-le-Grand), where his mother worked as a laundress after separating from his father. Admitted to the elite École Normale in 1819, he intended to pursue a career as a teacher. When the school was closed in September 1822 during the Restoration Monarchy’s crackdown on liberalism,

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however, Hachette was forced to find another occupation. While studying law, he worked as an examiner at a private school and as a tutor to the children of a prominent notary, Pierre Fourcault de Pavant. In August 1826, he decided to enter the book trade. With the help of Fourcault de Pavant, he purchased the license and stock of a publisher of educational materials, JacquesFrançois Brédif. Taking as his motto the Latin phrase Sic quoque docebo, or “In this way I will continue to teach,” Hachette exploited his connections with the academic establishment in Paris to develop a house list of educational manuals and workbooks, classical texts, and pedagogical journals. His enterprise was facilitated by the state, which recommended and even subsidized a number of his products for use in education. In particular, Hachette’s business was helped by the minister of education François Guizot, whose law of 28 June 1833 required a public primary school in each commune of at least five hundred inhabitants. In 1836, Hachette solidified his hold on the market for educational and classical texts by obtaining the official title of publisher of the University of France. At several points, however, the new publishing firm required infusions of capital, which Hachette obtained mainly from his former employer Fourcault de Pavant and another notary (who was the brotherin-law of Fourcault de Pavant), Henri Bréton. To help him manage his firm, Hachette took associates: in 1840, he formed a partnership with the son of Henri Bréton, Louis, who would soon marry Hachette’s step-daughter Zéline, and in 1849, he incorporated into this partnership another notary, Émile Templier, who had already married his daughter Louise-Agathe. Eventually, Hachette would expand the association to include his two sons, Alfred and Georges. By 1851, when he marked his twenty-fifth anniversary in the book business, Hachette had become one of the most successful publishers in France. Not content to rest on his laurels, however, he was looking to branch out of educational publishing into general literature.3 (For a photograph of Louis Hachette, see Figure 5.1.) According to most accounts of the establishment of the railroad station bookstore network in France, Hachette got the idea for such a project on a visit to the International Exposition in London in 1851. While in London, he noticed that books and newspapers were being sold in kiosks in railroad stations by the English publisher W. H. Smith. Inspired by this example, which was publicized in France by an article in the Moniteur universel (translated from the Times of London) on 20 January 1852, Hachette dispatched his

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[To view this image, refer to the print version of this title.]

Figure 5.1. Portrait of the publisher Louis Hachette (1800–1864). Département des estampes et de la photographie, Bibliothèque nationale de France.

son-in-law and associate Louis Bréton across the Channel to study the English railroad station bookstore network.4 Within just a few months, Hachette began to establish a similar network in France. On 1 April 1852, he wrote a letter to the directors of one of the regional railroad companies in France, the Compagnie du Chemin de Fer du Nord, requesting the exclusive right to sell books from a collection to be called the “Bibliothèque des Chemins de Fer” and other publications of interest to travelers in the stations on its rail lines for a term of eighteen years. Echoing the report on the railroad enterprise of W. H. Smith in the Moniteur universel, Hachette argued that his collection would benefit train passengers, railroad companies and their employees, and members of the book

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trade, including authors. This request obtained a favorable reception from the directors of the Compagnie du Chemin de Fer du Nord. After consultation with the administrators of the other railroad lines in France—including the Count de Morny, a half-brother and henchman of the emperor Louis-Napoléon as well as a business partner and personal friend of Hachette—the directors of the company agreed to grant Hachette this concession, for a more limited term of five years. On 25 May 1852, a contract was signed by the two parties for the establishment of a network of railroad station bookstalls. According to the terms of this contract, Hachette was required to give the railroad company 30 percent of his profits from sales of publications in its stations. Out of this income, the company would in turn pay some of its employees and retirees—or, more commonly, their wives or widows—to staff the bookstalls. To facilitate the establishment and management of the railroad bookstore network, Hachette would obtain from the railroad company a pass for free travel to be used by his agents. So that the company could monitor the content of the publications sold in its stations, Hachette was required to send it in advance one copy of each work to be offered for sale. If the company deemed a work “dangerous,” it reserved the right to forbid the sale of the work. Similar terms were negotiated with a number of other railway companies. Within six months, Hachette had signed contracts with five other companies; by the summer of 1856, he had signed with four more. Although these agreements specifically mentioned that the sale of newspapers and itineraries was still open to anyone, they effectively gave Hachette a monopoly on the distribution of printed matter in the railroad stations.5 This monopoly was of questionable legality. According to the judicial interpretation of the law of 21 October 1814, a bookseller could not use a single license to open multiple branches or outlets. With the help of connections in the new Bonapartist administration, however, Hachette was able to obtain official approval for his railroad bookstore network. In December 1852, he wrote a letter to the minister of police, Charlemagne-Émile de Maupas, asking whether he needed authorization for his new enterprise and, if so, whether the minister would grant it. In response, Maupas replied that the establishment of multiple sales outlets under one bookselling license was not permissible, according to the law of 1814. Nonetheless, he suggested that Hachette’s railroad station bookstands could operate under the law governing colportage, or peddling. According to this law, which had been strengthened in 1849 and

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again in 1852, all peddlers had to obtain authorization from the local prefect. In addition, they could sell only works that had been approved by a Commission du Colportage, which had just been established in November 1852. Composed of twelve members assisted by numerous readers, the Commission du Colportage was responsible for examining the publications to be distributed by peddlers in the countryside. Those publications that were approved by the commission were listed in a catalog and marked with a blue stamp, indicating that they could circulate throughout France. Under the auspices of the Commission du Colportage, the railroad station bookstores were able to circumvent the licensing requirement, even if they were also placed under tight state supervision. According to one of Hachette’s competitors, Maupas may not have actually intended to authorize the establishment of stationary bookstalls in railroad stations. Because the Ministry of Police was soon dissolved into the Ministry of the Interior, however, Maupas did not have time to enforce his interpretation of the meaning of “peddling.” In any case, by placing the new railroad station bookstore network under the law on peddling rather than bookselling, the minister of police sanctioned Hachette’s monopoly over this sector of the market for print.6 To exploit this monopoly, Hachette transformed his business. Branching out from his original specialization in educational publishing, he ventured into what today is called “trade” publishing. To stock his railroad station bookstores, which numbered forty-three by 1853 and multiplied at a steady pace thereafter, Hachette created a whole new collection of books, the Bibliothèque des Chemins de Fer, or “Railway Library.” Published in a relatively small and cheap format, the Bibliothèque des Chemins de Fer was intended to “instruct and amuse” railroad passengers on their journeys. To reduce costs and limit risks, Hachette chose for his collection mainly works that were in the public domain or that had already been published in France or abroad. To market these works, he divided the collection into seven (later eight) topical series, each of which was distinguished by the color of its cover: travel guides (red); history and travel (green); French literature (tan); ancient and foreign literature (yellow); agriculture and industry (blue); illustrated children’s books (pink); diverse works (salmon); and, as of 1855, compact and economical editions (fawn). On the back cover of each book in the collection appeared a drawing of a train engine to help customers recognize the “brand.” According to his original prospectus for the Bibliothèque des Chemins de Fer, Hachette

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planned for the collection to include some five hundred titles. By 1853, he had produced sixty titles; by 1854, one hundred; by 1855, 180. By 1857, when the collection was no longer divided into series, it contained 357 titles. In the 1850s, Hachette purchased the rights to a number of travel guides from two publishers, Bourdin and Richard-Maison. The resulting travel collection, which included the popular “Guide Joanne” (a precursor to the German Baedeker), would become a mainstay of the firm. In addition to the books in his Bibliothèque des Chemins de Fer, Hachette also began to distribute newspapers and magazines, some of which (such as the popular Tour du monde edited by Edouard Charton) he published himself. By 1865, periodicals were outselling books at his railroad station kiosks. In 1869, the Bibliothèque des Chemins de Fer was discontinued, replaced by several other book collections, including the Bibliothèque des Merveilles (“Library of Marvels”) and the Bibliothèque Rose (“Pink Library”) for children. However, it left its mark on the marketing of books. In little more than a decade, Hachette had used his monopoly on the sale of printed matter in railroad stations to revolutionize not only his own publishing house but the entire book trade in France.7 (For a photograph of one of Hachette’s railroad station bookstalls, see Figure 5.2.) The new railroad station bookstore network did not go unchallenged by others in the book trade. Soon after Hachette signed his first contract with the Compagnie du Chemin de Fer du Nord, the printer Napoléon Chaix, who had himself been producing timetables and guides for sale in railroad stations, launched a campaign against the network. Son of a provincial printer and former apprentice of the government printer Paul Dupont, Napoléon Chaix had founded in 1845 a printing company called the Imprimerie Centrale des Chemins de Fer (“Central Print Shop of the Railroads”), which specialized in forms and publications for the railroad companies. Among these publications was the well-known Livret Chaix, a railroad timetable. Since the late 1840s, Chaix had peddled his publications in railroad stations, with official approval. More recently, he had developed his own collection of books for train and steamship travelers, the Bibliothèque du voyageur en chemins de fer et en bateaux à vapeur. Given his own interest in this sector of the market for print, it is not surprising that Chaix viewed the project of Hachette with a negative eye. On 29 November 1852, a month before Hachette requested authorization for his enterprise from the minister of police, Chaix wrote a letter to Maupas, asking him to intervene against the railroad station bookstore

[To view this image, refer to the print version of this title.]

Figure 5.2. Photograph of a bibliothèque de gare, operated by Hachette and Company, late nineteenth century. Photothèque Hachette Livre.

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network. Arguing that the right to establish this network constituted an “enormous privilege” equivalent to at least one thousand bookselling licenses, he insisted that it threatened not only his own interests but also provincial booksellers. After the minister of police refused to prohibit this network, Chaix took his complaint against Hachette to the public. In two pamphlets addressed to the ministers of the interior and public works and the directors of the railroad companies in the summer of 1854, he outlined his case against the publisher.8 Chaix’s attack on Hachette centered on two main arguments: first, that Hachette’s exclusive right to distribute books in railroad stations violated the principle of freedom of commerce and, second, that it flouted the law on the book trade, which, in the interest of the public, required a license of every bookseller. First, Chaix argued that this right ran contrary to the postrevolutionary regime of freedom and equality in industry. Contesting the authority of the railroad companies to award such a right over the sale of a nonnecessary item like books, Chaix asserted that this privilege obstructed competition in the book trade. With this privilege, he wrote, Hachette had acquired a “true monopoly whose maintenance would be all the more contrary to our laws, to the liberty of commerce, to free competition, and to the general interest, since he could with impunity increase without limit, in all of the railroad stations of France, the price of his books, because they alone would be admitted.”9 At the same time, Chaix complained that this monopoly circumvented the one legitimate constraint on freedom of commerce in the book trade: the licensing requirement that had been instituted to protect the public interest. Denying that the sedentary sales agents in the railroad station bookstalls could be considered “peddlers,” he worried that, without proper licenses, these agents would degrade the book trade. Escaping state surveillance, they might even peddle immoral or dangerous publications under the cloak. Insisting that the monopoly of Hachette was against the law and contrary to public order, Chaix demanded that the administration revoke Hachette’s privilege and permit, as before, any vendor to sell authorized publications in railroad stations. In response to this attack by Chaix, Hachette published two pamphlets of his own, in which he defended his exclusive right to sell books in railroad stations. Countering the arguments of Chaix, he emphasized both the legality and the utility of his railroad station bookstore network. Denying that this

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network constituted either a “monopoly” or a “privilege,” Hachette argued that it was a legitimate property obtained from the railroad companies and approved by the state administration in full accordance with the principle of freedom of commerce and the common law: in signing their contracts with Hachette, the railroad companies were simply exercising the universal right of property, and in classifying the railroad station bookstore sales agents as peddlers, the government was just applying a uniform regulation to all vendors in public spaces. In addition to demonstrating that his railroad station bookstore network was legal, Hachette also asserted that it was beneficial to the railroad companies, the government, the book trade, and the public. Insisting that the Bibliothèque des Chemins de Fer was neither immoral nor anticompetitive, he maintained that his enterprise guaranteed the quality of its publications and did not hinder, but in fact actually furthered, the interests of the book trade as a whole. In language that would later be echoed in his toast to the Cercle de la Librairie in 1860, Hachette suggested that, unlike other businesses, the book trade was unlimited in its potential: What makes the book trade a separate case is that it cannot prosper without at the same time enlivening all the major industries that depend on it, without pushing talent to a new height, without spreading enlightenment, without increasing the domain of common sense; and that all its successes are services rendered to the country. . . . [E]very intelligent bookdealer knows well that the more one spreads books, the more one spreads the taste for buying books; that from this point of view all of the book trade is unified, and that far from blocking new ideas, it is necessary to applaud them, to assist them, to receive them as a common conquest. If Chaix did not understand the fundamental nature of the book trade, Hachette insinuated, it was because he was a printer, not a publisher. Challenging Chaix’s knowledge of publishing, Hachette asked, “And is it not more worthy of a great industry to seek new markets, accommodate its products to the transformations of our fortune and our customs, to awaken in a sense the public curiosity in its most serious and honorable form, to provoke everywhere the taste for reading, and thus to propagate instruction and taste by creating new habits”? With such questioning of Chaix’s expertise, Hachette altered

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the terms of the debate over the railroad station bookstore network. Into this debate, he introduced the issue of the value of the work of the publisher relative to that of the printer.10 In response to the assertion that he did not understand the occupation of the publisher, Chaix insisted that he was more than a dabbler in publishing. Nonetheless, he admitted that his specialty was printing: “We insist however on saying to M. Hachette that we are not at all an occasional publisher, as he pretends. Our publishing enterprise is not as big as Hachette’s, it is true, but all of our publications are made with care and with conscience. . . . But I recognize it voluntarily with M. Hachette, I am primarily a printer.” Rejecting the implication that the specialization of printing was somehow inferior to the occupation of publishing, though, Chaix suggested that Hachette himself should have remained more specialized: The only difference perhaps between our two houses is that I have maintained my publishing operation alongside my printing one and that M. Hachette, who has tried more than once to be a printer as well as a publisher, has not maintained his printing shop alongside his publishing house. M. Hachette has undoubtedly preferred a single specialty, where one strangles more because one embraces less; there is nothing I can say to that; only if he had been even more specialized, if he had stayed in the academic domain of science and education, where as publisher he had conquered a high position, instead of coming to play in the railroad stations, we would not today be having this exchange of Notes. With this comment, Chaix revealed why Hachette had aroused so much animosity with his railroad bookstore network. As Jean-Yves Mollier notes, the publisher had violated an unwritten gentlemen’s agreement in the book trade, according to which everyone remained in the particular niche where he had begun his career. By stooping to peddling to market his products, Chaix suggested, Hachette had dishonored the book trade. In a later pamphlet, Chaix would also turn Hachette’s denigration of printing back at the publisher, by claiming that his own role as a printer made him a disinterested party in the dispute over the railroad station bookstores. In short, the debate between Hachette and Chaix over the railroad bookstore network had become a struggle over the jurisdiction and status of the work of the publisher versus the printer.11

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This struggle was not resolved by the initial pamphlet war between Chaix and Hachette in the fall of 1854. Despite Chaix’s complaints, neither the railroad company directors nor the government ministers intervened against Hachette’s railroad station bookstore network. Even though he had lost this round, however, Chaix did not abandon his war against Hachette. Five years later, he initiated another attack on the railroad station bookstore network. This time, he took his case before the book trade association, the Cercle de la Librairie, to whose administrative council he had in the meantime been elected a member. In September 1859, Chaix persuaded his fellow officers on the council of the Cercle to appoint a special commission to investigate Hachette’s railroad enterprise. Intended to defuse any threat to the “good harmony that exists between the Members of the Corporation [of the book trade],” this commission consisted of six members: Jules Delalain, president of the Cercle at the time; Henri Plon, vice president; four publishers, Gervais Charpentier, Michel Lévy, Victor Masson, and Morizot; and Chaix himself, who was designated secretary of the commission.12 Given that Chaix was responsible for instigating and transcribing the investigation of the railroad station bookstore network, it is no surprise that the commission was critical of Hachette’s enterprise. In a report to the administrative council of the Cercle de la Librairie in November 1859, it concluded, in terms very similar to Chaix’s two pamphlets of 1854, that Hachette’s network constituted a violation of both the principle of freedom of commerce and the law on licensing in publishing. Insisting that this enterprise harmed the general interest of the book trade, the commission recommended that the Cercle establish a separate committee to pursue the matter with the government and the railroad companies and to find a solution that would satisfy all parties. Although the commission recognized that the Cercle did not yet have the juridical status to take any legal action against Hachette, it still encouraged the association to give “moral assistance” to any concerned parties who did.13 Despite the resolute tone of its final report, however, the commission was not united in its opinion about the railroad bookstore network. At least one member of the commission defended Hachette, on the grounds that he had just done what any good publisher should: innovate. “The force of the arguments that were just articulated [against Hachette],” this unnamed member of the commission said, “reinforce my opinion that M. Hachette did not at all

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create a Monopoly. He imagined a great means of distribution in the Railroad Stations. One should be grateful to him for having dared to undertake it.”14 This person was not the only member of the trade association to take the side of the publisher. Hachette had a number of supporters in both the special commission and the administrative council of the Cercle de la Librairie. These supporters soon influenced the association’s investigation of the railroad station bookstore network in his favor. After hearing the report of the special commission, the administrative council decided that it needed to hear the other side of the story. To interview Hachette himself, it delegated three leaders of the Cercle: the current president, Jules Delalain; and two founders and former officers of the association, Ambroise Firmin-Didot and J.-B. Baillière. This new commission proved no threat to Hachette. Declining the mandate of the Cercle, both Firmin-Didot and Baillière refused to participate in the investigation of the publisher in any official capacity. Both of these publishers were prominent competitors of Hachette in the education sector. In addition, Firmin-Didot was a member of the official Commission du Colportage, which surveyed all publications distributed by means of peddling, including the works in the Bibliothèque des Chemins de Fer. He thus felt the need to recuse himself from the investigation of the railroad enterprise. The remaining member of the delegation, Jules Delalain, was intimidated by Hachette. A publisher of classics, too, Delalain had over the years lost a considerable share of the market in education publishing to Hachette, who had benefited more from government favoritism. As JeanYves Mollier suggests, the president of the Cercle had good reason to favor the diversification of Hachette and Company from the education sector into general literature.15 After meeting with Hachette, Delalain issued a report to the administrative council of the Cercle on 2 December 1859. Disagreeing with the conclusions of the original commission of which he was a member, the president of the Cercle insisted that the railroad station bookstore network was neither illegal nor harmful. On the contrary, he maintained, it was permissible under the current law and favorable to the general interest of the book trade. Although he suggested that the classification of the sales agents in the railroad stations as peddlers was irregular, Delalain emphasized that the Cercle had no interest in complaining that the administration had been too liberal in its interpretation of the law. Arguing that only the executive or judicial branch of the

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government could take action against Hachette, he concluded that the Cercle had no power to intervene in the affair of the railroad bookstore network. However, Delalain did admit that, even if it was legal, this network was objectionable to his colleagues. Many members of the book trade, he acknowledged, had reason to complain about the “privilege” of Hachette. To defuse criticism of this “privilege,” Delalain encouraged Hachette to be more generous in opening his railroad station bookstands to the assorted products of other publishers. Such a concession on the part of the publisher would allow the entire book trade to profit from the “advantageous situation that he owes to his determined initiative and great sacrifices.” Rather than propose any corporate action against Hachette, the president of the Cercle suggested a private resolution to the conflict over the railroad station bookstore network.16 Before the administrative council of the Cercle came to a decision on the matter, Chaix requested the opportunity to respond to Delalain’s report on his interview with Hachette. In a special meeting on 23 December 1859, Chaix presented the administrative council with a proposal for a Syndicat de la Librairie (Syndicate of Bookdealers), which would coordinate the distribution of books on behalf of all publishers, at sales outlets throughout France. In his presentation to the council, Chaix maintained that, while it was important to avoid any disagreement that upset the “good harmony” of the Cercle, the interest of the corporation of the book trade as a whole should not be sacrificed to that of a single member. He also insisted that, whatever the decision of the administrative council of the Cercle, the report prepared by the special commission “will remain in our archives as an energetic and permanent protest against one of the most extraordinary facts of our era in the domain of the book trade.” Following the proposal by Chaix for a syndicate of bookdealers, the original commission withdrew its final report against the railroad bookstore network. In response, another member of the administrative council, Louis Bréton, who was a son-in-law and associate of Hachette, announced a new contract according to which other publishers could market their publications in the railroad station bookstands, as long as they gave the bookstand sales agents the same terms (including a discount of at least 40 percent) as their most favored retailers.17 Following this series of moves by the protagonists in the conflict over the railroad station bookstands, the administrative council of the Cercle de la Librairie decided to abstain from acting. Upon the suggestion of council member

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Victor Masson, a publisher who had begun his career as a clerk for Hachette, it decided by a vote of nine to three of the twelve members present (out of fifteen total) not to intervene against Hachette. The validity of this vote was contested. According to later accounts by the opponents of Hachette, the three members of the council who were absent from the session would have voted against the “Monopoly Hachette.” Moreover, of the nine members who voted not to intervene against Hachette, several were music publishers or paper merchants and thus not knowledgeable about the matter. The others were either associates or friends of Hachette, including Louis Bréton, Jules Delalain, and Victor Masson. The vote so enraged one opponent of Hachette, the publisher Gervais Charpentier, that he resigned from the Cercle de la Librairie in protest. Despite the contention surrounding the vote, however, the decision of the council was respected by the trade association. Recusing itself from the dispute over the railroad station bookstands, the Cercle de la Librairie endorsed, at least implicitly, the style of robber-baron capitalism practiced by Hachette. This demonstration of support was not lost on the publisher. Less than a month later, Hachette gave the toast to the “good relations of fraternity” in the Cercle that was quoted at the beginning of this chapter.18 The vote of the administrative council of the Cercle left Chaix even more disgruntled with Hachette. Over the next year, he continued to pressure the railroad companies to authorize the sale of his publications, especially his guides, in their stations. In May 1860, for example, Chaix wrote a letter to the chief engineer-inspector of one of the railroad companies, the Chemin de Fer du Nord, demanding reparation for the “considerable prejudice” that Hachette had caused him by refusing to carry his products in the railroad station bookstands. In response, Hachette wrote his own letter to the directors of the railroad companies, offering to allow Chaix to sell his publications through the railroad bookstand agents, in exchange for a discount of only 25 percent on the price of these publications. This concession failed to appease Chaix. After learning that the Commission du Colportage had questioned Hachette’s monopolization of sales in railroad bookstores during its discussion in June 1861 of a proposal by the Société des Gens de Lettres to create a special stamp for books that had been approved for distribution in these stores, the printer forwarded copies of the report that he had presented to the administrative council of the Cercle de la Librairie in November 1859 to the Ministry of the Interior, the Administration of the Book Trade, and the Commission du

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Colportage. At Chaix’s urging, the Commission du Colportage decided to launch its own investigation of the Hachette enterprise, under the direction of the Count Sérurier, who was head of the Bureau du Colportage in the Administration of the Book Trade at the Ministry of the Interior. In September 1861, the commission sent to about fifteen hundred publishers and booksellers throughout France a questionnaire about the effects of the railroad station bookstore network on their business.19 When news of this questionnaire reached Hachette, he was furious. After sending a brief form letter to his colleagues in the book trade, asking them to wait to answer the questionnaire until he had had a chance to respond to the investigation in writing, Hachette published a seventy-nine-page pamphlet in defense of his railroad station bookstore network. Blaming the investigation of this network on his opponent, Hachette accused Chaix of disloyalty for forwarding to the administration a report that had been rejected by the main representative of the book trade, the Cercle de la Librairie. Again, the publisher suggested that as a printer, Chaix had no right to act as the spokesman for all of the éditeurs of France. In another effort to distance Chaix from the occupation of publishing, Hachette recounted how the two businessmen had struggled for editorial control over the travel guides to be sold in railroad stations. According to Hachette, when Chaix had first learned of the Bibliothèque des Chemins de Fer in 1852, he had proposed that he edit a series of guides for the collection. In response to this proposal, Hachette had maintained that only a true publisher like himself could assume editorial responsibility for such guides: “MM. L. Hachette and Company remarked to M. Chaix that if he is a printer, they are themselves publishers; that each of the two houses had proven itself in its respective occupation; and that the only possible arrangement [between the two] would be to reserve for MM. Hachette and Co. the direction of the guides, and to entrust the printing of them to M. Chaix.—M. Chaix did not accept this counter-proposal.” In response to the questionnaire of the Commission du Colportage, Hachette reiterated his earlier arguments that his railroad station bookstands were not only legal but also beneficial to the book trade, especially since they had been opened to the products of some one hundred other publishers, whose names he listed in an appendix. In addition, he asserted that the “Syndicate of Bookdealers” proposed by Chaix was impractical and even dangerous as a means of marketing books in railroad stations. The main thrust of his argument, however, was

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that a printer such as Chaix had no right to meddle in the occupation of publishing. Denouncing the questionnaire of the Commission du Colportage for casting suspicion on his enterprise, Hachette defended his railroad bookstore network as a prime example of the kind of innovation by which this occupation was defined. After examining this enterprise, he concluded, the commission would certainly agree to maintain “the rights which we have acquired legitimately through determined initiative, which we have consecrated by our work and by the employment of considerable capital.” At the same time that he published this pamphlet, Hachette also wrote a letter to the administrative council of the Cercle de la Librairie, outlining the implications of the Commission du Colportage’s investigation for the book trade. Asserting that this investigation constituted a violation of the authority of the trade association and the honor of the publishing business as a whole, he encouraged the Cercle to defend itself against the intervention of the administration.20 As the Commission du Colportage pursued its investigation of the railroad bookstore network, a number of critics of Hachette published letters, editorials, and pamphlets against the enterprise. Foremost among these critics was, of course, Napoléon Chaix, who published three more pamphlets against Hachette, including a more formal proposal for a Syndicat de la Librairie, which he submitted to the director of the Administration of the Book Trade at the Ministry of the Interior and then circulated among a number of publishers in early 1862.21 This time around, however, Chaix was joined in his attack on Hachette by several other booksellers and publishers. In response to the questionnaire of the Commission du Colportage, a number of provincial booksellers, for instance, complained that Hachette’s railroad station bookstore network had harmed their business—although they admitted that this network was still preferable to Chaix’s proposed syndicate of bookdealers, which planned to open sales outlets not just in railroad stations but in other locations in towns and villages throughout France and abroad.22 Of the critics of Hachette, the most hard-hitting, though, was Gervais Charpentier, the inventor of a collection of books at 3 francs 50 (which competed with the publications of Hachette), who had resigned from the Cercle de la Librairie in disgust over the vote not to intervene against the railroad station bookstore network. In a pamphlet entitled “The Hachette Monopoly” as well as in a series of articles in a literary review that he edited, Charpentier attacked the enterprise of his rival publisher. Like Chaix, he argued that the

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exclusive right obtained by Hachette over the sale of books in railroad stations was both illegal and unfair. Also like Chaix, Charpentier proposed that the marketing of books in railroad stations be handled by a collective syndicate of publishers. In his condemnation of Hachette’s railroad station bookstore network, however, Charpentier went beyond Chaix’s concern about the legality and equity of the enterprise, to examine its effects on the public sphere. More than anything, Charpentier feared that the railroad station bookstore network had given Hachette a dangerous amount of control over the press in France. Calling this network “the most deadly monopoly that it is possible to imagine,” he cited examples of publishers and booksellers who had been driven from business by the Hachette firm as well as of authors who had been pressured to abandon other publishers for the Hachette “stable.” In recounting their stories, Charpentier suggested that the Hachette “monopoly” had constrained and degraded public discourse. He warned that if this monopoly went unchecked, the arts, letters, and sciences—in short, enlightenment—in France would suffer. In a vivid (and prophetic) passage toward the conclusion of his pamphlet, Charpentier compared Hachette and his associates to feudal lords who were able to dominate their defenseless opponents from the ramparts of a stronghold castle. Entrenched behind their monopoly, he wrote: MM. Hachette and Company dominate from this position all of the book trade, one could already say a large part of the press, and they direct their blows to the various points of the horizon that it suits them to hit. Similar to the former lords of the Middle Ages, they fight, covered in iron and armed from head to toe, against men without defense. Industry, which should be only a process of mutual emulation toward progress, a peaceful struggle between equals who respect each other, has become on their side a merciless war or rather a vast immolation of the interests of their brothers. . . . When the Hachette house will have accomplished, to the extent that its energetic and shrewd activity will determine, what one could only a few years ago have called a dream, what will be the result for our occupation? A colossal publishing house, an enormous force, a power of State elevated on the ruins that it will have left in its wake! And literature, press, publicity, writers, everything on which depend intelligence and civilization, what will become of these great interests? They will fall into the condition of servitude!

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In alerting the public to the influence that Hachette was acquiring over the press, Charpentier promoted a vision of the work of the publisher at odds with that of his competitor. As the above description of industry as a “mutual emulation toward progress” and a “peaceful struggle between equals” suggests, Charpentier characterized the goal of this work not as a dog-eat-dog competition to monopolize the market for books in the manner of Hachette, but rather as a collective effort to expand the diversity of ideas.23 In response to this new round of attacks on his railroad station bookstore network, Hachette published yet another pamphlet in which he reiterated his arguments about the legality, utility, and liberality of his enterprise. Citing numerous statistics as well as letters from booksellers, publishers, authors, and leaders of the Cercle de la Librairie in support of his case, he maintained that his railroad station bookstands had benefited both Parisian and provincial booksellers, publishers, and newspaper and magazine editors, as well as authors and readers. Impugning the motives of Charpentier, he also questioned the business practices of his rival, who had himself confounded retailers by lowering the prices and varying the formats of his books. Again, though, Hachette focused on defending the legitimacy of his work—and profit—as a publisher: “We have run the perilous risks of this enterprise,” he concluded. “Fairness demands that we enjoy the fruit of our work.”24 In the revival of the conflict over the railroad station bookstore network by the Commission du Colportage in 1861, the Cercle de la Librairie remained neutral. In September of that year, the administrative council of the trade association maintained its earlier decision not to intervene in the debate. At the urging of Hachette, it did send a delegation to the Administration of the Book Trade at the Ministry of the Interior to protest the questionnaire of the Commission du Colportage (though this delegation was not received). However, the Cercle abstained from participating in either the official investigation by the commission or the broader discussion by the trade of Hachette’s enterprise. In a letter to the trade journal, the Journal de la Librairie, in November 1861, the current president of the association, the paper manufacturer Eugène Roulhac, explained this decision as follows: “The administrative council of the Cercle de la Librairie believed to respond to the desire for conciliation and concord that animates the majority of the members of our corporation, by abstaining from intervening in a regrettable polemic.” In this letter, Roulhac also defended the “impartiality and independence” of the former president

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Jules Delalain, who had resolved the debate for the Cercle in 1859, against charges of bias by Chaix and Charpentier. In its effort to pacify the book trade, the administrative council of the Cercle de la Librairie prohibited the trade journal from printing anything about the debate over the railroad bookstore network, except the titles of the many brochures that had been written by members of the book trade on both sides.25 In the end, the government also declined to meddle in the railroad bookstore network. Following its investigation, the Commission du Colportage did issue a report (authored by the jurist Victor Foucher, who was a brotherin-law of the author Victor Hugo and who was also a player in the debate over literary property law, as the next chapter will show) that was critical of Hachette. Despite this report, however, the minister of the interior, JeanGilbert-Fialin, Duke de Persigny, decided not to intervene against the publisher. In the spring of 1862, he wrote a letter to Hachette in which he claimed that he had no reason to challenge the publisher’s railroad bookstore network, which fell under the authority of the railroad companies and the local prefects. The decision of the minister, which was apparently influenced by a letter in support of Hachette signed by some forty-seven authors of the Bibliothèque des Chemins de Fer, was protested by Hachette’s opponents in the book trade, as well as by several members of the Commission du Colportage. It was welcomed, however, by the leadership of the Cercle de la Librairie, which maintained that the minister’s letter put an end to the affair of the railroad station bookstands.26 Ten years after it began, the debate over the railroad station bookstore network had been settled in favor of Hachette. In the end, opponents of this network proved helpless to stop the publisher, who was fast becoming the most powerful member of the book trade in France. As Eileen DeMarco notes, the book trade was too divided between Paris and the provinces and between publishers and booksellers (and printers) to mount an effective challenge to Hachette. At the same time, the state administration (along with the railroad companies) had no interest in changing the status quo: under Hachette, the railroad bookstore network generated fees and profits while also monitoring the content of publications. In the end, neither the trade association nor the central administration dared to intervene against the publisher. By allowing Hachette to maintain his monopoly on the sale of books in railroad stations, both the Cercle de la Librairie and the Administration of the Book Trade

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endorsed his vision of the role of the publisher. In the next two years, Hachette would receive a further demonstration of support from both the government and the trade. In August 1863, he was named a chevalier of the Order of the Legion of Honor by the government of the Second Empire, and in February 1864, he was elected to the presidency of the Cercle de la Librairie by the membership of the trade association.27 Long after its protagonists were gone from the scene, the victory of Hachette over Chaix continued to shape the book trade in France. Only five months after assuming the presidency of the Cercle, Hachette died at the age of sixty-four. His office was filled by his son-in-law and associate Louis Bréton. A year later, Hachette was followed to the grave by his rival, Napoléon Chaix. With the death of its principal protagonists, the affair of the railroad station bookstore network quieted. Over the next few decades, this network was expanded by the successors of Hachette, from some 150 stands in the mid-1860s to over a thousand in the mid-1890s. Two decades after the resolution of the dispute between Hachette and Chaix, the railroad bookstore network did come under attack again. This time, the attack was initiated by authors, who had become concerned that the network gave Hachette and Company power of censorship over their work. After the government of the Third Republic exempted books sold in railroad stations from the requirement that books distributed by peddlers be approved by the Commission du Colportage in 1871, the publisher had assumed sole responsibility over the choice of publications sold in the railroad station bookstands. This state of affairs was objectionable to a number of authors as well as to editors of newspapers and magazines. In 1883, for example, Guy de Maupassant, whose avant-garde novel Une vie was rejected by Hachette and Company for sale in the railroad station bookstands, submitted a petition signed by a number of other authors (via the deputy Baron Charles-Alfred de Janzé) to the National Assembly. In 1890, the Boulangist Maurice Barrès submitted a similar petition to the legislature. Although the legislature declined to act on these petitions (and although the Cercle de la Librairie opposed any change to the status quo in the railroad station bookstores), the administration did agree—under pressure from radical politicians who were allies of a competitor of Hachette, Ernest Flammarion—in 1896 to submit the right to sell books in railroad stations to open bidding. Over the next several years, this right was auctioned off to a number of other publishers, especially Flammarion, who

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had recently established a chain of bookstores and a list of publications that targeted a petit-bourgeois clientele in Paris.28 Within a few years, however, the Hachette firm had reattained control over the railroad station bookstores by outbidding and obstructing its competitors. At the same time, it also acquired a service des messageries, or periodical distribution division, which gave it a virtual monopoly on the marketing of newspapers and magazines not only in the railroad station bookstands but in all sales outlets throughout France. Eventually expanding to include airports and metro stations as well as railroad depots, the Hachette monopoly survived across the twentieth century and continues to this day.

The Debate over the Place of the Publisher in the International Expositions At the same time that he was struggling to defend the legitimacy of his railroad station bookstands in the late 1850s and early 1860s, Hachette was also campaigning to obtain the acceptance of publishers alongside printers at the international exhibitions that had begun to be organized by European governments. Like his struggle for vindication of his railroad enterprise, Hachette’s campaign for recognition of publishers at the international exhibitions represented a move to define publishing as a type of work separate from and superior to printing. In this campaign, too, Hachette was opposed by the printer Chaix, who worried that recognition of the work of publishers by the juries of the exhibitions would bring a degradation in the status of printers. In the arena of the international exhibitions, Hachette and Chaix once again battled over the jurisdiction and value of the occupation of publishing. In this context, their dispute focused explicitly on the question of who deserved the title of “producer” of a book: the person who manufactured it (i.e., the printer) or the person who financed and coordinated its manufacture (i.e., the publisher). In answer to this question, Chaix maintained that printers were the “real” producers who fabricated a book, while Hachette argued that because they conceived the idea and undertook the risk of the book, publishers were bona fide producers, too. Why was a publisher like Hachette so concerned about obtaining recognition as a producer in the context of the exhibitions? Such exhibitions were important venues for advertising the products of a firm to government

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authorities and business competitors as well as to potential customers. Although participation in the exhibitions could entail substantial expenses, it could also bring significant rewards. In addition to honors from the juries, exhibitors from France were often awarded the coveted cross of the Legion of Honor. Such rewards were denied to publishers, however, in the early exhibitions. Since 1798, industrial exhibitions had been held on a semiregular basis in France. Because they were intended to showcase new technologies, these exhibitions were limited to the mechanical arts. From the book trade, they featured type-founders, engravers, and printers. For example, at the early exhibitions, the highest honors were given to the Didot family of printers, who had once belonged to the prerevolutionary Chambre Syndicale de la Librairie et de l’Imprimerie and had since initiated many of the technological developments in the book trade. Beginning in the 1820s and 1830s, a few libraires-éditeurs did display their wares at the exhibitions. However, before the 1850s, when these exhibitions became international in scope following the first Universal Exposition or “World’s Fair” in London in 1851, publishers were not recognized by the juries. Concerned that they were thus losing an opportunity to acquire status and publicity, éditeurs such as Hachette began to request that they be allowed to compete alongside printers in the exhibitions.29 Hachette was not the first publisher to assert his status as a producer in the context of the industrial exhibitions. As early as the 1830s, the issue of the place of the publisher in the exhibitions had been raised by such pioneering éditeurs as C. L. F. Panckoucke, son of the eighteenth-century publisher Charles-Joseph Panckoucke, and Léon Curmer, innovator in the use of illustration. In a series of letters to the members of the jury of the national industrial exposition of 1834, for instance, Panckoucke demanded the right to exhibit his publications as a publisher rather than as a printer. Citing statistics on the number of publications he had produced as well as the number of workers he had employed in his career, he insisted that he deserved the title of manufacturer or industrialist. Similarly, in a report on the occupation of the éditeur for the jury of the national exhibition of 1839, Curmer suggested that the publisher deserved the bulk of the credit for the production of a book. Characterizing the éditeur as “the intelligent intermediary between the public and all of the workers who contribute to the fabrication of a book,” he described all of the intellectual and material tasks that this figure had to oversee. None of these tasks, he argued, could be ignored by the publisher. In particular, he emphasized that the job of

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the éditeur required “a sure taste.” Concluding that the work of the publisher was not a mere “trade” but a difficult “art,” Curmer suggested that it was at least as deserving of recognition as the work of the printer in the context of the exhibitions.30 Over the next few decades, especially as the exhibitions became international, other publishers also began to demand the right to participate alongside printers. Writing letters, reports, and pamphlets to the organizers of the exhibitions, they insisted that publishers, too, were entitled to consideration as producers. In support of this demand, they tended to employ similar arguments about the work of the publisher. First, they emphasized the publisher’s role as a developer or entrepreneur. Characterizing the publisher as an “undertaker” of new “enterprises” or “combinations” in literature, they highlighted his function as director and intermediary in the production of books. This argument was made, for example, by the publisher Édouard Dentu in a report on the book trade at the exhibition of 1867 in Paris: The publisher is today a true producer, directing not only a business firm, but also a sort of collective workshop in which the illustrator, the engraver, the printer, the paper-manufacturer, the binder, the stitcher, etc., contribute, under his direction, to a determined goal. He has yet another title as producer; he not only publishes a new work or an old [one] by turning it into a luxury book or a popular book; he creates collections of works with a special goal, periodical publications or encyclopedias, and gives [authors] subjects to treat. It is by these combinations that are created and realized the majority of the monumental works that the publishing industry produces. In line with their characterization of themselves as entrepreneurs, publishers maintained that their work involved not a concrete skill but the abstract faculty of “taste.” In contrast to printers, publishers argued, they were responsible for intuiting and influencing the taste of the public in their choice not just of the content but also of the form of a book. As the printer-bookdealer Jules Delalain acknowledged about the work of the publisher in 1855, “One must admit that most often the merit for the good typographical execution of a book is due to the printer; on the other hand, [this merit] must not at all be exclusive, and one must add that often the publisher too may demand his

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part, due to the taste and the care that he put into the choice of format and of type and the general lay-out of the volume.” Finally, in their effort to obtain status as producers at the exhibitions, publishers compared their occupation to another profession that combined entrepreneurship and taste: architecture. Like architecture, they asserted, publishing involved the conception and coordination of a project that involved a number of artists and workers. This analogy was used, for instance, by the publisher Charles Laboulaye, in a report on the book trade at the Exposition of 1862 in Paris: “If it happens,” Laboulaye wrote, “that in a few cases the publisher is only a capitalist who asks a printer of renown to make him a beautiful book, in others he is truly the architect of the monument that he proposes to erect, by getting to contribute simultaneously the designer, the engraver, the printer, the paper manufacturer, the binder, and by directing their action to attain a clearly determined goal.”31 Strange as this analogy between the publisher and the architect may seem, it was common to many of the demands by publishers for recognition at the exhibitions. At the time of the first international exposition in London in 1851, these demands remained unmet. In the initial plan for this exhibition, the division of the typographical arts did not include publishers. Against their exclusion from the exhibition, several éditeurs in France protested. These éditeurs were backed by the leadership of the Cercle de la Librairie, which was preparing to write a letter to the organizers of the exhibition on the issue when the jury for this division changed its policy. At the last minute, publishers were admitted to the exhibition in an unofficial as opposed to an official capacity. When the prizes were awarded, however, not a single publisher, French or otherwise, obtained recognition from the jury. This affront to the status of the publishing occupation was denounced by the president of the Cercle de la Librairie in France, Laurent-Antoine Pagnerre. “Is there not a great injustice,” Pagnerre complained in a speech to the general assembly of the new trade association, “in pretending that the publisher who conceived the idea, the plan of the publication, who assembled, chose, coordinated all of its elements, who oversaw every detail of its execution, to whom belongs definitively this ensemble that constitutes the book, did not contribute directly to its production?”32 This “injustice” was rectified by the French government when it hosted its first international exposition. At the Exposition of 1855 in Paris, publishers as well as printers were eligible for recognition in the class of the typographical arts. Nonetheless, when the prizes were conferred, publishers still complained

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that they were underappreciated by the jury. Most of the prizes awarded by the jury—especially “first class” prizes—were given to printers. Even the few publishers who did receive prizes (including Léon Curmer, Charles Furne, Victor Masson, Jules Renouard, and Gervais Charpentier) were disgruntled at the jury’s lack of understanding of the significance of their work. Gervais Charpentier, for instance, protested in a letter to the editor of the Journal de la librairie that the bronze medal he had received at the exhibition was both “above and below” the work he had produced in his career of eighteen years in the publishing business. On the one hand, the éditeur wrote, this medal was more than he deserved, because his publications were inferior in material execution to those of many of his colleagues, including Napoléon Chaix, whose simple booklets for the railroad companies constituted “a small chef-d’oeuvre of good harmony, order, clarity, and typographical execution.” On the other hand, this medal was also less than he deserved, because the general conception of his publications and especially of his collection of books in the economical format now associated with his name had promoted reading in France and discouraged literary piracy abroad. Emphasizing the care that he had taken in commissioning and compiling the works in his Bibliothèque, Charpentier suggested that a publisher should be evaluated on the basis of the ensemble of his work.33 The issue of how much credit a publisher deserved for the production of books was raised again prior to the Exposition of 1862 in London by Louis Hachette, who (after his railroad bookstore network survived investigation by the Commission du Colportage in 1861) was appointed by the French government to serve as president of the jury for the class of the typographical arts. Concerned that the organizers of the next exposition in London would repeat the mistake of those of 1851 in neglecting to include publishing in the class of the typographical arts, Hachette wrote a letter to the president of the French organizing committee, Prince Jérome Napoléon (cousin of Emperor Louis-Napoléon) to request the recognition of publishers on equal terms with printers. Asserting that the time had come “to examine seriously the question of whether libraires-éditeurs should be considered true producers, or if they should be excluded forever from the great competitions opened periodically to industrial occupations,” Hachette urged the organizing committee to decide this question for good in favor of publishers. In support of this position, Hachette traced the history of the division of labor between printers and publishers:

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Until the beginning of this century, one must recognize, printing fulfilled the principal role in the production of books. It habitually combined both the manufacture and the commerce of its products. It is to printers that we owe in great part the restitution of ancient texts, the inventions that have given such a large extension to the art of printing, and these editions so knowledgeable, so correct, so legible and often so well executed, which have such a great value for bibliophiles. But since mechanical processes have been simplified through perfection; since, in order to satisfy the immense development of intellectual needs, the work of the printer has divided itself; since instead of a single man who often concentrated in his hands all literary, typographical, and commercial operations, there have developed savants for the preparation of manuscripts, artists and industrialists for the engraving and casting of characters, the fabrication of ink and the confection of printing machines; since the number of booksellers has become, so to speak, unlimited: it is no longer the printer, it is the éditeur who effectively directs the production of books, who furnishes the capital and who may be regarded as the true producer. Because the publisher now assumed responsibility for financing and coordinating the fabrication of a book, Hachette maintained, he was the only person who could claim the title of “true producer” of the commodity as a whole. Although other members of the book trade might deserve recognition for their specific contribution to the final product, only the éditeur had the right to exhibit the book as an ensemble. This position was seconded by a number of other publishers in France, including the leadership of the Cercle de la Librairie. In support of Hachette, the association’s vice president, Victor Masson, wrote a series of articles for the trade journal in defense of the publisher’s claim to the title of producer. Hachette’s position was also endorsed by the trade journal of publishers in the German Confederation, the Börsenblatt.34 The campaign for the inclusion of publishers in the Exposition of 1862 in London was opposed, however, by a number of printers, who were concerned about protecting their status as the main “producers” of books. The opposition to Hachette was again led by Napoléon Chaix, who was now secretary of the Chambre des Imprimeurs of Paris. In response to the letter from Hachette, Chaix drafted a letter of his own to Prince Jérôme, which was published

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in the Journal de la librairie in August 1861. On behalf of the Chambre des Imprimeurs and other “notables” in printing, he defended the place of printers at the exhibitions. Asserting that publishing had never been excluded from the exhibitions, he insisted that nonetheless the point of these exhibitions was to reward the material execution (as opposed to the intellectual conception) of a product. No matter how much influence the taste of the publisher exercised over a book, Chaix suggested, the product was still the responsibility of the printer and his collaborators. If Hachette succeeded in obtaining the inclusion of publishing at the upcoming exhibition, he complained, “printing would be cruelly removed from the elevated rung in industry to which it belongs.” Chaix admitted that there was a divide between the work of the publisher and the work of the printer: whereas the former involved “publication,” the latter involved “fabrication.” However, he insisted, if denied credit for the artistic direction of production, the printer would be reduced to the role of a “more or less intelligent handyman” (main d’oeuvre), a mere instrument of the “skillful architect” of a book, the publisher. To prevent this from happening, Chaix urged the prince to remember that “printing and publishing are two sisters, made for giving each other mutual assistance and not for competing over a vain rank of preeminence.”35 In his conflict with Hachette, Chaix was no more successful at preventing the inclusion of publishers in the international exhibitions than he was at stopping the establishment of bookstands in the railroad stations. After considering the arguments of both sides, the general secretary of the French Imperial Commission for the Exposition of 1862, Frédéric Le Play, decided to ask the organizing committee in England to admit publishers to the exhibition on an equal footing with printers. Even before the English had responded to this request, Le Play instructed the French organizers to admit publishers and the French juries to recognize them. Although he encouraged French publishers and printers to battle not against each other but against their foreign competitors, Le Play insisted that publishers were entitled to status as producers. This position was later endorsed by the organizing committee in England, too. As the vice president of the Cercle de la Librairie, Victor Masson, wrote in the Chronique of the Journal de la librairie, the decision by Le Play ended the debate between publishers and printers over recognition at the international exhibitions.36 Although Hachette himself would die before the next exposition in Paris in 1867, he had secured a place for publishing at all such contests in the future.

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By the mid-1860s, the inclusion of publishing had been accepted by the organizing committees of the international expositions, as was noted by the leadership of the Cercle de la Librairie in a case of arbitration between a publisher and a printer over the right to exhibit a book at a regional industrial exhibition in the town of Niort. In 1867, Hachette’s son-in-law and associate Louis Bréton, who was president of both the Cercle de la Librairie and the admission committee for the class of the typographical arts, ensured that the decision of 1862 to recognize publishers alongside printers was maintained at the International Exposition in Paris. Likewise, this decision was upheld by the organizers of the expositions of 1873 in Vienna, 1876 in Philadelphia, and 1878 in Paris. In contrast to previous expositions, which included only a few (if any) publishers, the expositions of the 1870s featured hundreds, from France and elsewhere. (For a photograph of a display of the products of publishers at an international exhibition in the late nineteenth century, see Figure 4.8.) By 1878, the bias against publishing had more or less disappeared. As Émile Martinet remarked in a report on the book trade at the exhibition of that year, the prejudice against the éditeur for “taking no perceptible part in the confection of the work” was dissipating. Although the exact role of the éditeur in the production of a book was sometimes difficult to determine, he suggested, this figure was now widely accepted as a producer.37 In fact, the place of the publisher at the exhibitions had become so secure that the status of the printer became endangered. As opponents of Hachette such as Chaix had feared, publishing gained respect at the expense of printing. Beginning in the 1880s, printers began their own campaign for more recognition in the context of the exhibitions. Complaining that they were now the victims of prejudice, printers demanded a class of their own. As justification for such a separate class, they argued that the two occupations involved different skills and therefore deserved distinct prizes. During the preparation for the Exposition of 1889 in Paris, for example, the president of the Chambre des Imprimeurs wrote a letter to the minister of commerce and industry in France, requesting that printers be separated from publishers. In support of this request, he wrote: “What portion of merit is due to the publisher? And what [portion] to the printer? That is a delicate matter to determine, and each of these two industries, having a distinct merit, should receive, in our view, even for the same object, distinct rewards, which will not occur if a single jury must rule.” This request was endorsed by the administrative council of the Cercle de la

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Librairie, whose president stated in a letter of his own to the minister of commerce that it seemed fair to have specialized juries and different awards for the work, on the one hand, of “he who executes the work” (i.e., the printer) and, on the other, of “he who conceives the operation and propagates the product” (i.e., the publisher). In the face of the difficulty of determining who had played what role in the production of a given book, however, the organizers of the Exposition of 1889 decided against the proposal by the Chambre des Imprimeurs. Of this decision, the reporter on the book trades at the exhibition, René Fouret, who was an associate of the Hachette publishing firm, wrote: “The quarrel that had previously arisen between printing and publishing, these two sisters, united by blood, but that interest menaced to divide, has finished by extinguishing itself. The thought of competing side by side under the same flag has now sufficed to appease or to veil rivalries that are in sum without purpose.”38 The proposal of the Chambre des Imprimeurs was implemented, however, at the next exposition in Paris in 1900. At that exhibition, printing and publishing were divided into two separate classes within the category of “General Instruments and Processes of Letters, Sciences, and Arts.” Reporting on this new organization of the book trade at the exhibition, the secretary for the international jury in printing, Alexis Lahure, revealed how much the relative status of the two occupations had changed: “Printing had finally succeeded, for the Exhibition of 1900, in forming a separate class,” said this printer, who was also a member of the Cercle de la Librairie: The organizers of the Exhibition had understood that industrialists and merchants could not compete against each other, and that by uniting in a same class printers and publishers, the former would be forcibly sacrificed to the latter, as had already happened in preceding exhibitions, where the greatest rewards were almost entirely given to publishers who were able to exhibit products gathered together from the diverse industries that contribute to the fabrication of a book.39 As demonstrated by the separation of the two occupations at the Exposition of 1900, publishers had supplanted printers at the center of the book trade. Thanks in large part to the concerted effort by Hachette to defend the entrepreneurial function in the book trade, the image of the éditeur had im-

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proved by the last third of the nineteenth century. Where before he had been denounced as a useless charlatan, now he was recognized as a valuable professional. Although this figure would still attract occasional criticism from traditionalists in the book trade, the éditeur was now accepted as a vital member of this trade.

Like the battle over the railroad bookstore network, the struggle over the inclusion of publishing at the international expositions ended in victory for Hachette. The prime beneficiary of this victory was, of course, the publisher himself, who died with a personal fortune of almost three million francs, making him one of the wealthiest businessmen of his era. Long after his death, his firm continued to profit from both its monopoly over the sale of printed matter in railway stations and its participation in the international exhibitions. By the late 1870s, when its annual sales totaled some fifteen million francs and its offices and warehouses employed more than four hundred workers (not counting the sales agents in the railroad bookstores), Hachette and Company was without question the dominant publishing house in France.40 With the help of its railroad bookstore network, as well as a collection of paperback “pocket books” introduced in 1954, this firm maintained its dominance of the publishing business in France—and the rest of the world—through the twentieth century. As this chapter has suggested, however, the effects of the conflict between Hachette and Chaix over the railroad bookstore network and the participation of publishers in the international expositions were not limited to the Hachette firm. In his struggle with the printer Chaix, Hachette defended not just his own enterprise but the work of the publisher in general. Countering the negative stereotype of the publisher as a parasitical middleman, he redefined this figure as a true “producer.” Endorsed by both the Cercle de la Librairie and the administration of the Second Empire, this conception of the publisher prevailed by the 1860s. As a result of Hachette’s campaign to rehabilitate the work of the publisher, the éditeur became a more positive figure in the social imaginary. The conflict between Hachette and Chaix also demonstrated the growing power of the liberal camp in the book trade. In the struggle over both the railroad station bookstalls and the international expositions, this camp

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proved dominant in the main trade organization, the Cercle de la Librairie. Ignoring the appeals by Chaix to defend the interests of printers, the leadership of the Cercle sided with Hachette—and with unfettered entrepreneurialism. Under the influence of Hachette, the Cercle de la Librairie would work to advance the liberal cause in other ways, too. As the next chapter will show, the Cercle would lead the fight for the two reforms of greatest interest to publishers: the abolition of licensing and the extension of literary property.

6 The Divorce between State and Market

Not only was Louis Hachette one of the premier examples—and defenders— of the work of the entrepreneurial publisher. He was also one of the foremost champions of the liberalization of publishing. From the beginning of his career in the late 1820s, Hachette campaigned for liberal reforms of state policies on the book trade, especially the strengthening of literary property rights and the abolition of licensing requirements. While building his business as a publisher of first educational and then trade publications, he authored numerous petitions and brochures in support of such liberal reforms. He also served in several government commissions and professional associations concerned with these issues, including the commission on literary piracy appointed by the minister of public instruction in 1836–1837, an Association for the Defense of Literary Property, and the Cercle de la Librairie. In his efforts to promote the liberalization of publishing, Hachette was aided by his extensive personal and professional connections—built in part through his position in the Chamber of Commerce of Paris, to which he was elected in November 1848—with leaders of business and government, including the doctrinaire liberal François Guizot, the liberal Bonapartist Count (later Duke) Charles-Auguste de Morny, and the republican Jules Simon. With the help of these connections, he was quite successful at influencing state policy on the book trade. By the time of his death in 1864, the French state had taken several major steps toward divorcing itself from the market for literature. Ironically, these steps toward divorce were taken by the heir to the imperial regime that had instituted the “marriage” between the state and the market in the first place: the Second Empire of Louis-Napoléon Bonaparte. Despite its authoritarian character, the Second Empire proved more receptive than the previous regimes of the nineteenth century to the demands of publishers for

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more liberty. As Chapter 2 demonstrated, publishers such as Hachette had been lobbying the state to liberate the book trade from limits on entrance and property since the late 1820s. Under the Restoration and July Monarchy, however, their efforts came to naught because the state still considered regulation to be crucial for public safety and enlightenment. While the Revolution of 1848 renewed the hopes of liberals for deregulation of the press, the short-lived Second Republic did little to reform state policy on publishing: although the provisional republican government appointed commissions to reevaluate the legislation on both literary property and licensing, it took no concrete measures on these issues. When the republic was overthrown by Louis-Napoléon in December 1851, state control over print was at first not relaxed but strengthened. According to a decree of 17 February 1852, for example, the administration reserved the right to suspend any periodical that had received two warnings for offenses against public security or morality, as well as to punish by fine or imprisonment any printer or bookdealer who practiced his trade without a license. As a result of this decree, numerous authors, editors, publishers, and printers in France were tried or exiled.1 At mid-century, then, the marriage between state and market in the book trade seemed more solid than ever. By the late 1860s, however, this marriage had been undone by the nephew of the emperor who had first consecrated it. Why did this compact between state and market dissolve when it did? If the decree of 1810 had been left intact by the constitutional governments of the Restoration, July Monarchy, and Second Republic, why was it overturned by the more authoritarian regime of the Second Empire? The divorce between state and market in the book trade resulted from a shift in politics, on both the professional and the national levels. The literary market was liberalized in the 1860s for two basic reasons. First, by this time, publishers had managed to forge durable and effective political networks with each other and with members of the state. Out of their struggles from the 1820s through the 1840s, publishers had become better organized. Especially in comparison to their peers in printing, who were long barred by the administration from forming any kind of organization reminiscent of the old book guild, publishers were successful at using professional associations to promote their interests. In particular, the Cercle de la Librairie proved to be a very effective tool for advancing the interests of publishers. By the late 1850s, the Cercle had been recognized as the main representative of the book trade by the state administration, which solicited its opinion on a

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number of policy measures related to that trade. Between the 1820s and the 1850s, publishers had also developed political connections to members of the state. Through their business relationships and civic activities, they had cultivated close ties with numerous ministers and legislators. During the Second Empire, they were able to exploit these ties to shape state policies in their favor. Louis Hachette, for instance, used his personal connections with Jules Simon and the Count de Morny to influence the state on the issues of literary property and licensing. Although he was favored more than most with government contracts and privileges, Hachette was by no means the only publisher who was so well connected to members of the government. Several other major publishing entrepreneurs, including Hachette’s successors Louis Bréton and Émile Templier, the republican publisher Laurent-Antoine Pagnerre, the scientific publishers J.-B. Baillière and Victor Masson, and the technical publisher Charles Laboulaye, also had political connections, which enabled them to influence state policy on publishing. Printers were not without such connections. For example, Ambroise Firmin-Didot, Paul Dupont, and Jules Delalain were all linked to or involved in the government. However, they proved much less effective than publishers at using their connections to influence policymakers, in part because they lacked a trade association of their own until the 1860s.2 Thus, the dissolution of the marriage between state and market in publishing was due, first of all, to a political shift within the book trade: since the beginning of the debates over licensing and literary property in the 1820s and 1830s, publishers had become more successful than printers and bookdealers at lobbying the state. At the same time as publishers were becoming more successful at lobbying, their interlocutors in the government were becoming more receptive to their demands because of a shift in politics on the national level. The second reason that the marriage between state and market in publishing dissolved when it did was that the state itself began to change its priorities. Where before it had been concerned above all to protect public security, morality, and enlightenment, by the 1860s it became preoccupied with promoting commercial growth. As part of a broader push to encourage entrepreneurial activity, it began to consider the liberalization of publishing. In pursuing this goal, the regime of the Second Empire was motivated by political contingency as much as ideology. Like many of the other liberal reforms of the 1860s, the liberalization of publishing was forced upon this regime by political events both outside and inside France.

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In the wake of a series of unpopular foreign policies, including the free trade treaty with England, the Mexican adventure, the Crimean War, and the Italian invasion, as well as in the context of the international expositions, which encouraged nations to compare and systematize their legislation, the regime was pushed to make some concessions to the liberal opposition. Although the reforms proposed by liberals such as Émile Ollivier were long blocked by reactionaries such as Eugène Rouher, over time the imperial administration began to promote the causes of protection of property and freedom of commerce. As part of a broader move to deregulate business, which included theater as well as baking, butchering, stock-brokering, and a number of other occupations, the state reconsidered its policy on literary property and licensing, beginning in the 1860s.3 Finally acceding to the demands of publishers for the extension of literary property rights and the abolition of licensing requirements, it liberalized the market for literature. The story of the divorce between state and market in the book trade thus confirms the conclusion of much recent historiography about the Second Empire that this regime was instrumental in the development of modern republican practices and institutions. At the same time, however, it also highlights the ambiguities and tensions in French liberalism, which have been noted by Sudhir Hazareesingh, among others.4 In particular, this story illustrates the divisions between economic and political or intellectual liberalism. In the campaign for deregulation of the literary market, neither liberals in the book trade nor their supporters in the government demonstrated a commitment to intellectual liberty based on principle. Instead, they based their demands for press freedom and literary property on instrumentalist notions of commercial liberty. As a consequence, the measures that resulted from these demands were fundamentally limited and easily compromised. Although they reformed the law on publishing, these measures did not challenge the premise on which this law had been based since the Revolution and Empire: that individual freedom of property and occupation needed to be restricted in the interest of the public.

The Liberalization of Literary Property Law The marriage between state and market was first reconfigured in the arena of literary property. Under the Second Empire, individual rights to such property

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were strengthened both domestically and internationally. Through a series of measures between 1852 and 1866, the government of Louis-Napoléon effected a new compromise between the rights of the public and the rights of the individual producer, in favor of the latter. This more liberal compromise benefited publishers, who could monopolize literary capital for a longer period and over a greater territory. However, it still refrained from recognizing the material (let alone the moral) rights of authors as absolute and perpetual. When Louis-Napoléon launched his coup d’état against the Second Republic in December 1851, the law on literary property remained essentially unchanged since the reign of the first Napoleon. Despite widespread complaints about literary piracy, the postrevolutionary French state had done little to strengthen the rights of authors. In response to the demands of publishers as well as authors, it had appointed investigative commissions (in 1825 and 1836) and introduced legislative bills (in 1839 and 1841) on the matter. However, with the exception of the law of 1844, which brought the rights of dramatic authors into line with those of other authors, these actions yielded no real reform of the regulation of literary property. Concerned with protecting the public domain of ideas and confounded by the difficulty of administering perpetual payments to the heirs of authors, the government hesitated to recognize literary property as a natural and permanent right. During the Second Republic, the government did name a new commission, under the auspices of the Institut de France, to study the international law on literary property and especially a proposed treaty for reciprocal protection of such property between France and Great Britain. With the assistance of this commission, the government continued to negotiate bilateral treaties for the protection of literary property with several new countries, including Portugal and Hanover, as well as with Great Britain in 1851.5 But it declined to expand the definition or protection of literary property. At the time of the fall of the Second Republic, the marriage of state and market in the realm of literary property thus remained a source of dissatisfaction among publishers, who renewed their campaign against literary piracy with the help of the Cercle de la Librairie. Under the leadership of LaurentAntoine Pagnerre, who was a member of the provisional government and of the legislative assembly, the new association fought to bring the issue of literary property to the attention of the state. In July 1849, for example, it lobbied the Chamber of Commerce of Paris, through its representative Louis Hachette,

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to address as a violation of trademark a contrefaçon by a Belgian publisher. In November 1850, the Cercle sent representatives to the minister of foreign affairs to demand government action against literary piracy. It even sent a delegation to visit the prince-president of the Republic, Louis-Napoléon, who had long ago endorsed the notion of intellectual property in his writing and who had recently denounced the problem of literary piracy in an official address, to encourage him to strengthen literary property. To supplement the work of the Cercle on the issue, a number of publishers founded another association, the Société pour la Poursuite des Contrefaçons Littéraires et Artistiques en France et à l’Étranger (Society for the Pursuit of Literary and Artistic Piracies in France and Abroad), to fight literary piracy through the court system. This association, which would later be incorporated into the Cercle as a committee on literary property, worked to inform writers and publishers of the laws and formalities related to literary property—for example, by publishing a semiregular Bulletin. The Société pour la Poursuite des Contrefaçons would play a major role in the campaign by publishers to protect and extend such property.6 In response to the complaints of publishers, the new regime of LouisNapoléon acted quickly to address the problem of literary piracy. In the early 1850s, this regime took three major steps to increase protection of literary property. On 28 March 1852, it issued a decree guaranteeing unilaterally and unconditionally the property of foreign authors within France. In August of the same year, it signed a treaty with Belgium for the reciprocal protection of literary and artistic property. And, on 8 April 1854, it passed a law extending the rights of the direct descendants of an author from twenty to thirty years beyond the lifetime of the author and his spouse. These three measures went a long way toward meeting the demands that publishers had been making since the late 1820s. The decree of 28 March 1852, for example, fulfilled their demand for unilateral as opposed to just reciprocal protection of literary property between nations. Under this decree, which guaranteed to foreign authors the rights granted by their home state, France would negotiate a number of international treaties on literary property in the 1850s and 1860s. The law of 8 April 1854, which was essentially the same as the bill that had failed to pass the legislature in 1841, increased the term during which the rights to a text could be monopolized by an individual producer, benefitting publishers as much as authors. Along with the decree of 28 March 1852,

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the Franco-Belgian treaty of 22 August 1852 spelled the end of Belgian literary piracy. Together, these three measures offered unprecedented protection for literary property, domestically and internationally.7 Yet, because they contradicted each other to a certain extent, these three measures did not fundamentally alter the legal definition of literary property. While the decree of March 1852 defined such property as an absolute and universal right, to all authors everywhere who had completed the formalities required of authors in France, the treaty of August 1852 and the law of April 1854 were far more instrumentalist in their conception of literary property. The treaty of August 1852, which was not a positive law but merely a commercial agreement between the two countries of France and Belgium, protected literary property not as a universal right but only as a reciprocal concession. Likewise, in extending the duration of literary property only to thirty years after the death of the author and his spouse and only for direct descendants, the law of April 1854 continued to define such property not as an absolute right by nature but as a temporary and arbitrary grant from society. Together, these three measures may have revised the particular terms of the compromise of 1810 on literary property, but they respected the fundamental principles of this compromise. Although they increased the rights of individual producers of literature, they still balanced these rights with those of the public. Because the three measures promulgated by the government of Napoleon III in the early 1850s did not fundamentally alter the compromise established by Napoleon I, they left most members of the book trade unhappy with the legislation on literary property. They did not satisfy publishers, for example, who thought that these measures did not go far enough toward recognizing literary property as a natural and perpetual right. In particular, publishers complained that the term of thirty years guaranteed to literary property within France by the law of 1854 applied only to descending heirs (as opposed to ascending or collateral ones) and only after the death of the spouse as well as the author. In their view, these restrictions made the enjoyment of such property too variable and limited. The three measures promulgated by the government of Napoleon III also proved objectionable to printers and bookdealers, who protested that, internationally, the unilateral protection of the rights of foreign authors would leave the publications of French producers open to pirating while preventing them from reproducing publications from abroad,

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and that, domestically, the extension of literary property to thirty years after the death of the author and his spouse would diminish the public domain on which they relied for much of their work. Although these measures reduced the threat of piracy both inside and outside France, they did not alleviate the contention among members of the book trade there. In the wake of these measures, members of this trade were more divided than ever on the issue of literary property: publishers continued to demand perpetual (or at least extended) property rights, while printers and bookdealers persisted in supporting the restriction of such rights in favor of a large public domain. The division between the two camps in the book trade over this issue was evident on the occasion of an international congress on literary property that was held in Brussels in September 1858. First proposed by a journal called Propriété littéraire et artistique (“Literary and Artistic Property”) in the wake of the International Exposition of 1855, the Congress of Brussels was organized by leaders of the book trade and the state administration in Belgium, in an effort to atone for their country’s past involvement in literary piracy. Intended to complement the bilateral treaties that had begun to be signed between individual nations in the 1840s and 1850s, this congress was charged by its organizers with developing some basic principles on which to base both international and domestic legislation on literary property. The agenda of the congress also included more specific issues related to literary property, such as dramatic and musical works, artistic works, and fiscal and administrative measures to facilitate the circulation of printed matter. Attended by close to three hundred representatives of the literary, scientific, artistic, publishing, and legal occupations from thirteen countries, the Congress of Brussels had no power to draft legislation. However, it was supposed to make recommendations about literary property, which could in turn be enacted by the governments of participating countries.8 As soon as it was announced in the spring of 1858, the Congress of Brussels reignited debate on the issue of literary property among members of the book trade in France. During preparations for the congress, publishers and printers each developed their position on the issue, in meetings, letters, and pamphlets. The position of publishers was articulated by Louis Hachette, in a report written on behalf of a committee formed jointly by the Cercle de la Librairie and the Commission des Auteurs et Compositeurs Dramatiques (Commission of Dramatic Writers and Composers), in response to a questionnaire from the

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organizers of the Congress of Brussels. Hachette, who insisted that literary property should be recognized as universal and perpetual like any other kind of property, urged the congress to recommend that such property be guaranteed by every nation, unilaterally, for a term of at least fifty years after the death of the author. In support of this recommendation, he wrote: Who would refuse to writers and to artists the enjoyment that one grants to simple workers, to simple producers or acquirers of goods of all kinds, that of the fruit of their work? Why would this property be temporary and limited to their own country? It is thus necessary to proclaim openly that authors have a legitimate right to the property of the fruit of their work and to make this property recognized, not only by the country of origin but also by all civilized nations. This recognition must take place from country to country, and, if it is possible, in absolute terms and without condition of reciprocity, because it is founded in law and in equity.9 Following the logic of Hachette, the Cercle de la Librairie endorsed the recognition of literary property as a universal and permanent right. Despite this official endorsement by the main book trade association, the extension of literary property was opposed by a small but significant minority of the members of this association, especially in the printing and bookselling occupations. The position of these members of the book trade was exemplified by the printer-bookdealer Ambroise Firmin-Didot. (For a portrait of Ambroise Firmin-Didot, see Figure 6.1.) In a letter to one of the leaders of the congress, the French jurist Victor Foucher, Firmin-Didot opposed any change in the law on literary property. “I have told you of my regret about seeing the question of literary property raised again,” he wrote. “I strongly fear that the desire to render it perpetual, or at least to increase the duration of the rights enjoyed by authors, may compromise the great advantages that are already assured to them by our French law, and that are beginning to be multiplied by international law.” Concerned that the assimilation of literary property to other kinds of property would “materialize” and hence degrade intellectual work, Firmin-Didot insisted that the current legislation was best at balancing the interests of the author and his family with those of the public and the “dignity of letters.”10

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[To view this image, refer to the print version of this title.]

Figure 6.1. Portrait of the printer-bookdealer Ambroise Firmin-Didot (1790–1876). Département des estampes et de la photographie, Bibliothèque nationale de France.

The divisions between publishers and printers within France were reflected in the debates at the congress itself, once it began in September 1858. The congress, which included sixteen delegates from the Cercle de la Librairie in France, was sharply divided on the question of whether literary property was a perpetual or a limited right.11 Although most delegates concurred that literary property should be recognized internationally, without condition of reciprocity, they differed in their opinion about the definition and extension of such property within individual nations. The congress even debated whether

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it was more appropriate to use the term “rights” than the term “property” to describe the claims of authors and their assigns. Although it eventually decided in favor of using the word “property,” the congress remained divided on the issue of whether this property was natural or sui generis. But the most divisive issue for the congress proved to be the duration of such property. By far the most lengthy and contentious discussion at the congress concerned the question of whether, in the laws of individual nations, literary property should be guaranteed in perpetuity or only temporarily. In this discussion, representatives of the French publishing and printing occupations played a large role. Louis Hachette, for example, gave a speech in favor of extending the right of literary property to perpetuity. Victor Foucher presented the opposing argument, against perpetuity. Echoing the language of the letter he had received from Ambroise Firmin-Didot, Foucher maintained that once a manuscript left the hands of its author, the claims of the individual to it were outweighed by those of society. In his defense of the rights of society, Foucher was seconded by another bookdealer from France, Charles Furne, who insisted that because all ideas come from God, they must circulate freely. When it looked like the proponents of perpetuity might prevail, Furne stormed out of the congress in protest. In the end, however, the congress rejected the notion of perpetual property in ideas. Although it supported universal recognition of literary property on the international level, within individual nations it proposed that such property be limited to a term of fifty years after the lifetime of the author and his spouse. Retreating from the absolutist position on literary property defended by Hachette on behalf of the Cercle de la Librairie, the Congress of Brussels advocated a compromise between “the sacred interests of authors and the no less respectable and no less grave interests of society.”12 This compromise position on literary property was repudiated by many members of the book trade in France. Despite the large role that representatives of the Cercle de la Librairie had played in the discussions at Brussels, many members of the trade association were dissatisfied with the outcome of the congress. This dissatisfaction was downplayed by the president of the Cercle and head of the French delegation to the congress, Jules Delalain, who in his report on the congress to the general assembly of the association emphasized the progress that had been made on the issue of literary property since the establishment of the Cercle de la Librairie: “If the resolutions voted at the Congress of Brussels have not completely satisfied the wishes of some of the

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members [of the committee appointed by the Cercle to respond to the questions circulated by the organizing committee of the congress], especially regarding the duration of the rights of the author,” Delalain commented, “they at least mark for them a tangible progress for which they must be grateful.” “What we have done and obtained in Brussels by our union,” he continued, “none of us would have been able to obtain individually. What we do and obtain each day in the interest of our industries by our works and our actions, thanks to the existence of our Cercle and the publicity of our journal, we would not have been able to obtain, if we had continued to live in isolation.”13 Delalain’s words were belied, however, by the actions of several members of the Cercle de la Librairie in the months following the Congress of Brussels. The final recommendations of the congress were protested by several prominent publishers, most of whom had represented the Cercle de la Librairie in Brussels. After hearing Delalain’s report on the congress, an unnamed delegate requested (unsuccessfully) that it be amended to include “a few words of regret about the rejection by the Congress of the principle of perpetuity.” Following the congress, Louis Hachette resigned from the Cercle’s committee on literary property, which he had helped to found (as the Society for the Pursuit of Literary and Artistic Piracies) in the early 1850s, out of protest at the acquiescence of the French delegation to the limitation of the rights of authors. Likewise, the music publisher François-Jules Colombier, who had been a delegate at the congress, remonstrated against the concessions it had made to the opponents of perpetual rights. In a published letter to the president of the Cercle, he complained that the congress had refused to guarantee literary property on the same terms as real estate. “Since literary and artistic property is the fruit of work,” Colombier wrote, “it has a right to the protection of the law like all other properties. In my opinion, by refusing to recognize the principle of literary and artistic property, the Congress of Brussels fell short of its mission.” In the view of such publishers, the congress had harmed the cause of literary property by endorsing limits on the rights of individuals to such property.14 From the perspective of more traditional members of the French book trade, in contrast, the congress had not done enough to limit literary property rights. Concerned with protecting a large public domain from which they could easily appropriate work, printers and bookdealers complained that the Congress of Brussels had favored the rights of individuals at the expense of the interests of

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society. In the wake of the congress, the campaign to preserve the public domain from private claims by producers was spearheaded by Pierre-Jules Hetzel, publisher of Honoré de Balzac, Georges Sand, Victor Hugo, Jules Verne, and other major nineteenth-century writers. A writer in his own right who had published moralistic stories for the emerging children’s market (under the pseudonym P.-J. Stahl) as well as journalistic pieces for the newspaper Le National, Hetzel was a militant republican. Since the coup d’état of Louis-Napoléon, he had been living in exile in Belgium, where he produced cheap editions of French authors for the foreign market. Less financially successful than many of his colleagues in publishing, Hetzel objected to the monopolization of literary property by big éditeurs such as Louis Hachette.15 Soon after the conclusion of the Congress of Brussels, Hetzel wrote a letter to the editor of a Belgian newspaper, L’Indépendance belge, in which he faulted congress participants for equivocating on the question of whether literary and artistic property was a property like any other. In this letter, he complained that the compromise term of fifty years after the death of the author that the congress had ultimately recommended failed to end the “old antagonism” between the interests of the individual producer and the interests of society as a whole. In place of this compromise term, Hetzel recommended the establishment of what he termed a “paying public domain.” Recycling an idea that had been considered by the French commission on literary property in 1825–1826, he proposed that after the death of the author, his work would enter the public domain, from which any publisher would be free to reproduce it, on the condition that he paid a fixed percentage of the list price (prix fort) of his publication to the author’s family. In contrast to the extension of the term of literary property, such a system would benefit the author’s family rather than his publisher.16 Hetzel would continue to campaign for such a paying public domain for several years after the Congress of Brussels. In 1860, for example, he addressed a brochure to the legislature in Belgium, which was considering a new bill on literary property, in which he insisted that this system would eliminate individual privilege and facilitate public access to the world of ideas. At the same time, he asserted, it would increase production and create work in the many industries related to book manufacture and distribution. In Hetzel’s opinion, such a system was of obvious benefit to authors and readers as well as to most members of the book trade. According to him, it was “the only just, the only

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practicable, the only liberal (in the true sense of the word) solution, the only one that guarantees at the same time both the moral right of society and the material right of the author.” This system could be opposed, he suggested, only by those members of the trade who profited from extensive guarantees of individual rights to literary property: big publishers, such as Louis Hachette. Anticipating the critics of his system, Hetzel argued that the paying public domain could be rejected “only by those who have founded their industry on the base of a monopoly, on the base of this domestic system of protection that has reduced publishing to the status of one of the smallest trades in France, by those finally who are by virtue of their position the enemies of all change, even if the change represents progress.” In contrast to big businessmen in publishing, such as Hachette and Colombier, Hetzel rejected the term of fifty years after the death of the author that had been recommended as the basis for national laws on literary property by the Congress of Brussels in 1858, not because it was too short but because it was too long. Believing that such an extended term constituted an arbitrary “privilege” for big publishers, who were the only ones able to afford to buy new literary works, he instead advocated open competition among all producers to reproduce work from the public domain for a small fee. Although Hetzel’s proposal for a paying public domain was deemed unworkable even by many supporters of limits on literary property, it fueled the opposition to perpetuity as the debate over the regulation of such property continued within France.17 In the wake of the Congress of Brussels, the French state was driven to reevaluate the legislation on literary property. As other countries, such as Portugal, Denmark, and even Belgium, began to reform their legislation in light of the recommendations of the congress, French officials became concerned that they would be surpassed in the protection of literary property, on which they had previously taken the lead. In light of the resolutions of the congress, these officials also became more aware of the deficiencies and inconsistencies in domestic legislation on literary property, especially the law of 1854, which extended protection for such property only to the direct descendants of an author and only for thirty years after the death of the author and his spouse. In addition to discouraging investment by publishers in new literary work, they realized, the deficiencies and inconsistencies in the current legislation were hindering negotiation with other nations of treaties on literary property. Shortly after the conclusion of the Congress of Brussels, these concerns about

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the French legislation on literary property were raised by the Count Alexander Walewski, who was then minister of foreign affairs. Walewski, who was an illegitimate son of Napoleon I and a Polish noblewoman, Marie Laczynska Walewski, was a committed liberal who served the Second Empire in a variety of administrative and legislative positions. In a letter to the minister of the interior in December 1858, Walewski initiated what would be close to a decadelong campaign for reform of the legislation on literary property. “To postpone a reform solicited by those people [publishers] whose interests it had better safeguard,” he wrote, “would obviously cause the Government of the Emperor to lose credit for a liberal initiative and leave it only to borrow from foreign law codes measures for which we were the first to sense the convenience or the necessity.” Echoing the demands of French publishers, Walewski requested that literary property be strengthened in line with the recommendations of the Congress of Brussels.18 Although Walewski’s request was supported by several other members of the government, the reform of literary property law was delayed by the contingencies of politics. First, it became ensnared in a jurisdictional struggle between several ministries. Although the minister of foreign affairs had first proposed the reform, the ministries of state, public instruction, and the interior all had some claim to responsibility over the legislation on literary property. In January 1859, the director of the Administration of the Book Trade at the Ministry of the Interior, Paul Juillerat, requested that a commission be established to develop a new law on literary property, under the auspices of that ministry. In response, the minister of state insisted that because his office had (as the department in charge of art and theater) initiated the law of 1854, any change to this law fell under his jurisdiction. For close to two years, as these two ministries struggled for jurisdiction over the matter, no action was taken to reform literary property law. Finally, in late 1861, after another international congress on literary property had met in Anvers, Count Walewski (who had in the meantime moved from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs to the Ministry of State, which included responsibility for the fine arts) succeeded in persuading the emperor to appoint a commission, under the presidency of the minister of state and the vice presidency of the ministers of public instruction and the interior, to draft a new bill on literary property. In addition to numerous statesmen, jurists, and academicians, this commission included the presidents of the Société des Gens de Lettres and the Commission des Auteurs

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et Compositeurs Dramatiques, the author Théophile Gautier, and the printerpublisher Ambroise Firmin-Didot.19 Under the influence of its liberal president Walewski, the new commission on literary property favored the extension of literary property rights to perpetuity. During the first meeting of the commission, Walewski gave a long speech in which he cited historical precedents and literary as well as political authorities to argue that literary property was a natural right, no different than real estate and thus subject to common law. Although he presented the commission with three different systems from which to choose in proposing new legislation on literary property—the current regime of thirty years after the death of the author and his spouse, the extension of this term to fifty years, or perpetuity—he made it clear that he preferred the last one. Pushed by Walewski to endorse the option of perpetuity, the commission quickly concluded that literary property was a true property, which endured indefinitely. After two meetings, in which only a few members objected to the extension of literary property rights, the commission endorsed the principle of perpetuity, by a vote of nineteen to three, with one abstention. The commission then appointed a subcommission to prepare a new bill on literary property based on this principle.20 Although it was charged with enacting the principle of perpetuity, the subcommission considered a variety of viewpoints on the issue of literary property. Between March 1862 and February 1863, the subcommission held eighteen meetings, in which it heard depositions from numerous members of the occupations concerned by the law on literary property, including the book publisher Hachette, the music publisher Colombier, and the printer-publisher Firmin-Didot. The publisher and writer Jules Hetzel, who was still promoting his proposal for a “paying public domain,” was also invited to appear before the commission, but, because he was in exile from France at the time, he was unable to do so. Nonetheless, his idea was represented in the discussions of the subcommission, as was the position of printers and bookdealers more generally. As it studied the issue of literary property, the subcommission was barraged with petitions, reports, and editorials by members of the publishing, journalism, literary, artistic, and legal professions, all of whom sought to influence its decision. Following the main commission’s endorsement of perpetuity in early 1862, publishers and their allies rallied to defend the liberal notion of literary property

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as permanent and universal. In particular, Louis Hachette lobbied hard for the extension of literary property rights. In his appearance before the subcommission of 1862, Hachette presented the case for perpetuity. Rejecting the idea of a paying public domain as both unsatisfactory and impracticable, he insisted that placing such property under the common law was the best way of protecting the interests of readers as well as authors and publishers. Without such common law protection, he suggested, publishers lacked incentive to produce new—and correct and inexpensive—editions of classic texts. In addition to making his case before the subcommission, Hachette organized an Association for the Defense of Literary Property. This association, which included writers, lawyers, and politicians as well as editors and publishers, published a number of studies and pamphlets in support of the cause of perpetuity. In editing these publications, Hachette solicited help from prominent literary and political figures, such as the republican writer and legislator Jules Simon, who was one of his authors as well as a member (and future president) of the Société des Gens de Lettres. The actions of Hachette in favor of perpetuity were seconded by a number of other publishers and writers of literature, music, and theater, including representatives of the Société des Gens de Lettres, in their appearances before the subcommission of 1862 and in their own pamphlets on the subject.21 On the other end of the debate, antiestablishment members of the book trade lobbied the subcommission to maintain some kind of limits on literary property rights. Alarmed by the decision of the commission of 1861 in favor of perpetuity, a number of printers and bookdealers, as well as a handful of authors, campaigned against the monopolization of such rights by what Pierre-Joseph Proudhon termed the majorats (“sur-chargers” or “monopolizers”) in publishing.22 Concerned that the extension of such rights would privilege certain publishers, at the expense of readers as well as themselves, these opponents of perpetuity insisted that literary property was not a material, permanent property but only a sui generis, temporary right. Once a work of literature was published, they argued, the right of the author (and his publisher) to profit from it had to be balanced against the right of society to benefit from it. This argument was made, for example, by the printer-publisher Ambroise FirminDidot, who was a member of the official commission on literary property. In published “observations” to the commission, as well as in oral testimony before the subcommission in early 1862, Firmin-Didot urged it to maintain strict

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limits on the rights of individuals to own literary works in the interest of both the enlightenment of the public and the reputation of the author.23 Outside of the commission, this position on literary property was perhaps best articulated by the book publisher Gervais Charpentier, in a two-part article entitled “The Alleged Right of Literary Property,” published in his house magazine, the Revue nationale et étrangère, in February 1862. Asserting that perpetual property rights would benefit only a select few publishers, including himself, Charpentier wrote: No, the right of authors to their works cannot be assimilated to that which possessed, to the desk where we write at this moment, the cabinetmaker who made it, and which he transferred to us. . . . We have the right absolutely to burn the desk of which we have just spoken and on which we write these lines without giving anyone the right to complain, because no one aside from us will be deprived of it. It is not the same with the work of a great author or a great artist; the day that he communicates it to the public, which is his most beautiful day, he gives it up and society would object, with reason, against his destroying it, if he could. . . . Once it is published, the author or the artist no longer has anything but a remunerative right to his work.24 In opposition to liberals such as Hachette, more traditional or contrarian members of the book trade such as Firmin-Didot and Charpentier demanded that the subcommission reject the notion of literary property as perpetual. Opponents of perpetuity differed in the recommendations that they made to the subcommission on literary property. Even as they agreed that individual claims to ideas should be limited in the interest of society, they disagreed about how they should be limited. Some of them advocated a version of the paying public domain proposed by Jules Hetzel. Firmin-Didot, for instance, requested that if the rights of authors were to be extended at all, it should be by means of a system whereby producers of reprints from the public domain paid reproduction fees to the author’s heirs. Other opponents of the liberal position on literary property advocated limitation of the duration of individual claims to works to a term somewhere between the current guarantee of thirty years after the death of the author and the liberal desiderata of perpetuity. Charpentier, for example, supported the compromise

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term of fifty years that had been recommended by the Congress of Brussels. Rejecting the positions of both Hetzel and Hachette as self-interested, he wrote: Monsieur Hetzel, who has no literary properties, would not perhaps be bothered someday to find, in his paying public domain, the means of practicing his industry, just like Monsieur Hachette, who has a large firm resting on solid and durable foundations, pushes with all his force for the perpetuity of literary property, because he knows well that it will in large part fall, one day, to his children. . . . As one sees, each of these messieurs has a system particular to his own profit. Happily for the public good, the game of one destroys that of the other.25 In the opinion of Charpentier, the collection of fees from publishers and printers who reproduced works from the public domain was just as detrimental to competition as the extension of the rights of individual authors and their assigns to perpetuity. No matter how they proposed to limit literary property, though, all corporatists asked the subcommission to define this property as a temporary right. In response to such arguments, the subcommission retreated from defining literary property as a permanent and transmissible right. Although it briefly considered guaranteeing literary property in perpetuity under the common law as liberal publishers and authors had requested, it ultimately proposed a system that combined a limited term of private ownership with a paying public domain. By a vote of five to two, the subcommission recommended that literary property remain limited to thirty years beyond the lifetime of the author. After this term, it suggested that the government continue to accord monetary rights to the author’s heirs by collecting fees (of 5 percent of the list price) on reproductions of works in the public domain. In the interest of the families of authors, it advocated making these monetary rights retroactive. Concerned that perpetuity would prove detrimental to creators and consumers of literature as well as objectionable to members of the administration and legislature, the subcommission hesitated to place literary property under the common law. As the president of the subcommission, the poet and senator Pierre-Antoine Lebrun, explained in his report to the full commission:

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But if one of the faces of the question showed itself so favorable to the common law, if the parties concerned seemed to demand with absolute justice a full and perpetual right, not only for themselves, but for all their heirs and assigns, the side of the question that regards the public and its right of use, the difficulty of making the perpetual right accord with international conventions, the danger of delivering the commercial advantages of publishing, music, and engraving to foreign industry, finally, certain difficulties of application that the discussion illuminated, brought us back to the system whose application and especially whose adoption seemed to us the least difficult. To speak frankly, we hesitated before the opposition that a radical law would have encountered and the resistance that seems to persist even among the best spirits, even in the breast of the great bodies of the State.26 Despite the intentions of Walewski and the interventions of Hachette, the subcommission rejected a common law conception of literary property in favor of a special regulation of the rights of authors. This special regulation did not satisfy the commission headed by Walewski, which had requested a more liberal bill. Before submitting the proposal of the subcommission to the imperial administration, the commission on literary property modified it in line with the interests of publishers. Following another round of debate between proponents and opponents of perpetuity, the commission voted to recommend the extension of individual rights to literary property to fifty, as opposed to just thirty, years after the death of the author. In other words, it supported the more liberal compromise that had been advocated by the Congress of Brussels—and many, if not all, publishers—in 1858. To this compromise, it merely added the system of the paying public domain that had been proposed by Hetzel and endorsed by the subcommission. Although the printer-publisher Firmin-Didot vehemently opposed this modification to the proposal of the subcommission, it was approved by the commission, by a vote of twenty-five to one, with two abstentions. In line with the interests of publishers, the commission also rejected the provision to make the extension of literary property retroactive, while reiterating the protection guaranteed to foreign authors by the decree of 1852.27 As the subcommission had predicted, this more liberal proposal proved too radical for the government. After receiving Walewski’s report on behalf of the

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commission in April 1863, the Conseil d’Etat sat on the proposal for over a year and a half. In December 1864, in a formal avis, or brief, the Conseil d’Etat rejected this proposal on the grounds that it mistook a temporary right, granted by society to an author as payment for his labor, for a genuine property. Insisting that literary property was special in that it belonged at least in part to society, the Conseil d’Etat opposed both the extension of the term of such property beyond thirty years after the death of the author and the establishment of a fee-based system for reproduction of work in the public domain. In burying the commission’s proposal, the government may have been responding to pressure from Firmin-Didot and other opponents of perpetuity. However, evidence also suggests that the government may not have been all that enthusiastic about reform of the law on literary property in the first place. According to Albert Darimon, one of “Les Cinq,” the lone five republican opposition deputies in the Corps Législatif prior to the elections of 1863, the regime of Louis-Napoléon had never been all that interested in extending the rights of authors but had appointed a commission on the matter just to humor the liberal Count Walewski, who himself recognized midway through the meetings of the commission that any bill to emerge from it would not be considered by the Corps Législatif in the near future. Even before the commission completed its work, then, its recommendation was doomed to be tabled by the government, which was still reluctant to redefine literary property.28 Within two years, however, the government would address the issue of literary property again. In early 1866, it introduced a bill to extend the rights of literary property guaranteed by the law of 1854—for thirty years after the death of the author and his widow—to all heirs. Apparently, this bill was proposed by the emperor at the request of his cousin, the famous salonnière Princess Mathilde Bonaparte, who had forwarded him a petition drafted by the publisher Gervais Charpentier on behalf of Paul de Musset and Amédée Thierry, two brothers of authors whose rights were about to expire. Under the law of 1854, only descending heirs (sons and daughters) were entitled to inherit literary property. If an author had no direct descendants, the term of thirty years guaranteed by this law did not apply. His heirs—and thus his publishers—could own his work only for ten years after the death of the author and his spouse (if he had one), in accordance with the Declaration of the Rights of Genius of 1793. Because the length of time a publisher could profit from the literary property of an author varied widely, depending on whether

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the author was married or had children, publishers and authors both complained that under the law of 1854, they found it difficult to reach agreement on the terms of sale of a work. In light of this complaint, the bill drafted by the administration proposed to make the term of literary property the same for all heirs and assigns of the author, including the spouse, who would now be entitled to this property not for the variable period of life but only for a fixed term of thirty years after the death of the author. The bill standardized the term of literary property in order “that the publisher, fearing no bad luck, would accord to the writer the retribution that is the goal of the institution of the author’s rights.”29 While it equalized the enjoyment of literary property, however, the bill did not alter the fundamental definition of this property, which remained limited in the interest of society. As the minister of state, Eugène Rouher, said of this property when introducing the new bill to the Corps Législatif, “This legislation would enlarge the circle of its concessions, but the artificial and temporary character of the rights which emanate from it will always constitute its immobile center.” Suggesting that the demand for perpetuity was often motivated by the interests of publishers rather than of authors, the minister of state insisted that there was a distinction between literary property and “ordinary” property. This distinction was reflected in the title of the bill, which referred not to the property but to the “rights of the heirs and representatives of authors.” Unlike the more liberal bill proposed by the commission of 1861– 1863, this new limited bill was approved by the Conseil d’Etat and presented to the Corps Législatif in February 1866. It then passed to a legislative committee, which, after hearing the opinions of representatives of the literary and book professions, voted (by a slim margin) to reject the systems of either common law or paying public domain in favor of a temporary right. Although it made minor modifications to the bill—extending the duration of literary property rights to fifty years after the death of the author, giving preference over the enjoyment of these rights to the spouse irrespective of gender or matrimonial regime (unless the author had disposed of these rights otherwise by act or testament), and making the measure retroactive for the heirs of authors whose rights had not yet expired by the date of the bill—the committee preserved its fundamental definition of literary property as sui generis.30 Given that it altered current law only slightly, the new bill on literary property stood a good chance of passing the legislature. It did encounter some

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criticism, however, from both the left and the right. On the left, liberal, republican, and even Bonapartist representatives, including Thomas Marie, Eugène Pelletan, and Henri Nogent-Saint-Laurens, objected that the bill did not recognize the rights of authors as a natural and perpetual property, comparable to any other. More moderate or conservative deputies, in contrast, expressed concern that the extension of the rights of authors would benefit only éditeurs, who would monopolize these rights at the expense of readers. For example, the deputy Paul Dupont, who was himself a printing industrialist, insisted that rather than strengthening the claims of publishers, the legislature should institute a fund (to be financed through fees collected on sales of works whose authors and heirs were no longer alive) to assist authors. In the debate over the bill, two provisions proved particularly divisive: a paragraph in Article 1 that gave the spouse of the author precedence over other heirs in the enjoyment of the author’s rights during the term of fifty years after his death (as long as the author had not dictated otherwise) and Article 2, which proposed to apply this new longer term retroactively to the heirs of authors whose rights had not yet expired on the date the bill was presented to the legislature, as long as the contracts that these authors had signed with their publishers did not stipulate otherwise. While the first of these measures was ultimately enacted, the second was not. Under pressure from publishers, who complained that such retroactive application of the new law would diminish the value of the property that they had acquired from authors under the previous legislation, the second article of the bill was rejected by the Corps Législatif.31 As the contention over the details of the bill suggests, the government remained divided over the nature and regulation of literary property. In the end, however, most deputies agreed that this new measure still represented a major improvement over previous legislation on the rights of authors. For example, Jules Simon, the author and legislator who had campaigned alongside Hachette for the recognition of literary property as absolute and perpetual in 1862 and who now chaired the committee appointed by the legislature to examine the new bill, praised the measure for standardizing the term of literary property rights for all heirs and assigns while still giving the author the power to alter the attribution of these rights by means of testament. Citing the example of the childless author Alfred de Musset, whose publisher (Charpentier) had purportedly responded to his offer of his collected works by urging him to marry so that his literary property would outlive him by more

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than the ten years accorded under the revolutionary legislation, Simon insisted that the bill would benefit writers as well as publishers. Despite the reservations of some deputies, the amended version of the bill was approved by the Corps Législatif (with only two opposing votes) on 27 June 1866 as the best of all possible solutions to the problems with the previous legislation on literary property. In the characterization of the reporter for the legislative committee that had been appointed to examine the bill, this was a “truce under arms” between the proponents of perpetual rights to literary property and the proponents of limited rights.32 This “truce” between liberals and conservatives then moved to the Senate, where it was defended by the critic and senator Charles-Augustin SainteBeuve as a “wise” compromise between those who demanded recognition of the rights of authors as a perpetual property, on principle, and those who advocated a more limited notion of such rights. Despite the reservation of one senator, Pierre Lebrun, a poet who had served on the commission of 1861, that it negated a form of property that had been recognized in law since before the French Revolution, the bill was enacted by the Senate in a unanimous vote on 6 July 1866. Although this new law did not make literary property absolute and perpetual, by extending this property to fifty years after the death of the author it did go a long way toward satisfying the demands that publishers had been making since the late 1820s.33 Although it had been considered by almost every regime since the First Empire, such a renegotiation of the compromise between state and market in the realm of literary property was not effected until the Second Empire. For decades, the state had resisted even a slight modification of this compromise in favor of individual rights, out of concern for public interests. Not until the 1850s and 1860s, as publishers became more organized and as government officials became more committed to promoting the interests of entrepreneurs, did the state extend the rights of literary property, domestically and internationally—first in the series of measures decreed between 1852 and 1854, then in the new law on the rights of authors and their heirs and representatives passed in 1866. Although none of these measures overthrew the compromise of 1810 entirely, together they reconfigured it significantly. With passage of the law of 1866, literary property was extended as far toward perpetuity as it would be in France, or most anywhere, before the mid-twentieth century. In the second half of the nineteenth century, France became a model for the rest of the world in the fight against literary piracy. Beginning with the

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universal recognition of literary property in 1852, the French led a campaign for international recognition of the rights of authors, which would culminate in the Berne Convention of 1886. In 1878, a congress on literary and artistic property was organized by the Société des Gens de Lettres under the leadership of Victor Hugo at the International Exposition in Paris. Out of this congress was founded an Association Littéraire et Artistique Internationale (International Literary and Artistic Association), involving publishers (including the son of Louis Hachette, Georges) as well as authors, which pushed for an international agreement on the matter. Such an agreement was signed by a number of major powers in Berne, Switzerland, eight years later. In the negotiations for the Berne Convention, which was modeled on such other international agreements as the Postal and Telegraphic Unions, the French continually took the absolutist position on literary property, vis-à-vis the more pragmatic English. For example, they demanded a uniform treaty that would protect literary property for the same term in all member countries (as opposed to a more flexible system based on national treatment), the assimilation of translation and adaptation rights to other reproduction rights, and a strict enforcement of these rights, with no exemptions even for educational use. The French also insisted on “property” rather than “rights” as the proper term for claims over texts. In the end, these idealist demands were rejected in favor of more practical compromises in the Berne Convention on the “protection of works,” as it came to be called. But as the Convention continued to be revised every few years, the French persisted in taking a universalist position on the issue of literary property. In the twentieth century, they would be instrumental in obtaining international recognition of the “moral” rights of authors.34 The role of the French as a model for international legislation on literary property was paradoxical, however. While commentators at the time and historians since have characterized French law as absolutist in its defense of both the material and moral rights of authors, in reality it has been no less instrumentalist than its foreign counterparts, in Great Britain and the United States, for example. Despite continued pressure from many publishers as well as some writers to define the rights of authors as a perpetual property, the French state persisted, from the revolutionary period through the nineteenth century, in viewing these rights as a limited grant from society. The laws of 1854 and 1866 extended the duration of these rights but did not alter the basic definition of them as sui generis and temporary. Moreover, these laws benefitted publishers more than they did authors. The extension of the term of these

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rights to fifty years after the death of the author enabled publishers to monopolize them longer, at the expense of authors as well as of readers.

The Liberalization of Licensing The victory of liberal publishers over corporatist printers and bookdealers was even more clear-cut in the arena of licensing requirements. By the end of the Second Empire, publishers would manage to achieve the abolition of these requirements. They would finally succeed in dissolving the marriage between state and market that had existed in the book trade for close to sixty years. The victory of the liberal camp in the book trade may be at least partially attributed to the growing economic and social power of publishers vis-à-vis printers. Yet it resulted from changes not just in interoccupational power relations but also in national political trends. It was connected to a series of conjunctures in executive and legislative politics. Ultimately, the liberalization of the book trade hinged on the state’s reassessment of the public interest. Beginning during the “liberal” phase of the Second Empire in the 1860s and continuing with the establishment of the Third Republic in the 1870s, the state became less concerned about protecting public safety and morality and more interested in promoting individual enterprise as well as press freedom. As a result, it became more receptive to the arguments of publishers in favor of liberalization of the book trade. To be sure, within the state there were numerous individual administrators and legislators who continued to define the public interest as safety and morality. On several occasions, these conservatives attempted to block or reverse reform of the licensing system in the book trade. Gradually, however, they were outnumbered or outmaneuvered by statesmen who thought that the public interest demanded freedom of occupation in this trade, as in every other. At the beginning of the 1850s, the licensing system was still firmly in place. This system had been threatened during the Second Republic. In April 1848, the provisional government had established a commission of owners and workers in the printing and publishing industries (including Louis Hachette, Ambroise Firmin-Didot, and Laurent-Antoine Pagnerre) to reexamine the regulation of the book trade. In September of the same year, the socialist deputy Pierre Leroux, who was himself a radical printer, had proposed an amendment to the new constitution, which would have freed the occupations

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of printing and bookdealing from the obligation of the license. In late 1850, a group of deputies proposed a bill to retract Article 12 of the law of 21 October 1814, which allowed the administration to revoke the licenses of printers for infractions against the law. Finally, in February 1851, another group of deputies proposed a bill to free the occupations of printing and bookdealing from the licensing requirement altogether. Yet, all of these efforts to deregulate the book trade were successfully resisted by proponents of licensing. Even under a republican regime, most members of the government were opposed to deregulation of printing and bookdealing—or at least hesitant to alter the legislation on these occupations at a moment of national crisis. For example, the director of the Administration of the Book Trade, who appointed the commission to reexamine the regulation of the trade in 1848, defended the licensing system as a means of guaranteeing order and morality as well as the salaries of workers in the printing industry, and the National Assembly voted against the various proposals to abolish licenses for printers and bookdealers, on the grounds that public order required such guarantees, at least until “calm times” had returned under the new republican government. Of course, this republican government was soon overturned by Louis-Napoléon. With the advent of the Second Empire, which reinforced the restrictions on printers and bookdealers, the licensing system seemed more solid than ever.35 At the beginning of the next decade, however, the licensing system became the target of another round of attacks, from which it would not recover. This round was launched in February 1861 by Louis Hachette in a brochure entitled “Popular Instruction and Universal Suffrage.” According to its author, the brochure was written at the request of “an eminent statesman,” easily identifiable as the Duke de Morny, a half-brother of Louis-Napoléon, architect of the coup d’état of 1851, and longtime friend and protector of Hachette, who was at the time president of the Corps Législatif. During a visit to a large printing establishment, Morny asked Hachette whether the publishing industry was selling as much as it could produce. When Hachette replied that it was not because of various government restrictions on the distribution of print, Morny asked him to draft a report on the subject. In the resulting brochure, the publisher argued that in order to provide the people of France with the instruction necessary to exercise the right of universal male suffrage, books and periodicals needed to be made more readily available. To this end, he recommended a number of measures, including the abolition of licensing requirements for

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booksellers. According to Hachette, of the half of the population that was actually literate, only one-tenth (or two million out of a total population of thirtyseven million) used their reading skills, mainly because they did not come into regular contact with reading materials. In 1860, according to his calculations, there were only 4,225 booksellers in all of France. This was by no means enough to reach all of the potential readers, especially in the provinces. In the words of Hachette, “The desire to buy a book is generally engendered only when one sees it in front of his eyes, when one can flip through it and skim its content. Publicity from advertisements produces only a slight effect in comparison to the results of a permanent display. It would thus be in the greatest interest, not only of the business of publishing, but of public education, if the number of bookdealers was at least doubled, or in other terms, if there was at least one depository of books in each commune.” In the opinion of Hachette, ten times as many books could be distributed in France “if publishers were not hindered by administrative and fiscal obstacles.” Among these obstacles were high postal rates, stamp taxes, and authorization requirements for periodical publications. But the greatest impediment to the circulation of reading material, in his view, was the licensing system. While Hachette suggested that the licensing requirement might be maintained for éditeurs (and, presumably, for printers, whom he did not mention), he insisted that it be abolished for booksellers.36 Hachette’s call for deregulation of the book trade was seconded by several other commentators from the worlds of publishing, literature, and law. Following its publication in early 1861, his brochure attracted a number of favorable notices. It received a glowing review, for example, from the scientific publisher (and former employee of Hachette) Victor Masson in the Chronique of the Journal général de la librairie et de l’imprimerie. It was also praised by the publisher Charles Laboulaye in his report on the graphic arts displayed at the International Exposition of 1862 in London. Citing Hachette’s pamphlet in support of his own argument that the audience for print could be expanded only through the abolition of licensing, Charles Laboulaye wrote, “It seems impossible to us that the French administration, after examination, would not satisfy such a legitimate request. To associate the entire nation with intellectual movement and to ensure the development of important industries, is it not to assist twice over in true progress, with its double face, spiritual and material, in its two great manifestations: thought and industry?” Hachette’s

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brochure received another positive review in the Revue nationale et étrangère, published by Gervais Charpentier. Written by the liberal legal scholar Édouard Laboulaye (who was a brother of the publisher Charles), this review concluded: “If we want to elevate the level of intelligence and morality in France, there is no other way than to do what England, the United States, Switzerland, Holland, and Belgium have succeeded in doing—it is necessary to enter into this fertile path of popular education by the freedom of the press, and fear not to go all the way to the end.” Throughout the early 1860s, the call for abolition of licensing in publishing was echoed by other commentators, including Frédéric Thomas, a playwright and future president of the Société des Gens de Lettres, who demanded that freedom of commerce, which had recently been granted to the theater business, be extended to the book trade; and the press baron Émile de Girardin, who in 1864 published a collection of his writings on the press, which advocated among other things the abolition of licensing in printing.37 In the face of the mounting criticism of the licensing requirement, the state remained impassive, at least in the short term. Although Hachette’s proposal had supposedly been commissioned by the president of the Corps Législatif, the Count de Morny, and although it had apparently been praised by such advisors to the emperor as Michel Chevalier, the Saint-Simonian and free-trade advocate, it did not succeed in pushing the state to alter policy on the book trade. In June 1861, the government did pass a bill on the press, which revoked Article 32 of the decree of 17 February 1852 that led to the automatic suspension of any periodical condemned twice for press crimes or misdemeanors and which stipulated that any warning issued to a periodical would expire after two years. Prior to the debate on this bill, a group of liberal deputies demanded a number of amendments, one of which would have forbidden the administration from revoking the license of a printer and protected “he whose assistance was limited to the material fact of printing” from being charged as an accomplice in crimes of the press. Like all of the others, however, this amendment was rejected as too radical by the legislative committee appointed to examine the bill. Despite the vehement objections of opposition deputy Jules Favre that the proposed law would not liberate the press from the “vassalage” in which the decree of 1852 placed it, the Corps Législatif voted unanimously to enact the moderate version of the bill as an improvement “that would come to expand our institutions without shaking or weakening them,” as the reporter for the committee on the bill characterized

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it. Even as the government began to take small steps to liberalize the press, it refused to reconsider the licensing requirement. When Hachette died in 1864, this requirement was still in place.38 As late as 1865, the Administration of the Book Trade defended the maintenance of the licensing requirement, especially for printers, in a memorandum on the question: “Can we, without danger, render free the occupations of printer and bookdealer?” Arguing that, no, it could not, the administration listed a number of reasons why abolition of licensing in these occupations would be a bad idea. Reiterating the argument of Napoleon that the printing press was “an arsenal, which should not be put into the hands of just anyone,” the administration maintained that, unlike the occupations of baking and butchering, which had recently been liberalized, the book trade required special regulation by the state. While suggesting that maybe one day, if peace was made between political parties and progress was achieved in public instruction and morality, the state could renounce its tutelage over this trade, the administration concluded that that day had not yet come. In the meantime, it insisted that brevets needed to be maintained not just for printers but for publishers and booksellers, who were the initiators and safeguards of the works produced by printers.39 Within just a few years, however, the government would come around to the position of Hachette and other liberals on the issue of licensing. Responding to mounting complaints from publishers that the licensing requirement was obstructing commerce in printed matter, it gradually began to retreat from the strict regulation of 1810. Beginning in the mid-1860s, it quietly relaxed the restrictions on licenses, enabling a number of new printers and especially bookdealers to enter the book trade. Then the administration suddenly reconsidered the licensing system altogether. In early 1867, it introduced another new bill on the press, which would allow any French citizen to publish a newspaper or periodical without preliminary authorization (requiring only a formal declaration, legal deposit, and stamp tax), but subject to judicial action for any abuse. This bill, which overturned several of the most restrictive measures of the decree of 1852, included a provision, Article 15, that would open the occupations of printing and bookdealing to anyone who wanted to practice them, as long as he declared his place of business to the administration. Ironically, the conseiller d’Etat who was charged with presenting the bill to the legislature was Ernest Pinard, one of the pillars of the Second Empire

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who had served as government prosecutor in the trials against Gustave Flaubert and Charles Baudelaire in 1857. In defense of Article 15, Pinard invoked the principle of freedom of occupation: “None of the reasons that justify the monopoly of ministerial officials, or that explain the necessity of the examination, for the lawyer, the doctor, the pharmacist, seemed to require the obligation of the license from the printer or the bookdealer. Professional liberty thus had to prevail.” If newspapers were to be free, as Article 1 of the bill proposed, printers and bookdealers would have to be, too, Pinard argued. Long opposed to any reform of the licensing system, the administration of Napoleon III now argued that this system needed to be abolished.40 After so many years of refusing to abolish the licensing requirement, why did the state suddenly switch its position? Between the early 1860s, when Hachette wrote his brochure against licensing, and the late 1860s, the state experienced changes in personnel and priorities, which made it more amenable to liberalization of the book trade. The new bill on the press, with its provision to abolish the licensing requirement for printers and booksellers, was part of a broader movement toward a “liberal” Empire, which began on 24 November 1860, with the establishment of the legislature’s “right to address” the emperor, and culminated after 19 January 1867, when the emperor promised a whole slate of liberal reforms, including more freedom for the press. Pressured by international events as well as by opposition deputies to reform domestic policy, Napoleon III gradually began to supplement or replace his hard-line supporters, such as Eugène Rouher, with more liberal advisors, including the Duke de Morny (until his death in 1865); the Count de Walewski (until his death in 1868); and Émile Ollivier, one of “les Cinq” republican deputies elected in 1857, who would be asked to form a constitutional government following the elections of 1869. During this “liberal” phase, the government became less concerned about protecting public safety and morality and more interested in promoting freedom, especially in commerce. As the government reporter Ernest Pinard explained in his report to the legislature in 1867, the bill was motivated by a commitment to individual initiative and freedom of profession: “After the establishment of the Empire, material prosperity was the first benefit of the reestablished order: economic forces had hardly begun to regain their height when the Government inaugurated, gradually and smoothly, the regime of commercial liberty.” In fact, beginning in 1862 the regime had deregulated a number of occupations, including theater,

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baking, butchering, and stockbrokering. From the deregulation of these other occupations, the liberalization of the book trade followed naturally. As the republican deputy Émile Pelletan noted during the discussion of the new press bill in the Corps Législatif, “in effect, the minister [of state] who had abolished with a stroke of his pen the monopoly of stock-brokering, the monopoly of baking, the monopoly of butchering, the monopoly of theaters, could hardly preserve, on the debris of so many monopolies that he had himself destroyed, one last privilege as an object of curiosity.” The proposal to abolish licensing requirements for printers and bookdealers was thus part and parcel of a broader effort to liberalize commerce.41 While it was welcomed by publishers in the Cercle de la Librairie, who sent delegations to both the executive and legislative branches in support of the new press bill, the proposal to abolish licensing was opposed by printers. Following the presentation of the bill in early 1867, printers also sent representatives to the administration and the legislature to oppose the suppression of licensing. In addition, they organized a number of regional congresses, out of which they formed a federated Syndicat Général des Imprimeurs de France (General Syndicate of the Printers of France), with headquarters in Paris, to campaign against this provision of the new press bill. Although they supported relaxation of the law on the press, printers did not want to lose their licenses. As in 1830, they insisted that if these licenses were abolished, they would be entitled to indemnities. In support of this position, they enlisted a number of jurists to research their rights with regard to the licenses. The campaign against the abolition of the licensing requirement was led by Jules Delalain, a printer-bookdealer whose family had been in the trade since before the Revolution. A former president of the Cercle de la Librairie who had supported the extension of literary property rights, Delalain was a devoted corporatist on the issue of licensing. As the state began to reconsider the legislation on licensing in the late 1860s, he organized meetings and published brochures in favor of maintenance of the license—or, barring that, payment of an indemnity—for printers.42 In the face of such opposition, the Corps Législatif hesitated to implement the government’s proposal to abolish licensing requirements in the book trade. Even before the bill reached the floor, the legislative committee that had been appointed to examine it rejected the original Article 15. Citing the traditional argument that printing was a potentially dangerous “arsenal,” it argued,

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“Printing is not an ordinary industry; it is the divulgation of human thought, it is in daily contact by publication with the entire society, it is therefore not useless to demand of the printer some guarantees of professional morality and capacity.” It also insisted that the proposed Article 15 concerned “a property that seems established and respected for sixty years.” Asserting that the issue of licensing was too important to be handled in a single article attached to a proposed law on the press, the committee concluded that it should be addressed in a bill of its own, at a later date. In lieu of the proposed Article 15, the committee suggested a different article, which did not abolish the licensing requirement for printers and bookdealers but did allow newspaper owners to obtain a license to operate a printing press for the exclusive use of their paper. This new article was intended to appease newspaper editors, who had been complaining that printers often refused to print controversial material for fear of prosecution.43 Although this revision was opposed by the Conseil d’État, which continued to advocate the abolition of licensing for all printers and bookdealers, the new Article 15 was introduced along with the rest of the press bill to the Corps Législatif in early 1868.44 The new press bill encountered significant opposition, especially among deputies on the left. In a debate that proved particularly lengthy and heated, the bill was attacked by a number of liberal and republican legislators, including Adolphe Thiers, Jules Simon, Émile Ollivier, Eugène Pelletan, LouisAntoine Garnier-Pagès, and Jules Favre. Insisting on the moral principle rather than the instrumentalist rationale behind freedom of opinion, these opposition deputies complained that in the bill the liberal intentions of the emperor had been compromised by the reactionary fears of his minister of state, Eugène Rouher. Although most of these legislators were still prepared to vote for the bill as an improvement over the repressive decree of 1852, they maintained that it was not a liberal bill. As Adolphe Thiers, for example, pleaded in a speech to the Corps Législatif, “Do not make me say that [with this bill] liberty of the press is reestablished in France.” Liberal and republican opponents of the bill objected to a number of its stipulations, including the maintenance of security deposits and stamp taxes, the responsibility of printers and publishers as well as authors for press offenses, the jurisdiction of press crimes with courts rather than juries, and the punishment of such crimes with heavy fines as well as prison sentences. However, the opposition was particularly concerned about the revision of Article 15. In an effort to liberalize the bill, opposition deputies

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introduced a number of amendments and countermeasures—for instance, to absolve printers and publishers of responsibility for the content of publications and even to free the press of all restrictions by abrogating the decree of 17 February 1852. On several occasions, they also tried to reinstate the article abolishing licensing requirements, with provisions either to indemnify or to except printers. In favor of abolition, they echoed the language of Louis Hachette, noted the benefit for public education, and cited the support of the Cercle de la Librairie. Above all, however, they invoked the principle of freedom of commerce. Eugène Pelletan, for instance, argued, “The system of industrial corporations, condemned by the Revolution of 1789, survives in France only in the bookdealer licenses and in the printer licenses. . . . When the Government has flown high the flag of the liberty of work, it must, under penalty of inconsequence, apply its doctrine on every occasion.”45 Such attempts to liberalize the bill were blocked, however, by more moderate and conservative legislators as well as by the government representatives who were charged with defending the measure, Ernest Pinard and Eugène Rouher. In defense of the bill presented by the legislative committee, these members of the government argued that it balanced the desire for liberty and the need for order, that it encouraged individual initiative while still protecting public security. In the interest of public security, they proved especially resistant to liberal attempts to reintroduce the original Article 15, abolishing licensing requirements in the book trade. Throughout debate on the bill, the resistance to the abolition of licensing was led by Henri Nogent-Saint-Laurens, reporter for the committee to examine the bill, which had replaced Article 15 in the first place. Insisting that licensing was a question not of commercial liberty but of individual property and social interest, Nogent-Saint-Laurens noted that not even the revolutionaries of 1848 had braved total freedom of occupation in the book trade.46 Following this logic, the Corps Législatif rejected the amendment to abolish the licensing requirement in favor of the new article allowing anyone to print a newspaper with a simple declaration. It then passed the entire press bill by a vote of 240 to 1, with several abstentions. The bill moved to the Senate, where it met objections from a number of senators, especially the liberal Sainte-Beuve, who was the reporter appointed to introduce the bill. Concerned that the bill (and especially Article 11, which made publication of “a fact of private life” in a periodical a punishable offense) would continue to hamper

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the verve for which French literature was famed, Sainte-Beuve called for a more liberal measure, along the lines of the law of 1819. Nonetheless, he endorsed this bill as superior to the current regime of discretionary power. Following this endorsement, the Senate voted, first, not to send the measure back to the Corps Législatif, as some conservative senators had desired. Then, it passed the bill into law.47 The new press law of 1868 maintained the licensing system in the book trade. However, it also encouraged the opposition to this system. During the debate over this law, the government had promised to study the issue of licensing. When no such study was forthcoming, liberals in the publishing business began to complain. In January 1869, a group of publishers in the Cercle de la Librairie, including the Baillière brothers, Gervais Charpentier, Édouard Dentu, Charles Furne, Hachette and Company, Charles Laboulaye, the Lévy brothers, and Victor Masson and Son, petitioned the Senate to “invite the administration to apply, without delay, to the typographical industry the principles of industrial liberty which, since 1789, are the fundamental law of work in modern society, principles which, today often and fortunately applied to industries that were subject to outdated regulations, can no longer be violated with respect to [printers and bookdealers] without compromising the future of their industry.” In addition to citing the principle of freedom of commerce, these publishers argued in defense of abolition that, one, licensing weakened master printers in their negotiations with printing workers (whose right to organize had now been legalized) and, two, that it limited the distribution of printed matter to people in the countryside. Responding to a recent strike by printing workers for higher wages, the publishers argued that abolition of licensing was necessary to restore equilibrium between owners and workers in the book trade. These publishers also asserted that freedom of occupation in publishing was required for the advancement of public education. Echoing the words of Louis Hachette, they insisted that liberalization of the book trade would facilitate the spread of reading materials and thus the instruction of the popular classes. “We do not fear to say,” these publishers wrote, “that the restriction of the number of booksellers is not only the cause of a great damage to our industry; it is a measure of lèse-civilisation that has no reason for being.” Above all, though, they saw licenses as “obstacles that block the growth of our industry.”48 The most recent petition by publishers in favor of abolition of licensing was repudiated by the Administration of the Book Trade. In a report on the

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petition, the administration refuted the claims of publishers, one by one, denying for example that the abolition of licensing would help owners to defend themselves against workers or would increase sales of books in the provinces. Against the demand for deregulation of the book trade, the administration insisted that printing was an “exceptional occupation,” which because it affected public order and good morality had to be strictly and easily monitored. Finally, it accused the petitioners of acting only out of self-interest, in an effort to reduce their overstock of books. If anything were to blame for the difficulties of the book trade in reaching readers in the provinces, the report suggested, it was not the government’s regulation of printers and bookdealers but Hachette’s monopoly on sales of books in railroad stations.49 Despite the resistance of the Administration of the Book Trade, the publishers’ petition prodded the government into undertaking the study that it had promised during debate over the new press law in 1868. In July 1869, the minister of the interior, Adolphe de Forcade la Roquette, appointed a commission to investigate the issue of licensing in the book trade. Among the members of this commission were the printers Paul Dupont, Ambroise Firmin-Didot, and Charles de Mourgues, as well as several members of the Académie Française and numerous members of the government, including the director of the Administration of the Book Trade, Paul Juillerat, and the deputy who had led the opposition to Article 15 during the debate over the press bill of 1867–1868, Nogent-Saint-Laurens. In addition to polling all of the prefects and general prosecutors in France (the majority of whom responded that licenses could safely be abolished), the commission solicited the opinions of members of the book trade themselves, through questionnaires and depositions. Between October 1869 and April 1870, it heard testimony from representatives of all of the occupations connected to the trade, including the Cercle de la Librairie, the Chambre Syndicale des Imprimeurs de Paris, the Syndicat Général des Imprimeurs de France, the Société des Gens de Lettres, the Commission of Commerce in Music, the Syndicate of Journalists, the Chamber of Lithographic Printers of Paris, the Chambre Syndicale of Engraving Printers of Paris, and various organizations of workers in printing and bookselling.50 In their depositions before the commission, as well as in a number of separate pamphlets, petitions, and articles that they wrote at the time of its investigation, the liberal and corporatist camps in the book trade assumed their predictable positions on the issue of licensing. As usual, the campaign against

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licensing was led by entrepreneurial publishers, especially those at the helm of the Cercle de la Librairie. In their statements before the investigative commission, the representatives of the Cercle—Charles Laboulaye, Louis Bréton, and Michel Lévy—demanded that common law replace arbitrary privilege in the book trade, as it had in most other realms of industry. Insisting that books should be allowed to circulate as freely as cloth or any other commercial product, they asserted that no guarantees should be required of printers or bookdealers beyond a simple declaration of their name and place of business and the formal deposit of each publication with the administration. In their view, the license was just an obstacle to commerce, the abolition of which would benefit “civilization” by making books more readily available to the lower classes throughout France. In defense of freedom of commerce in the book trade, the Cercle de la Librairie also issued a collection of documents related to the history of the licensing debate. In the introduction to this collection, the current president of the Cercle, Charles Laboulaye, argued, “It seems impossible that these industries [bookdealing and printing] could remain any longer outside of the common law, that one does not immediately apply to them the principles of freedom of labor that, since 1789, are no longer debatable.” This argument was reiterated, during the government’s investigation of licensing, by a number of other people connected to the book trade. In addition to book publishers, the abolition of licensing was endorsed by music publishers, lithographic and engraving printers, most authors and journalists, and some employees and workers in the bookselling and printing trades—all of whom had a material interest in the abolition of licensing. Following the journalist Chenu, who characterized the current regulation of the book trade as an “interior customs” that divided urban and rural France, these liberals attacked the licensing system as contrary to the revolutionary principle of freedom of commerce.51 Master printers and retail booksellers, in contrast, remained strongly opposed to the abolition of licensing. Leading the fight against the abolition of licensing were a number of printing shop owners in Paris, especially Charles de Mourgues, president of the Chambre Syndicale des Imprimeurs de Paris, which had been meeting irregularly and unofficially since the late 1830s; and Jules Delalain, president of the Syndicat Général des Imprimeurs de France, which was formed in October 1869 to represent the interests of printers to the government commission on licensing. Although Delalain was an active member

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of the Cercle de la Librairie, he diverged from most members of this association in opposing freedom of commerce in the book trade. Along with Mourgues, Delalain argued that the license was not an insurmountable obstacle to individual enterprise but a necessary protection for public morality and safety. Asserting that the license was also a form of property, both of these men insisted that if printers were deprived of this property, they would be entitled to an indemnity. In defense of their claim to an indemnity, Delalain and Mourgues enlisted jurists to write briefs on the history and law behind the right of property that they claimed inhered in the license.52 Printers such as Mourgues and Delalain were not the only opponents of the abolition of licensing, however. During the investigation by the government commission, retail booksellers also registered their opposition to abolition. Fearing competition from (unlicensed) grocers, pharmacists, novelty merchants, schoolteachers, and religious institutions, all of whom were eager to enter the book distribution business, retail booksellers insisted that the licensing requirement be maintained for bookdealers as well as for printers.53 Opposition to the abolition of licensing was especially strong in the provinces. In response to the questionnaire circulated by the government commission, provincial printers and bookdealers barraged the minister of the interior with formal appeals for the maintenance of the licensing requirement. Exemplary of these appeals was a pamphlet issued by some fifty-five printers and bookdealers of Lyon and the department of the Rhône in defense of the current regulation. Asserting that freedom of commerce in the book trade meant only “freedom to attack the government, civilization, laws, and mores,” the printers and bookdealers of Lyon argued that the license was a “protection” and a “dike” that saved the “corporation” of printers and bookdealers from “degradation” and “decadence” and “maintained it in traditions of intelligence and morality.” As a result of the licensing requirement, they asserted, printing was an honorable occupation, on a level with architecture and medicine. In addition, the printers and bookdealers of Lyon insisted that the license represented a form of property, which was inviolable. If this property were abolished, they emphasized, its owners (especially printers) would have to be indemnified.54 In the provinces, supporters of the licensing requirements attacked not just the idea of abolition but the group that had first proposed it: the publishers of Paris, especially those in the leadership of the Cercle de la Librairie. Asserting

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that these publishers were acting only out of self-interest, printers and bookdealers urged the government to ignore their opinion on the question of licensing. As the printers and bookdealers of Lyon argued in their response to the government’s questionnaire, “Neither do we regard as concerned in the question the majority of the printers, booksellers and publishers of Paris. Their immense houses, of European reputation, employing an enormous capital, defy and brave all competition.” Singling out the publishers Hachette, Furne, and Lévy in particular, for “covering the provinces with sales outlets designed to spew their novels,” the printers and bookdealers of Lyon concluded in a separate note appended to their pamphlet, “The Parisian Publishers are our enemies, our exploiters, and Messieurs the deputies, to whom we appeal, will not sacrifice the departments that they represent to [such] a group of monopolizers.” Other provincial members of the book trade also questioned the right of the publishers in the Cercle de la Librairie to represent them before the government commission. The bookdealers of the LoireInférieure, for instance, opposed the sale of books by merchants other than licensed booksellers, on the grounds that it would benefit only these publishers: “Their solicitude for the 20 million Frenchmen who are today deprived of books is at least amusing,” they argued sarcastically. “Only their interest, we cannot emphasize too much, guides them in this circumstance.” In response to such charges, the leaders of the Cercle insisted that they represented the “entrepreneurs of manufacture” of books and that “the interests of production merit at least as much attention as those of sales.”55 Given the vehement opposition to the abolition of licensing among many members of the book trade, as well as the conservative bent of most members of the government commission, it seemed likely that the commission would recommend the maintenance of licensing for printers and bookdealers. In the end, however, it was pushed by the contingencies of politics to endorse the abolition of licensing. Before the commission had completed its investigation, the minister of the interior who had appointed it, the committed Bonapartist Adolphe de Forcade la Roquette, was replaced, following the formation of a new cabinet by the liberal Émile Ollivier on 2 January 1870, with a proponent of parliamentary government, Jean-Pierre Chevandier de Valdrôme. Following this change in government, the commission suspended its investigation of licensing. Under prodding from the republican deputy Léon Gambetta on behalf of a number of printing workers who opposed licensing, the new minister

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began to conduct his own study of the question of licensing—and to accord some new licenses to associations of printers—in February and March of 1870. By the summer, evidence suggests, he had decided to abolish the licensing requirement for printers and bookdealers. In an appearance before the investigative commission on 2 April, he suggested that the government was “inclining strongly toward liberty for printers and bookdealers.” After hearing this, the commission decided to end its investigation. Under pressure from the minister of the interior, who himself appears to have been under pressure from the emperor, the commission then proceeded to conclude in favor of freedom of trade in printing and bookdealing. In a final meeting on 5 July 1870, the commission voted—by a simple majority, even though (as Jules Delalain later noted) nineteen of its twenty-seven members were state officials and therefore under pressure to toe the government line—to endorse the abolition of licensing. Before the next session of the Corps Législatif, it promised to draft a bill to deregulate the book trade. At the same time, it did acknowledge that an indemnity would have to be paid to printers, to compensate them for the sum they had paid to acquire their licenses in 1810 or afterward. To determine the amount of this indemnity, as well as any guarantees to be required of printers and bookdealers in lieu of the licenses, the commission appointed a subcommission. A week later, during discussion of a budgetary proposal to suppress the positions of inspectors of the book trade, the decision of the commission was reported by the minister of the interior to the Corps Législatif, to loud cheers from leftist deputies. Before a formal bill for the abolition of licensing could be drafted, however, political events intervened. Less than ten days after the final meeting of the commission, the Franco-Prussian war erupted. Less than two months later, the Second Empire collapsed.56 Although the abolition of licensing was planned by the Second Empire, it was left to the new Government of National Defense to implement. After the fall of the Empire and the declaration of a republic on 4 September 1870, one of the first acts of this new government was to liberate the occupations of printing and bookdealing from the licensing requirement. In a decree dated 11 September, the Government of National Defense declared, “The occupations of printer and bookdealer are free. Anyone who would like to exercise one or the other of these occupations will be required only to make a declaration to the Ministry of the Interior.” Given that this government was formed by the leaders of the republican opposition under the Second Empire, including

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Léon Gambetta, Jules Simon, Ernest Picard, Jules Favre, Louis-Antoine Garnier-Pagès, and Eugène Pelletan, its move to free the book trade from the licensing requirement is not surprising. According to statements made later by these leaders, their actions during the fall of 1870 were motivated by a commitment to republican principle as well as by a concern for national defense. To critics of the Government of National Defense, however, such a measure was a distraction from the war effort, if not a threat to the public order, in the midst of a national crisis.57 The decree of 11 September 1870 on the book trade was vehemently opposed by corporatist printers and bookdealers. Within a week, printers had submitted a formal protest against this decree to the minister of the interior. Once the tragedies of the Franco-Prussian War and the Paris Commune were past, they launched a full-fledged campaign for the reestablishment of their licenses—or at least the payment of indemnities of equivalent value. Spearheaded by the printers Jules Delalain and Charles de Mourgues, who wrote pamphlet after pamphlet on the matter, this campaign continued for over a decade. Throughout the 1870s, corporatists in the book trade wrote petitions and editorials, commissioned legal briefs, and sent delegations to officials and legislators in an effort to reverse the effects of the abolition of licensing. In their efforts to obtain indemnities, they were supported by the Cercle de la Librairie, which although it approved of the abolition of licensing did not oppose the reimbursement of printers.58 In the summer of 1871, both the Chambre Syndicale des Imprimeurs de Paris and the Syndicat Général des Imprimeurs de France petitioned the National Assembly to rescind the decree of 11 September 1870. Their petitions were forwarded to the legislative committee charged with reviewing the acts of the Government of National Defense, which agreed that freedom of occupation in printing and bookdealing should be suspended, at least until the matter could be addressed by new legislation. Following the recommendation of this committee, in December 1873 the government of Maréchal de Mac Mahon introduced a new bill on the book trade. In the name of public order, this bill proposed to annul the decree of 10 September 1870. In response to concerns of government officials and formerly licensed libraires that this decree had made political propaganda too available and bookselling too competitive, the bill also established two categories of booksellers: “licensed,” for retail booksellers, and “authorized,” for novelty merchants and itinerant peddlers. But the bill said

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nothing specific about printers or indemnities. After hearing the opinions of representatives of all of the occupations affected by the decree, including the leaders of the Cercle de la Librairie who vociferously defended freedom of commerce in publishing, the legislative committee asked the minister of the interior to initiate an investigation of bookselling in the provinces, with the help of the prefects of departments. However, this investigation came to nothing. As of February 1875, the bill to revive licensing had not come up for legislative debate.59 Later attempts to reverse the decree of 1870 also failed. In 1876, the deputy Taillefer and the senator Houssard introduced a joint resolution to the legislature, calling for a committee to draft a bill to address the consequences of the decree of 10 September 1870. But this resolution was judged to be outside the jurisdiction of the legislature by the reporter for the legislative committee, who referred the matter to the administration. When the interior minister, Jules Simon, promised to examine the question, Houssard and Taillefer withdrew their proposal. In the end, however, the administration took no action, insisting that the issue fell under the authority of the legislative branch. As this jurisdictional back and forth continued, it became increasingly unlikely that the government would either reverse the abolition of licensing or pay an indemnity to printers. By the beginning of the next decade, when the president of the Chambre Syndicale des Imprimeurs de Paris gave a sarcastic toast to the “legislative powers, who have not yet found the leisure to act on the question of the indemnity” before an assembly of print shop owners, freedom of occupation in the book trade seemed to most parties concerned to be irreversible.60 Reversal of the decree of 10 September 1870 became especially unlikely after 29 July 1881, when the Third Republic passed a comprehensive law on the “liberty of the press.” Intended to make a “tabula rasa” of all legislation on the press since the First Empire, this new law guaranteed freedom of commerce in the book trade. In Article 1, it declared, “Printing and bookdealing are free.” In addition to confirming the abolition of the licensing system, this law relaxed the requirements for publishing a periodical and for peddling printed matter. Rather than entrusting decisions about infractions to the authorities, the new law also specified the offenses for which authors, publishers, and printers could be charged: attacks against the president of the Republic and foreign chiefs of state, publication of false news, offenses against good

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morals, and defamation. As the minister of justice said in a memorandum of explanation of the law, “The law that emerged from the deliberations [of the last legislature] has been defined with one word: it is a law of liberty, such as the press has never had at any time.”61 This new measure satisfied most of the demands that liberals had been making with regard to press law since at least the 1820s. Of the law, the former opposition legislator and minister and champion of press freedom Émile Ollivier said that it came close to fulfilling the liberal principles that he had articulated during the debate over the press law of 1867–1868.62 Along with the decree of 10 September 1870, the law of 29 July 1881 symbolized the end of the marriage between the state and the market in the book trade. Seven decades after it had been instituted by the regime of Napoleon, this marriage was definitively dissolved by the government of the Third Republic. In the face of this liberal victory, corporatists in the book trade persisted in calling for more protection. Through the end of the century, booksellers as well as printers would continue to complain that the abolition of licensing had harmed their occupations. In 1883, for instance, printers in Paris submitted one last request for an indemnity to the National Assembly, and during a crisis in the book trade in the 1890s some booksellers advocated the reestablishment of the licensing system.63 As such examples suggest, traditional artisans and small businessmen remained resistant to entrepreneurial capitalism well into the Third Republic. Despite such corporatist sentiment, however, the decree of 11 September 1870 was never reversed, and an indemnity was never paid to printers, let alone to booksellers.

Although freedom of press and literary property are often associated with republicanism, in France they were introduced by an imperial regime. Under pressure from entrepreneurial publishers, the administration of Napoleon III liberalized both entrance requirements and property protections in the book trade. As a result of its commitment to economic liberalism, this regime proved more favorable to the market for literature than the constitutional monarchies and republics that preceded it. Like other recent work on the Second Empire, the story of the divorce between state and market in the book trade suggests that this regime was critical to the development of modern republicanism in France.64

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However, the origin of the market for literature in an authoritarian as opposed to a republican regime left a distinctive mark on publishing in France. Because it was motivated less by ideological commitment to intellectual liberty than by economic interest in commercial liberty, intellectual property and press freedom have remained fragile in France. The new law on literary property, for example, continued to define such property as sui generis and therefore limited. Although it strengthened the protection of such property, the new law was no more absolutist or universalist in its conception of the rights of authors than the legislation of earlier eras—or of other countries. Materially, the law did not define these rights as perpetual, comparable to other forms of properties. Nor did it recognize the so-called moral rights of authors to defend the integrity of their work and reputation. The story of the debate over literary property during the Second Empire thus challenges the conventional view of intellectual property law in France as more authorcentric than, say, its Anglo-American counterpart. In line with more recent scholarship, this study suggests that before the twentieth century, French law on literary property was no more favorable to the interests of authors than any other. Although it would serve as a model for international recognition of the rights of authors, culminating in the Berne Convention of 1886, French intellectual property law differed little from that of any other nation in its instrumentalist conception of these rights. Moreover, to the extent that nineteenth-century reforms to this law did strengthen individual claims to literary works, they favored publishers more than authors.65 Similarly, because it was motivated by economic as opposed to intellectual liberalism, the abolition of licensing was limited in effect. Although it opened the book trade to new competition, the new press law that emerged at the end of the Second Empire and the beginning of the Third Republic did not liberate the practitioners of this trade from state oversight. Under the new law, printers, booksellers, and publishers as well as authors were still responsible for the content of their publications. Long into the next century, press freedom would remain precarious in France. Since the liberalization of the literary market, intellectual freedom has been repeatedly compromised by the state, often with the cooperation of the publishing business, especially in times of national crisis, such as the Dreyfus Affair, the Nazi Occupation, and the Algerian War. One of the darkest of these times was World War II, when the Cercle de la Librairie took the initiative to purge its membership of leftist and

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Jewish publishers and to develop a list of approved and forbidden works (called the “Otto List”), in an effort to ensure a steady supply of paper from the German occupiers.66 Even in times of relative calm, publishers and authors in France have proven to be more willing than their counterparts in, say, Great Britain and the United States to temper their own freedom in the name of the public interest. The origins of the literary market in an authoritarian as opposed to a republican regime, and in economic as opposed to political liberalism, would leave a long and sometimes troubling legacy on the French public sphere. The history of the political struggles over publishing in the nineteenth century thus helps to explain some of the peculiar and persistent characteristics of the literary market in France.

Epilogue: The Effects of Liberalization

By the 1880s, publishers had attained most of the goals for which they had been campaigning since at least the 1820s. With the help of the Cercle de la Librairie, they had obtained the extension of literary property in France and abroad, the abolition of licensing for printers and bookdealers, and an unprecedentedly liberal law on the press. In publishing, as in many other sectors of the economy, the period between 1870 and 1914 marked a high point of liberalism.1 With the exception, perhaps, of the early years of the French Revolution, never before or since had France enjoyed such a free market for literature. As a result of the reforms of the 1860s and 1870s, the French literary market came to resemble its counterparts in other countries in Europe, including Germany, Austria-Hungary, and Great Britain, all of which had relaxed constraints on publishing and increased protections for intellectual property by the last third of the nineteenth century.2 But did the liberalization of publishing yield the same results in France as in these other countries? Did the abolition of licensing and the extension of literary property facilitate the production and distribution of print, as publishers had anticipated? What were the effects of deregulation on printing, bookselling, authorship, and books? These questions remain to be answered, through detailed research on print runs, book prices, literary genres, and author-publisher contracts. For late nineteenth-century France, there has as yet been no study comparable to William St. Clair’s The Reading Nation in the Romantic Period, which uses quantitative analysis to elucidate the effect of the political economy and especially of the development of copyright on the output of print in Great Britain.3 Such a study will be required before we can draw any definitive conclusions about the effects of liberalization on publishing in France. In the absence of such a study, this epilogue can only sketch in broad strokes some of the possible effects of liberalization.

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However, even preliminary research suggests that liberalization had some paradoxical consequences. As the last chapter suggested, the fact that deregulation was motivated by economic as opposed to political liberalism under the authoritarian Second Empire meant that press freedom remained insecure in France. Moreover, although liberalization benefited its main proponents, publishers, it disadvantaged printers, booksellers, and especially authors. The abolition of licensing, for instance, increased competition among printers and booksellers, and the extension of literary property subjugated authors to publishers. In reaction against liberalization, these groups demanded new regulations by the trade or the state, or both. In the wake of deregulation, even publishers themselves began to question the benefits of liberalism. Echoing the old corporatist mantra that the book was a product “unlike any other,” which necessitated special protection, they began to implement new restrictions on the book trade, such as controls on prices and standards for author-publisher negotiations. Contrary to long-standing assumptions about the emergence of a free literary field and the birth of an autonomous “intellectual,” the fin de siècle literary market was characterized by the persistence of corporatism and the disillusionment of the author.4

The Effects of the Abolition of Licensing The effects of liberalization were perhaps most evident in the arena of licensing. As liberal éditeurs had anticipated, the abolition of licensing yielded a sudden and sharp increase in the number of booksellers, printers, and publishers. Although the number of libraires had already begun to increase under the Second Empire, liberalization brought record growth to the book trade. By decreasing the cost of production and distribution, this growth profited publishers (and, to a certain extent, readers, who benefited from greater access to print), but often at the expense of printers and booksellers. This growth of the book trade was recognized by contemporaries. The scientific publisher Henri Baillière, for example, claimed that the number of both publishers and booksellers exploded following the abolition of licensing: according to his research, between 1870 and 1900, in Paris the number of éditeurs grew from twenty to two hundred; in one small provincial town alone, the number of retailers doubled from twelve to twenty-five.5 The literary publisher Ernest Flammarion later recalled, “Since the end of the reign of Napoleon III, booksellers have increased considerably in number. Retailers

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proliferate in the Latin Quarter, and publishers have at least doubled [in number].”6 Such statistics have been confirmed by more recent research, which concludes that the book trade indeed expanded in the wake of deregulation. According to Frédéric Barbier, between 1860 and 1879 the number of libraires in France increased from 3,538 to 7,477. Much of this growth came in the decade after the abolition of licensing. At the end of the 1870s, the ratio of inhabitants per bookseller reached a record low of 4,935 to one. In Lyon alone, where there had been eighty-one licensed booksellers in 1869, there were 328 declarations of new bookshops between 1870 and 1881. Moreover, these numbers do not include the variety of other outlets where books were now sold, including branch bookshops, railroad stations, grocery stores, religious institutions, schools, and novelty and department stores. By expanding the network of retailers, the decree of 10 September 1870 facilitated distribution for publishers. Along with the railroad, it enabled books to penetrate the countryside of France.7 Even more dramatic was the expansion in the number of printers in France. From about one thousand in the 1850s and 1860s, this number increased to 1,511 in 1879 and 4,006 in 1911, two and a half times more rapidly than the population, bringing the number of inhabitants per printer down from 36,268 to 9,885. In Lyon, the number of typographical (as opposed to lithographic) printers doubled, from twenty to thirty-nine, in the decade following the abolition of licensing in 1870; following the passage of the press law of 1881, it increased again, to eighty by 1900. As a result of technological innovation as well as political liberalization, the number of presses and workers per printer also increased, expanding the productive capacity of each printing shop. One consequence of this expansion was a decrease in expenses for publishers, at least until the early twentieth century, when a rise in salaries for workers pushed costs upward again.8 By increasing competition, such growth in the number of producers as well as distributors of print facilitated the work of publishers, whose ranks also expanded in the last third of the nineteenth century. As Jean-Yves Mollier emphasizes, a new, more “industrialist” generation of publishers emerged in the wake of deregulation, around 1880. In the department of the Seine, where they were centered, the number of éditeurs increased from something like 101 in 1860 to 184 in 1896 and 240 in 1901. Some of these firms now took the

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form of large maisons d’édition, or publishing houses, employing dozens and even hundreds of editors, readers, publicists, and clerks.9 By the end of the first decade of the twentieth century, the Bibliographie de la France reported, the book trade in France included approximately 300 publishers, 3,600 printers, and 5,000 booksellers.10 In comparison to some other countries, such as Germany, where there were 2,347 publishers listed in the book trade directory Adressbuch für den deutschen Buchhandel on the eve of the Great War, these numbers remained low.11 In comparison to the earlier part of the nineteenth century in France, however, they represented a substantial increase. In conjunction with liberalization, France experienced dramatic growth in the output of the press. According to Baillière, by the beginning of the twentieth century some publishers produced as many as two hundred to three hundred titles per year, or as much as a book a day. Relative to its population, he claimed, France published more books on an annual basis than any other country: one per every 1,600 inhabitants.12 Following the abolition of licensing as well as the extension of literary property, both the number of titles and the average print run per title increased. Between 1850 and 1875, the number of titles per year grew from somewhere between 7,363 (according to the lists of publications in the Bibliographie de la France) and 9,891 (according to the declarations of printers in the National Archives) to between 14,195 and 19,068; by 1900, it grew to between 20,951 and 28,143. According to Frédéric Barbier, this growth in production was most dramatic in two decades: the 1860s, following the regulation of piracy by new legislation on literary property, and the 1880s, after the passage of the liberal press bill. At the same time, with the help of technological improvements that facilitated output and educational reforms that increased demand, the average number of copies per edition increased from 2,787 as late as 1860 to 5,006 in 1880 and 11,239 in 1900. By the end of the century, it was common for publishers to print tens and even hundreds of thousands of copies of the works of popular authors, such as Émile Zola or Jules Verne. As a result, the total number of publications per year (the number of titles multiplied by the average number of copies per titles) increased exponentially. Between 1840 and 1900, this number grew by a factor of twenty-five, not counting periodicals. In sum, deregulation of the book trade contributed to the development of a mass market for print.13 By the 1890s, the book trade had expanded so much that some commentators became concerned that it was in a state of crisis. The cause of this “crisis

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of the book,” as it was called, was the subject of debate among authors, booksellers, and publishers: while some attributed it to the general recession that had hit Europe in the 1880s, others blamed it on the overproduction of publishers, the incompetence of booksellers, the dearth of literary criticism, the competition from the mass periodical press, and even the invention of the bicycle, which stole leisure time from reading. But one of the most common explanations for the “crisis of the book” was the abolition of licensing in 1870. In fact, the abolition of licensing increased competition to the extent that, by about 1890, the book trade suffered from overproduction. In their struggle for buyers, publishers offered steeper and steeper discounts, provoking price wars among retailers, who were often driven out of business. In the wake of the crisis, the number of booksellers began to contract again. From a high of 7,477 in 1879, the number of libraires declined to 5,025, or about 20 percent, by 1910, according to the statistics of Frédéric Barbier.14 While the deregulation of the book trade profited publishers by decreasing production costs and increasing sales outlets, it disadvantaged booksellers and, to a lesser extent, printers, who suffered from the new competition. In the context of the “crisis” at the end of the century, these members of the book trade began to demand the revival of protections and regulations for publishing, from the trade as well as the state. For instance, in the early 1890s, booksellers organized a movement for minimum prices on books. In reaction against liberalization, corporatism would persist in the book trade long into the twentieth century.15

The Effects of the Extension of Literary Property Like the abolition of licensing, the strengthening of literary property benefited éditeurs, in this case often at the expense of readers and authors. The law of 1866 on the rights of authors profited not writers but their publishers, who were henceforth able to monopolize these rights for fifty years—or roughly two generations—beyond the lifetime of the author. Because protected works tended to be more expensive, this law effectively limited access to new works among readers, especially in the lower classes, who instead purchased cheap editions of older works in the public domain. Because it encouraged publishers to contract with authors for a longer period of time, the law also contributed to a shift in author-publisher relations, in favor of the latter. In conjunction with the press law of 1881, which continued to hold éditeurs responsible for

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the content of their publications, the extension of literary property empowered publishers to intervene in the work of authors. Even as authors began to obtain recognition of a moral right over their work, they were increasingly subjugated to the authority of publishers. In the wake of the liberalization of publishing, authors were disabused of any remaining illusions about the role of the éditeur. The extension of the duration of the rights of authors allowed publishers to exploit literary capital in virtual perpetuity, often at the expense of the author and his family as well as of the public. From the law of 1866, the financial gains fell to publishers far more than to authors. To take one example, the popular writer Jules Verne earned only about one-eighth of the amount of his publisher, Pierre-Jules Hetzel, according to the estimates of one biographer. While some established authors such as Victor Hugo, Ernest Renan, Alphonse Daudet, and Émile Zola received unprecedented sums—and even monthly salaries or proportional royalties—from newspaper editors and book publishers, others, especially beginning authors, earned little for their works. In fact, some authors even published their work à compte d’auteur, or at their own expense, with entrepreneurs such as Paul Ollendorff and Bernard Grasset, who relied on this practice to launch their publishing houses. According to the research of Christophe Charle on the fortunes of fin de siècle authors, between two-thirds and four-fifths earned barely enough from their writing to live day to day. Contrary to common assumption, the law of 1866 did not inaugurate a “golden age” for writers.16 By enabling publishers to monopolize literary capital, this law affected readers, too. As in Great Britain with the passage of the Copyright Act of 1842, in France the literary property law of 1866 initiated a new “high monopoly” regime in which new titles circulated in expensive editions (so that publishers could recoup their payments to authors), leaving the working and peasant classes with cheap reprints of classic texts from the public domain. Although this new “high monopoly” regime remains to be studied in detail, it must have shaped mentalities, especially in the provinces, where its effect may be seen, for example, in the persistence of traditional rural values.17 The literary property law helps to explain a number of characteristics of late nineteenth-century French literary culture, including the continued appearance of Enlightenment and Romantic titles on best seller lists, the resistance to new styles such as naturalism and modernism, and the unprecedented

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“divorce” between literature for the avant-garde and literature for the general public.18 The new legislation on literary property also helps to explain the change in author-publisher relations between the beginning and the end of the nineteenth century. In particular, it helps to explain the fact that, in the late nineteenth century, the relationship between a writer and a publisher became an exclusive “marriage” for the long term. The shift from pluri- to monoédition (or from multiple publishers to a single publisher) that has been described by Christophe Charle and Jean-Yves Mollier, among others, was not just a function of increasing faithfulness or acquiescence of authors to publishers but was a result of the extension of the term of literary property, which empowered publishers in their negotiations with authors. Rather than purchasing a limited right to produce a single edition, publishers now demanded the exclusive right to control the entire corpus of a writer. The effect of the extension of literary property on author-publisher relations was particularly intense in France, where the literary agent failed to emerge to mediate the relationship between the author and the publisher. In the wake of the law of 1866, publishing contracts contained more and more disadvantageous conditions for authors, including delays in payment and expenses for publicity. Such conditions disempowered authors, prompting the writer Léon Bloy, for example, to complain in his Journal in 1909: “Signature with Juven of a contract for the publication of the Sang du pauvre. Pushed to see this book appear, I approve a homicidal clause where it is said that I will not be paid my author’s rights until six months after the day of the sales release and only on the copies sold, unprecedented clause that puts me completely at the discretion and at the mercy [of the publisher], my control being null.” By the twentieth century, publisher-author relations had become so imbalanced that writers campaigned for a law on the rights of authors, the Zay Bill of 1936, which in addition to reviving the idea of a “paying public domain” proposed to limit the duration of author-publisher contracts to ten years. Although it was strongly opposed by the Cercle de la Librairie and never enacted by the government of the Popular Front, this bill is indicative of the extent to which authors had been subjugated to publishers. By the early twentieth century, as Jean-Yves Mollier has argued, the status of the author had been degraded.19 As publishers gained authority over authors, they tended to intervene more in the content of texts. Although this practice certainly began under the

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censorship law of the monarchical and imperial regimes of the nineteenth century, the subjugation of the author to the publisher was exacerbated by the liberalization of the book trade. According to the press law of 1881, publishers could be prosecuted for attacks on heads of state, false or defamatory assertions, and offenses against good morals. As a result, they continued to monitor and censor the works published under their imprint. Even when they did not fear state prosecution, they still modified the work of authors in conformity with what they perceived to be the “public taste.” In an effort to satisfy public demand, they would dictate subjects, alter titles, revise plots, make cuts, and suggest changes to the proposals, drafts, and proofs submitted by authors. In order to exercise such authority over the work marketed under their imprint, some publishers, including Michel Lévy and Louis Hachette, even made it a stipulation of their contracts with authors that they reserved the right to edit manuscripts as they saw fit. To assist them in this task, publishers began to name directeurs de collections, or series editors, who specialized in the commissioning and editing of manuscripts. For example, Louis Hachette’s first series editor, Victor Duruy, enjoyed “the right to intervene in the editing of the work and in the editions that might be made of it” in his relations with authors for the series “Universal History.” Another associate of Hachette, Émile Templier, was also known for modifying the work of his authors, of whom the most famous example was the children’s writer the Countess de Ségur. Routinely, Templier demanded that the Countess “attenuate” the vividness and realism of her stories, for example, by revising episodes of violence or death involving children. By systematizing editorial practice, as Jean-Yves Mollier argues, Hachette and Company “put the final touch on the assumption of power of publishers over literature and authors.” But Hachette and Company was not the only publishing firm to exert such a heavy hand in the work of authorship. In the last third of the nineteenth century, examples of such interventionism abounded among éditeurs, including Pierre-Jules Hetzel, whose career as a publisher is well documented in a large collection of correspondence in the Manuscripts Department at the Bibliothèque Nationale in Paris. In his early years in the publishing business in the late 1830s and early 1840s, Hetzel, like other éditeurs at the time, had hesitated to intervene in the content of texts, in part because he knew his authors—who included Honoré de Balzac, George Sand, and Paul de Musset—would resist any such intervention. By the time he brought his son Louis-Jules into the

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business in the 1860s, however, Hetzel was advising and revising authors as diverse as Joseph Proudhon, Alphonse Daudet, Erckmann-Chatrian, and, most famously, Jules Verne. In his later years, Hetzel’s correspondence with these authors is full of references to his suggestions and corrections for their works. In the case of Jules Verne, especially, Hetzel edited manuscripts to such an extent that it is often difficult to distinguish the voice of the author from the voice of the publisher. As such examples show, the publisher of the “liberal” Third Republic was far more tyrannical than the “sultan” of the reactionary Restoration satirized by Balzac in Lost Illusions.20 The subjugation of the author to the publisher in the late nineteenth century was paradoxical, given that this was the same period in which writers, jurists, and legislators began to advocate the moral right of the author to control the fate of his work. Beginning in the 1840s, the author’s moral (as opposed to material) right had begun to be recognized in jurisprudence. It had been repeatedly evoked, though not ultimately guaranteed, throughout the debate on the legislation on literary property, including during the preparation of the law of 1866.21 In the decades following this law, authors began to demand recognition of this right. Beginning in 1885, the Association Littéraire et Artistique Internationale, which had been founded under the leadership of Victor Hugo during the International Exposition of 1878, launched a campaign for more formal protection of the moral rights of authors—for example, in a professional “code” on negotiations between authors and publishers. This campaign would culminate in the Rome Revision to the Berne Convention of 1928, whose Article 6 bis declared, “Independently of the author’s economic rights, and even after the transfer of the said rights, the author shall have the right to claim authorship of the work and to object to any distortion, mutilation or other modification of, or other derogatory action in relation to, the said work, which would be prejudicial to his honour or reputation.”22 Such gradual recognition of the moral right of the author in theory, however, did little to mitigate the subjugation of the author in practice. This brief account of the effects of the law of 1866 on authorship challenges the accepted account of the autonomous and influential “intellectual” in late nineteenth-century France. Rather than attaining independence and authority, it suggests, the typical author of the late nineteenth century experienced frustration, fear, humility, resignation—in short, disillusionment. In contrast to Lucien de Rudempré (or his creator, Honoré de Balzac), the fin de siècle

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author was no longer shocked by the ascendancy of the éditeur. In fact, he generally accepted—and even welcomed—the authority of the publisher. The submission of the author is exemplified by Jules Verne, in his relationship with his éditeur, Hetzel. Rather than resisting his publisher’s intervention in his work, Verne embraced it. In his correspondence with Hetzel from the mid-1860s to the early 1880s, Verne addressed his publisher as “my good and dear director,” “my divine master,” and “my great stage director.” The new sense of resignation on the part of the author is seen in even the most successful “intellectual” of the late nineteenth century, Émile Zola. In contrast to the Romantic Balzac, the realist Zola did not bemoan the role of the publisher but celebrated it. In the essay “Money in Literature,” he maintained that the publisher had liberated the author from dependence on patronage. In his view, the author was no inspired genius but an ordinary “worker like any other, who earns his living by his labor” for the capitalist publisher. The example of Zola suggests that, by the end of the nineteenth century, even the most prominent and courageous authors had lost all illusions about publishers.23

The Reaction against Liberalism Authors were not alone in being disillusioned by the liberalization of publishing. In the wake of deregulation, not just printers and booksellers but publishers themselves began to question the virtues of liberalism. Although they had long championed individual liberty and property, they now began to support various restrictions on the free market. In response to increased competition, they attempted to mitigate the effects of the literary market, first by reinstituting professional regulations and then, in the twentieth century, by demanding state protections. Adopting the old corporatist mantra, “The book is not a product like any other,” publishers began to advocate a new compromise between state and market in the book trade. Despite the deregulation of publishing, the protectionist notion of the exceptionalism of literature remained strong in France, even among the liberal camp of publishers. The reaction against liberalism among publishers may be seen, for instance, in their efforts to control the prices of books. In the context of the “crisis” of publishing in the early 1890s, publishers began to engage in price-fixing. Under pressure from retail booksellers who formed a national Chambre Syndicale des Libraires de France to protest the use of variable discounts and

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nontraditional sales outlets by publishers, publishers organized their own Syndicat des Éditeurs, to institute a “uniform discount” for each different genre of books. Founded in 1892 by Armand Templier, a director of Hachette and Company and the president of the Cercle de la Librairie, this new organization negotiated a schedule of minimum prices for seven different categories of books, which entered into effect on 1 November 1892. In exchange for this pledge by publishers to standardize discounts as well as to favor retail booksellers over other types of individual or institutional distributors, booksellers promised not to advertise books at a price below the prix fort, or list price. This agreement did not encompass all types of books, and although publishers threatened to close the accounts of booksellers who did not respect the minimum price, it was unenforceable. Nonetheless, it was respected in the trade—and upheld by the judiciary, which ruled (in a lawsuit brought by a small-town bookseller whose accounts had been closed by the Syndicat des Éditeurs because he did not respect the price schedule) that such a price agreement was permissible under the law of 1884 that legalized professional syndicates.24 Although it would lapse in the political upheaval following the Great War, this agreement distinguished France from more laissez-faire markets for books, such as the United States, where a similar system of price-fixing was dismantled by the courts.25 The reaction against liberalism by publishers themselves may also be seen in their efforts to standardize author-publisher relations. In response to the campaign by authors in the Association Littéraire et Artistique Internationale for a formal “code” on author-publisher relations, publishers began to develop national standards for negotiations between publishers and authors. In the late 1890s, the Syndicat des Éditeurs drafted, on behalf of a new International Congress of Publishers, which it had helped to found, a formal memorandum of customs to govern author-publisher contracts. Negotiated by a joint committee of the Cercle de la Librairie and the Société des Gens de Lettres, this memorandum specified the rights and responsibilities of authors and publishers. Among other things, it stipulated that the publisher should not modify the text of the author without authorization. Although adherence to this memorandum was voluntary, it did help to smooth relations between publishers and authors. As the self-appointed historian of the Cercle de la Librairie, Paul Delalain, asserted, this memorandum restored “the good reputation of the French book trade” in the wake of deregulation. “Since the proclamation of

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liberty in the book trade [in 1870],” Delalain recalled, “new practices were introduced into the occupation of publishing which, whether by intention or by ignorance, deviated from the exercise of the trade of publisher as it developed traditionally and thereby threatened the regularity of relations between the author and the publisher.” These practices were mitigated—though certainly not eliminated—through professional regularization by publishers.26 In the twentieth century, publishers would go even further in tempering their liberalism, often calling on the state to protect them from some of the effects of the free market. Although it was founded by the liberal publishers of the Cercle de la Librairie, with which it remained intertwined, the Syndicat des Éditeurs (later renamed the Syndicat National de l’Édition, or National Syndicate of Publishing) proved to be a force for protectionism. For example, this syndicate welcomed state patronage of publishing through such measures as encouragement of “public reading,” incentives for exports of books, and subsidies for authors. In the late 1940s and 1950s, it benefited from the establishment of a Caisse Nationale des Lettres, which provided subsidies to publishers along with—or even more than—authors.27 Yet, the main focus of publishers in their call for state intervention in the market remained the issue of pricing. For much of the twentieth century, publishers relied on interprofessional agreements to enforce a “suggested price” (prix conseillé) on books. In the 1970s, however, in response to the rise of discount chains such as FNAC, publishers formed an Association pour le Prix Unique du Livre (Association for a Uniform Book Price), to campaign for state regulation against excessive discounting of prices for books. In support of this measure, they argued that it would protect the “equality of access” to diverse ideas among readers, as well as safeguard the business of publishers and booksellers. Such a “uniform price” was endorsed by the Socialist candidate for president in 1980, François Mittérand, as one of the one hundred planks of his platform, and was enacted as the Lang Law (named after Mittérand’s minister of culture, Jack Lang) on 10 August 1981. This law, which remains in effect today, is an embodiment of the idea, common even among liberal publishers in France, that the book is a unique commodity.28 Despite their historic support for economic liberalism, publishers have thus contributed to the persistence of a more protectionist vision of culture in France. By reappropriating the corporatist notion that the book is a product unlike any other, they have helped to create a literary marketplace that differs

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in considerable ways from its Anglo-American counterpart. Long after the liberalization of the book trade, the French have continued to view print— and, by extension, any medium of information—as a unique type of good, requiring special protections and regulations. The most recent example of such cultural protectionism was “L’Affaire Messier,” involving the chief of the media conglomerate Vivendi Universal, Jean-Marie Messier. When Messier fired the head of the film production company Canal Plus in 2002, he caused a national uproar. In response to Messier’s American-style entrepreneurialism, the president of the French Republic, Jacques Chirac, proclaimed, “To consider works of art and cultural goods ordinary merchandise is a profound mental aberration that nothing can justify.” As this episode demonstrates, the notion that culture constitutes an exception to the law of the market— l’exception culturelle—remains entrenched, albeit controversial, in France. The persistence of cultural exceptionalism in France in the twentieth—and twentyfirst—centuries lies outside the scope of this book. However, the “Affaire Messier” does suggest that the liberalization of the book trade in the last third of the nineteenth century by no means put an end to the politics of publishing in France.29

Notes Index

Notes

Abbreviations A.N. BHVP B.N. CAMT CRCA HEF 2

HEF 3

HEF 4

IMEC

Archives Nationales Bibliothèque Historique de la Ville de Paris Bibliothèque Nationale (de France) Centre des Archives du Monde du Travail (Roubaix) Comptes-rendus des Conseils d’administration (du Cercle de la Librairie) Histoire de l’édition française, vol. 2, Le livre triomphant, 1660–1830, ed. Roger Chartier and Henri-Jean Martin (Paris: Fayard / Cercle de la Librairie, 1990; first pub. 1984). Histoire de l’édition française, vol. 3, Le temps des éditeurs: Du romantisme à la Belle Époque, ed. Roger Chartier and Henri-Jean Martin (Paris: Fayard / Cercle de la Librairie, 1990; first pub. 1985). Histoire de l’édition française, vol. 4, Le livre concurrencé, 1900–1950, ed. Roger Chartier and Henri-Jean Martin (Paris: Fayard / Cercle de la Librairie, 1991; first pub. 1986). Institut Mémoires de l’Édition Contemporaine

Introduction 1. Illusions perdues by Honoré de Balzac was first issued in three parts between 1837 and 1843 and then combined in the first edition of his collected works, published by Hetzel and Furne in 1843. On Balzac’s work as a publisher and printer, see Nicole Felkay, “Balzac, libraire et imprimeur,” chap. 4 of Balzac et ses éditeurs, 1822– 1837: Essai sur la librairie romantique (Paris: Promodis / Éditions du Cercle de la Librairie, 1987), 103–121. 2. For evidence of the economic importance of publishing in nineteenthcentury France, see Jean-Antoine Chaptal, De l’industrie française, ed. Louis Bergeron (Paris: Imprimerie Nationale Éditions, 1993; first pub. 1819), 356; Comte Daru,

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Notions statistiques sur la librairie pour servir à la discussion des lois sur la presse (Paris: Imprimerie de Firmin Didot, 1827), 44; Statistique de l’industrie à Paris, résultant de l’enquête faite par la Chambre de commerce pour l’année 1860 (Paris: Chambre de commerce, 1864), xviii–xxviii; and report on petition by members of book trade requesting 10 percent of the government loan to commerce and industry in 1830, in which they argued that they constituted 10 percent of business activity in Paris, Journal des débats, 19 Oct. 1830. The claim that publishing constituted 10 percent of the Parisian economy has been repeated by Jean-Yves Mollier, for example, in L’argent et les lettres: Histoire du capitalisme d’édition, 1880–1920 (Paris: Fayard, 1988), 14, and Louis Hachette, 1800–1864: Le fondateur d’un empire (Paris: Fayard, 1999), 15. 3. Robert Darnton, The Business of Enlightenment: A Publishing History of the Encyclopédie, 1775–1800 (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1979); The Literary Underground of the Old Regime (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1982); and The Forbidden Best-Sellers of Pre-Revolutionary France (New York: W. W. Norton, 1995). Other examples include Lucien Febvre and Henri-Jean Martin, The Coming of the Book: The Impact of Printing, 1450–1800, trans. David Gerard (London: NLB, 1976; first pub. Éditions Albin Michel, 1958); Elizabeth Eisenstein, The Printing Revolution in Early Modern Europe (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1983); and Adrian Johns, The Nature of the Book: Print and Knowledge in the Making (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1998). 4. The biographical approach to the publishing business in nineteenthcentury France is illustrated by Odile Martin and Henri-Jean Martin, “Le monde des éditeurs,” in Histoire de l’édition française, vol. 3, Le temps des éditeurs: Du romantisme à la Belle Époque, ed. Roger Chartier and Henri-Jean Martin (Paris: Fayard, 1990; first pub. 1985) [hereafter HEF 3], 176–226; Felkay, Balzac et ses éditeurs; Jean-Yves Mollier, Michel et Calmann Lévy, ou la naissance de l’édition moderne, 1836–1891 (Paris: Calmann-Lévy, 1984); and Mollier, L’argent et les lettres and Louis Hachette. The emphasis on technology, press law, and reading is illustrated by the relevant volume of the encyclopedic Histoire de l’édition française: Le temps des éditeurs (vol. 3). For other examples of the structural and technological characterization of the literary market, see James Smith Allen, Popular French Romanticism: Authors, Readers, and Books in the Nineteenth Century (Syracuse, NY: Syracuse University Press, 1981); Frédérique Leblanc, Libraire: Un métier (Paris: L’Harmattan, 1998); Michael Winship, American Literary Publishing in the Mid-Nineteenth Century: The Business of Ticknor and Fields (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1985); George Justice, The Manufacturers of Literature: Writing and the Literary Marketplace in Eighteenth-Century England (Newark: University of Delaware Press, 2002); and Frédéric Barbier, L’Empire du livre: Le livre imprimé et la construction de l’Allemagne contemporaine, 1815–1914 (Paris: Éditions du Cerf, 1995).

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5. In L’argent et les lettres, for example, Jean-Yves Mollier suggests that those publishers who survived over the long term knew how to exploit the laws of the market (11). 6. In addition to the works cited in note 4 above, see, for example, Maurice Crubellier, “L’élargissement du public,” in HEF 3:15–39; Frédéric Barbier, “L’industrialisation des techniques,” in HEF 3:51–61; Jean Hébrard, “Les nouveaux lecteurs,” in HEF 3:526–565; and Martyn Lyons, Le triomphe du livre: Une histoire sociologique de la lecture dans la France du XIXe siècle (Paris: Promodis / Cercle de la Librairie, 1987). 7. The old stereotype, which dates from the work of David Landes, persists, despite a recent wave of revisionism in French economic history. See David S. Landes, “French Entrepreneurship and Industrial Growth in the Nineteenth Century,” Journal of Economic History 9, no. 1 (May 1949): 45–61; and “French Business and the Businessman: A Social and Cultural Analysis,” in Modern France: Problems of the Third and Fourth Republics, ed. Edward Mead Earle (New York: Russell & Russell, 1964), 334–353. For examples of recent scholarship that challenges the opposition between liberalism and protectionism in eighteenth- and nineteenth-century France, see Jean-Pierre Hirsch, “Revolutionary France, Cradle of Free Enterprise,” American Historical Review 94 (1989): 1281–1289; Jean-Pierre Hirsch, Les deux rêves du commerce: Entreprise et institution dans la région lilloise, 1780–1860 (Paris: Éditions de l’École des Hautes Études en Sciences Sociales, 1991); Gail Bossenga, The Politics of Privilege: Old Regime and Revolution in Lille (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1991); Francis Démier, “Nation, marché et développement dans la France de la Resturation” (Doctoral Thesis, Université de Paris X-Nanterre, 1991); Philippe Minard, La fortune du colbertisme: État et industrie dans la France des Lumières (Paris: Fayard, 1998); Jean-Pierre Hirsch and Philippe Minard, “ ‘Libérez-nous, Sire, protégez-nous beaucoup’: Pour une histoire des pratiques institutionnelles dans l’industrie française, XVIIIe–XIXe siècles,” in La France n’est-elle pas douée pour l’industrie?, ed. Louis Bergeron and Patrice Bourdelais (Paris: Belin, 1998), 135–158; Judith Miller, Mastering the Market: The State and the Grain Trade in Northern France, 1700–1860 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1999); and James R. Farr, ed., “Forum: New Directions in French Economic History,” special issue of French Historical Studies, 23, no. 3 (Summer 2000). 8. The recent focus on networks among business historians has not yet resulted in much empirical research on nineteenth-century France. For a recent example of the continued focus on the individual firm among historians of business in France, see Michael Stephen Smith, The Emergence of Modern Business Enterprise in France, 1800–1930 (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2006). The importance of such associations has been noted—though not satisfactorily analyzed—in the scholarship on sociability. See, for example, Maurice Alguhon, Le cercle dans la France bourgeoise, 1810–1848: Étude d’une mutation de sociabilité, Cahiers des Annales, vol. 36 (Paris: Armand Colin, 1977); Carol E. Harrison, The

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Bourgeois Citizen in Nineteenth-Century France: Gender, Sociability, and the Uses of Emulation (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1999); Denise Z. Davidson, France after Revolution: Urban Life, Gender, and the New Social Order (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2007); and Gregory S. Brown, Literary Sociability and Literary Property in France, 1775–1793: Beaumarchais, the Société des Auteurs Dramatiques and the Comédie Française (Burlington, VT: Ashgate, 2006). 9. See, for example, Philip Nord, The Republican Moment: Struggles for Democracy in Nineteenth-Century France (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1995); and Sudhir Hazareesingh, From Subject to Citizen: The Second Empire and the Emergence of Modern French Democracy (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1998). On the tensions within the liberal political tradition in France, especially with regard to press law and intellectual property, see Anne Sa’adah, The Shaping of Liberal Politics in Revolutionary France: A Comparative Perspective (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1990); Renée Waldinger, Philip Dawson, and Isser Woloch, eds., The French Revolution and the Meaning of Citizenship (Westport, CT: Greenwood Press, 1993), esp. the contribution by Jeremy Popkin, “Citizenship and the Press in the French Revolution,” 123–135; Charles Walton, Policing Public Opinion in the French Revolution: The Culture of Calumny and the Problem of Free Speech (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2009); and David Saunders, Authorship and Copyright (London: Routledge, 1992). On the legacy of the Revolution on the press and the theater, see Jeremy Popkin, Revolutionary News: The Press in France, 1789–1799 (Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 1990); Jeremy Popkin, Press, Revolution, and Social Identities in France, 1830–1835 (University Park: Pennsylvania State University Press, 2002); Dean de la Motte and Jeannene M. Przyblyski, Making the News: Modernity and the Mass Press in Nineteenth-Century France (Amherst: University of Massachusetts Press, 1999); Roger Bautier, Elisabeth Cazenave, and Michael Palmer, eds., La presse selon le XIXe siècle (Paris: Université de Paris III and Université de Paris XIII, 1997); Gregory S. Brown, A Field of Honor: Writers, Court Culture and Public Theater in French Literary Life from Racine to the Revolution (New York: Columbia University Press, 2005); and F. W. J. Hemmings, Theatre and State in France, 1760–1905 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1994). 10. This description of the prerevolutionary French book trade relies heavily on Carla Hesse, Publishing and Cultural Politics in Revolutionary Paris (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1991). On the organization and regulation of the book trade under the Old Regime, see also David T. Pottinger, The French Book Trade in the Ancien Régime, 1500–1791 (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1958); Henri-Jean Martin, “La prééminence de la librairie parisienne” and “À la veille de la Révolution: Crise et réorganisation de la librairie,” in Histoire de l’édition française, vol. 2, Le livre triomphant, ed. Roger Chartier and Henri-Jean Martin (Paris: Fayard, 1990; first pub. 1984) [hereafter HEF 2], 331–357 and 681–693; Daniel Roche, “La censure” and “La police du livre,” in HEF 2:88–94 and 99–109; Roger Chartier, “The Way of Print,” chap. 3 of The Cultural Origins of the French Revolution, trans. Lydia

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G. Cochrane (Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 1991), 38–66; Darnton, The Business of Enlightenment and The Literary Underground of the Old Regime; and Thierry Rigogne, Between State and Market: Printing and Bookselling in Eighteenth-Century France (Oxford: Voltaire Foundation, 2007). On the privilege system in particular, see Raymond Birn, “The Profits of Ideas: Privilèges en librairie in Eighteenth-Century France,” Eighteenth-Century Studies 4, no. 2 (Winter 1970–1971): 131–168; Elizabeth Armstrong, Before Copyright: The French Book-Privilege System, 1498–1526 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1990); and Carla Hesse, “Enlightenment Epistemology and the Laws of Authorship in Revolutionary France, 1777–1793,” Representations 30 (Spring 1990): 109–137. 11. On the breakdown of the guild system in the book trade, see Darnton, The Literary Underground of the Old Regime and The Forbidden Best-Sellers of Pre-Revolutionary France; Martin, “À la veille de la Révolution”; Rigogne, Between State and Market; Jean-Dominique Mellot, “Librairie et cadre corporatif en France à l’âge classique,” in L’Europe et le livre: Réseaux et pratiques du négoce de librairie, XVIe–XIXe siècles, ed. Frédéric Barbier, Sabine Juratic, and Dominique Varry ([Paris]: Éditions Klincksieck, 1996), 61–77; and Jean-Dominique Mellot, “Entre et marché du livre au XVIIIe siècle: Repères pour un paysage éditorial,” in Le livre et l’historien: Études offertes en l’honneur du Professeur Henri-Jean Martin, ed. Frédéric Barbier et al. (Geneva: Droz, 1997), 493–517. 12. On the effect of the Revolution on the book trade, see Hesse, Publishing and Cultural Politics in Revolutionary Paris; Bernard Vouillot, “La Révolution et l’Empire: Une nouvelle réglementation,” in HEF 2:694–708; Robert Darnton and Daniel Roche, eds., Revolution in Print: The Press in France, 1775–1800 (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1989); and Popkin, Revolutionary News. On the Declaration of the Rights of Genius, see also Hesse, “Enlightenment Epistemology and the Laws of Authorship in Revolutionary France”; and Jane C. Ginsburg, “A Tale of Two Copyrights: Literary Property in Revolutionary France and America,” in Of Authors and Origins: Essays on Copyright Law, ed. Brad Sherman and Alain Strowel (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1994), 131–158. 13. Hesse, Publishing and Cultural Politics in Revolutionary Paris, 239.

1. The Birth of the Publisher 1. All references here are to the translation of Lost Illusions by Herbert J. Hunt (London: Penguin Books, 1971). The quotation is found on page 273. Balzac also wrote an essay on publishing, “De l’état actuel de la librairie,” Feuilleton des journaux politiques, 22 and 23 March 1830, reprinted in L’Universel, 30 March 1830 (attributed to Balzac by Roland Chollet in Balzac journaliste: Le tournant de 1830 [Paris: Klincksieck, 1983]). 2. Edmond Werdet, De la librairie française: Son passé, son présent, son avenir, avec des notices biographiques sur les libraires-éditeurs les plus distingués depuis 1789

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Notes to Pages 15–17

(Paris: E. Dentu, 1860), 308–309. Unless otherwise noted, all translations from the original French are my own. 3. See, for example, James Smith Allen, Popular French Romanticism: Authors, Readers, and Books in the Nineteenth Century (Syracuse, NY: Syracuse University Press, 1981); Odile Martin and Henri-Jean Martin, “Le monde des éditeurs,” in HEF 3:176–226; Nicole Felkay, Balzac et ses éditeurs, 1822–1837: Essai sur la librairie romantique (Paris: Promodis / Éditions du Cercle de la Librairie, 1987); Martyn Lyons, Le triomphe du livre: Une histoire sociologique de la lecture dans la France du XIXe siècle (Paris: Promodis / Éditions du Cercle de la Librairie, 1987); GeorgesAndré Vuaroqueaux, “Édition populaire et stratégies éditoriales, 1830–1890” (Doctoral Thesis, École des Hautes Études en Sciences Sociales, 1994–1995); and Frédérique Leblanc, Libraire: Un métier (Paris: Éditions L’Harmattan, 1998). While Robert Darnton long ago noted (in “What Is the History of Books?” Daedalus [Summer 1982]: 65–83, and “Histoire du livre–Geschichte des Buchwesens: An Agenda for Comparative History,” Publishing History, no. 22 [1987]: 33–41) that the emergence of the publisher as a distinct figure separate from the bookseller and the printer needed study, the topic has remained unexplored, with the exception of a recent article by Jean-Yves Mollier, “Écrivain-éditeur: Un face-à-face déroutant,” Travaux de littérature 15 (2002): 17–39. 4. See entries for “Éditeur” in Dictionnaire étymologique de la langue française, ed. Oscar Bloch and Walter Von Wartburg, 8th ed. (Paris: Presses Universitaires de France, 1989; first pub. 1932); Dictionnaire universel françois et latin, ou Dictionnaire de Trévoux (Nancy: Chez Pierre Antoine, 1734); Encyclopédie, ed. Denis Diderot (1751–1780), facsimile ed. (Stuttgart: Friedrich Frommann Verlag, 1966); Dictionnaire de l’Académie française, 3rd ed. (Paris: Veuve Bernard Brunet, 1762); and Dictionnaire de l’Académie française, 4th ed. (Paris: Pierre Beaume, 1778). 5. Encyclopédie, s.v. “Édition”; Dictionnaire de l’Académie française, 6th ed. (Paris: Firmin Didot Frères, 1835), s.v. “Éditeur”; Grand dictionnaire universel du XIXième siècle (Paris: Pierre Larousse, 1866–1890), s.v. “Éditeur,” quoted in Pierre Larousse et son temps, ed. Jean-Yves Mollier and Pascal Ory (Paris: Larousse, 1995), 140–141. 6. On the financing of publishing in the nineteenth century, see Jean-Yves Mollier, “Les banques et l’édition française: Coup de foudre ou vieille liaison?” Bulletin du Centre d’histoire de la France contemporaine 9 (1988): 5–21. On the art dealer, see Harrison C. White and Cynthia A. White, Canvases and Careers: Institutional Change in the French Painting World (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1993; first pub. 1965); and Albert Boime, “Entrepreneurial Patronage in Nineteenth-Century France,” in Enterprise and Entrepreneurs in Nineteenth- and Twentieth-Century France, ed. Edward C. Carter II, Robert Forster, and Joseph N. Moody (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1976), 137–207. On the theater manager, see F. W. J. Hemmings, Theatre and State in France, 1760–1905 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1994).

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7. The early existence of the capitalist bookseller-publisher was noted, for example, by Lucien Febvre and Henri-Jean Martin in The Coming of the Book: The Impact of Printing, 1450–1800, trans. David Gerard (London: N.L.B., 1976). On the division of labor (or lack thereof) in the book trade in seventeenth- and eighteenthcentury France, see David Pottinger, The French Book Trade in the Ancien Régime, 1500–1791 (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1958), esp. part 2 (“1660– 1780: Libraires et imprimeurs”); Henri-Jean Martin, Livre, pouvoirs et société à Paris au XVIIe siècle, 1598–1701, 2 vols. (Geneva: Librairie Droz, 1969), esp. 1:303 and 331; Robert Darnton, The Forbidden Best-Sellers of Pre-Revolutionary France (New York: W. W. Norton, 1995), esp. 8–11; and Frédéric Barbier, “L’économie éditoriale,” in HEF 2:741–756. For examples of the persistence of unspecialized libraires-imprimeurs into the nineteenth century, see Annuaire de l’imprimerie et de la librairie françaises (Paris: Baudouin Frères, Imprimeurs-Libraires, 1821), B.N., Q-4535, and rev. ed. (1826), B.N., Q-4536. 8. C. Harmand, Manuel de l’étranger dans Paris pour 1824 (Paris: Imprimerie de Firmin Didot, 1824), 157. The overlap in usage between libraire and éditeur has caused confusion among book historians, many of whom apply the terms “bookseller” and “publisher” anachronistically, without historicizing their meaning. To avoid such confusion, I have chosen to translate libraire as “bookseller-publisher” or “bookdealer,” except in cases (such as the last decades of the nineteenth century) where it is clear that the word refers to a retailer, when I use the word “bookseller” alone. The terms libraire-éditeur and éditeur, on the other hand, I translate as “publisher.” 9. For examples of the evolution of the use of éditeur, see Feuille de correspondance du libraire, ou Notice des ouvrages publiés dans les différens journaux qui circulent en France & dans l’étranger, & par le moyen de laquelle il met ses correspondans au courant des nouveautés, sans se donner la peine de les recueillir (Paris: Aubry, Libraire et Directeur du Cabinet bibliographique, 1791), B.N., Rez-de-Jardin, Salle X, O15 B, whose masthead states “Every author, éditeur, libraire, etc. may announce works . . .”; Almanach typographique, ou Répertoire de la librairie (Paris: Henry Tardieu, Libraire et Commissionnaire, Year VII [1799]), B.N., Rés. P-Q-739, which follows the name of some of the bookdealers listed under the category libraire with the description “éditeur de . . .”; Tableau des libraires, imprimeurs et éditeurs de livres des principales villes de l’Europe (Paris: Imprimerie de Guilleminet; Librairie de A.-G. Debray, 1804), cited in Paul Delalain, L’imprimerie et la librairie à Paris de 1789 à 1813: Renseignements recueillis, classés et accompagnés d’une introduction (Paris: Librairie Delalain Frères, 1925), n. 1; L. Héricart de Thury, Rapport du jury d’admission des produits de l’industrie du département de la Seine, à l’Exposition du Louvre, en 1823 (Paris: C. Ballard, 1825), B.N., 8-Z-Le Senne-12168, pp. 175–176; Baron Charles Dupin, Rapport du jury central sur les produits de l’industrie française exposés en 1834, 2 vols. (Paris: Imprimerie royale, 1836), B.N., 8-Z-Le Senne-12742, vol. 2, pp. 415–424; Léon Curmer, Note présentée à MM. les membres du jury central

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Notes to Pages 22–23

de l’Exposition des produits de l’industrie française sur la profession d’éditeur et le développement de cette industrie dans le commerce de la librairie française (Paris: Imprimerie d’A. Everat, 1839), B.N., Vp 5821; Dutertre, ed., Annuaire de l’imprimerie et de la librairie françaises et étrangères (Paris: Souverain et Dutertre, 1841); Sébastien Bottin, ed., Almanach du commerce de Paris, des départemens de la France et des principales villes du monde (Paris: Paul Dupont, 1841), B.N., 4-Z-Le Senne 1087; Édouard Charton, ed., Choix d’un état, ou Dictionnaire des professions indiquant les conditions de temps et d’argent pour parvenir à chaque profession, les études à suivre, les programmes des écoles spéciales, les examens à subir, les aptitudes et les facultés nécessaires pour réussir, les moyens d’établissement, les chances d’avancement ou de fortune, les devoirs, 2nd ed. (Paris: F. Chamerot, Libraire-Editeur, 1851), B.N., microfiche, R-31177, p. 356; Élias Regnault, “L’Éditeur,” in Les Français peints par eux-mêmes: Encyclopédie morale du dix-neuvième siècle, ed. Léon Curmer (Paris: Curmer, 1841; reprinted Paris: Éditions Arthaud, 1961), B.N., microfilm, M-5358(2), vol. 2, 322–334; Werdet, De la librairie française, 304–319. 10. Mollier, “Écrivain-éditeur,” 22; and Suzanne Tucoo-Chala, Charles-Joseph Panckoucke et la librairie française, 1736–1798 (Pau: Éditions Marrimpouey Jeune, 1977). On Panckoucke, see also Robert Darnton, The Business of Enlightenment: A Publishing History of the Encyclopédie, 1775–1800 (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1979); Henri-Jean Martin, “À la veille de la Révolution: Crise et réorganisation de la librairie,” in HEF 2:684–686; and Jean-Yves Mollier, “Des Panckoucke aux Dalloz, trois siècles de stratégies éditoriales,” in L’argent et les lettres: Histoire du capitalisme d’édition, 1880–1920 (Paris: Fayard, 1988), 19–50. 11. Werdet, De la librairie française, 93; Lyons, Le triomphe du livre, 66. On Ladvocat, see Felkay, Balzac et ses éditeurs, chap. 10 (“Pierre-François Ladvocat”), 251– 278; Martin and Martin, “Le monde des éditeurs,” in HEF 3:181–182; and Mollier, L’argent et les lettres, 201–202. 12. See Bottin, ed., Almanach du commerce; Frédéric Barbier, “Libraires et colporteurs,” in HEF 3:264 and 266–272; Sabine Juratic, “Le commerce du livre à Paris à la veille de la Révolution,” in Le commerce de la librairie en France au XIXe siècle, 1789–1914, ed. Jean-Yves Mollier (Paris: IMEC Éditions / Éditions de la Maison des sciences de l’Homme, 1997), 19–26; and Marie-Claire Boscq, “L’implantation des libraires à Paris (1815–1848),” in Le commerce de la librairie, 27–50. For additional statistics on the number of bookdealers in this period, see also Comte Daru, Notions statistiques sur la librairie pour servir à la discussion des lois sur la presse (Paris: Imprimerie de Firmin Didot, 1827), which estimated that there were 480 libraires and 84 bouquinistes in Paris and 922 in the provinces; and Jean-Dominique Mellot, Élisabeth Queval, and Véronique Sarrazin, “La liberté et la mort? Vues sur les métiers du livre parisiens à l’époque révolutionnaire,” Revue de la Bibliothèque Nationale, no. 49 (Oct. 1993): 76–85, which revises the numbers for the revolutionary and imperial periods downward a bit.

Notes to Pages 24–26

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13. Roger Chartier, “L’ancien régime typographique: Réflexions sur quelques travaux récents,” Annales: Économies, Sociétés, Civilisations 36, no. 2 (1981): 191–209; Frédéric Barbier, L’Empire du livre: Le livre imprimé et la construction de l’Allemagne contemporaine, 1815–1914 (Paris: Cerf, 1995), 18; and Frédéric Barbier, “L’industrialisation des techniques,” in HEF 3:52. 14. Curmer, Note . . . sur la profession d’éditeur, 3–4 and 6. 15. Martin and Martin, “Le monde des éditeurs,” in HEF 3:196; Barbier, L’Empire du livre, 140. For other examples of the standard technological explanation of the birth of the publisher, in France and elsewhere, see Leblanc, Libraire, esp. 103– 104; Smith Allen, Popular French Romanticism, esp. chap. 4 (“The Romantic Book Trade”); and Michael Winship, American Literary Publishing in the Mid-Nineteenth Century: The Business of Ticknor and Fields (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1995). 16. On the expansion of demand for print, see part 3 of HEF 2 (“1660–1780: De l’auteur au lecteur”); Françoise Parent, “De nouvelles pratiques de lecture,” in HEF 2:801–818; and Maurice Crubellier, “L’élargissement du public,” in HEF 3:15–39. On the cabinets de lecture, see Françoise Parent-Lardeur, Les cabinets de lecture: La lecture publique à Paris sous la Restauration (Paris: Payot, 1982). On the history of literacy, see François Furet and Jacques Ozouf, Reading and Writing: Literacy in France from Calvin to Jules Ferry (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1982; first pub. in French, 1977); Lyons, Le triomphe du livre, chap. 2 (“Conditions préliminaires de l’expansion: Alphabétisme et conformité linguistique”); and Smith Allen, Popular French Romanticism, chap. 6 (“Romantic Readership”). On the broader consumption revolution, see John Brewer and Roy Porter, eds., Consumption and the World of Goods (London: Routledge, 1993); and Daniel Roche, A History of Everyday Things: The Birth of Consumption in France, 1600– 1800, trans. Brian Pearce (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2000; first pub. in French 1997). 17. According to a report by the Administration of the Book Trade in 1841, at that late date there were only sixty-seven working (and twelve idle) mechanical presses in Paris, compared with 203 working (and 180 idle) hand presses, and even the most industrialized printing firm, Firmin-Didot, had only thirty-six mechanical presses in operation (manuscript report entitled “Situation des 40 imprimeries cidessous et d’autres parts, à la fin du semestre 1841,” A.N., F18567). On the timing of the mechanization of papermaking and printing in France, see also Barbier, “L’industrialisation des techniques,” in HEF 3:51–6; Lyons, Le triomphe du livre, 45–46; and Albert Joseph George, The Development of French Romanticism: The Impact of the Industrial Revolution on Literature (Westport, CT: Greenwood Press, 1977; reprint of 1955 Syracuse University Press ed.), esp. chap. 2 (“Determinants of Romanticism”). On the emergence of the publisher in England, see Terry Belanger, “From Bookseller to Publisher: Changes in the London Book Trade, 1750–1850,” in Book Selling and Book Buying: Aspects of the Nineteenth-Century British and North

256

Notes to Pages 27–28

American Book Trade, ed. Richard G. Landon, ACRL Publications in Librarianship, no. 40 (Chicago: American Library Association, 1978), 7–16; and John Feather, A History of British Publishing (London: Croom Helm, 1988). On Germany, see Frédéric Barbier, “La librairie allemande comme modèle?” in Les mutations du livre et de l’édition dans le monde, ed. Jacques Michou and Jean-Yves Mollier (Saint-Nicolas, Québec: Les Presses de l’Université de Laval, 2001), 31–45; and Barbier, L’Empire du livre. While it does not discuss the emergence of the publisher per se, the recent work of William St. Clair on publishing in nineteenth-century Great Britain corroborates the argument that the innovations associated with the publisher preceded industrialization by several decades. See William St. Clair, The Reading Nation in Romantic Britain (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2004). 18. Pottinger, The French Book Trade in the Ancien Régime; Martin, Livre, pouvoirs et société à Paris au XVIIe siècle; Martin, “La prééminence de la librairie parisienne,” in HEF 2:331–357; Martin, “À la veille de la Révolution: Crise et réorganisation de la librairie,” in HEF2:681–693; Darnton, The Literary Underground of the Old Regime; Carla Hesse, Publishing and Cultural Politics in Revolutionary Paris (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1991), esp. 7–19 and 33–44; JeanDominique Mellot, “Entre et marché du livre au XVIIIe siècle: Repères pour un paysage éditorial,” in Le livre et l’historien: Études offertes en l’honneur du Professeur Henri-Jean Martin, ed. Frédéric Barbier et al. (Geneva: Droz, 1997), 493–517; Thierry Rigogne, Between State and Market: Printing and Bookselling in Eighteenth-Century France (Oxford: Voltaire Foundation, 2007). As Mellot argues, the contradictions of the corporatist system were exposed by the Revolution, which by opening the book trade to competition deflated the benefits of piracy within two years (516–517). 19. Here and throughout the book, I follow historical usage in employing the masculine pronoun when discussing authors as well as publishers. Although there were female authors (and publishers) in France throughout the nineteenth century, they did not benefit (except through their fathers, husbands, or sons) from the new laws on the rights of authors. On this point, see Carla Hesse, “Female Authorship in the New Regime,” chap. 3 of The Other Enlightenment: How French Women Became Modern (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2001), 56–78. On the decrees of 1777, see Martin, “À la veille de la Révolution: Crise et réorganisation de la librairie,” in HEF 2:682–683; Pottinger, The French Book Trade in the Ancien Régime, 134; Darnton, The Business of Literature, 66–75, and The Literary Underground of the Old Regime, 188–189; Hesse, Publishing and Cultural Politics, 40–44; Roger Chartier, The Cultural Origins of the French Revolution, trans. Lydia G. Cochrane (Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 1991), 61; and Raymond Birn, “The Profits of Ideas: Privilèges en librairie in Eighteenth-Century France,” Eighteenth-Century Studies 4, no. 2 (1971): 131–168. On the birth of the author in this period, see especially Michel Foucault, “What Is an Author?” in Textual Strategies: Perspectives in Post-Structuralist Criticism, ed. Josué Harari (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press,

Notes to Pages 29–31

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1979), 141–160; Martha Woodmansee, “The Genius and the Copyright: Economic and Legal Conditions of the Emergence of the ‘Author’,” Eighteenth-Century Studies 17, no. 4 (Summer 1984): 425–448; Mark Rose, “The Author as Proprietor: Donaldson v. Becket and the Genealogy of Modern Authorship,” Representations 23 (Summer 1988): 51–85; and Carla Hesse, “Enlightenment Epistemology and the Laws of Authorship in Revolutionary France, 1777–1793,” Representations 30 (Spring 1990): 109–137. 20. Balzac, “De l’état actuel de la librairie”; Hesse, Publishing and Cultural Politics, 167, 172, and 203. On the abolition of the Paris Book Guild, including Panckoucke’s opposition to it, see Darnton, The Business of Enlightenment, 500–507; and Hesse, Publishing and Cultural Politics, chap. 2 (“The Fall of the Paris Book Guild, 1777–1791”). On periodical publishing during the revolutionary era, see Jeremy D. Popkin, Revolutionary News: The Press in France, 1789–1799 (Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 1990), 62–65. On the effect of the Revolution on publishing, see Carla Hesse, “Economic Upheavals in Publishing,” in Revolution in Print: The Press in France, 1775–1800, ed. Robert Darnton and Daniel Roche (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1989), 69–97; Frédéric Barbier, “La révolution libératrice: L’exemple des activités du livre en France, entre révolution politique et révolution industrielle,” Histoire, économie et société 12, no. 1 (1993): 41–50; Jean-Yves Mollier, “Un changement de climat: Les nouveaux libraires et les débuts de l’industrialisation,” in L’Europe et le livre: Réseaux et pratiques du négoce de librairie, XVIe–XIXe siècles, ed. Frédéric Barbier, Sabine Juratic, and Dominique Varry ([Paris]: Éditions Klicksieck, 1996), 571–586; Mellot, Queval, and Sarrazin, “La liberté et la mort?” 21. Hesse, Publishing and Cultural Politics, chap. 2 (“The ‘Declaration of the Rights of Genius’ in 1793”) and chap. 6 (“Crisis, Again, and Administrative Solutions”). Quotation from page 245. 22. Christophe Charle, “Le champ de la production littéraire,” in HEF 3:145; Leblanc, Libraire, 158–159; Felkay, Balzac et ses éditeurs, 36–37 and 256–257; J.-R. Plassan, Mémoire à M. le Comte de Montalivet, Ministre de l’Intérieur, sur l’imprimerie et sur la librairie, sur leur état actuel, et sur les moyens à employer pour les replacer au rang qu’elles doivent occuper (Paris: Imprimerie de Terzulolo, successeur de Plassan, 1839), B.N., Vp-3183, p. 15. According to Jean-Yves Mollier (Louis Hachette, 1800– 1864: Le fondateur d’un empire [Paris: Fayard, 1999], 126), it was much more difficult for newcomers to penetrate the classical sector of the publishing business (dominated by such old firms as Firmin Didot, Panckoucke, Delalain, Jules Renouard, BrunotLabbé, Belin, and Le Normant) than it was for them to establish themselves as publishers of “general literature” (pioneered by such new faces as Jean-Nicolas Barba, Camille Ladvocat, Charles Gosselin, Jean-Baptiste Alexandre Paulin, Léon Curmer, Gervais Charpentier, and Pierre-Jules Hetzel). 23. Pierre Larousse, ed., Grand dictionnaire du XIXe siècle (1866–1890), cited in Pierre Larousse et son temps, 140–141. For the debate over the Serre Laws, see Archives parlementaires, 2nd series (1800–1860), vol. 23, Chambre des Députés, 22

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Notes to Pages 31–37

Mar., 10 Apr., 14 Apr., 15 Apr., 17 Apr., 19–24 Apr., 26–30 Apr., 1 May, and 3–5 May 1819; Chambre des Pairs, 8 May, 13–15 May, 24 May, 25 May, and 28 May 1819. 24. Annie Prassaloff, “Littérature en procès: La propriété littéraire en France sous la Monarchie de Juillet” (Doctoral Thesis, École des Hautes Études en Sciences Sociales, 1989), esp. 302 and 309. 25. Hesse, “Economic Upheavals in Publishing,” 92; Barbier, “La révolution libératrice,” 45; Werdet, De la librairie française, 153 and 324. 26. On the background of the new éditeurs, see Felkay, Balzac et ses éditeurs, esp. chap. 1, annexe 1, “Enquête partielle (125 dossiers consultés) sur les professions anciennement exercées, les filiations familiales, le niveau culturel et la politisation des libraires et des imprimeurs brevetés,” 317–318, and chap. 5, “Urbain Canel (1789– 1867),” 123–137; Vuaroqueaux, “Édition populaire et stratégies éditoriales,” vol. 3, chap. 2 (“Le petit monde de l’édition parisienne”); Martin and Martin, “Le monde des éditeurs”; and Mollier, L’argent et les lettres. 27. Werdet, De la librairie française, 291; Regnault, “L’Éditeur,” 328 and 331; and Honoré de Balzac, “Sur les questions de propriété littéraire et de la contrefaçon,” Chronique de Paris, 30 Oct. 1836, reprinted in Honoré de Balzac, Oeuvres complètes, vol. 22, Oeuvres diverses (Paris: Michel Lévy Frères, 1877), 266–274. 28. Henri-Jean Martin, “Une croissance séculaire,” in HEF 2:121, 125, and 127; Frédéric Barbier, “Une production multipliée,” in HEF 3:109, 122, and 123; Lyons, Le triomphe du livre, 12–13 and 84. 29. Martin and Martin, “Le monde des éditeurs,” in HEF 3:181–184; St. Clair, The Reading Nation in the Romantic Period, esp. chap. 7 (“The Old Canon”); Martyn Lyons, “Les best-sellers,” in HEF 3:409–437; Hesse, Publishing and Cultural Politics, 244. 30. Felkay, Balzac et ses éditeurs, chap. 2 (“Pratiques de la librairie”); Vuaroqueaux, “Édition populaire et stratégies éditoriales,” vol. 3, chap. 3 (“Pratiques et représentations du métier d’éditeur”); Isabelle Olivero, L’invention de la collection: De la diffusion de la littérature et des savoirs à la formation du citoyen au XIXe siècle (Paris: IMEC Éditions / Éditions de la Maison des Sciences de l’Homme, 1999). On the development of reviewing as a means to market books in eighteenth-century England, see Frank Donoghue, The Fame Machine: Book Reviewing and EighteenthCentury Literary Careers (Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 1996). 31. Barbier, “Libraires et colporteurs,” in HEF 3:256–301; Leblanc, Libraire, 149– 162; Henri Desmars, “L’office en librairie au XIXe siècle,” in Le commerce de la librairie en France au XIXe siècle, ed. Jean-Yves Mollier, 195–202. 32. Mollier, Louis Hachette, 135. On the practice of pluri-édition versus monoédition, see also Charle, “Le champ de la production littéraire,” in HEF 3:148–150. On the case of Balzac in particular, see Felkay, Balzac et ses éditeurs; Roger Pierrot, Honoré de Balzac (Paris: Fayard, 1994); and Honoré de Balzac, Correspondance, 5 vols., ed. Roger Pierrot (Paris: Garnier Frères, 1960–1969).

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33. On the experience of authorship in this period, see John Lough, Writer and Public in France from the Middle Ages to the Present Day (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1978); Pottinger, The French Book Trade in the Ancien Régime, part 1 (“Authors in the Ancien Régime”); Darnton, The Literary Underground of the Old Regime; Eric Walter, “Les auteurs et le champ littéraire,” in HEF 2:499–518; Robert Bied, “Le monde des auteurs,” in HEF 2:775–800; Charle, “Le champ de la production littéraire,” in HEF 3:137–168; Alain Viala, Naissance de l’écrivain: Sociologie de la littérature à l’âge classique (Paris: Editions de Minuit, 1985); Gregory S. Brown, A Field of Honor: Writers, Court Culture, and Public Theater in French Literary Life from Racine to the Revolution (New York: Columbia University Press, 2005); and Geoffrey Turnovsky, “Modern Authorship and the Rise of the ‘Literary Market’: Evolution of the Literary Field in France, 1750–1789” (PhD diss., Columbia University, 2001). On Panckoucke’s role in the development of author-publisher contracts, see Tucoo-Chala, Charles-Joseph Panckoucke et la librairie française, esp. 154–162. 34. Information about the payments received by authors is gleaned from the following sources: contract between Balzac and Hubert [Paris, 22 Jan. 1822], in Balzac, Correspondance, ed. Roger Pierrot (Paris: Garnier Frères, 1960), 1:127–128; contract between Théophile Gautier and Eugène Renduel [Paris, 10 Sept. 1833], in Théophile Gautier, Correspondance générale, ed. Claudine Lacoste-Veysseyre and Pierre Laubriet (Geneva: Droz, 1985), 1:34–35; Francis Dumont and Jean Gitan, De quoi vivait Lamartine? (Paris: Deux Rives, 1952); Adolphe Jullien, ed., Le romantisme et l’éditeur Renduel: Souvenirs et documents sur les écrivains de l’école romantique, avec lettres inédites adressées par eux à Renduel (Paris: Charpentier et Fasquelle, 1897), esp. 96 and 236; and Charle, “Le champ de la production littéraire,” in HEF 3:137–168, esp. 162– 163. Other examples of contracts abound in the published correspondence between authors and publishers. See, for instance, George Sand, Correspondance, 26 vols., ed. Georges Lubin (Paris: Garnier Frères, 1964–1995); and Stendhal [Henri Beyle], Correspondance, 3 vols., ed. Henri Martineau and Victor Del Litto (Paris: Gallimard, 1962–1968). 35. Paul de Kock, The Memoirs of Paul de Kock, trans. Edith Mary Norris (London: Frederick J. Quinby, 1903), 95–105; Théophile Gautier, Souvenirs romantiques, ed. Adolphe Boschot (Paris: Garnier Frères, 1929), 8–9. 36. Charle, “Le champ de la production littéraire,” in HEF 3:161; Lyons, Le triomphe du livre, 59; Lough, Writer and Public in France, 350. 37. For examples of contemporary assessments of the role of the publisher in improving the condition of authorship, see “Prrrrrrrrrospectusssss: Société en commandite pour l’exploitation de la librairie; sous la raison sociale: Blagoscat et Comp.,” Le Corsaire, 4 July 1836; and Edmond Werdet, De la librairie française, 118. 38. Tucoo-Chala, Charles-Joseph Panckoucke et la librairie française, 165; Balzac, Correspondance, esp. 2:169–172, and 3:789; letter from George Sand to François Buloz [Nohant, 22 Jan. 1838], in George Sand, Correspondance, ed. Georges Lubin (Paris: Garnier Frères, 1968), 4:330–331 (emphasis in original); letter from Alfred

260

Notes to Pages 40–45

de Musset to François Buloz, 14 Oct. 1837, cited in Étienne Père, “Alfred de Musset—François Buloz: Correspondance” (Master’s Thesis, Université de Paris IV, 1978–1979); contract between Alfred de Vigny and Michel Lévy, Aug. 1862, cited in Sophie Milcent, “Alfred de Vigny et ses éditeurs: Portrait d’un auteur,” Bulletin de l’Association des amis de Alfred de Vigny, no. 22 (1993): 27–53; Balzac, Correspondance, esp. letter from Pierre-Jules Hetzel to Balzac [Paris, 3 Feb. 1844], 4:671–672, and letter from Pierre-Jules Hetzel to Balzac [Paris, 12 Sept. 1841], 4:305–306. 39. Charle, “Le champ de la production littéraire,” 149. 40. For a discussion of the representation of the éditeur in literature, see my article, “An ‘Evil Genius’: The Social Imaginary of the Book Publisher in the Early Nineteenth Century,” French Historical Studies 30, no. 4 (Fall 2007): 559–595. On the criticism of gens de lettres and journalists in this period, see Smith Allen, Popular French Romanticism, chap. 3 (“Romantic Authorship”); and William M. Reddy, “Condottieri of the Pen: Journalists and the Public Sphere in Postrevolutionary France, 1815–1850,” American Historical Review 99, no. 5 (Dec. 1994): 1546–1570. 41. Werdet, De la librairie française, 309; Victor Fouque, De quelques abus en librairie et des moyens de les combattre (Chalon-sur-Saône: Victor Fouque, Éditeur, 1841), 16; F. de Lagenevais, “La littérature illustrée,” Revue des deux mondes, 1843, vol. 1, p. 341. 42. Werdet, De la librairie française, 341 and 380–381; Fouque, De quelques abus, 16; Balzac, “De l’état actuel de la librairie”; [Frédéric Soulié], “Les éditeurs,” Revue de Paris, n.s., vol. 19 (1835): 132; and Hippolyte Bonnellier, La fille du libraire, 2 vols. (Paris: Delangle Frères, 1828), B.N., Y2–18775 and 18776, 2:251–252 and 1:vi. On the educational level of publishers, see Felkay, Balzac et ses éditeurs, 33 and 317– 318; and Charle, “Le champ de la production littéraire,” 145–147. 43. Alphonse Karr, “Imprimeurs, libraires, bouquinistes, cabinets de lecture,” in Nouveau tableau de Paris, ed. Mme. Charles-Béchet (Paris: Mme. Charles-Béchet, 1835), 5:67; Anon., “Les libraires en 1829,” L’Universel, 24 June 1829. 44. [Pain and Beauregard], Nouveaux tableaux de Paris (Paris: Pillet aîné, 1828), 2:27; Fouque, De quelques abus en librairie, 21; Soulié, “La librairie à Paris,” in Paris, ou le livre des cent-et-un, ed. Pierre-François Ladvocat (Paris: Ladvocat, 1832), 9:317–318. 45. Balzac, “De l’état de la librairie.” 46. Poulton, colporteur en librairie, contre Le Sieur Ladvocat, libraire-éditeur (Paris: Chez Poulton, Libraire, et tous les libraires, March 1832), B.N., Factum 8Fm-2473, p. 4. For other examples of the commentary about the life of luxury of the éditeur, see Balzac, “Lettre aux écrivains français du XIX siècle,” in Revue de Paris, 1 Nov. 1834, reprinted in Oeuvres complètes, 22:211–229; [Soulié], “Les éditeurs”; Jules Janin, “Histoire d’un libraire (Ladvocat),” in Critique: Portraits et caractères contemporains (Leipzig: Alphonse Dürr, n.d. [1854]), 230. On the attack against luxury, see Sarah Maza, “Commerce, Luxury, and Family Love,” chapter 2 of The Myth of the Bourgeoisie: An Essay on the Social Imaginary, 1750–1850 (Cambridge,

Notes to Pages 45–50

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MA: Harvard University Press, 2003); and John Shovlin, The Political Economy of Virtue: Luxury, Patriotism, and the Origins of the French Revolution (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 2006). 47. Soulié, “La librairie à Paris,” 306–307; Paul Dupont, Histoire de l’imprimerie (Paris: Paul Dupont, 1854), 2:272; Fouque, De quelques abus en librairie, 28; [JacquesArsène-François-Polycarpe] Ancelot et al., introduction to Paris, ou Le livre des cent-et-un, ed. Ladvocat, 1:xi. 48. Mollier, “Écrivain-éditeur,” 27–30. On the shift in the image of the publisher in the late nineteenth century, see Chapter 5.

2. The Battle between Corporatists and Liberals 1. J. Hébrard, De la librairie, son ancienne prospérité, son état actuel, causes de sa décadence, moyens de régénération (Paris: Librairie de J. Hébrard et Cie., 1847), 60. 2. The story of the debate between corporatists and liberals in the book trade thus substantiates the conclusions of recent studies of political culture and bourgeois identity in postrevolutionary France. See, for example, Anne Sa’adah, The Shaping of Liberal Politics in Revolutionary France: A Comparative Perspective (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1990); Sudhir Hazareesingh, Political Traditions in Modern France (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1994); Andrew Jainchill, Reimagining Politics after the Terror: The Republican Origins of French Liberalism (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 2008); Charles Walton, Policing Public Opinion in the French Revolution: The Culture of Calumny and the Problem of Free Speech (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2009); and Sarah Maza, The Myth of the French Bourgeoisie: An Essay on the Social Imaginary (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2003). 3. On the effects of and reactions to the Revolution in the book trade, the best source is Carla Hesse, Publishing and Cultural Politics in Revolutionary Paris, 1789– 1810 (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1991). For examples of printers and bookdealers who protested the effects of the Revolution, see [Jean-Georges-Antoine] Stoupe, Mémoire sur le rétablissement de la communauté des imprimeurs de Paris, suivi de réflexions sur les contrefaçons en librairie, et sur le stéréotypage (Paris: Imprimerie de Stoupe, 1806); Bonet de Treiches and Catineau-la-Roche, Observations et projet de décret sur la librairie et les arts et professions auxiliaires, adressés à sa Majesté (Paris: Imprimerie de Levrault, 1808); F. J. Baudouin, Esquisse d’un projet de règlement pour l’imprimerie, la librairie, et autres professions y relatives, rédigée d’après les lois anciennes et nouvelles (Paris: Imprimerie F. J. Baudouin, 1810); B. Castillon, Réflexions sur l’art de l’imprimerie, suivies d’un projet d’organisation pour les imprimeries et librairies de l’Empire (Bordeaux: Presses de Castillon, n.d. [ca. 1810]), A.N., F1811B; and various other letters and pamphlets in A.N., F1810A, 11A, and 11B. The pamphlet mentioned in the text is Jacob l’aîné, Idées générales sur les causes de l’anéantissement de l’imprimerie, et sur la nécessité de rendre à cette profession, ainsi

262

Notes to Pages 51–55

qu’à celle de la librairie, le rang honorable qu’elles ont toujours tenu l’une et l’autre parmi les arts libéraux (Orléans: Jacob l’aîné, 1806). The quotation comes from [F.-J.] Cholet de Jetphort, Projet d’organisation de l’imprimerie-librairie, et des arts, états et professions qui y sont attachés ou qui en dépendent; adressé à Sa Majesté Empereur et Roi, Protecteur de la Confédération du Rhin, en Conseil d’Etat (Paris: Imprimerie de Migneret, 1807), 20. On the effects of the Revolution on the profession of law, see Michael P. Fitzsimmons, The Parisian Order of Barristers and the French Revolution (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1987); on medicine and pharmacy, see Michael Ramsey, Professional and Popular Medicine in France, 1770– 1830: The Social World of Medical Practice (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1988); on baking, see Steven Laurence Kaplan, The Bakers of Paris and the Bread Question, 1700–1775 (Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 1996); on butchering, see Sydney Watts, Meat Matters: Butchers, Politics, and Market Culture in Eighteenth-Century Paris (Rochester, NY: University of Rochester Press, 2006), and Dorothee Brantz, “Slaughter in the City: The Establishment of Public Abbatoirs in Paris and Berlin, 1780–1914” (PhD diss., University of Chicago, 2003). 4. Hesse, Publishing and Cultural Politics, 239. 5. For select examples of recent scholarship that challenges the division between liberalism and protectionism, see Jean-Pierre Hirsch, “Revolutionary France, Cradle of Free Enterprise,” American Historical Review 94 (1989): 1281–1289; Jean-Pierre Hirsch, Les deux rêves du commerce: Entreprise et institution dans la région lilloise, 1780–1860 (Paris: Éditions de l’École des Hautes Études en Sciences Sociales, 1991); Gail Bossenga, The Politics of Privilege: Old Regime and Revolution in Lille (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1991); Francis Démier, “Nation, marché et développement dans la France de la Restauration” (Doctoral Thesis, Université de Paris X-Nanterre, 1991); Philippe Minard, La fortune du colbertisme: État et industrie dans la France des Lumières (Paris: Fayard, 1998); Jean-Pierre Hirsch and Philippe Minard, “ ‘Libérez-nous, Sire, protégez-nous beaucoup’: Pour une histoire des pratiques institutionnelles dans l’industrie française, XVIIIe–XIXe siècles,” in La France n’est-elle pas douée pour l’industrie?, ed. Louis Bergeron and Patrice Bourdelais (Paris: Belin, 1998), 135–158; Judith Miller, Mastering the Market: The State and the Grain Trade in Northern France, 1700–1860 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1999); James R. Farr, ed., “Forum: New Directions in French Economic History,” special issue of French Historical Studies 23, no. 3 (Summer 2000). 6. On the licensing system, see Hesse, Publishing and Cultural Politics, 231; Nicole Felkay, Balzac et ses éditeurs, 1822–1837: Essai sur la librairie romantique (Paris: Promodis / Éditions du Cercle de la Librairie, 1987), 26–31; Georges-André Vuaroqueaux, “Édition populaire et stratégies éditoriales, 1830–1890” (Doctoral Thesis, École des Hautes Études en Sciences Sociales, 1994–1995), 2:7–73; and Isabelle de Conihout, “La Restauration: Contrôle et liberté,” in HEF 2:713–714. For the applications for licenses by individual printers and bookdealers, see A.N., F18 1726–2162.

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7. Loi relative à la liberté de la presse, sanctionnée et publiée le 21 octobre 1814 (Paris: Imprimerie Royale, 1814), A.N., F181. 8. For evidence of such violations, see memo from minister of the interior to prefects of departments, 19 March 1822, in A.N., F18554, as well as Felkay, Balzac et ses éditeurs, 27–30 and 256–257. 9. For examples of the complaints of corporatist printers and bookdealers in the wake of the regulation of 1810 and the law of 1814, see the manuscript “Projet sur l’imprimerie et la librairie,” signed Langlois, addressed to Comte [Portalis, director of the Administration of the Book Trade], 27 Feb. 1810, A.N., F1811A; Mémoire présenté à Monsieur le Comte Portalis, Conseiller d’État, Directeur général de la librairie et de l’imprimerie, par les imprimeurs de Bordeaux soussignés: De l’imprimerie considerée sous les rapports de l’ordre public, de la morale et de l’art (Bordeaux: n.p., 1810); Jacob l’aîné, Notes présentées à Monsieur le Directeur général de l’imprimerie et de la librairie, par Jacob, employé dans les bureaux de la Direction, le 21 mai 1811, A.N., F1811B; manuscript letter from libraire Galland, rue du Paon, Hôtel de Tours, to the chancellor of France [ca. 1815], regarding printing and bookselling, A.N., F1811C; and other petitions and pamphlets in A.N., F1811A and B. Later examples include À Messieurs les membres de la Chambre des Députés, petition signed by B. Castillon, among others (Bordeaux: Pierre Beaume, 1822), A.N., C//2749; Requête présentée à S. G. Mgr le Garde des Sceaux, et à LL. EE. les Ministres Secrétaires-d’État aux Dépts. des Affaires étrangères, de la Guerre, de la Marine, des Affaires ecclésiastiques, de l’Intérieur, des Finances, du Commerce et des manufactures, et de l’Instruction publique, par les imprimeurs de Paris (Paris: Imprimerie de Firmin Didot, n.d. [ca. 1829]), A.N., C//2756; J.-R. Plassan, Mémoire à M. le Comte de Montalivet, Ministre de l’Intérieur, sur l’imprimerie et sur la librairie, sur leur état actuel, et sur les moyens à employer pour les remplacer au rang qu’elles doivent occuper (Paris: Imprimerie de Terzuolo, successeur de Plassan, 1839), B.N., Vp-3183, and A.N., F122272 (with accompanying letter to minister of commerce, Cuvier Gridaine, 1 July 1839); Victor Fouque, De quelques abus en librairie et des moyens de les combattre (Chalon-sur-Saône: Victor Fouque, 1841), B.N., Q-6673; M. J. C. Lebègue, À Messieurs les Députés des départements, sur l’état déplorable où l’imprimerie et la librairie en sont réduites, et des moyens à employer pour en améliorer le sort, autant que possible (Paris: Typographie de Lebègue, 1843), reprinted in Jules Delalain, Recueil de documents officiels relatifs au régime de l’imprimerie (Paris: Ch. Noblet, 1867), B.N., 8Q-3734. Such complaints continued as late as the 1860s. For example, see discussion of a petition to the Senate from a printer at Troyes requesting tightening of the licensing requirement by Victor Masson, Chronique of the Bibliographie de la France, 14 Sept. 1861. 10. Lebègue, À Messieurs les Députés, 10, note. 11. See, for example, L. Cordier, À MM. les Membres composant la Commission d’enquête des imprimeurs de Paris (Paris: L. Cordier, n.d. [ca. 1829], B.N., 8Q-3734 (1).

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Notes to Pages 57–62

12. Manuscript letter from libraire Galland to the chancellor of France, n.d. [ca. 1815], A.N., F1811C. 13. Fouque, De quelques abus en librairie, 15–16. 14. Plassan, Mémoire à M. le Comte de Montalivet, 19. For another example of this assertion, see Firmin Didot, speech to the Chamber of Deputies, 26 Apr. 1828, excerpted from the Moniteur universel, 28 Apr. 1828, B.N., Le62-358 pp. 10–11. 15. See, for example, manuscript letter from libraire Galland to the chancellor of France, n.d. [ca. 1815], A.N., F1811C; Plassan, Mémoire à M. le Comte de Montalivet, 5–6 and 10–12; Lebègue, À Messieurs les Députés, 18. 16. Jacob l’aîné, Idées générales sur les causes de l’anéantissement de l’imprimerie, 43–44. 17. Méry et al., À Messieurs les Membres de la Chambre des Députés (Bordeaux: Pierre Beaume, 1822), A.N., C//2749, p. 6. 18. Amédée Gratiot, Pétition à MM. les Députés pour qu’ils sauvent l’imprimerie (Paris: A. Pougin, Libraire, 1839), B.N., Lb512835, pp. 22–23. 19. Petition of libraires and authors “sur les formalités et droits fiscaux auxquels est assujetti le commerce de la librairie pour ses relations avec l’étranger,” A.N., CC//476, quoted in Felkay, Balzac et ses éditeurs, 71. 20. For the position of Firmin Didot, see, for example, his speech to the Chamber of Deputies in response to a petition from a printer in Paris named Cordier demanding a new law on the press, 26 Apr. 1828, excerpted from Moniteur universel, 28 Apr. 1828, B.N., Le62-358. For biographical information on Firmin Didot, see Jean-Yves Mollier, L’argent et les lettres: Histoire du capitalisme d’édition, 1880–1920 (Paris: Fayard, 1988), 83–89. 21. Firmin Didot, speech to the Chamber of Deputies, 26 Apr. 1828, p. 5. 22. Pétition de 230 imprimeurs et libraires de Paris sur le projet de loi relatif à la police de la presse, suivie d’observations sur le rapport de la commission de la Chambre des Députés, presented to the Chamber by Deputy Pierre-Paul Royer-Collard in Feb. 1827 (Paris: Paul Renouard, 1827), A.N., C//2753, reprinted in Collection relative au projet de loi sur la police de la presse, proposée le 29 décembre 1826: Discours, débats et votes législatifs pour et contre, précédés de toutes le opinions, objections, lettres, réfutations et réclamations auxquelles cette proposition a donné lieu dans les journaux et dans des brochures; ces diverses pièces mises en rapport entre elles et accompagnées du texte de plusieurs pétitions avec leurs signatures (Paris: Imprimerie J. L. Bellemain, 1827), B.N., 8-Lb49-569, pp. 152–155. The defeat of this bill was celebrated by members of the book trade, according to Oraison funèbre de cette malheureuse loi de justice et d’amour (autrement dite loi sur la police de la presse), soeur de l’infortunée loi d’aînesse, décédée à Paris le 17 avril 1827, avec des détails curieux et historiques sur ses obsèques et sur les galas et indigestions auxquels sa mort a donné lieu, publié par une Société d’imprimeurs, de libraires, marchands de papiers, relieurs, brocheurs, et autres amis de l’illustre défunte, 2nd ed. (Paris: Chez les libraires du Palais-Royal,

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1827), B.N., Lb49-566 (A). On the reaction to this bill in the book trade, see also Felkay, Balzac et ses éditeurs, 37–38. 23. Requête présentée à LL. EE. MM. les Ministres du Roi, par la Commission d’enquête de la librairie de Paris (Paris: Imprimerie de A. Firmin-Didot, 1829), B.N., 4-Q-245 (2), esp. p. 2. The formation of a parallel commission in printing (whose members included Firmin Didot, president; Crapelet, secretary; and Paul Renouard, Fournier, Dondey-Dupré, Pillet aîné, Fain, Gratiot, Jules Didot, Lenormant, and Lachevardière) was announced in the Feuilleton of the Bibliographie de la France, 13 Dec. 1828. For the conclusions reached by the commission, see Requête présentée à S. G. Mgr. le Garde des Sceaux . . . par les imprimeurs de Paris. On the governmentsponsored investigation of commerce in 1828–1829, see Démier, “Nation, marché et développement dans la France de la Restauration,” part 5. For the views of the press baron Émile de Girardin, see Les droits de la pensée: Questions de presse, 1830–1864 (Paris: Michel Lévy Frères, 1864), esp. lv–lviii. 24. On the debates over the Serre Laws, see Archives parlementaires, 2nd ser., vol. 23, 22 Mar.; 10, 14, 15, 17, 19, 20, 21, 22, 23, 26, 27, 28, 29, and 30 Apr.; and 1 and 3 May 1819. The quotation from Constant (21 Apr.) is on p. 730. For further evidence of Constant’s support of freedom of press and opposition to licensing in the book trade, see also Benjamin Constant, “De la liberté des brochures, des pamphlets et des journaux considérée sous le rapport de l’intérêt du gouvernement” (1814), “Observations sur le discours prononcé par S. E. le Ministre de l’Intérieur en faveur du projet de loi sur la liberté de la presse” (1814), Principes de politique (1815), “Sur la loi d’exception contre la liberté de la presse” (1820), “Sur la censure des journaux” (1821), and “Sur le projet de loi relatif à la police de la presse” (1827) in Oeuvres, ed. Alfred Roulin, Pléïade Collection (Paris: Gallimard, 1957), as well as De la liberté chez les modernes: Écrits politiques, ed. Marcel Gauchet, Pluriel Collection (Paris: Librairie générale, 1980). 25. Archives parlementaires, 2nd ser., vol. 23, 17 Apr. 1819, p. 683; 15 Apr. 1819, p. 652; and 21 Apr. 1819, pp. 730–731. For Guizot’s moderate position on press freedom, see also his pamphlet Quelques idées sur la liberté de la presse (1814), excerpted in Mémoires pour servir à l’histoire de mon temps, rev. ed. (Paris: Michel Lévy Frères, 1870), 1:408–415. 26. On the proposal made by Benjamin Constant, see Archives parlementaires, 2nd ser., vol. 53, 11 and 14 Mar. 1828. 27. For the speech given by Firmin Didot, see Archives parlementaires, 2nd ser., vol. 53, 26 Apr. 1828; regarding the letter from the Chamber of Commerce, see Archives de la Chambre de Commerce, Registres de la correspondance, vol. 6 (1 Mi 7), 28 May 1828; for debate over the press bill of 1828, see Archives parlementaires, 2nd ser., vol. 54, 19, 29, 30 May; 2, 11, 12, and 19 June 1828; and vol. 55, 14 July 1828. 28. Pierre-Alpinien-Bertrand Bourdeau, speech to the Chamber of Peers, 6 June 1829, Archives parlementaires, 2nd ser., vol. 60, pp. 58–64. 29. Benjamin Constant, speech to the Chamber of Deputies, 11 Sept. 1830 and 13 Sept. 1830, Archives parlementaires, 2nd ser., vol. 63, pp. 445 and 484–485.

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Notes to Pages 68–72

30. Report by Pelet (de la Lozère) on behalf of committee appointed to examine proposal of Benjamin Constant, Archives parlementaires, 2nd ser., vol. 64, 8 Nov. 1830, pp. 275–277. 31. See, for example, G.-A. Crapelet, Observations sur la proposition de M. Benjamin Constant relative à la suppression des brevets d’imprimeur et de libraire (Paris: Imprimerie de Crapelet, 1830), A.N., C//2757, reprinted in Jules Delalain, Recueil de documents officiels relatifs au régime de l’imprimerie; and Des brevets d’imprimeur, des certificats de capacité, et de la nécessité actuelle de donner à l’imprimerie les règlemens promis par les lois, suivi du tableau général des imprimeries de toute la France, en 1704, 1739, 1810, 1830 et 1840 (Paris: G.-A. Crapelet, Imprimeur; P. Dufart, Libraire, 1840), A.N., F122272. In 1830, numerous petitions regarding the issue of licensing were sent to the Chamber of Deputies by corporatist printers and bookdealers, including Crapelet, Didot, Delalain, Gratiot, Lebègue, Pillet aîné, Plassan, and Paul Renouard. See, for example, Auffray et al., À Messieurs les Députés des départements (Paris: Imprimerie et Fonderie de J. Pinard, n.d. [1830]); unsigned petition, À Messieurs les Membres de la Chambre des Députés (Paris: Imprimerie de Pihan Delaforest, n.d. [1830]); Ducessois, Notes sur la proposition de M. Benjamin Constant relative aux imprimeurs: Examen de la question d’indemnité (Paris: Ducessois, n.d. [1830]); and unsigned petition, À MM. les Membres de la Chambre des Députés au sujet de la proposition de M. Benj. Constant, tendant à rendre libres les professions d’imprimeur et de libraire (Paris: Imprimerie de E. Duverger, n.d. [1830]). All of these petitions are found in A.N., C//2757. 32. Eusèbe Salvert, speech to the Chamber of Deputies, 17 Nov. 1830, Archives parlementaires, 2nd ser., vol. 64, pp. 452–454. 33. Firmin Didot, speech to the Chamber of Deputies, 17 Nov. 1830, Archives parlementaires, 2nd ser., vol. 64, p. 451. The debate over the indemnity continued on 18 and 19 Nov. 1830. See Archives parlementaires, 2nd ser., vol. 64, pp. 468–477 and 489–492. 34. Baron Charles Dupin, speech to the Chamber of Deputies, 19 Nov. 1830, Archives parlementaires, 2nd ser., vol. 64, p. 492. 35. See the manuscript “Rapport au nom de la Commission chargée [par un arrêté du 26 décembre 1845] de préparer les bases d’un réglement complémentaire du régime de l’Imprimerie et de la Librairie,” A.N., F1810A. 36. On the debate over the rights of authors in the late eighteenth century, see Carla Hesse, “Enlightenment Epistemology and the Laws of Authorship in Revolutionary France, 1777–1793,” Representations 30 (Spring 1990): 109–137; and “The ‘Declaration of the Rights of Genius’ in 1793,” chap. 3 of Publishing and Cultural Politics in Revolutionary Paris. See also Gregory S. Brown, “After the Fall: The Chute of a Play, Droits d’Auteur, and Literary Property in the Old Regime,” French Historical Studies 22, no. 4 (Fall 1999): 465–491; and “Literary Property and Censorship,” chap. 4 of A Field of Honor: Writers, Court Culture and Public Theater in French

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Literary Life from Racine to the Revolution (New York: Columbia University Press, 2005). On the privilege system, see Raymond Birn, “The Profit in Ideas: Privilèges en librairie in Eighteenth-Century France,” Eighteenth-Century Studies 4, no. 2 (1971): 131–168. For a broader discussion of shifting notions of property between the Old Regime and the Revolution, see William H. Sewell Jr., Work and Revolution in France: The Language of Labor from the Old Regime to 1848 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1980), esp. chap. 6 (“A Revolution in Property”). 37. On the revolutionary legislation on literary property, see Hesse, “The ‘Declaration of the Rights of Genius’ in 1793” and “Enlightenment Epistemology and the Laws of Authorship in Revolutionary France”; Jane C. Ginsburg, “A Tale of Two Copyrights: Literary Property in Revolutionary France and America,” in Of Authors and Origins, ed. Brad Sherman and Alain Strowel (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1994), 131–158; David Saunders, Authorship and Copyright (London: Routledge, 1992), esp. chap. 3, “France: From Royal Privilege to the Droit Moral.” 38. On the persistence of the Old Regime definition of property among early nineteenth-century artisans, see Sewell, Work and Revolution, 138. On the gradual development of the notion of the “moral” rights of authors in nineteenth-century France, see Saunders, Authorship and Copyright, esp. 80. 39. On the role of authors versus publishers in the campaign for literary property, see Geoffrey Turnovsky, “Modern Authorship and the Rise of the ‘Literary Market’: Evolution of the Literary Field in France, 1750–1789” (PhD diss., Columbia University, 2001); Brown, A Field of Honor, esp. chap. 4, “Literary Property and Censorship”; Jean-Yves Mollier, “L’édition en Europe avant 1850: Balzac et la propriété littéraire internationale,” L’Année balzacienne 1992: 157–173; Annie Prassoloff, “Littérature en procès: La propriété littéraire en France sous la Monarchie de Juillet” (Doctoral Thesis, École des Hautes Études en Sciences Sociales, 1989); Marie-Pierre Le Hir, “The Société des Gens de Lettres and French Socialism: Association as Resistance to the Industrialization and Censorship of the Press,” Nineteenth-Century French Studies 24 (Spring–Summer 1996): 306–317; Saunders, Authorship and Copyright, esp. 83. On the Société des Gens de Lettres, see also Edouard Montagne, Histoire de la Société des gens de lettres de France (Paris: Société des Gens de Lettres, 1988; first pub. 1889); and Annie Prassoloff, “La Société des gens de lettres,” in HEF 3:171–173. For an example of the collaboration between publishers and authors in the campaign for literary property, see Charles Gosselin et al., Reconnaissance internationale du principe de la propriété littéraire: Note présentée au Gouvernement par les Comités réunis de la Société des gens de lettres et de la Librairie (Paris: Imprimerie Schneider et Langrand, n.d. [1843]), A.N., C//2272 and F172651. For other examples of writings by authors in favor of the extension of literary property, see Honoré de Balzac, “Lettre aux écrivains français du XIXe siècle,” first pub. in Revue de Paris [1834] and reprinted in Oeuvres complètes de Honoré de Balzac, vol. 22, Oeuvres diverses, Cinquième partie: Portraits et critiques littéraires (Paris: Michel Lévy Frères, 1872), 211–229; Balzac, “Sur les questions de propriété littéraire et de la contrefaçon,”

268

Notes to Pages 76–77

first pub. in Chronique de Paris (30 Oct. 1836) and reprinted in ibid., 266–274; Balzac, “Notes remises à MM. les Députés composant la Commission de la loi sur la propriété littéraire” (5 mars 1841), reprinted in ibid., 299–325; Alphonse Karr, Les guêpes, new ed. (Paris: Michel Lévy frères, 1864), 2:218; Alfred de Vigny, “De mademoiselle Sédaine et de la propriété littéraire: Lettre à messieurs les Députés” (1841), reprinted in Le combat du droit d’auteur, ed. Jan Baetans (Paris: Les Impressions Nouvelles, 2001), 107–116. 40. This process has been described most famously by Robert Darnton, in The Forbidden Bestsellers of Pre-Revolutionary France (New York: W. W. Norton, 1995). On piracy under the Old Regime, see also Anne Sauvy, “Livres contrefaits et livres interdits,” in HEF 2:128–146; and the multi-authored section on “L’édition en français hors de France,” in HEF 2:385–467. 41. On the prevalence of literary piracy in the nineteenth century, see, for example, Catherine Seville, The Internationalisation of Copyright Law: Books, Buccaneers and the Black Flag in the Nineteenth Century (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2006). On the firms that specialized in reprints of English works, see Giles Barbier, “Galignani’s and the Publication of English Books in France from 1800 to 1852,” The Library 16, no. 5 (1961): 267–286; and Diana Cooper-Richet, “Les imprimés en langue anglaise en France au XIXe siècle: Rayonnement intellectuel, circulation et modes de pénétration,” in Les mutations du livre et de l’édition dans le monde, ed. Jacques Michou and Jean-Yves Mollier (Saint-Nicolas, Québec: Les Presses de l’Université de Laval, 2001), 122–140. 42. On the history of literary piracy in Belgium, see Hermann Dopp, La contrefaçon des livres français en Belgique, 1815–1852 (Louvain: Librairie universitaire, 1932); Jean-Yves Mollier, “Ambiguités et réalités du commerce des livres entre la France et la Belgique au XIXe siècle,” in France-Belgique (1848–1914): AffinitésAmbiguités, ed. Marc Quaghebeur and Nicole Savy (Brussels: Editions Labor, 1997), 51–66; Martyn Lyons, “Les contrefaçons belges,” in HEF 3:321–322; Martyn Lyons, “La concurrence belge et la réponse française,” chap. 4 of Le triomphe du livre: Une histoire sociologique de la lecture dans la France du XIXe siècle (Paris: Promodis / Cercle de la Librairie, 1987), 67–75; Dominique Sagot-Duvauroux, introduction to Pierre-Joseph Proudhon: Les majorats littéraires, et un choix par Dominique SagotDuvauroux de contributions d’époque sur le droit d’auteur (Dijon: Les Presses du réel / Centre National du Livre, 2002); François Moureau, ed., Les presses grises: La contrefaçon du livre, XVIe–XIXe siècle (Paris: Aux Amateurs de livres, 1988), 345–362; Jacques Hellemans, “Production et offre de livres en Belgique durant la première moitié du XIXe siècle: Étude des sources, aperçu de la méthodologie adoptée et état d’avancement du projet,” in Le commerce de la librairie en France au XIXe siècle, 1789–1914, ed. Jean-Yves Mollier (Paris: IMEC Éditions / Éditions de la Maison des Sciences de l’Homme, 1997), 307–315. For contemporary accounts of such piracy, see Ambroise Firmin-Didot, “Note sur le dommage causé à la librairie française par les contrefaçons belges,” addressed to minister of public instruction

Notes to Pages 77–78

269

Abel-François Villemain, 2 June 1840, A.N., F172652; Eugène Robin, “La contrefaçon belge,” Revue des deux mondes 1844, no. 1, 14–43. 43. Examples of this corporatist position on literary property can be found in Fouque, De quelques abus en librairie, esp. 26; letter from printer Klefer at Versailles to minister of public instruction, proposing that the biggest publishers in Paris establish a branch in Belgium, 17 Nov. 1836, A.N., F172652; Un Compagnon Imprimeur [Alexandre Baudouin], Note sur la propriété littéraire, et des moyens d’en assurer la jouissance aux auteurs dans les principaux états de l’Europe, sans nécessiter de lois prohibitives (Paris: Imprimerie de N. J. Schlingeneyer, 1836), B.N., 8-Z-Pièce946, and “Note sur la propriété littéraire et sur la fabrication des livres français à l’étranger,” in Anecdotes historiques du temps de la Restauration, suivies de recherches sur l’origine de la presse, son développement, son influence sur les esprits, ses rapports avec l’opinion publique, les mesures restrictives apportées à son exercice (Paris: Librairie de Firmin Didot Frères, 1853), B.N., La3819, pp. 81–108; Ch. Lahure, Observations sur la demande faite par des libraires réunis en commission, de reconnaître chez nous, et sans condition, la propriété littéraire des étrangers; et moyen de paralyser les contrefaçons belges sans nuire à aucune des branches de notre industrie (Paris: Imprimerie de Crapelet, 1840), B.N., 8-Q-3734 (5); A. Bobée, Note sur la librairie française et sur le projet de la compagnie nationale (Paris: Imprimerie Le Normant, n.d. [ca. late 1830s or early 1840s]), B.N., Q-6595, and De la concurrence entre la librairie française et la librairie belge (Paris: Imprimerie Le Normant, n.d. [ca. late 1830s or early 1840s]), B.N., 8-Q-Pièce-855; and [Georges Crapelet], Observations sur l’article 18 du projet de loi concernant la propriété littéraire (Paris: Imprimerie de Crapelet, n.d. [1841]), A.N., F172652, and Observations additionnelles (Paris: Imprimerie de Crapelet, n.d. [1841]), A.N., C//2770. This position on literary property was endorsed by several newspapers, including La Presse (see, for example, 22, 25, and 26 Oct. 1836), Le Journal des débats (5 Nov. 1836), and La Gazette de France (16 Nov. 1836). 44. Requête présentée à LL. EE. MM. les Ministres du Roi, 18–22. See also J. Delort, Mémoire à MM. les Membres de la Chambre des Députés, pour provoquer une loi sur les propriétés littéraires, et des récompenses en faveur des savans, gens de lettres et artistes (Paris: Delaunay, 1822; 2nd ed., Paris: Delaforest, 1828), A.N., C//2749 and C//2754; Hector Bossange, Opinion nouvelle sur la propriété littéraire (Paris: Imprimerie de Rignoux, 1836); manuscript petition from Firmin Didot Frères, Louis Hachette, and other publishers in Paris to minister of public instruction, demanding action against Belgian literary piracy, ca. 1836, A.N., F172652; petition from Aimé André, Anselin, Bachelier, and eighty-two other members of the book trade, À Messieurs les Membres de la Chambre des Députés, 10 Dec. 1837, A.N., F172652; “Copie de la pétition relative au projet de loi sur la propriété littéraire actuellement soumis à l’examen de la Chambre des Pairs,” signed by Aillaud (J.-P.), Aimé André, Anselin, and ninety-four other members of the book trade, requesting that bill be amended to protect the title of a work, 20 Jan. 1839, A.N., F172652; circular letter to

270

Notes to Pages 79–81

members of the book trade abroad, asking for support in campaign for unilateral recognition of literary property, 1 Feb. 1840, Centre des Archives du Monde de Travail [hereafter CAMT], 179 AQ 260, and (with accompanying correspondence between Firmin Didot and Abel-François Villemain), A.N., F172652; Victor Lagier, libraire-éditeur in Dijon, manuscript letter to minister of public instruction Villemain, 16 Feb. 1840, A.N., F172652; Aillaud et al., Copie d’une pétition, en date du 20 janvier 1841, adressée à la Chambre des Pairs et à la Chambre des Députés, par les principaux libraires et éditeurs de Paris, demanding unilateral as opposed to just reciprocal protection of the rights of foreign authors, A.N., C//2770; Aimé André et al., Modifications proposées au projet de loi adopté par la Chambre des Pairs sur la propriété littéraire et Observations présentées au Gouvernement par des libraires de Paris (Paris: Typographie de Firmin Didot Frères, 1841), A.N., F172652; [Charles] Furne et al., manuscript petition, “À Messieurs les Membres du Conseil des Ministres,” in favor of Franco-Belgian customs union, Paris, 14 Nov. 1842, A.N., F172652. 45. See Commission de la Propriété Littéraire, Collection des procès-verbaux (Paris: Imprimerie de Pillet aîné, 1826), BHVP, in-4, 111526, esp. pp. 39, 70–71, 87– 89, and 329. 46. Archives parlementaires, 2nd ser., vol. 55, Chambre des Députés, 21 June 1828. 47. Requête présentée à LL. EE. MM. les Ministres du Roi, 17–22. 48. See Archives de la Chambre de Commerce et de l’Industrie de Paris, Registres de la correspondance, vol. 7 (1 Mi 9), 26 June 1834; Analyse succincte des délibérations de la Chambre de Commerce de Paris, sur les principaux objets soumis à son examen, et classés par ordre alphabétique depuis sa création en 1803, jusqu’à la fin de l’exercice 1836 (Paris: Imprimerie de Vinchon, 1838) (3 Mi 1), s.v. “Librairie,” p. 117; undated manuscript letter signed by Firmin Didot Frères, L. Hachette, Truettel and Würtz, and numerous other members of the book trade, addressed to the minister of public instruction, demanding government action against literary piracy, A.N., F172652. 49. On the nomination of these twin commissions, see Augustin-Charles Renouard, Traité des droits d’auteurs, dans la littérature, les sciences et les beaux-arts (Paris: Jules Renouard et Cie., Libraires, 1839), 2:453–458, based on reports in the Moniteur, 19 and 23 Oct. 1836. 50. On the commission on literary piracy, see “Procès-verbaux de la Commission des contrefaçons de la librairie française, 1836–1837,” as well as manuscript letter from Alphonse Royer, secretary of the commission, to minister of public instruction, François Guizot, Paris, 19 Oct. 1836, giving his opinions on the matter, A.N., F172652; and article on the commission’s final report, Feuilleton of the Bibliographie de la France, 25 Feb. 1837. For evidence of the international legal context surrounding the French proposal to recognize the literary property of foreigners on a reciprocal basis, see correspondence between minister of foreign affairs and minister of public instruction, 7 May 1839 and 4 Apr. 1841, A.N., F172651; speech by Alphonse

Notes to Pages 82–86

271

de Lamartine (reporter) to Chamber of Deputies, 1 Apr. 1841, Moniteur universel, 2 Apr. 1841, p. 865. On the British law of 1838, see Catherine Seville, Literary Copyright Reform in Early Victorian England: The Framing of the 1842 Copyright Act (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1999), 195–196. 51. On the commission on literary property, see manuscript letter from Jules Belin to minister of public instruction, François Guizot, Paris, 25 Oct. 1836, requesting a separate commission on literary property in the interior, A.N., F172652; article on the commission’s final report in Feuilleton of the Bibliographie de la France, 1 and 8 Apr. 1837. 52. Archives parlementaires, 2nd ser., vol. 123, 5 and 8 Jan. 1839; vol. 124, 12 and 16 Apr. 1839. 53. Speech by Viscount Joseph Siméon to Chamber of Peers, 20 May 1839, Archives parlementaires, 2nd ser., vol. 124, p. 602. 54. Speech by Count Joseph-Marie Portalis to Chamber of Peers, 25 May 1839, Archives parlementaires, 2nd ser., vol. 124, pp. 643–646 and 651–652; speech by AbelFrançois Villemain to Chamber of Peers, 27 May 1839, 2nd ser., vol. 124, pp. 713–714; speech by Abel-François Villemain to Chamber of Peers, 29 May 1839, Archives parlementaires, 2nd ser., vol. 125, p. 163. 55. For the debate on the bill on the rights of authors in the Chamber of Peers, see Archives parlementaires, 2nd ser., vol. 124, 25, 27, and 28 May 1839; and vol. 125, 29, 30, and 31 May 1839. 56. The bill on literary property was not presented to the Chamber of Deputies until 18 Jan. 1841 (see report on presentation of bill by Abel-François Villemain to Chamber of Deputies, 18 Jan. 1841, in Le Moniteur universel, 19 Jan. 1841). On the efforts of liberals and corporatists in the book trade to influence this bill, see, for example, the report on the meeting of a group of publishers to discuss modifications to propose to the Chamber of Deputies on the bill on literary property, Feuilleton, 25 Jan. 1840; letter from Victor Lagier, libraire-éditeur in Dijon, to Villemain, 16 Feb. 1840, requesting extension of the term of literary property to thirty if not fifty years after the death of the author, A.N., F172652; report on a visit by a group of publishers in Paris to the minister of public instruction, Feuilleton, 9 May 1840; Aillaud et al., Copie d’une pétition, en date du 20 janvier 1841, adressée à la Chambre des Pairs et à la Chambre des Députés, par les principaux libraires et éditeurs de Paris; Aimé André et al., Modifications proposées au projet de loi adopté par la Chambre des Pairs sur la propriété littéraire; report on visit by a group of publishers in Paris to the committee of the Chamber of Deputies appointed to study the bill on literary property, Feuilleton, 20 Feb. 1841; form letter to members of the book trade abroad, asking for support of the campaign for unilateral recognition of literary property, 1 Feb. 1840, CAMT, 179 AQ 260, and (with accompanying correspondence between Firmin Didot and Abel-François Villemain), A.N., F172652; [Crapelet], Observations sur l’article 18 du projet de loi concernant la propriété littéraire, and Observations additionnelles.

272

Notes to Pages 86–93

57. Report by Alphonse de Lamartine to the Chamber of Deputies on behalf of the committee to examine the bill on the rights of authors, 13 Mar. 1841, Moniteur universel, 14 Mar. 1841, pp. 634–636. 58. Speech by A.-C. Renouard to the Chamber of Deputies, 22 Mar. 1841, Moniteur universel, 23 Mar. 1841, p. 717. Augustin-Charles Renoaurd had also authored a book on the history and law of literary property, Traité des droits d’auteurs, dans la littérature, les sciences et les beaux-arts, 2 vols. (Paris: Jules Renouard et Cie., Libraires, 1838–1839). 59. Speech by Dubois (de la Loire-Intérieure) to the Chamber of Deputies, 22 Mar. 1841, Moniteur universel, 23 Mar. 1841, p. 714. For the full debate on the bill on literary property in the Chamber of Deputies, see Moniteur universel, 23–31 Mar. and 1–3 Apr. 1841. 60. Speech by Édouard, Marquis de La Grange, to the Chamber of Deputies, 31 Mar. 1841, Moniteur universel, 1 Apr. 1841, p. 856; speech by A.-C. Renouard to the Chamber of Deputies, 31 Mar. 1841, Moniteur universel, 1 Apr. 1841, p. 857. 61. Élias Regnault, Révolution française: Histoire de huit ans, 1840–1848 (Paris: Pagnerre, 1851), 2:120–121. 62. See, for example, the report on the debate on the law relative to the right of property of widows and children of authors of dramatic works, Chamber of Deputies, Moniteur universel, 3 June and 20 July 1844; report on the debate on the law relative to sanctions for literary piracy in violation of the treaty with Sardinia (in which some legislators asked the government to consider a unilateral declaration of the rights of authors everywhere), Chamber of Deputies, Moniteur universel, 24 July 1844; and report on the debate on the law relative to the right of property of widows and children of authors of dramatic works, Chamber of Peers, Moniteur universel, 27 July 1844. For evidence of the continued lobbying by publishers for such measures, see A.-F. Didot, “De l’utilité d’une loi sur la contrefaçon littéraire,” Nouvelle revue encyclopédique, Sept. 1846, pp. 119–124; and the Feuilleton of the Bibliographie de la France throughout the 1840s. 63. For the erroneous distinction between idealist French and instrumentalist Anglo-American notions of literary property, the classic work is Henri Desbois, Le droit d’auteur en France, 3rd ed. (Paris: Dalloz, 1978). Despite a recent wave of revisionism by Carla Hesse, Jane Ginsburg, and David Saunders, among others, this notion still persists in scholarship on intellectual property, for example, in Seville, The Internationalisation of Copyright Law, esp. 56–58.

3. Laurent-Antoine Pagnerre and the Publishing Coterie 1. Victor Bouton, Nouvelles rémontrances au Ministre de l’Intérieur et au Préfet de Police sur les périls de la librairie (Paris: Imprimerie de Beaulé et Maignand, n.d. [1849]), B.N., Q-6625, 3–4.

Notes to Pages 94–97

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2. Victor Bouton, Très-humble rémontrance au Ministre de l’Intérieur et au Préfet de Police contre la loterie des artistes accaparée par les libraires dans la gêne par un libraire qui n’est pas géné (Paris: Imprimerie de Beaulé et Maignand, n.d. [1849]; 2nd and 3rd ed., 1850), B.N., Q-6721, 2 and 4. For biographical information on LaurentAntoine Pagnerre, see Pagnerre Papers, A.N., 67 AP 1–13 (esp. the “Notice nécrologique” by Amédée Gratiot, 17 Oct. 1854, 67 AP 6–11); Dossiers Pagnerre, Institut Mémoires de l’Édition Contemporaine [hereafter IMEC], BCL.A1-03.01 and AA01.04-12; Jeanne Gilmore, La république clandestine, 1818–1848, trans. JeanBaptiste Duroselle (Paris: Aubier, 1997), 253–254 and 301–317; and Jean-Yves Mollier, L’argent et les lettres: Histoire du capitalisme d’édition, 1880–1920 (Paris: Fayard, 1988), 161 and 165. 3. For biographical information on Victor Bouton, see B.N., Fichier Biographique; Dictionnaire de biographie française, vol. 7, ed. Michel Prevost and Jean-Charles Roman d’Amat (Paris: Letouzey and Ané, 1956); and R. Le Cholleux, ed., Revue biographique des notabilités françaises contemporaines, vol. 3 (Paris: Ch. Le Rosey, 1896). For examples of his publications, see Boulet Rouge contre Timon: Feu contre feu! [directed against the republican Cormenin] (Paris: Victor Bouton, 1845), B.N., 4-Ld-5035A; L’indignation d’un honnête homme: Signé un citoyen qui n’est pas orateur, Vaute, peintre (Paris: Imprimerie de Beaulé et Maignand, [1849]), B.N., Fol-Lb55-695; and Almanach de la France démocratique: 1845 (Paris: Victor Bouton, 1845), B.N., microfiche, M-222116. Against the accusation that he was a police spy, which was described in the Gazette des tribunaux on 15 April 1848, Bouton defended himself first in a letter to the Gazette des tribunaux published on 25 April 1848 and then in a pamphlet called Attentat de la police républicaine contre la souveraineté du peuple (Paris: Victor Bouton, Éditeur, May 1848), B.N., Lb54-148. On the lawsuit filed by Pagnerre against Bouton for theft of the letters by Cormenin, see Gazette des tribunaux, 18 and 31 Dec. 1845. For Bouton’s profile of Pagnerre, see Profils révolutionnaires par un crayon rouge (Paris: Typographie Beaulé et Maignand, 1848–1849), B.N., 4-Lb52-8, p. 16. On the lawsuit filed by Pagnerre against Bouton for libel, see Gazette des tribunaux, 23 July, 6 Aug., and 13 Aug. 1848. For another example of Bouton’s prosecution for press crimes, see Gazette des tribunaux, 27 Nov. and 7/8 Dec. 1846. 4. Although Bertrand Gille long ago noted (in Recherches sur la formation de la grande entreprise capitaliste, 1815–1848 [Paris: S.E.V.P.E.N., 1959], part 5 [“Groupements syndicaux et commerciaux”]) the importance of studying the “deformations of the market” caused by syndical and commercial organizations, few business historians have addressed the topic, at least with regard to nineteenth-century France. Historians have begun to investigate semiofficial institutions of businessmen, such as the eighteenth-century Parisian Merchant Court and the nineteenth-century Chamber of Commerce of Paris. (See, for example, Amalia D. Kessler, A Revolution in Commerce: The Parisian Merchant Court and the Rise of Commercial Society in Eighteenth-Century France [New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2007]; and

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Notes to Pages 97–101

Claire Lemercier, Un si discret pouvoir: Aux origines de la Chambre de commerce de Paris [Paris: La Découverte, 2003].) However, they have not yet devoted much attention to private groupings of businessmen. One notable recent exception is Jeff Horn, The Path Not Taken: French Industrialization in the Age of Revolution, 1750– 1830 (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 2006), esp. chap. 8 (“Coalitions and Competition: Entrepreneurs and Workers React to the New Industrial Environment”). 5. Nicole Felkay, Balzac et ses éditeurs, 1822–1837: Essai sur la librairie romantique (Paris: Promodis / Éditions du Cercle de la Librairie, 1987), esp. chaps. 1–3. 6. For a few of the many examples of such publications in the 1820s, see Le commis-voyageur de la maison Baudouin (published by the bookdealer Baudouin), La petite bio-bibliographie (published by Pigoreau), Le journal général de littérature française (published by Treuttel and Würtz), Le bulletin bibliographique (published by Hector Bossange), Annuaire de l’imprimerie et de la librairie françaises (Paris: Baudouin Frères, 1821; rev. 1826), and Annuaire des imprimeurs et des libraires de France et de l’étranger, ed. Bancelin-Dutertre (Paris: Imprimerie de Decourchant, 1828; rev. 1829, 1835, and 1841). For a discussion of these publications, see also Felkay, Balzac et ses éditeurs, 63–68. Of the many trade publications, the most important was the Feuilleton of the Bibliographie de la France, edited by Beuchot and printed by Pillet, beginning in 1825 and continuing through the century. Most of the petitions, meetings, and events described above were announced in the Feuilleton. On the balls organized by publishers, for instance, see Feuilleton, 27 Dec. 1828 and 10 Jan. 1829, as well as the newspaper Le Corsaire, 11 Feb. 1828; on the commission to research the state of the book trade, see Feuilleton, 29 Nov. 1828 and 13 Dec. 1828, as well as the final report of the commission, Requête présentée à LL. EE. MM. les Ministres du Roi, par la Commission d’enquête de la librairie de Paris (Paris: Imprimerie de A. Firmin Didot, 1829); on the distribution and publicity agency, the Librairie Parisienne Française et Étrangère, see Feuilleton, 11 Oct. 1828. 7. On this group of publishers, see Felkay, Balzac et ses éditeurs, chap. 1 (“Situation de la librairie romantique”). On the Didot in particular, see Mollier, L’argent et les lettres, 83–89 and 98–101. 8. On the first cercle de la librairie in 1829, see A.N., F76699. 9. Statutes for a cercle de la librairie, approved by founding members, 23 Mar. 1829; manuscript note from the members of the “administrative commission” of the cercle de la librairie to the prefect of police, undated [spring / summer 1829], A.N., F76699. 10. Moniteur universel, 5 Mar. 1829; manuscript letter from the prefect of police to the minister of the interior, 22 July 1829, A.N., F76699. 11. Manuscript letter from the prefect of police to the minister of the interior, 16 Sept. 1829; manuscript note from staff of the minister of the interior to the prefect of police, 30 Sept. 1829; manuscript letter from the prefect of police to the minister of the interior, 14/23 Oct. 1829; and manuscript letter from the minister of the interior to the prefect of police, 26 Oct. 1829, all in A.N., F76699.

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12. On the effects of the Revolution of 1830 on the book trade, see Nicole Felkay, “La crise de 1830 et ses suites,” chap. 3 of Balzac et ses éditeurs, 81–99. On bankruptcy in the trade, see (in addition to Felkay) Odile Martin and Henri-Jean Martin, “Le monde des éditeurs,” in HEF 3:185–190; Georges Vuaroqueaux, “Édition populaire et stratégies éditoriales, 1830–1890” (Doctoral Thesis, École des Hautes Études en Sciences Sociales, 1994–1995), 4:27–33; and Viera Rebolledo Dhuin, “Les faillites dans le milieu des éditeurs parisiens au XIXe siècle (1826–1899)” (Master’s Thesis, Université de Paris X-Nanterre, 2001). This last source suggests that bankruptcies among publishers were less tied to crises such as the Revolution of 1830 than previously assumed. 13. The loan to industry was announced in the Journal des débats and the Moniteur universel, on 18 Oct. 1830; the ordinance explaining how it was to be distributed was printed in the same newspapers on 19 Oct. 1830. On the petition by publishers to obtain a share of the loan, see manuscript letter from the minister of finance to the president of the “Commission de répartition des 30,00,000 francs destinés au Commerce,” 22 Oct. 1830, A.N., F18567, and Journal des débats, 19 Oct. 1830. 14. Felkay, Balzac et ses éditeurs, 87–90; and Vuaroqueaux, “Édition populaire et stratégies éditoriales,” 4:46–54. According to Felkay, the following libraires and éditeurs received loans: André, Audin, Baillière, Barba, Veuve Charles Béchet, Béchet père, Bobée et Hingray, Bossange (Hector), Brière, Canel, Corréard, Coste, Cotelle, Delongchamp, Denain, Dentu, Desoër, Fournier (Hippolyte), Gallois, Gaume, Gosselin, Grimbert, Ladvocat, Lecointe, Lequien, Levavasseur, Levrault, Mahler, Merlin, Mesnier, Pichon et Didier, Pigoreau, Remoissenet, Renduel, Renouard, Rouen, Rousseau, Sautelet, Seguin, and Verdière. The following printers (some of whom were publishers, too) also received loans: Belin, Béthune, Casimir, Cosson, Crapelet, Decourchant, Didot père et fils, Doyen Dubreuil, Ducessois, Duverger, Engelmann, Éverat, Fain Féret, Fournier (Henri), Gaultier-Laguionie, Mie, Pinard, Renouard, Rignoux, Selligue, Tastu, and Tilliard. 15. See Felkay, Balzac et ses éditeurs, 92–96 and 264–268; and Martin and Martin, “Le monde des éditeurs,” in HEF 3:185–189. 16. Martin Bossange, Courtes observations de M. Bossange père à MM. les Membres de la Chambre des Députés, relatives au prêt sur nantissement fait à la librairie par le gouvernement (Paris: Imprimerie de P. Dupont et Laguionie, n.d. [1833]), B.N., Lb51–1811; and Nouvelles observations de M. Bossange père, relatives au prêt fait à la librairie; suivies du catalogue des livres donnés en nantissement (Paris: Firmin Didot Frères, 1833), B.N., Q-1484; Archives parlementaires, 2nd ser., vol. 82 (1833), 694–695, and vol. 83 (1833), 564–568. On Bossange, see Nicole Felkay, “Le Musée encyclopédique du libraire Bossange,” Bulletin du bibliophile 1984, no. 1: 32–39. On Laffitte, see Paul Duchon, ed., Mémoires de Laffitte, 1767–1844 (Paris: Firmin-Didot, 1932); and Maurice Brun, Le banquier Laffitte (Abbeville: F. Paillart, 1997).

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Notes to Pages 105–108

17. Editorial in favor of forgiveness of loan, Journal des débats, 25 Mar. 1833; petition in favor of forgiveness of loan signed by Treuttel and Würtz, Panckoucke, Gosselin, Dentu, Hachette, and other publishers who did not take part in the loan, published in Journal des débats, 17 June 1833; B. Warée, De la nécessité d’amender la proposition de M. Lafitte [sic], relative à l’emprunt fait par la librairie sur le prêt des trente millions accordés au commerce (Paris: Imprimerie d’Hippolyte Tilliard, 1833), B.N., Lb51-1812; and B. Warée, Encore un mot sur la proposition de M. Lafitte [sic], relative à l’emprunt fait par la librairie sur le prêt des 30,000,000 (Paris: Lottin de S.-Germain, 1833), B.N., Lb51-1813. 18. See Arnaud, Quelques observations relatives au prêt sur nantissement fait par le gouvernement à la librairie (en exécution de la loi du 17 octobre 1830) (Paris: A. Pinard, 1834), B.N., Vp-16711; À Messieurs les membres de la Chambre des Députés: Pétition des libraires qui ont participé au prêt de trente millions, et qui ne sont pas encore libérés envers le Trésor (Paris: Imprimerie de Decourchant, 1836), B.N., C-2145; Martin Bossange, À Messieurs les membres de la Chambre des Députés (Paris: Imprimerie de Bourgogne et Martinet, 1837), B.N., Q-1483; Felkay, Balzac et ses éditeurs, 95–96; and Felkay, “Le Musée encyclopédique du libraire Bossange,” 39. 19. On the collective response to the fire in the rue du Pot-de-Fer, see Felkay, Balzac et ses éditeurs, 43–44; and the Feuilleton, 19 Dec. 1835, 2 Jan. 1836, and 13 Feb. 1836. For firsthand accounts of the fire, see also the following newspapers during Dec. 1835: Le Moniteur universel, Le Constitutionnel, and Le Corsaire. 20. On the Sociétés de Paris, Londres et Bruxelles pour les Publications à Bon Marché, see Feuilleton, 5 Apr. 1834. On the private commission of 1836–1837 and the proposal for a “national company” to coordinate the export of French books, see Compte rendu à MM. les libraires, imprimeurs, fabricants et marchands de papiers de Paris par la Commission nommée le 16 décembre 1836, à l’effet de rechercher les moyens de soutenir la librairie française contre la contrefaçon étrangère (Paris: Imprimerie de C. L. F. Panckoucke, n.d. [1837]), B.N., 4-Q-245; letter from Charles Gosselin to the Moniteur universel, 6 Nov. 1836, cited in Felkay, Balzac et ses éditeurs, 48; the Journal des débats, 12 and 17 Dec. 1836; A. Bobée, De la concurrence entre la librairie française et la librairie belge (Paris: Imprimerie Le Normant, n.d. [1836]); and Bobée, Note sur la librairie française et sur le projet de la compagnie nationale (Paris: Imprimerie Le Normant, n.d. [1836]). On the collective activities against provincial pirates, see, for example, Feuilleton, 18 Aug. 1838, 7 Mar. 1840, and 17 Oct. 1846. 21. The statistic on the number of joint-stock corporations in publishing in 1833 comes from Charles E. Freedeman, Joint-Stock Enterprise in France, 1807–1867: From Privileged Company to Modern Corporation (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1979), 52–53. For the spoof of a joint-stock corporation in publishing, see Le Corsaire, 4 July 1836. 22. On the Comptoir Central de la Librairie, see Feilleton, 16 July and 27 Aug. 1842; Archives de Paris, D31U3125, dossier 1293; and Felkay, Balzac et ses éditeurs,

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51–52. For criticism of the organizers of the Comptoir, see Gervais Charpentier, Explications de M. Charpentier, Libraire-Éditeur, à ses confrères sur sa participation au projet qu’il avait formé d’affermer, avec le concours de plusieurs libraires, la publicité du journal LE NATIONAL (Paris: Imprimerie de Crapelet, 1846), B.N., Q-1133, p. 5; and Edmond Werdet, De la librairie française: Son passé, son présent, son avenir, avec des notices biographiques sur les libraires-éditeurs les plus distingués depuis 1789 (Paris: E. Dentu, 1860), 366. 23. On Gosselin, see Felkay, Balzac et ses éditeurs, 43–53 and 179–218; and Mollier, L’argent et les lettres, 200–201. 24. On the chambre syndicale of printers in Paris, see Rapport de la Commission des imprimeurs, nommée le 15 mai 1838, pour l’établissement d’une Chambre des imprimeurs (signed by A. Firmin Didot, Crapelet, H. Fournier et al., 25 June 1838) (Paris: Imprimerie de H. Fournier et Comp., n.d. [1838]) and related correspondence between the minister of the interior and the minister of commerce, July 1838–July 1839, in A.N., F122272; records of the Chambre des Imprimeurs, IMEC, BCL2.F30-, esp. “Assemblée générale du 11 février 1856: Compte rendu des travaux de l’association pendant l’année 1855 par M. G. Gratiot, secrétaire-adjoint,” and “Assemblée générale du 12 janvier 1857: Compte rendu des travaux de l’association pendant l’année 1856 par M. Thunot.” Quotation comes from “Compte rendu des travaux de l’association pendant l’année 1856 par M. Thunot,” p. 5. For examples of the trade journals published by printers, see Alkan aîné et al., Annales de la typographie française et étrangère: Journal spécial de l’imprimerie, de la fonderie, de la gravure, de la librairie et de la papeterie (Paris: Au Bureau du Journal, 1838–1840), B.N., Q-1014 and Q-4527; and Felkay, Balzac et ses éditeurs, 69–70. On the opposition of the government to organization among printers, see “Rapport au nom de la Commission chargée de préparer les bases d’un réglement complémentaire du régime de l’imprimerie et de la librairie” to the minister of the interior, circa 1846, A.N., F1810A; and draft report from the director of the Bureau de l’Imprimerie et de la Librairie to the minister of the interior, 2 Oct. 1861, rejecting a demand by the printers of Paris for authorization of a chambre syndicale, A.N., F182370. On the weakness of association among printers in the provinces, see Paul Chauvet, Les ouvriers du livre en France, de 1789 à la constitution de la Fédération du livre (Paris: Librairie Marcel Rivière et Cie., 1956), esp. chap. 11 (“La typographie en province de la Révolution à la formation de la Fédération française du livre”). 25. On the organization of booksellers, see Frédéric Barbier, “Libraires et colporteurs,” in HEF 3:264; Alfred Fierro, “Évolution et typologie de la librairie,” in Histoire de l’édition française, vol. 4, Le livre concurrencé, 1900–1950, ed. Roger Chartier and Henri-Jean Martin [hereafter HEF 4], 111–123; Maurice Malingue, “La naissance du syndicalisme dans la librairie,” in Le commerce de la librairie en France au XIXe siècle, 1789–1914, ed. Jean-Yves Mollier (Paris: IMEC Éditions / Éditions de la Maison des Sciences de l’Homme, 1997), 211–215; Fonds Didot, CAMT, 179 AQ 206; and the Bulletin des libraires, beginning in Sept. 1892. The quotation comes

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Notes to Pages 110–112

from A. Taride, Appel aux libraires: Lettre ouverte (Paris: Taride, 1899), BHVP, in-8 704640. 26. On the foundation of the second “circle” in the book trade, see Archives du Cercle de la Librairie, IMEC, BCL 1.2 (Fondation), BCL 1.3 (Statuts), and BCL 1 (Auguste Blanchot, Notice historique, and J.-B. Baillière, Note complémentaire); Jean Hébrard, Bulletin de la Librairie (B.N., Q-163); and Feuilleton of the Bibliographie de la France, 1, 8, and 29 May 1847. The Cercle de la Librairie is described in detail in Chapter 4. 27. On the Comptoir National d’Escompte and the sous-comptoir in publishing, see Cercle de la Librairie, Comptes rendus des Conseils d’administration [hereafter CRCA], IMEC, BCL 4.2, 29 Feb., 3 March, 18 April, and 5 May 1848; Pagnerre Papers, A.N., 67 AP 6–11 (esp. “Souscription pour le Comptoir National d’Escompte”); Vuaroqueaux, “Édition populaire et stratégies éditoriales,” 5:159; Claire Lemercier, Un si discret pouvoir, 224–226; Michael Stephen Smith, The Emergence of Modern Business Enterprise in France, 1800–1930 (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2006), 69–70 and 74–75; Mollier, L’argent et les lettres, 165; and Mollier, Louis Hachette, 1800–1864: Le fondateur d’un empire (Paris: Fayard, 1999), 280–283. 28. Feuilleton, 12 May 1849; “Rapport fait au nom de la Commission chargée d’examiner le projet de loi relatif aux comptoirs et sous-comptoirs d’escompte, par M. Riché, Député au Corps Législatif,” Corps Législatif, Session 1853, no. 238, Annexe au procès-verbal de la séance du 24 mai 1852, in A.N., 67 AP 6–11, p. 4, n. 1; Jean-Yves Mollier, “Les banques et l’édition française: Coup de foudre ou vieille liaison?” Bulletin du Centre d’histoire de la France contemporaine 9 (1988): 12. According to the Feuilleton of the Bibliographie de la France, the sous-comptoir in publishing was liquidated in late 1852 but continued to exist as late as 1855 (see issues dated 30 Oct. 1852, 13 Nov. 1852, 28 Oct. 1854, and 11 Aug. 1855). The possibility of establishing a similar sous-comptoir would be discussed but rejected in the wake of the Franco-Prussian War (CRCA, IMEC, BCL 5.1, 19 Aug., 6 Oct., and 21 Oct. 1870). Although the national discount bank was renewed for thirty years as a société anonyme by imperial decree on 25 July 1854, it failed to revive credit within the business community, according to a critic, Pierre-Joseph Proudhon, Manuel du spéculateur à la Bourse, 5th ed. (Paris: Librairie de Garnier Frères, 1857; first pub. 1854), 240–241. 29. On the meaning of prime, see Dictionnaire de l’Académie Française, 1802 and 1835 eds.; Dictionnaire analytique d’économie politique, ed. Ganilh (1826); Dictionnaire de l’économie politique, ed. Frédéric Bastiat et al. (1853); and Le Robert Dictionnaire historique de la langue française, ed. Alain Rey (1992). According to this last dictionary, the term was derived from the English “premium” in the seventeenth century (p. 1631). On the primes offered to subscribers of the works of Chateaubriand published by the Pourrat brothers, see Bibliographie de la France, 7 Mar. 1835, and Le Temps, 18 Apr. 1835; on those offered by the Librairie Moderne, see Le Constitutionnel,

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22 Oct. 1835; on those offered by the Société des Éditeurs Unis, see Le National, 23 Nov. 1835. According to a later pamphlet against lotteries by the bookdealer Warée, in late 1835 and early 1836 there were a number of other lotteries in publishing, including one organized by the printer Éverat, one founded by the publisher Gosselin and the printer Fournier, and a “literary subscription in the interest of the book trade” that offered one hundred thousand tickets at five francs apiece (B. Warée, Conséquences de la souscription ouverte en librairie autorisée par le gouvernement, sous le patronage du Citoyen Préfet de la Seine, 1,500,000 francs de primes [Paris: Imprimerie Gerdès, 1848], B.N., Q-6477, 6–8). For the defense of the lotteries, see letter from the Pourrat brothers to Le Constitutionnel, 4 Dec. 1835; letter from the Société des Éditeurs Unis to Le Constitionnel, 11 Dec. 1835; and Blanqui l’aîné, “Souscriptions de librairie avec primes,” Courrier français, 19 and 28 Dec. 1835. For the opposition to such lotteries, see agreement by Aimé André, Audin, Beaujouan et al., to refuse to stock books with premiums, dated 28 Nov. 1835 and published in Feuilleton of the Bibliographie de la France throughout Dec. 1835 and Jan. 1836; Ambroise Firmin-Didot, Discours prononcé par M. Ambroise Firmin Didot, membre du Conseil des manufactures, ancien membre de la Chambre du commerce, le 13 janvier 1836, dans la séance générale des Conseils du commerce, de l’agriculture et des manufactures, sur la question des primes en librairie (Paris: Typographie de Firmin Didot frères, n.d. [1836]), B.N., Q-6491; [Adrien] Jarry de Mancy, letters to Le Constitutionnel, 3, 5, and 10 Dec. 1835; Jarry de Mancy, Question des loteries de librairie, déguisées sous le nom de primes d’encouragement à la lecture, à l’économie dans les ménages, etc., etc.: Documents recueillis et publiés par A. Jarry de Mancy, professeur d’histoire, fondateur de la Société Montyon et Franklin (Paris: Bureau de la Société Montyon et Franklin; Imprimerie Paul Renouard, 1836), B.N., Q-6679; and Jarry de Mancy, Dernier mot sur les loteries de librairie, sur le Chateaubriand avec primes, &c., &c.: Suite des documens recueillis par A. Jarry de Mancy, professeur d’histoire, fondateur de la Société Montyon et Franklin (Paris: Société Montyon et Franklin; Imprimerie Paul Renouard, 1836), B.N., Q-6482. For the legislature’s debate on the bill against lotteries, see Moniteur universel, 4, 13/14, and 23/24 May 1836. For a secondary account of the premiums offered by publishers in 1835 and 1836, see Felkay, Balzac et ses éditeurs, 44–48. 30. The “subscription with premiums opened in the book trade” was announced in the Feuilleton of the Bibliographie de la France on 16 Sept. 1848. For a description of this operation, see also Warée, Conséquences de la souscription ouverte en librairie. On the campaign against this operation, which was led by the bookdealers Gervais Charpentier and Barnabé Warée, see Feuilleton, 14 Oct. 1848; and Petition des libraires de Paris à M. le Président de la République et à MM. les Membres de l’Assemblée nationale (Paris: Imprimerie Gerdès, n.d. [1849]), B.N., Factum 8-Fm3346. 31. Bouton, Très-humble rémontrance, 4; Warée, Conséquences de la souscription ouverte en librairie, 6.

280

Notes to Pages 114–118

32. Louis-Théophile Barrois, Pourquoi appelle-t-on une loterie une souscription avec primes? (Paris: Imprimerie Gustave Gratiot, 1848), B.N., Q-6656; Barrois, Lettre d’un ancien libraire, à ses jeunes confrères victimes de la loterie dite de bien faisance tant à Paris que dans les départements (Paris: Imprimerie Gerdès, 1849), B.N., Q-1040; Barrois, Seconde lettre d’un ancien libraire à ses jeunes confrères tant de Paris que des départements, victimes des ventes de livres avec primes par des éditeurs brevetés ou non brevetés, pour la meilleure exploitation du public (Paris: Imprimerie de Gerdès, 1850), B.N., Q-1041; Bouton, Nouvelles rémontrances, 4 and 8; and Bouton, Trèshumble rémontrance, 1. 33. Gervais Charpentier, Nouveau mémoire contre la loterie de la librairie (Paris: Imprimerie de Crapelet, n.d. [1848]), B.N., Q-1494, p. 5; Barrois, Seconde lettre d’un ancien libraire, 1–2; Warée, Conséquences de la souscription ouverte en librairie, 10–11; Bouton, Très-humble rémontrance, 6. 34. CRCA, BCL 4.2, 14 Dec. and 16 Dec. 1849; Feuilleton, 29 Dec. 1849, 5, 12, 19, and 26 Jan. 1850, and 2, 9, and 16 Feb. 1850; Gazette des tribunaux, 10 Jan. and 16 Feb. 1850; Bouton, Très-humble rémontrance (1850 ed.), 12; Pétition des libraires de Paris [1849]. The signatories of this petition included the bookdealers Barrois, Béchet, Charpentier, Benjamin Duprat, Langlois, Leclère, Maison, and Michaud. 35. Feuilleton, 22 Dec. 1849, 5, 12, and 26 Jan. 1850, 29 June 1850, and 13 July 1850. 36. On the lawsuits against the Union des Éditeurs, see Gazette des tribunaux, 23 Mar., 16 June, 10 Aug., and 22 Aug. 1850; as well as the following judicial briefs and reports regarding the case before the Cour d’Appel of Paris: Marie, Pour l’Union des éditeurs contre le Ministère Publique: Exposé de faits (Paris: Typographie Plon Frères, [1850]), B.N., Factum 4-Fm-11502; Cour d’appel de Paris, Audiences des 13 et 15 juin 1850: Affaire de l’Union des éditeurs (Paris: Plon Frères, [1850]), B.N., Factum 4-Fm11504; and Cour d’appel d’Orléans, Audience du 2 octobre 1850: Affaire de l’Union des éditeurs (Paris: Typographie de Plon Frères, [1850]), B.N., Factum 4-Fm-11503. On the libel case against Bouton, see Gazette des tribunaux, 23 and 24 Jan., 14 Mar., 3 Apr., 11 July, and 28 Nov. 1850 and 8 Mar. 1851; and Feuilleton, 22 Dec. 1849, 30 Nov. 1850, and 8 Mar. 1851. For evidence of the administration’s continued concern about the marketing of books with premiums, see A.N., F18569. 37. On Pagnerre, see Feuilleton, 7 and 21 Oct. 1854; Pagnerre Papers, A.N., 67 AP 1–13; and Dossiers Pagnerre, IMEC, BCL2.A1-03.01 and BCL1.AA01-04-12. On Bouton, see Revue biographique des notabilités françaises contemporaines, 3:202; A.N., F18265 (“Recours en grâce” dated 12 Nov. 1855); Victor Bouton, De l’ancienne chevalerie de Lorraine, documents inédits (Paris: Victor Bouton, 1861), B.N., 8-Lm276; Victor Bouton and Comte Alfred de Bizemont, Le héraut d’armes, revue illustrée de la noblesse (Paris: Victor Bouton, 1861–1877), B.N., Lc15-5; Victor Bouton, Armorial des capitouls de Toulouse, tiré de l’ “Armorial général de France de d’Hozier, de 1696 à 1711” (Paris: Victor Bouton, 1876), B.N., 8-Li31-558; and Victor Bouton,

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Le testament de Victor Bouton (27 Sept. 1870) (Paris: Bouton, n.d. [1870]), B.N., 4-Lb57-382, p. 3.

4. The Cercle de la Librairie 1. In Belgium, a similar Cercle Belge de la Librairie was not established until 1882; in the United States, the Association of American Publishers was not created until the end of the nineteenth century. Prior to the foundation of the Cercle de la Librairie in France, there was a Committee of London Booksellers and Publishers in England (from 1829 to 1852) and a Börsenverein des Deutschen Buchhandels in Germany (founded in 1824). However, these functioned more as commercial cartels than as professional associations. Not until 1895 was a Publishers Association founded in England. 2. For examples of the limited research on the Cercle de la Librairie in France, see J. Fléty, “Le Cercle de la Librairie,” Art et métiers du livre, no. 127 (Sept.–Oct. 1983); “Le Cercle de la Librairie,” in HEF 3:49–50; Claude Jolly, “Le développement du Cercle de la Librairie, syndicat des industries du livre,” in HEF 4:67–68; Maurice Malingue, “La naissance du syndicalisme dans la librairie,” in Le commerce de la librairie en France au XIXe siècle, 1789–1914, ed. Jean-Yves Mollier (Paris: IMEC Édition / Éditions de la Maison des sciences de l’homme, 1997), 211–215; MarieAnnonciade Bady, “Le Cercle de la Librairie de 1847 à 1886” (Master’s Thesis, Université de Paris IV-Sorbonne, 1997); Le Cercle de la Librairie, Le Cercle de la Librairie, 1847–1997: 150 ans d’actions pour le livre et ses métiers, Exposition Catalog (Paris: Electre-Editions du Cercle de la Librairie, 1997); and Jean-Yves Mollier, Louis Hachette, 1800–1864: Le fondateur d’un empire (Paris: Fayard, 1999), 278–286 and 408–412. My own account of the Cercle relies on two main sources: the registers of the minutes of the meetings of the administrative council of the Cercle de la Librairie, the “Comptes-rendus des Conseils d’administration” (hereafter CRCA), now held at the Institut Mémoires de l’Édition Contemporaine (IMEC), BCL 4.2 (11 Jan. 1848–12 Dec. 1862), 5.1 (30 Jan. 1863–5 Feb. 1875), 5.2 (5 March 1875–6 Feb. 1885), 5.3 (Mar. 1885–Feb. 1892), 6.1 (25 Mar. 1892–22 Mar. 1901), 6.2 (15 Mar. 1901–17 June 1910), and 7.1 (21 Oct. 1910–24 Mar. 1922); and the trade journal Bibliographie de la France, especially its supplements the Feuilleton and (after 1857) the Chronique, from 1847 to 1914. 3. On the legal and political context of associational life in nineteenth-century France, see Maurice Agulhon, “Vers une histoire des associations,” Esprit, June 1978, 13–18; Francine Soubiran-Paillet, L’invention du syndicat, 1791–1884: Itinéraire d’une catégorie juridique (Paris: Maison des Sciences de l’Homme, 1999); John Savage, “Advocates of the Republic: The Paris Bar and Legal Culture in Early Third Republic France, 1870–1914” (PhD diss., New York University, 1999), esp. chap. 6 (“Representing the Social: The Transformation of the Legal Subject”); and Raymond

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Notes to Pages 121–123

Huard, “Political Association in Nineteenth-Century France: Legislation and Practice,” in Civil Society before Democracy: Lessons from Nineteenth-Century Europe, ed. Nancy Bermeo and Philip Nord (Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield, 2000), 135– 153. The statistics on the growth in the number of professional syndicates after the law of 1884 come from Raoul Jay, “L’organisation du travail par les syndicats professionnels,” Revue d’économie politique, 8 Apr. 1894, 299. 4. William H. Sewell Jr., Work and Revolution in France: The Language of Labor from the Old Regime to 1848 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1980), esp. chap. 2 (“Mechanical Arts and the ‘Corporate Idiom’ ”). 5. On the use of the “corporate idiom” by workers, see Sewell, Work and Revolution in France. The stereotype of French businessmen as individualistic and unsociable, which originated with Alexis de Tocqueville, was most famously articulated by David Landes, in, for example, “French Entrepreneurship and Industrial Growth in the Nineteenth Century,” Journal of Economic History 9, no. 1 (May 1949): 45–61; and Landes, “French Business and the Businessman: A Social and Cultural Analysis,” in Modern France: Problems of the Third and Fourth Republics, ed. Edward Mead Earle (New York: Russell & Russell, 1964), 334–353. This stereotype has begun to be challenged. See, for example, Carol Harrison, “Unsociable Frenchmen: Associations and Democracy in Historical Perspective,” La Revue Tocqueville / The Tocqueville Review 17, no. 2 (1996): 37–56. However, most recent work on associations among businessmen tends to emphasize their construction of class and gender identity, rather than their role in the market economy. See, for example, Carol Harrison, The Bourgeois Citizen in Nineteenth-Century France: Gender, Sociability, and the Uses of Emulation (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1999); and Denise Z. Davidson, France after Revolution: Urban Life, Gender, and the New Social Order (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2007), esp. chap. 5 (“Building Solidarity: Cercles, Salons, and Charities”). The characterization of employers’ associations as being protectionist dates from Roger Priouret, Origines du patronat français (Paris: Bernard Grasset, 1963); and Georges Lefranc, Les organisations patronales en France du passé au présent (Paris: Payot, 1976). For a recent challenge to this characterization, see Jean-Pierre Hirsch, Les deux rêves de commerce: Entreprise et institution dans la région lilloise, 1780–1860 (Paris: Éditions de l’EHESS, 1991). For examples of recent scholarship on the link between associational life and liberal government, see Philip Nord, The Republican Moment: Struggles for Democracy in Nineteenth-Century France (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1995); and Nord, “Introduction,” in Civil Society before Democracy: Lessons from Nineteenth-Century Europe, ed. Nancy Bermeo and Philip Nord (Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield, 2000), xiii–xxxiii. 6. J. Hébrard, De la librairie, son ancienne prospérité, son état actuel, causes de sa décadence, moyens de régénération (Paris: Librairie de J. Hébrard et Cie., 1847), esp. 7, 9, and 61. This pamphlet was announced in Hébrard’s Bulletin de la librairie, in Jan. and May 1847 (nos. 7/8 and 12), B.N., Q-163. Hébrard may not actually have

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authored the pamphlet De la librairie. According to the recollections of the publisher Alkan l’aîné, the true author of this pamphlet was Hébrard’s creditor, Bailleul, who was an inspector of the book trade under the July Monarchy. See handwritten note in the margin of a published addendum to the official history of the Cercle de la Librairie produced by Auguste Blanchot in 1881, by J.-B. Baillière, Le Cercle de la Librairie . . . : Note complémentaire de la Notice historique (Paris: Imprimerie Émile Martinet, Jan. 1882), 5; and the enclosed manuscript letter from Alkan l’aîné to J.-B. Baillière, IMEC, BCL 1. 7. On the foundation of the Cercle de la Librairie, see Auguste Blanchot, Le Cercle de la librairie, de l’imprimerie, de la papeterie, du commerce de la musique et des estampes: Notice historique et descriptive (Paris: Cercle de la Librairie, 1881), IMEC, BCL 1, pp. 2–9; Archives du Cercle de la Librairie, IMEC, BCL 1.1 (Brochure de Théophile Barrois), 1.2 (Fondation), and 1.3 (Statuts); Bulletin de la librairie (pub. J. Hébrard), no. 13 (10 May 1847), B.N., Q-163; Feuilleton of the Bibliographie de la France, 1, 8, and 29 May 1847; Jacques Rodolphe-Rousseau, preface to Cercle de la Librairie, 1847–1947: Centénaire (Paris: Cercle de la Librairie, 1947), B.N., 8-Q-7184; Le Cercle de la Librairie, 1847–1997: 150 ans d’actions pour le livre et ses métiers, 11–12 and 30–33; and Bady, “Le Cercle de la Librairie de 1847 à 1886.” 8. Although the original statutes of the Cercle de la Librairie have been lost, they are summarized in Hébrard’s Bulletin de la librairie, no. 13 (10 May 1847), B.N., Q-163. For later versions of the statutes, see Archives du Cercle, IMEC, BCL 1.3. 9. This overview of the history of the Cercle de la Librairie is based on Blanchot, Le Cercle de la Librairie . . . : Notice historique et descriptive; Paul Delalain, “Résumé de l’histoire du Cercle de la Librairie, 1881–1914 (fin de la présidence de M. Layus)” [manuscript], Fonds Delalain, IMEC, BCL2.D1-; Cercle de la Librairie, 1847–1947: Centénaire; Le Cercle de la Librairie, 1847–1997: 150 ans d’actions pour le livre et ses métiers; Bady, “Le Cercle de la Librairie de 1847 à 1886”; and the minutes of the meetings of the administrative councils (CRCA) and the Feuilleton and Chronique of the Bibliographie de la France, from 1847 to 1914. 10. The official approval of the prefect of police was documented in the minutes of the administrative council of the Cercle, CRCA, 9 Aug. 1854. On the efforts to obtain recognition as an institution of “public utility,” see, for example, Chronique, 15 Mar. 1879. On the modification of the statutes of the Cercle following the legalization of professional syndicates, see Chronique, 6 and 20 Mar. 1886. 11. Hébrard expressed his disappointment with the form the Cercle de la Librairie had taken in a pamphlet entitled De la nécessité de l’établissement d’un cercle de libraires (Paris: J. Hébrard, 1847), B.N., Q-6589, p. 7. On Hébrard’s resignation from the Cercle, see letter from Alkan l’aîné to J.-B. Baillière, enclosed with Baillière’s Note complémentaire de la Notice historique, IMEC, BCL 1; and CRCA, 6 Dec. 1848, when Hébrard was “erased from the list of the members of the Cercle” along with four others. According to the bankruptcy records of Paris (Archives de Paris, D13U31), a libraire named Jules-Joseph Hébrard filed for bankruptcy on 30 March

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1848. According to Georges Vuaroqueaux, Hébrard died the next year (“Édition populaire et stratégies éditoriales, 1830–1890” [Doctoral Thesis, École des Hautes Études en Sciences Sociales, 1994–1995], 5:169–170). For a list of the founders and officers of the Cercle de la Librairie, see my dissertation, “Lost Illusions: The Rise of the Book Publisher and the Construction of a Literary Marketplace in NineteenthCentury France” (University of Chicago, 2001); for a breakdown of the occupational identity of the members of the Cercle, see Cercle de la Librairie, 1847–1947: Centénaire, 10; Bady, “Le Cercle de la Librairie de 1847 à 1886,” 43–44; and Blanchot, Le Cercle de la Librairie . . . : Notice historique et descriptive, 53–54. 12. Feuilleton, 15 Sept. 1847. 13. L. Théophile Barrois, Lettre à M. J. Hébrard au sujet de la brochure qu’il vient de publier sur l’état de la librairie en France en 1847 (Paris: Barrois, 1847), B.N., Q-6537; and Barrois, Observations relatives au projet d’un nouveau Cercle de la librairie, de l’imprimerie, de la papeterie, de la fonderie, etc. (Paris: Barrois, 1847), IMEC, BCL 1.1, and B.N., Q-6629. 14. Paul Dupont, Histoire de l’imprimerie (Paris: Paul Dupont, 1854), 1:341. The notion of the “invention” of tradition was first articulated by Eric Hobsbawm and Terence Ranger, eds., The Invention of Tradition (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1983). Early on, the leaders of the Cercle did discuss the possibility of transforming their association into a chambre syndicale, inclusive of everyone in the book trade. But this idea was not implemented, presumably for political reasons. For references to this discussion, see CRCA, 18 Oct. 1849, 22 Oct. 1849, and 9 Jan. 1852. 15. See annual report to general assembly by president Ambroise Firmin-Didot, 22 June 1849, printed in Feuilleton, 30 June 1849; annual report to general assembly by president Laurent-Antoine Pagnerre, 14 Jan. 1853, printed in Feuilleton, 22 Jan. 1853. 16. See annual report to general assembly by president Laurent-Antoine Pagnerre, 20 Nov. 1851, printed in Feuilleton, 6 Dec. 1851. The term syndic was used, for example, by the trade journal to describe Jules Delalain, who as president of the Cercle in 1860 initiated the publication of a new trade directory, the Annuaire de la librairie (Feuilleton, 27 Oct. 1860). On the use of corporate language among workers in nineteenth-century France, see Sewell, Work and Revolution in France, esp. 187–193. 17. On the emblem of the Cercle de la Librairie, see Archives du Cercle, IMEC, BCL 1.5. On the design of the Hôtel du Cercle, see “Notice descriptive de l’hôtel du Cercle,” in Blanchot, Le Cercle de la Librairie . . . : Notice historique et descriptive, 69–82. 18. This explanation for the election of a Didot as the first president was given by Ambroise Firmin-Didot himself, in a speech to the general assembly on 22 June 1849, printed in the Feuilleton, 30 June 1849. On the groundbreaking ceremony at the Sorbonne, see Chronique, 8 Aug. 1885. For references to the historical documents

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and memorabilia collected by the Cercle, see, for instance, a piece by Prioux on the coins issued by the old corporation of printers and booksellers, in Chronique, 5 May 1860; a translation by P. D. [Paul Delalain] of a document from the “Chartularium Universitatis Parisiensis” related to the relationship between the University and the stationers of Paris in 1275, in Chronique, 15 Sept. 1888; and a call for donations of documents related to the history of the Cercle, in Chronique, 21 Mar. 1885. For examples of works on the history of the corporation, see Paul Delalain, “Les marques des libraires et imprimeurs du XVe au XVIII siècle,” Chronique, 14 Mar. 1885 (which was written in conjunction with an exhibition of trademarks of early modern bookdealers and printers at the Cercle de la Librairie in the spring of 1885); Notice sur Galliot Du Pré, libraire parisien de 1512 à 1560, excerpted from the Chronique of the Bibliographie de la France (Paris: Cercle de la Librairie, 1890); Étude sur le libraire parisien du XIIIe au XVe siècle d’après les documents publiés dans le cartulaire de l’Université de Paris (Paris: Imprimerie de Delalain Frères, 1891); L’imprimerie et la librairie à Paris de 1789 à 1813, renseignements recueillis, classés et accompagnés d’une introduction par Paul Delalain (Paris: Delalain Frères, 1899); Liste des imprimeurs typographes de Paris du 1er avril 1811 au 10 septembre 1870 sous le régime du brevet avec l’indication des successeurs, pendant cette période, de chacun des imprimeurs typographes maintenues en 1811, excerpted from the Chronique of the Bibliographie de la France (Paris: Imprimerie D. Dumoulin, n.d. [1900]); “Origines de la Bibliographie de la France: Extrait d’un nouvel ouvrage de Paul Delalain, l’historique des diverses publications techniques qui ont précédé, depuis 1790, la Bibliographie de la France,” Chronique, 10 Feb. 1900; Étude sur les locaux successifs occupés par la Chambre syndicale des libraires et imprimeurs de Paris, excerpted from the Chronique of the Bibliographie de la France (Paris: Imprimerie de J. Dumoulin, n.d. [1910]); “Les ancêtres de la , Journal général de l’imprimerie et de la librairie publié par le Cercle de la Librairie de Paris,” Chronique, 17 Nov. 1911. Delalain recounted his activities as amateur historian in his unpublished autobiography, “Mon autobiographie,” Fonds Delalain, IMEC, BCL2.D1-, 1st notebook (“Mes travaux personnels / Ma vie corporative”), 2nd ser. (“Travaux historiques et bibliographiques”), pp. 26–66. 19. The very first lectures sponsored by the Cercle, for example, were given by two liberal political economists on the topics of literary property and free trade(Feuilleton, 18 Dec. 1847). On the organization of the sous-comptoir d’escompte in the book trade, see CRCA, 18 Apr. 1848; Feuilleton, 21 Apr. 1849 and 12 May 1849; and speech by president Ambroise Firmin-Didot to general assembly of the Cercle, 22 June 1849, printed in Feuilleton, 30 June 1849. On the trade directories, see Chronique, 17 Apr. 1858. On the scholarships sponsored by the Cercle, see CRCA, 11 Dec. 1863, 11 Aug. 1865, 8 Dec. 1865, 17 Oct. 1873, 28 Apr. 1876, 20 Oct. 1882; and Chronique, 28 Jan. 1871 and 2 Dec. 1882. On the courses offered by the Cercle, see CRCA, 20 Mar., 10 Apr., 8 May, 19 June, 16 Oct., and 20 Nov. 1908; and Delalain, “Résumé de l’histoire du Cercle de la librairie, 1881–1914,” 43. For the texts of these courses

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(which were published under the title “Cours pratiques de librairie” by the Cercle de la Librairie, either as supplements to the Bibliographie de la France or as separate booklets), see IMEC, BCL1.BB1-. On several occasions, the Cercle did discuss the foundation of a formal school for the industries that it represented, but this project was never undertaken. On the discussion of this project, see CRCA, 17 Oct. 1873, 20 Mar. 1874, 17 Apr. 1874, 17 July 1874, 18 Sept. 1874, 15 Jan., 5 Feb. 1875, 5 Mar. 1875; and Chronique, 18 July 1874 and 14 Nov. 1874. In 1886, a “typographical school” named after Gutenberg was created by a number of printers in Paris (Chronique, 13 Feb. and 3 Apr. 1886), and in 1887, a similar school named after Étienne was founded for the bookselling industry (Chronique, 6 Aug. 1887). Although it was not involved in the establishment of these schools, the Cercle did sponsor scholarships to them for students in the book trade. 20. On the organization of the caisse de secours, see, for example, CRCA, 24 Jan. 1848, 21 Nov. 1848, 8 Aug. 1849, 12 Sept. 1849, 6 Dec. 1850, 5 Jan. 1855, 31 Mar. 1855, 16 May 1873, 24 Mar. 1882, 19 May 1882, 16 June 1882, 22 Sept. 1882, and 24 Nov. 1882; and Chronique, 10 June, 17 June, 24 June, 1 July, and 8 July 1882. Assistance and retirement funds for employees in the book trade were first proposed in 1849 by the publisher Louis Hachette, who was a member of the Administration of Public Assistance in Paris following the Revolution of 1848. Although such funds were officially authorized and even encouraged by the government of the Second Empire (in a decree of 26 March 1852), they do not seem to have been firmly established in the book trade until the mid-1860s. See CRCA, 25 July 1849, 24 Aug. 1849, 8 Nov. 1849, 21 Nov. 1849, 14 Dec. 1849, 18 Dec. 1849, 28 Jan. 1850, and 7 Dec. 1860; Louis Hachette, Projet de statuts pour les sociétés de secours mutuels et de prévoyance à établir en faveur des ouvriers et des employés de l’industrie et du commerce (Paris: Imprimerie E. Thunot, 1849); and Mollier, Louis Hachette, 274–275. Mutual aid and provident societies were later sponsored by the Cercle in paper manufacturing and bookselling. See Chronique, 1 and 8 April 1865. On the aid of the British publishers during the Franco-Prussian War, see CRCA, 7 Feb., 17 Feb., 17 Mar., 17 Nov., and 22 Dec. 1871; Chronique, 25 Feb., 1 July, and 15 July 1871; and IMEC, BCL 10 (Aide des Anglais). On the retirement home endowed by Galignani, which was inaugurated in July 1889, see CRCA, 19 June 1885, 17 June 1887, 15 Mar. 1889, 24 May 1889, and 20 June 1890; and Chronique, 6 Mar. 1886, 2 Mar. 1889, 30 Mar. 1889, 27 July 1889, and 8 Mar. 1890. On the orphanage, see Chronique, 18 Nov. 1899. 21. On the holiday in honor of the patron saint Jean-Porte-Latine, see, for example, Chronique, 5 May 1860 and 6 June 1874. For examples of the marriage rituals of members of the Cercle, see the report on the wedding between Paul Mame (son of the printer Alfred Mame) and Marie Dalloz (daughter of the legal publisher Armand Dalloz) in the Feuilleton, 5 Mar. 1859; and the reference to a donation to the caisse de secours of five hundred francs by the publisher Calmann Lévy on the occasion of his daughter’s marriage, in CRCA, 17 Aug. 1877. On the celebration of the fiftieth anniversary in the trade of J.-B. Baillière, see Chronique, 12 Dec. 1868. On

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the retirement party for the bookstore clerk Roussel, see Chronique, 9 Mar. 1867. A banquet was held for another “elder” of the Cercle, Ambroise Firmin-Didot, in March 1873 (Chronique, 22 Mar. 1873). 22. On the importance of funerals to the corporate idiom, see Sewell, Work and Revolution in France, 36. On the funeral rituals of the Cercle, see Chronique, 6 Aug. 1864 (Hachette), 4 Mar. 1876 (Firmin-Didot), and 23 July 1859 (Furne). In 1849, the administrative council of the Cercle voted to write an obituary of any member who died and to send a delegation of five members to his funeral (Feuilleton, 15 Sept. 1849). 23. On the restriction of association under the July Monarchy and Second Empire, see Huard, “Political Association in Nineteenth-Century France.” 24. On the cercle as a form of association, see Maurice Agulhon, Le cercle dans la France bourgeoise, 1810–1848: Étude d’une mutation de sociabilité, Cahiers des Annales, vol. 36 (Paris: Armand Colin, 1977), esp. 17, 23, and 40; Benoît Lecoq, “Les cercles à Paris à la fin du Second Empire et au début de la Troisième République, 1860–1901” (Master’s Thesis, Université de Paris I, Panthéon-Sorbonne, 1982), esp. 24 and 46–47; Andrew Lincoln, “Le syndicalisme patronal à Paris de 1815 à 1848: Une étape de la formation d’une classe patronale,” Le mouvement social, no. 114 (Jan.–Mar. 1981): 11–34; and Charles Yriarte, Les cercles de Paris, 1828–1864 (Paris: Librairie Parisienne, Dupray de la Mahérie, 1864). 25. Charles-Henri Flammarion, preface to Le Cercle de la Librairie, 1847–1997, 7; and Cercle de la Librairie, de l’Imprimerie, de la Papeterie, etc., rue Bonaparte et quai Malaquais: Statuts (Paris: Imprimerie de J. Claye, n.d. [1858]), in a collection of documents on the Cercle, B.N., 4-Q-1261. These statutes were a revised version of the original ones (of which no copies can be found), issued at the time of the association’s reconstitution in 1856. For other versions of the statutes, see Archives du Cercle, IMEC, BCL 1.3. 26. On the project to construct a building for the Cercle, see CRCA, 16 June 1876, 21 June 1876, 16 Mar. 1877, 20 Apr. 1877, 18 May 1877, 15 June 1877, 20 July 1877, 17 Aug. 1877, 21 Sept. 1877, 21 Dec. 1877, 18 Jan. 1878, 29 Mar. 1878, 4 Apr. 1879, 16 May 1879, and 19 Sept. 1879; Chronique, 1 Dec. 1877, 8 Dec. 1877, and 13 Dec. 1879; report by president Georges Hachette to general assembly of Cercle on 7 Mar. 1879, published in Chronique, 15 Mar. 1879; and report by president Georges Hachette to general assembly, 24 Feb. 1880, published in Chronique, 13 Mar. 1880. 27. Cercle de la Librairie, “Règlement intérieur,” IMEC, BCL 12.1. 28. On the organization of a library for the Cercle by J.-B. Baillière, see Feuilleton, 2 Sept. 1848; and CRCA, 18 Oct. 1849, 21 Nov. 1849, 22 Apr. 1850, 9 Oct. 1850, and 12 Dec. 1856. For discussion of the equipment of the billiard room, see, e.g., CRCA, 30 Oct. 1850 and 31 Mar. 1855. For the authorization of the visit by the expert billiard player, see CRCA, 27 Dec. 1849. Leisure associations became subject to a tax on their dues in the summer of 1871, according to the minutes of the administrative council of the Cercle, 15 Sept. 1871. In 1889, this tax was extended to the property

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of such organizations. On the decision to abandon the billiard tables, see CRCA, 28 Mar. 1890, 18 Apr. 1890, 16 May 1890, 18 July 1890, 26 Dec. 1890, and 18 Oct. 1895; and Chronique, 19 Apr. 1890 and 7 Mar. 1891. This decision was explained to the general assembly of the Cercle in a report by the president Henri Belin, on 28 Feb. 1896, published in the Chronique on 7 Mar. 1896. For Paul Delalain’s memory of the billiard games, see “Mon Autobiographie,” 77–78. 29. Baillière, Note complémentaire de la Notice historique, 17–18, and manuscript letter from Alfred Firmin-Didot to J.-B. Baillière, 15 Feb. 1882, both in IMEC, BCL 1; Feuilleton, 2 Sept. 1848 and 15 Sept. 1849; and Paul Delalain, “Mon autobiographie,” 77–78. For numbers of visitors to the Cercle, see Feuilleton, 29 June 1850 and 6 Dec. 1851; and speech by president Jules Hetzel to general assembly, 24 Feb. 1899, printed in Chronique, 4 Mar. 1899. For examples of the efforts to increase attendance at the Cercle, see Chronique, 27 Dec. 1862, 12 Feb. 1870, and 13 Mar. 1880. 30. For examples of the parties, banquets, exhibitions, and other special events organized by the Cercle, see CRCA, 11 Jan. 1848; Feuilleton, 2 Feb. 1850 and 8 Mar. 1851; Chronique, 26 Feb. 1859, 21 Jan. 1860, 31 Mar. 1866, 13 July 1867, 27 July 1867, 12 Feb. 1870, 19 Feb. 1876, 23 Dec. 1882, 27 Jan. 1883, 27 Feb. 1886, 27 Jan. 1894, 2 Mar. 1895, and 5 Feb. 1898. On the exposition of the works of Gustave Doré, see Chronique, 28 Feb. and 7 Mar. 1885. The quotation about the Cercle comes from Jules Delalain, speech at banquet on occasion of thirteenth anniversary of Cercle de la Librairie, 19 Jan. 1860, printed in Chronique, 21 Jan. 1860. 31. On the debate surrounding the reconstitution of the Cercle, see CRCA, 9 Nov. 1855, 26 Nov. 1855, 1 Dec. 1855, 7 Dec. 1855, 11 Dec. 1855, 26 Dec. 1855, 25 Jan. 1856, 26 Jan. 1856, 8 Feb. 1856, 15 Feb. 1856, 5 Mar. 1856, 2 Apr. 1856, and 25 Apr. 1856. Quotation from CRCA, 15 Feb. 1856. On the efforts of the Cercle to retain its identity as a social club, see, for example, annual report by president Armand Templier to general assembly, 27 Feb. 1891, printed in Chronique, 7 Mar. 1891. 32. Cercle de la Librairie: Statuts. 33. On the gradual acceptance and specialization of trade associations in nineteenth-century France, see Soubiran-Paillet, L’invention du syndicat, esp. chap. 5 (“Formes d’organisations ouvrières et chambres syndicales”). 34. On the Cercle’s function as an information clearinghouse for the book trade, see Le Cercle de la Librairie, 1847–1997: 150 ans d’actions pour le livre et ses métiers, 58–61. On the transfer of ownership of the Bibliographie de la France from the printer Pillet to the Cercle, see CRCA, 13 and 14 Oct. 1856. On the reorganization of the content of the publication, see CRCA, 28 Oct., 17 Nov., 25 Nov., and 12 Dec. 1856; and Feuilleton, 29 Nov. 1856. For subscription figures for the Bibliographie de la France, see, for example, CRCA, 2 July 1858 and 4 Feb. 1859; and report by president Georges Hachette to general assembly of Cercle on 7 Mar. 1879, printed in Chronique, 15 Mar. 1879. For an example of the publications on literary property law published under the auspices of the Cercle, see Jules Delalain, Législation de la propriété littéraire (Paris: Jules Delalain, 1852; rev. 1854, 1855, 1858, and 1862). On

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the technical library, see CRCA, 15 Jan. 1886 and 16 Feb. 1894; report by president Armand Templier to general assembly of Cercle, 26 Feb. 1892, printed in Chronique, 5 Mar. 1892; report by president Henri Belin to general assembly, 28 Feb. 1896, printed in Chronique, 7 Mar. 1896; and report by president René Fouret, 2 Mar. 1900, printed in Chronique, 10 Mar. 1900. On the association’s role as a placement office, see CRCA, 11 Jan. 1861; and Chronique, 19 Jan. 1861. On the establishment of the “declaration bureau,” see Chronique, 14 and 28 Jan. 1882. 35. Following the national industrial exhibition of 1849, for instance, the Cercle threw a banquet in honor of members of the book trade who had received recognition (Feuilleton, 15 Dec. 1849). On the exhibit held at the new hôtel of the Cercle in 1880, see Chronique, 24 Apr., 1 May, 29 May, 5 June, 12 June, 19 June, 26 June, 3 July, 17 July, 24 July, 14 Aug., and 6 Nov. 1880; and CRCA, 16 Feb., 19 Mar., 23 Apr., 18 June, and 16 July 1880. On the collective exhibit for the Exposition in Vienna, see CRCA, 5 Sept. 1873; and Chronique, 19 Oct. 1872 and 15 Feb. 1873. For the quotation about the number of prizes awarded to members of the Cercle at the Exposition of 1878 in Paris, see Blanchot, Cercle de la Librairie . . . : Notice historique, 47–48. 36. On the corporate tradition of trade regulation, see Sewell, Work and Revolution in France, 29–30. For examples of the parères issued by the Cercle, see CRCA, 2 Apr. 1851, 20 Nov. 1851, 6 Apr. 1852, and 15 Feb. 1878. On the decision by the administrative council to publicize these parères in the Bibliographie de la France, see CRCA, 2 Apr. 1851 and 9 Jan. 1852. On the judicial committee of the Cercle, see CRCA, 15 Mar. 1861, 19 Mar. 1863, 11 Dec. 1863, 6 Dec. 1872, 15 Jan. 1875, 5 Feb. 1875, 5 Mar. 1875, 19 Mar. 1875, 16 Apr. 1875, 15 Mar. 1878, 21 Mar. 1879, 29 Apr. 1883; Chronique, 12 Sept. 1863; report by president Jules Basset to general assembly of Cercle on 10 Mar. 1876, published in Chronique, 18 Mar. 1876; and report by president Georges Hachette to general assembly on 2 Mar. 1879, published in Chronique, 15 Mar. 1879. In 1866, the judicial committee handled two hundred cases (annual report by president Louis Bréton, 8 Mar. 1867, printed in Chronique, 16 Mar. 1867); in 1867, it handled 266 (annual report by president Louis Bréton to general assembly, 13 Mar. 1868, printed in Chronique, 21 Mar. 1868); during 1870 and 1871, it handled 266 (annual report by president Charles Laboulaye, printed in Chronique, 24 Feb. 1872); in 1872, it handled 314, of which 187 were settled (annual report by president Georges Masson, printed in Chronique, 3 Mar. 1873). 37. Speech by Laurent-Antoine Pagnerre to general assembly of Cercle, 10 Jan. 1850, printed in Feuilleton, 19 Jan. 1850. Other members of the Cercle who were prominent in civic and political affairs included Paul Dupont, who was elected to the Corps Législatif in the 1850s and 1860s; J.-B. Baillière, who served on the board of the Banque de France in the early 1850s; E. Thunot, who served as president of the Conseil des Prud’hommes in the early 1860s; and Louis Hachette, Eugène Roulhac, Emile Baillière, Georges Hachette, Georges Masson, and Henri Belin, all of whom represented the book trade on the Chamber of Commerce of Paris at various points in the second half of the nineteenth century. Georges Masson was even

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elected to the presidency of the Chamber of Commerce in 1898. On the democratization of the system of election by notables, see Nord, “Commercial Politics,” chap. 3 of The Republican Moment, 48–63. For a reference to the number of members of the Cercle who were eligible to be named notables, see CRCA, 19 Mar. 1863. 38. Blanchot, Cercle de la Librairie . . . : Notice historique, 12; CRCA, 28 Jan. 1850; annual report by president Georges Masson to general assembly of Cercle, printed in Chronique, 8 Mar. 1873. 39. Here, I am referring particularly to Harrison, The Bourgeois Citizen in Nineteenth-Century France; and Davidson, France after Revolution.

5. Louis Hachette and the Defense of the Publisher 1. Chronique of the Bibliographie de la France, 21 Jan. 1860. 2. Here I am referring especially to Jean-Yves Mollier, Louis Hachette, 1800– 1864: Le fondateur d’un empire (Paris: Fayard, 1999), esp. chap. 11 (“À l’assaut de la distribution”); and Eileen S. DeMarco, Reading and Riding: Hachette’s Railroad Station Bookstore Network in Nineteenth-Century France (Bethlehem, PA: Lehigh University Press, 2006). For previous descriptions of Hachette’s railroad enterprise, see also Goulven Guilcher, “La rivalité Chaix-Hachette pour la conquête du marché de la lecture ferroviaire en France, 1846–1865,” Revue d’histoire des chemins de fer, hors-série no. 3 (1992): 279–293 and 305; and Goulven Guilcher and Claude Witkowski, “La Bibliothèque des Chemins de Fer,” Bulletin du Bibliophile 4 (1987): 474–500. 3. This brief overview of the early career of Hachette is derived from Mollier, Louis Hachette. For additional biographical information, see Jean Mistler, La Librairie Hachette de 1826 à nos jours (Paris: Hachette, 1964). 4. Mollier, Louis Hachette, 293–301; DeMarco, Reading and Riding, 26; Guilcher, “La rivalité Chaix-Hachette,” 283–284. 5. See Mollier, Louis Hachette, 301–310; and DeMarco, Reading and Riding, 26– 30. For the contract between Louis Hachette and the Compagnie du Chemin de Fer du Nord, dated 25 May 1852, see CAMT, 202 AQ 1731. On the English publisher W. H. Smith, see Charles Wilson, First with the News: The History of W. H. Smith, 1792–1972 (New York: Doubleday, 1986). Unlike Hachette, Smith did not possess a monopoly on sales of books and periodicals in railroad stations throughout the country. 6. The letter from Louis Hachette to the minister of police, Charlemagne-Émile de Maupas, dated 20 December 1852, was reprinted in Louis Hachette, Réponse de MM. L. Hachette et Cie. à la Simple note addressée par M. Chaix, Imprimeur, à LL. EXC. MM. les Ministres de l’Intérieur et des Travaux publics et à MM. les Administrateurs des chemins de fer sur le droit de vendre des livres dans les gares et stations des chemins de fer (Paris: Typographie de Ch. Lahure, Sept. 1854), B.N., Vp-28389, pp. 7–8. The reply from Maupas to Hachette, dated 17 May 1853, was reprinted in

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Gervais Charpentier, Du monopole de MM. Hachette et Cie. pour la vente des livres dans les gares des chemins de fer (Paris: Charpentier, 1861), B.N., 4-Q-Pièce-61, p. 7. For the assertion that Maupas did not intend to authorize stationary bookstalls, see Napoléon Chaix, Réponse de Napoléon Chaix au Mémoire de M. Hachette, publié à l’occasion de l’enquête faite par la Commission du colportage sur les Bibliothèques des chemins de fer (Paris: Imprimerie et librairie centrales des chemins de fer de Napoléon Chaix, 1861), B.N., Q-1492, p. 7. On the legal context surrounding Hachette’s railroad station bookstore network, see also Mollier, Louis Hachette, 311–312; and DeMarco, Reading and Riding, 61–71. On the regulation of colportage during the Second Empire, see Jean-Jacques Darmon, Le colportage de librairie en France sous le Second Empire: Grands colporteurs et culture populaire (Paris: Plon, 1972), 69–72 and 101–122; Pierre Cassell, “Le régime législatif,” in HEF 3:42–50; Claude Witowski, “Une censure de classe: La Commission du colportage, 1852–1881,” Monographies des éditions populaires, no. 8 (1986); and Patrick Lahurie, Contrôle de la presse, de la librairie et du colportage sous le Second Empire, 1852–1870 (Paris: Archives Nationales, 1995), xiii–xviii. 7. For previous descriptions of Hachette’s Bibliothèque des Chemins de Fer, see (in addition to Mollier’s Louis Hachette and DeMarco’s Reading and Riding) Guilcher and Witkowski, “La Bibliothèque des chemins de fer”; and Guilcher, “La rivalité Chaix-Hachette.” 8. Napoléon Chaix, Simple note sur le droit accordé à M. Hachette de vendre des livres dans les gares et stations des chemins de fer soumise à leurs Excellences Messieurs les Ministres de l’Intérieur et des Travaux publics, et à Messieurs les Administrateurs des chemins de fer (Paris: Imprimerie centrale des chemins de fer de Napoléon Chaix, 1854), B.N., Vp-28552; and Chaix, Deuxième note de M. Napoléon Chaix, Imprimeur-Libraire, sur le droit accordé à M. Hachette de vendre des livres dans les gares et stations des chemins de fer, soumise à leurs Excellences Messieurs les Ministres de l’Intérieur et des Travaux publics et à Messieurs les Administrateurs des chemins de fer (Paris: Imprimerie centrale des chemins de fer de Napoléon Chaix, 1854), B.N., Vp-29119. On 15 November 1854, Chaix appended to these two notes some additional observations, which were reprinted in a pamphlet of 1861, Réponse de Napoléon Chaix au Mémoire de M. Hachette. The letter from Chaix to the minister of police, dated 29 November 1852, was reproduced in Simple note, 2. For biographical information on Napoléon Chaix, see Guilcher, “La rivalité Chaix-Hachette”; HEF 3:239 and 573; and file of obituaries on Chaix, IMEC, BCL1.II3-. 9. Chaix, Simple note, 3. 10. Louis Hachette, Réponse de MM. L. Hachette et Cie. à la Simple note adressée par M. Chaix, imprimeur, à LL. EXC. MM. les Ministres de l’Intérieur et des Travaux publics et à MM. les Administrateurs des chemins de fer sur le droit de vendre des livres dans les gares et stations des chemins de fer (Paris: Typographie de Ch. Lahure, 1854), B.N., Vp-28389; and Hachette, Réponse de MM. L. Hachette et Cie. à la Deuxième

292

Notes to Pages 165–170

note de M. Chaix (Paris: Ch. Lahure, n.d. [1854]), B.N., Vp-28388. Quotations from Réponse de MM. L. Hachette et Cie. à la Simple note, 10. 11. Chaix, Deuxième note, 9–10; Mollier, Louis Hachette, 294; Chaix, Un dernier mot de M. Napoléon Chaix en réponse à la note publiée par M. Hachette les 15–29 octobre 1861 (Paris: Imprimerie centrale des chemins de fer de Napoléon Chaix et Cie., 1861), A.N., F172681, p. 5. 12. CRCA, 16 Sept. 1859. 13. CRCA, 4 Nov. 1859; [Napoléon Chaix], Rapport au Conseil d’administration du Cercle de la librairie et de l’imprimerie, par la commission nommée pour l’examen de la question concernant l’établissement des magasins de librairie dans les gares (Paris: Imprimerie centrale des chemins de fer de Napoléon Chaix et Cie, 1859), CAMT, 202 AQ 1733. 14. [Napoléon Chaix], Rapport au Conseil d’administration du Cercle de la librairie, 9. 15. CRCA, 4 Nov. 1859. On the competition among publishers in the education sector, see Alain Choppin, “Le Pouvoir et les livres scolaires au XIXe siècle: Les Commissions d’examen des livres élémentaires et classiques, 1802–1875” (Doctoral Thesis, Université de Paris I, 1989); and Mollier, Louis Hachette, 123–130, 140–154, 189–213, and 322. 16. CRCA, 2 Dec. 1859. The report by Delalain was later reproduced as an appendix to a pamphlet by Hachette, Mémoire sur les Bibliothèques des chemins de fer à l’occasion de l’enquête ouverte par la Commission du colportage (Paris: Imprimerie de Ch. Lahure, 1861), B.N., Q-1211, pp. 58–63. 17. CRCA, 23 Dec. 1859. The proposal by Chaix for a Syndicat de la Librairie was later reproduced in Napoléon Chaix, Réponse de M. Napoléon Chaix au Mémoire de M. Hachette, 30–32. The provisional statutes for such a syndicate were described in Napoléon Chaix, Affaire des Bibliothèques des chemins de fer: Création d’un Syndicat de la librairie française (Paris: Napoléon Chaix, 1861), B.N., Q-1493. The contract between Hachette and other publishers was reproduced in Hachette, Mémoire sur les Bibliothèques, 63–64. 18. CRCA, 23 Dec. 1859, 20 Jan. 1860, and 1 June 1860; Gervais Charpentier, Du monopole de MM. Hachette et Cie, 18–19. 19. Manuscript letter from Napoléon Chaix to “Monsieur Mathias, Ingénieur, Inspecteur principal des Chemins de fer du Nord,” 31 May 1860, CAMT, 202 AQ 1733; letter from Louis Hachette to “Monsieur Mathias, Ingénieur, Inspecteur principal des Chemins de fer du Nord,” 9 Nov. 1860, CAMT, 202 AQ 1733; questionnaire on sale of books by Hachette in the railroad stations by Administration of the Book Trade, 7 Sept. 1861, A.N., F18554; list of information demanded by Commission du Colportage, with accompanying letter from Count Sérurier, commissioner-reporter of investigation, 7 Sept. 1861, and anonymous manuscript response to questionnaire, IMEC, BCL1.II3- (Rivalité Chaix-Hachette); Hachette, Mémoire sur les Bibliothèques, 9–10.

Notes to Pages 171–174

293

20. Form letter from Louis Hachette to his colleagues in the book trade, 8 Sept. 1861, reprinted in Chaix, Réponse de M. Napoléon Chaix au Mémoire de M. Hachette, 1, n. 1; Louis Hachette, Mémoire sur les Bibliothèques (dated 10 Sept. 1861), esp. 7; letter from Louis Hachette to president and administrative council of Cercle de la Librairie, 16 Sept. 1861, copied in CRCA, 20 Sept. 1861. 21. Chaix, Réponse de M. Napoléon Chaix au Mémoire de M. Hachette; Chaix, Affaire des Bibliothèques des chemins de fer; and Chaix, Un dernier mot de M. Napoléon Chaix en réponse à la note publiée par M. Hachette les 15–29 octobre 1861 (dated 5 Nov. 1861) (Paris: Imprimerie centrale des chemins de fer de Napoléon Chaix et Cie., 1861), A.N., F172681. On the printer’s efforts to obtain approval for his Syndicat de la Librairie from the administration and the book trade, see letter from Chaix to Directeur de l’Imprimerie et de la Librairie au Ministère de l’Intérieur, 6 Jan. 1862, and form letter from Chaix to his colleagues in publishing, 1 Mar. 1862, B.N., Vp-23753. 22. DeMarco, Reading and Riding, 82–83, based on letters, editorials, and pamphlets found in the Archives Hachette. Some of these sources were reproduced in Louis Hachette, La question des Bibliothèques des chemins de fer et la brochure de M. Charpentier (Paris: Imprimerie de Ch. Lahure et Cie., 1861), B.N., Vp-27929. 23. Gervais Charpentier, Du monopole de MM. Hachette et Cie, 3 and 31–32; and Revue nationale et étrangère, politique, scientifique, littéraire, 25 Mar. 1862, 10 Apr. 1862, and 10 May 1862. 24. Louis Hachette, La question des Bibliothèques des chemins de fer et la brochure de M. Charpentier (dated Dec. 1861), 33. In October, Hachette had also published another response to the most recent pamphlet by Chaix, Examen de la Réponse de M. Napoléon Chaix au Mémoire sur les Bibliothèques des chemins de fer (Paris: Imprimerie de Ch. Lahure, 1861), B.N., Vp-24984. 25. CRCA, 20 Sept. 1861, 31 Nov. 1861, and 5 Feb. 1862; note from president Eugène Roulhac on behalf of the administrative council of the Cercle de la Librairie, Chronique, 16 Nov. 1861. The decision by the administrative council of the Cercle to send a delegation to the director of the Administration of the Book Trade in protest against the questionnaire of the Commission du Colportage was criticized by Charpentier, on the grounds that it constituted a show of support for Hachette by an association that was supposed to represent the “corporation” of the book trade (Du monopole de MM. Hachette et Cie., 28–29). 26. The report by Victor Foucher was discussed by Charpentier in his Revue nationale et étrangère, 10 Apr. and 10 May 1862. On the decision of the minister of the interior, see letter from Persigny to Hachette, 31 Mar. 1862, copied in CRCA, 6 June 1862, and cited in Mollier, Louis Hachette, 318. On the letter to the minister of the interior in support of Hachette signed by forty-seven of his authors, see Mollier, Louis Hachette, 318, and Mistler, La Librairie Hachette, 134, based on Hachette, La question des Bibliothèques des chemins de fer, 22. The decision by the minister was denounced, for example, by Charpentier, who engaged in a polemical exchange

294

Notes to Pages 175–177

with him in the spring of 1862. See Revue nationale et étangère, 10 Apr., 25 Apr., and 10 May 1862. 27. DeMarco, Reading and Riding, 82–83; Mollier, Louis Hachette, 412. 28. Letter from the administrative council of the Cercle de la Librairie to the minister of public works, Yves Guyot, 25 Apr. 1891, CAMT, 202 AQ 1733; DeMarco, Reading and Riding, 101–116; and Elisabeth Parinet, “Les Bibliothèques de gare, un nouveau réseau pour le livre,” Romantisme, no. 80 (1993): 95–106. On the publisher Ernest Flammarion, see also Elisabeth Parinet, La Librairie Flammarion, 1875–1914 (Paris: IMEC Éditions, 1992). 29. The French government organized national industrial exhibitions in 1798, 1801, 1802, 1806, 1819, 1823, 1827, 1834, 1839, and 1844. For lists of exhibitors and prizes in the typographical arts at these exhibitions, see Catalogue détaillé des produits industriels, exposés au Champ-de-Mars, sous les soixante-huit arcades, avec les noms, départemens et demeures des artistes et manufacturiers qui ont concouru à l’Exposition (Paris: Imprimerie du Journal Gratuit, 1798), B.N., 8-V-Pièce-7478; Seconde Exposition publique des produits de l’industrie française: Procès-verbal des opérations du jury nommé par le Ministre de l’Intérieur pour examiner les produits de l’industrie française mis à l’exposition des jours complémentaires de la neuvième année de la République (Paris: Imprimerie de la République, Year X [1802]), B.N., 8-Pièce11433; Exposition de 1806: Rapport du jury sur les produits de l’industrie française, présenté à S. E. M. de Champagny, Ministre de l’Intérieur, précédé du procès-verbal des opérations du jury (Paris: Imprimerie impériale, 1806), B.N., 8-V-5742; Exposition de 1819: Rapport du Jury central sur les produits de l’industrie française (Paris: Imprimerie Royale, 1819), B.N., 8-Z-Le Senne-13314; L. Héricart de Thury, Rapport du Jury d’admission des produits de l’industrie du département de la Seine, à l’Exposition du Louvre, en 1823 (Paris: C. Ballard, Imprimeur du Roi, 1825), B.N., 8-Z-Le Senne-12168; Rapport du Jury départemental de la Seine sur les produits de l’industrie admis au concours de l’Exposition publique de 1827, 2 vols. (Paris: Imprimerie de Crapelet, 1829 and 1832), B.N., V-49014 and 49015; Baron Charles Dupin, Rapport du Jury central sur les produits de l’industrie française exposés en 1834, 2 vols. (Paris: Imprimerie Royale, 1836), B.N., 8-Z-Le Senne-12742; and Exposition publique des produits de l’industrie française, 1844: Catalogue officiel, 2nd ed. (Paris: Typographie de Cosson, n.d.), B.N., 8-Z-Le Senne-12485. On the history of the international expositions, see especially Robert W. Rydell, All the World’s a Fair: Visions of Empire at American International Expositions, 1876–1916 (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1984); Brigitte Schroeder-Gudehus and Anne Rasmussen, Les fastes du progrès: La guide des Expositions universelles, 1851–1992 (Paris: Flammarion, 1992); Whitney Walton, France at the Crystal Palace: Bourgeois Taste and Artisan Manufacture (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1992); and Leora Auslander, Taste and Power: Furnishing Modern France (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1996), esp. 203–220 and 231–242. For a preliminary overview of the participation of French publishers in the international exhibitions, see Isabelle

Notes to Pages 178–181

295

Weiland, “L’édition française à travers les Expositions universelles, 1851–1915” (D.E.A. paper, École des Hautes Études en Sciences Sociales, 1993). 30. C. L. F. Panckoucke, four letters to members of the jury of the national industrial exhibition of 1834, IMEC, BCL1.AA1- (Brochures sur Édition); Léon Curmer, Note présentée à MM. les Membres du Jury central de l’Exposition des produits de l’industrie française sur la profession d’éditeur et le développement de cette industrie dans le commerce de la librairie française (Paris: Imprimerie de A. Éverat, 1839), B.N., Vp-5821, pp. 6 and 23. 31. E[douard] Dentu, “Empire français, Groupe II, Classe 6: Produits d’imprimerie et de librairie,” in Exposition universelle de 1867 à Paris: Catalogue général publié par la Commission impériale, vol.1, Première partie (Groupes I à V) contenant les oeuvres d’art, 2e livraison, Matériel et applications des arts libéraux (Groupe II—Classes 6 à 13) (Paris: E. Dentu; London: J. M. Johnson & Sons, 1867), B.N., V-38419, p. 7; Jules Delalain, Compte rendu de l’Exposition universelle de 1855, Publications de l’Association des imprimeurs de Paris, 1856, no. 12 (Paris: Imprimerie de Pillet fils, 1856), B.N., 8V-Pièce-11707, p. 28; [Charles] Laboulaye, “Classe XXVIII, Typographie, impressions, papeterie et reliure: Section I, Impressions en tous genres,” in Exposition universelle de Londres de 1862: Rapports des membres de la Section française du Jury international sur l’ensemble de l’exposition, ed. Michel Chevalier (Paris: Imprimerie et librairie centrales des chemins de fer de Napoléon Chaix et Cie., 1862), B.N., V-38238, vol. 5, p. 389. For another example of these arguments, see Georges Masson, Expositions internationales, Londres 1872: Librairie et imprimerie, Rapport de M. G. Masson, Président du Cercle de la librairie, de l’imprimerie, etc. (Paris: Imprimerie nationale, 1873), IMEC, BCL2.B20.01-01. 32. On the protest over the exclusion of publishers from the International Exhibition of 1851, see Ambroise Firmin-Didot, “Imprimerie, librairie, papeterie et industries auxiliaires,” in Travaux de la Commission française sur l’industrie des nations, publiés par ordre de l’Empereur (Paris: Imprimerie impériale et nationale, 1854–1873), B.N., V-38365, vol. 5, p. 63; CRCA, 27 Feb. 1851; and speech by Laurent-Antoine Pagnerre to general assembly of Cercle de la Librairie, printed in Feuilleton of Bibliographie de la France, 6 Dec. 1851. 33. Letter from Gervais Charpentier to “Monsieur le Directeur du Journal de la librairie,” 28 Nov. 1855, published in the Feuilleton, 1 Dec. 1855. For a list of the recipients of prizes in the category of typography at the International Exposition in Paris in 1855, see Exposition universelle de 1855: Rapports du Jury mixte international publiés sous la direction de S.A.I. le Prince Napoléon, Président de la Commission impériale (Paris: Imprimerie impériale, 1856), B.N., V-14614; and Exposition des produits de l’industrie de toutes les nations 1855: Catalogue officiel publié par ordre de la Commission impériale (Paris: E. Panis, Éditeur; Imprimerie de Serrière, n.d.), B.N., V-38377. 34. Louis Hachette, À S.A.I. le Prince J. Napoléon, Président de la Commission impériale de l’Exposition universelle de 1862 (Paris: Imprimerie Pillet fils aîné, n.d.

296

Notes to Pages 182–184

[1861]), B.N., Vp-8205, pp. 4–5; CRCA, 12 July 1861; Chronique, 13 Apr., 18 May, 13 July 1861, and 10 Aug. 1861. 35. See draft “Observations concernant la pétition de MM. les Libraires-Éditeurs à la Commission impériale de l’Exposition universelle de 1862,” IMEC, BCL1.AA1-; and letter from Napoléon Chaix to Prince Jérôme Napoléon on behalf of the “Chambre des imprimeurs et des notabilités de l’imprimerie,” undated, printed in Chronique, 10 Aug. 1861. This letter was signed by a number of preeminent printers (several of whom were members of the Cercle de la Librairie), including Henri Plon (president of the Chambre des Imprimeurs), Ambroise Firmin-Didot, and Jules Delalain. In response to this letter, Hachette submitted a reply to the 10 Aug. 1861 issue of the Chronique, reiterating his assertion that the publisher “has the principal honor in the publication of a book.” 36. Letter from the secretary general of the Imperial Commission of the International Exposition of 1862, Frédéric Le Play, to Louis Hachette, undated, published with an introduction by the vice president of the Cercle de la Librairie, Victor Masson, in Chronique, 17 Aug. 1861; Charles Laboulaye, “Classe XXVIII, Typographie, impressions, papeterie et reliure: Section I, Impressions en tous genres,” in Exposition universelle de Londres de 1862, 5:389. 37. CRCA, 3 Mar. 1865 and 28 Apr. 1865; Mistler, La Librairie Hachette, 201; Paul Boiteau, “Classe 6: Produits d’imprimerie et de librairie,” in Exposition universelle de 1867 à Paris: Rapports du Jury international publiés sous la direction de M. Michel Chevalier, membre de la Commission impériale, vol. 2, Groupe II: Classes 6 à 13 (Paris: Imprimerie administrative de Paul Dupont, 1868), B.N., V-38454, p. 43; René Fouret, “Rapport sur l’imprimerie et la librairie,” in Exposition internationale et universelle de Philadelphie, 1876: France, Commission supérieure, Rapports (Paris: Imprimerie nationale, 1877), B.N., 4-V-331, p. 393; and Émile Martinet, Exposition universelle internationale de 1878 à Paris, Rapports du Jury international: Groupe II, Classe 9: L’imprimerie et la librairie (Paris: Imprimerie nationale, 1880), B.N., 8-V-5625, p. 56. Although the International Exposition of 1872 in London included publishing as well as printing, there were no juries and hence no prizes for either group. 38. Letter from the president of the Chambre des Imprimeurs to the minister of commerce and industry, dated 22 Sept. 1886, and letter from the president of the Cercle de la Librairie (Paul Delalain) to the same, dated 7 Oct. 1886, both published in the Chronique, 23 Oct. 1886. On the position of the Cercle, see also CRCA, 1 Oct. 1886. Both associations also presented their request for the separation of printing and publishing to the general director of planning for the International Exposition of 1889. See CRCA, 22 Oct. 1886; Chronique, 23 Oct. 1886; and report to the general assembly of the Cercle de la Librairie by the president Paul Delalain on 22 Feb. 1887, printed in Chronique, 5 Mar. 1887. In the end, printers and publishers competed for the same prizes at the Exposition of 1889. See René Fouret, “Classe 9: Imprimerie et librairie,” in Ministère du Commerce, de l’industrie et des colonies, Exposition

Notes to Pages 184–190

297

universelle internationale de 1889 à Paris: Rapports du Jury international publiés sous la direction de M. Alfred Picard, Inspecteur général des ponts et chausées, Président de section au Conseil d’état, Rapporteur général, vol. 2, part 2, Groupe II, 2e partie: Matériel et procédés des arts libéraux: Classes 9 à 16 (Paris: Imprimerie nationale, 1891), B.N., 4-V-3148 (2,2), p. 6. 39. Ministère du Commerce, de l’industrie, des postes et des télégraphes, Exposition universelle internationale de 1900 à Paris: Rapports du Jury international, vol. 3, Groupe III, Instruments et procédés généraux des lettres, des sciences et des arts: Classes 11–18 (Paris: Imprimerie Nationale, 1902), B.N., 4-V-5501 (3), pp. 5 and 227. On the book trade at the Exposition of 1900, see also Lucien Layus, La librairie, l’édition musicale, la presse, la reliure, l’affiche à l’Exposition universelle de 1900: Recueil précédé d’une Notice historique (Paris: Cercle de la Librairie; Imprimerie D. Dumoulin, 1900), B.N., 4-Q-945. 40. Mollier, Louis Hachette, 444 and 447–448. For statistics on the sales and employees of the firm at the moment of the International Exposition of 1878 in Paris, see [Hachette et Cie.], Notes sur la Librairie Hachette et Cie., Juin 1878 (Paris: Imprimerie E. Martinet, n.d. [1878]).

6. The Divorce between State and Market 1. On the regulation of publishing—and the reaction to it—under the Second Empire, see my article, “The Politics of Publishing under the Second Empire: The Trial of Madame Bovary Revisited,” French Politics, Culture, and Society 23, no. 2 (Summer 2005): 1–27; Pierre Casselle, “Le régime législatif,” in HEF 3:42–48; and Yvan Leclerc, Crimes écrits: La littérature en procès au 19e siècle (Paris: Plon, 1991). 2. As late as 1861, the Division of Press, Printing and Publishing at the Ministry of the Interior rejected a request from the printers of Paris to establish a chambre syndicale. See A.N., Série F 6317, Enregistrement de la Correspondance au Départ: Année 1861, nos. 3056 (to minister of the interior, 25 Sept.) and 3274 (to minister of police, 5 Oct.). 3. For overviews of the political history of the Second Empire, see Theodore Zeldin, The Political System of Napoleon III (New York: W. W. Norton, 1958), and Émile Ollivier and the Liberal Empire of Napoleon III (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1963); Alain Plessis, The Rise and Fall of the Second Empire, 1852–1871, trans. Jonathan Mandelbaum (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1985; first pub. in French, 1973); Stuart L. Campbell, The Second Empire Revisited (New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press, 1978); and Roger Price, The French Second Empire: An Anatomy of Political Power (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2001). 4. For examples of the recent reassessment of the role of the Second Empire in the emergence (and ambiguity) of modern republicanism in France, see Philip Nord, The Republican Moment: Struggles for Democracy in Nineteenth-Century France (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1995); and Sudhir Hazareesingh, From Subject

298

Notes to Pages 191–193

to Citizen: The Second Empire and the Emergence of Modern French Democracy (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1998). 5. On this commission, see A.N., F172651. Named by the minister of public instruction at the request of the minister of foreign affairs, the commission included two former education ministers who had demonstrated an interest in the issue of literary property, François Guizot and Abel-François Villemain. This commission solicited the opinion of several members of the book trade, including Ambroise Firmin-Didot. For Firmin-Didot’s responses to the questions posed by the commission, see the manuscript “Réponse de Mr. Ambroise Firmin Didot aux questions posées par la Commission de l’Institut pour le projet de traité pour la propriété littéraire entre la France et l’Angleterre,” CAMT, 179 AQ 2. 6. For evidence of the campaign by publishers—especially Laurent-Antoine Pagnerre—against literary piracy in the late 1840s and early 1850s, see Feuilleton, 29 Apr. 1848, 16 Nov. 1850, and 30 Nov. 1850; CRCA, 6 and 25 July 1849; LaurentAntoine Pagnerre Papers, A.N., 67 AP 10; J.-B. Baillière, Le Cercle de la Librairie . . . : Note complémentaire de la Notice historique (Paris: Imprimerie Emile Martinet, Jan. 1882), IMEC, BCL 1; Jules Renouard, Progrès de la contrefaçon, Dénonciation et protestation: Les éditeurs de “L’Histoire des peintres” à Messieurs les membres du Cercle de la librairie, etc. (Paris: Renouard et Cie.; Imprimerie de W. Remquet et Cie., n.d. [1851]), B.N., Q-6658 and Q-6659; and letters from the publishers of Alphonse de Lamartine’s Histoire de la Restauration (including Gosselin, Pagnerre, Furne) complaining about the counterfeiting of this book to the Belgian newspapers L’Indépendance, 25 Apr. 1851, and L’Émancipation, 9 May 1851, reprinted in Question de la propriété littéraire: Contrefaçon étrangère (Paris: Plon frères, n.d. [1851]), A.N., F182360. For evidence of Louis-Napoléon’s support for the extension of literary property, see Pierre-Joseph Proudhon, Les majorats littéraires: Examen d’un projet de loi ayant pour but de créer, au profit des auteurs, inventeurs et artistes, un monopole perpétuel (Paris: E. Dentu, 1863; first ed., Brussels: [Imprimerie de A. N. Lebègue], 1862), which quotes Louis-Napoléon as having said in response to a work entitled Monautopole, “Intellectual work is a property like a field, like a house; it must enjoy the same rights and must be alienated only for reasons of public utility” (17). On the Société pour la Poursuite des Contrefaçons Littéraires et Artistiques en France et à l’Etranger, see the Feuilleton of the Bibliographie de la France, especially 10, 24, and 31 Apr. 1852; and the Bulletin de la Société pour la défense de la propriété littéraire et artistique, 1854–1856, IMEC, Bibliothèque du Cercle de la Librairie. This society was incorporated into the Cercle de la Librairie on 20 Dec. 1856, after which time it published its announcements and reports in the Chronique of the Bibliographie de la France. 7. On these measures, see Moniteur universel, 29 and 30 Mar. 1852; Feuilleton, 28 Aug. 1852; Moniteur universel, 10 Mar. and 21 Apr. 1854; Hermann Dopp, La contrefaçon des livres français en Belgique, 1815–1852 (Louvain: Librairie universitaire, 1932), 200–201 and 206–220. On the role of the Cercle in initiating these

Notes to Pages 194–197

299

measures and especially the decree of March 1852, see Bulletin de la Société pour la défense de la propriété littéraire et artistique, esp. number 16, which included a report by the president Jules Delalain that claimed that “The honorable solicitations of the French book trade, the persevering efforts of the Cercle de l’imprimerie et de la librairie [sic] and of its president, our colleague Pagnerre, were not foreign to this so memorable fact [the unilateral recognition of literary property] in the history of our industries.” On the decline of Belgian literary piracy, see Dopp, La contrefaçon des livres français en Belgique, 159–201. 8. For the proceedings of the Congress of Brussels, see Cercle de la Librairie, Congrès de la propriété littéraire et artistique: Compte rendu des travaux du Congrès (Paris: Imprimerie de Pillet fils aîné, n.d. [1858]), B.N., 4-Q-1261; and Chronique, 13 Feb., 3 Apr., 19 June, 14 Aug., 28 Aug., 4 Sept., 11 Sept., 18 Sept., 25 Sept., 2 Oct., 9 Oct., 16 Oct., 23 Oct., 30 Oct., 13 Nov., 20 Nov., 27 Nov., 4 Dec., and 11 Dec. 1858. 9. Report by Louis Hachette on behalf of the joint committee of the Cercle de la Librairie and the Commission des Auteurs et Compositeurs Dramatiques, Observations sur les questions de propriété littéraire et artistique qui doivent être soumises au Congrès de Bruxelles le 27 septembre 1858 adressées au Comité d’organisation du Congrès par le Cercle de la librairie, de l’imprimerie et de la papeterie françaises et par la Commission des auteurs et compositeurs dramatiques du même pays (Paris: Cercle de la Librairie; Imprimerie Jules Claye, 1858), B.N., 4-Q-1261, pp. 9–10. Other members of the Cercle de la Librairie who served on this committee were J.-B. Baillière, Jules Baudry, Gervais Charpentier, Jules Tardieu, Jules Delalain, and J.-F. Lippert. In the months leading up to the congress, other publishers also wrote in favor of recognition of literary property as universal and perpetual. See, for example, a poem written by the Romantic publisher Léon Curmer, La propriété intellectuelle est un droit: À M. J.-T. de Saint-Germain, membre de l’Académie impériale des sciences, belles-lettres et arts de Rouen (Paris: E. Dentu; Bruxelles: Perrichon, 1858), B.N., Ye-19382. 10. Manuscript letter from Ambroise Firmin-Didot to Victor Foucher, undated [mid-1858], CAMT, 179 AQ 2. Foucher, who was the brother-in-law of Victor Hugo, was a counselor at the Cour de Cassation in France. 11. The delegates from the Cercle were Jules Delalain (president of the Cercle and thus of its delegation), Napoléon Chaix, Gervais Charpentier, François-Jules Colombier, Auguste Durand, Charles Furne, J.-B. (Adolphe) Goupil, Urbain-Gilbert Guillaumin, Louis Hachette, Kaeppelin, Labé, Charles Lahure, Joseph Lemercier, Michel Lévy, Victor Masson, and Jules Tardieu. Accompanying these delegates were Georges Guiffrey, a lawyer at the Imperial Court of Paris who had undertaken a mission to Germany on behalf of the Cercle and who had authored a brochure on the “Unity to Introduce in International Legislation on Literary and Artistic Property” (1855), and Armand Tardieu, a lawyer in Brussels who had been representing the French publishing industry there. 12. Cercle de la Librairie, Congrès de la propriété littéraire et artistique: Compte rendu des travaux du Congrès, 26. On the interventions of Hachette, Foucher, and

300

Notes to Pages 198–200

Furne, see [François-Jules] Colombier, Lettre addressée à M. le Président du Cercle de la librairie sur le Congrès de Bruxelles, par M. Colombier, éditeur de musique, délégué au Congrès de Bruxelles par le Cercle de la librairie (Paris: Imprimerie de JulesJuteau, n.d. [1858]), B.N., *E-5648, pp. 4–5; “Rapport de M. Victor Foucher, conseiller à la Cour de cassation de France, au nom de la deuxième section, concernant la propriété des oeuvres de littérature et d’art en général,” in Cercle de la Librairie, Congrès de la propriété littéraire et artistique: Compte rendu des travaux du Congrès, 13–26; and Gervais Charpentier, Obituary of Charles Furne, Magasin de librairie, July–Aug. 1859, p. 319. 13. [Jules Delalain], Cercle de la librairie, de l’imprimerie, de la papeterie, etc.: Compte rendu de la mission remplie par MM. les délégués du Cercle au Congrès de Bruxelles, lu à l’assemblée générale du vendredi 22 octobre 1858 (Paris: Imprimerie de J. Claye, 1858), B.N., 4-Q-1261, pp. 6 and 8. 14. Chronique, 30 Oct. 1858; CRCA, 5 Nov. 1858; and Colombier, Lettre adressée à M. le Président du Cercle de la librairie sur le Congrès de Bruxelles, 4–5. Colombier’s letter was mentioned in the Chronique, 4 Dec. 1858. 15. For biographical information on Pierre-Jules Hetzel, see A. Parménie and C. Bonnier de la Chapelle, Histoire d’un éditeur et de ses auteurs: P.-J. Hetzel (Stahl) (Paris: Éditions Albin Michel, 1953); Christian Robin, ed., Un éditeur et son siècle: Pierre-Jules Hetzel, 1814–1886 (Saint-Sébastien: ACL Édition, 1988); special issue of Europe on Hetzel (Nov.–Dec. 1980); special issue of Arts et métiers du livre on Hetzel (Jan. 1987); Jean-Paul Gourevitch, Hetzel: Le bon génie de livres (Paris: Éditions du Rocher / Le Serpent à plumes, 2005); Odile Martin and Henri-Jean Martin, “Le monde des éditeurs,” in HEF 3:210–213; and Jean-Yves Mollier, L’argent et les lettres: Histoire du capitalisme d’édition, 1880–1920 (Paris: Fayard, 1988), esp. chap. 9 (“Les Frères Garnier, les Hetzel Père et Fils, Pierre Larousse et les siens ou les vraies grandeurs de l’édition”). 16. Pierre-Jules Hetzel, letter to the editor of L’Indépendance belge, 3 Oct. 1858, reprinted in La propriété littéraire et le domaine public payant (Bruxelles: Imprimerie de Veuve J. Van Buggenhoudt, n.d. [1860]), B.N., 4-F-11434, p. 7. To Hetzel’s letter, the president of the Congress of Brussels replied, in a letter published in L’Indépendance belge on 10 Oct. 1858, that the idea of a “paying public domain” had already been rejected as impracticable by the commission on literary property appointed by the regime of Charles X in 1825–1826. This letter was in turn followed on 14 Oct. 1858 by another from Hetzel, in which he blamed the bookdealers on the commission of 1825–1826 (Didot and Renouard) for the failure of the proposal of a fee-based system for reproducing work from the public domain. 17. Hetzel, La propriété littéraire et le domaine public payant, 5–6 and 19. This brochure was followed by a letter of endorsement of the “paying public domain” by Victor Hugo. Prior to the Congress of Brussels, Hetzel had published a couple of other writings on the subject of literary property: Lettre aux écrivains, aux artistes et aux

Notes to Pages 201–203

301

éditeurs belges et français sur la contrefaçon (1853) and Note sur la contrefaçon, de son abolition et de ses conséquences (1854), the latter of which is reprinted in Jan Baetans, ed., Le combat du droit d’auteur (Paris: Les Impressions Nouvelles, 2001), 133–137. 18. See the manuscript “Copie d’une dépêche adressée à S. Exc. Monsieur le Ministre de l’Intérieur par S. Exc. Monsieur le Ministre des Affaires Étrangères, 20 décembre 1858,” A.N., F182360. For biographical details on Count Walewski, see Joseph Valynseele, “Walewski (Alex., comte),” in Dictionnaire du Second Empire, ed. Jean Tulard (Paris: Fayard, 1995). 19. See correspondence between ministers of foreign affairs, state, and the interior, ca. 1858–1861, A.N., F182360. As early as 1860, the Chronique of the Bibliographie de la France announced that a commission on literary property would be named “in the coming days” under the jurisdiction of the minister of the interior (Chronique, 7 Jan. and 16 June 1860). On the history of the commission appointed in 1861, see A.N., F182359 and 2360; Ministère d’État: Commission de la propriété littéraire et artistique, Rapports à l’Empereur, décrets, collection des procès-verbaux, documents (Paris: Imprimerie impériale; Librairie de Firmin Didot frères et Cie., 1863), BHVP, in-4, 104252; and Chronique, throughout 1862 and 1863. 20. Commission de la propriété littéraire et artistique, Rapports à l’Empereur, pp. 16–65. 21. See Louis Hachette, deposition before subcommission on literary property, 13 May 1862, in Commission de la propriété littéraire et artistique, Rapports à l’Empereur, pp. 84–90; and manuscript letter from Louis Hachette to Jules Simon, undated [Feb. or Mar. 1862], Jules Simon Papers, A.N., 87 AP 4. On Simon’s involvement in the campaign for perpetuity, see also letter from Alfred Darimon to Pierre-Joseph Proudhon, in which he chastised Proudhon for sparing Simon in his attack on the proponents of perpetuity in Les majorats littéraires, 11 May 1862, reprinted in Alfred Darimon, L’opposition libérale sous l’Empire, 1861–1863 (Paris: E. Dentu, 1886), 213–214. On the Association for the Defense of Literary Property, see Chronique, 7 Apr. 1860. In addition to Hachette and Simon, the members of this association included Louis Alloury, editor of the Journal des débats; Étienne Blanc, a lawyer at the Imperial Court; Colombier, the music publisher who had protested against the compromise recommended by the Congress of Brussels; Guiffrey, the lawyer at the Imperial Court who had attended this congress; Édouard Laboulaye, a lawyer and professor (and brother of the publisher Charles Laboulaye) who had authored a study of literary property entitled Études sur la propriété littéraire en France et en Angleterre (Paris: A. Durand, 1858); Jules Mareschal, the former chief of the Administration of the Book Trade at the Ministry of the Interior; X.-B. Saintine, a man of letters; and Auguste Vitu, the editor of the Constitutionnel. For other examples of advocates of extended literary property rights, see the depositions before the subcommission, 13 May, 16 May, 19 May, 22 May, and 24 May 1862, in Commission de la propriété littéraire et artistique, Rapports à l’Empereur, pp. 91–94, 99–103,

302

Notes to Pages 203–205

107–110; and the following pamphlets and books: Adrien-Joseph Gastambide, Historique et théorie de la propriété des auteurs (Paris: Cosse et Marchal, 1860); Comité de l’Association pour la défense de la propriété littéraire [Hachette], La propriété littéraire et artistique (Paris: Hachette, 1862); idem, De l’application du droit commun à la propriété littéraire et artistique (Paris: Hachette, 1862); idem, La propriété littéraire sous le régime du domaine public payant (Paris: Hachette, 1862); L. Curmer, La propriété littéraire et artistique (Paris: E. Dentu, 1862); Georges Guiffrey, De la propriété intellectuelle au point de vue du droit et de l’histoire (Paris: Institut Polytechnique, 1862); Frédéric Passy, Victor Modeste, and P. Paillottet, De la propriété intellectuelle: Études, preface by Jules Simon (Paris: E. Dentu, 1859); and Jules Delalain, Législation de la propriété littéraire et artistique, suivie d’un résumé du droit international français et de la législation des pays étrangers (Paris: Delalain, 1862). 22. Pierre-Joseph Proudhon, Les majorats littéraires. Because it contained sections questioning the legitimacy of property, Proudhon’s pamphlet was censored by the government before being published in France. See note from “Services de l’imprimerie, de la librairie, de la propriété littéraire, de la presse et du colportage” in the ministry of the interior, on Les majorats littéraires by P.-J. Proudhon (Brussels: Alph. Lebègue, 1862), 24 May 1862, A.N., F182367. For examples of pamphlets against perpetual literary property by members of the book trade, see F. Amyot, La propriété littéraire et le domaine de l’Etat: Mémoire adressé à la Commission de la propriété littéraire (Paris: Imprimerie de Charles Lahure, n.d. [1862]), B.N., *E-5788; and J. Gay, Ce qu’on appelle la propriété littéraire est nuisible aux auteurs, aux éditeurs et au public: Lettre adressée à MM. les membres de la Commission instituée à l’effet de préparer un projet de loi pour réglementer la propriété littéraire et artistique, précédée d’un avant-propos (Paris: Chez l’auteur, 1862), B.N., *E-5495. 23. Ambroise Firmin-Didot, Observations présentées à la Commission de la propriété littéraire et artistique (Paris: Typographie d’Ambroise Firmin-Didot, 1862), Archives de la Chambre du Commerce et de l’Industrie de Paris, 15 Mi 45; and deposition to the sixth meeting of the subcommission, 19 May 1862, in Commission de la propriété littéraire et artistique, Rapports à l’Empereur, pp. 97–98. Firmin-Didot’s brochure was distributed to all of the members of the commission, according to the minutes of the second meeting of the commission on 3 Feb. 1862, in Commission de la propriété littéraire et artistique, Rapports à l’Empereur, p. 43. For the decree naming Firmin-Didot to the 1861 commission on literary property, as well as his notes on this question, see CAMT, 179 AQ 260. 24. Gervais Charpentier, “De la prétendue propriété littéraire,” Revue nationale et étrangère, politique, scientifique, littéraire 8 (10 Feb. and 25 Feb. 1862): 441–453 and 590–605; and note on nomination of commission to prepare a bill on literary and artistic property, Revue nationale et étrangère, politique, scientifique, littéraire 8 (10 Jan. 1862): 154. The quotation comes from the issue of 10 Feb. 1862, p. 441. 25. Charpentier, “De la prétendue propriété littéraire,” 602–603.

Notes to Pages 206–210

303

26. Report of [Pierre-Antoine] Lebrun to the fourth meeting of the commission on literary property, 14 Aug. 1862, in Commission de la propriété littéraire et artistique, Rapports à l’Empereur, pp. 167–168. 27. See minutes of meetings of the commission on literary property, 22 Jan., 27 Jan., 6 Feb., 13 Feb., and 20 Mar. 1863, in Commission de la propriété littéraire et artistique, Rapports à l’Empereur. 28. For the decision of the Conseil d’Etat, see Conseil d’Etat, Distribution du 26 décembre 1864, No. 1977 bis, Avis relatif à un projet de loi sur la propriété littéraire [discussed and adopted by Conseil d’Etat, 9 and 16 Dec. 1864], and accompanying manuscript letter from president of the Conseil d’Etat, Ad. Vuitry, to minister of public instruction, 27 Dec. 1864, A.N., F172652; and Compte général des travaux du Conseil d’État depuis le 25 janvier 1852 jusqu’au 31 décembre 1860 présenté à Sa Majesté l’Empereur par le Ministre Président du Conseil d’Etat (Paris: Imprimerie impériale, Jan. 1862), B.N., Lf100-3. The decision of the Conseil d’Etat was also discussed in the Chronique of the Bibliographie de la France, 26 Nov. and 31 Dec. 1864. For the account of the commission on literary property given by Alfred Darimon, see his memoir, L’opposition libérale sous l’Empire, 210–217. 29. “Projet de loi relatif aux droits des héritiers et des ayants cause des auteurs, precédé du décret de présentation et de l’exposé des motifs, transmis, sur les ordres de l’Empereur, par le ministre d’État, au Président du Corps législatif ” (19 Feb. 1866), Annales du Sénat et du Corps législatif, 1866, vol. 1, annexe 60–67. For evidence of the role of Princess Mathilde in the drafting of this new bill on literary property, see the copy of her petition to the emperor, 1 Jan. 1865, as well as of a letter from Paul de Musset and Amédée Thierry (brothers of Alfred de Musset and Augustin Thierry) to the emperor, demanding extension of the rights of authors to collateral heirs, 30 Oct. 1865, both in A.N., F172652; and Les héritiers d’Alfred de Musset contre M. Charpentier, éditeur: Mémoire pour M. Charpentier ([Paris]: n.p., 1867), B.N., Factum 4-Fm-22860, pp. 27–28. 30. “Projet de loi relatif aux droits des héritiers et des ayants cause des auteurs”; and “Rapport fait au nom de la commission chargée d’examiner le projet de loi relatif aux droits des héritiers et des ayants cause des auteurs, par M. Perras, député du Corps législatif ” (24 May 1866), Annales du Sénat et du Corps législatif, 1866, vol. 6, annexe 48–56. 31. For evidence of the effort by publishers to influence the legislature against Article 2 of the bill, see Note adressée à MM. les membres de la commission nommée pour l’examen du projet de loi relatif à la propriété littéraire par le Cercle de la Librairie au nom des éditeurs de librairie, de musique et d’étampes (Paris: Cercle de la Librairie, 1866), A.N., F172652. 32. For the debate over the bill on literary property (1-2, 4-5, 14, and 27 June 1866), see Annales du Sénat et du Corps législatif, 1866, vol. 7, 25–50, 59–77, 79–105, 131–137; vol. 8, 61 and annexe 20–22; vol. 10, 6–22 and 35–36. For the speeches by Jules Simon (on 2 and 4 June), see Annales du Sénat et du Corps législatif, 1866, vol.

304

Notes to Pages 210–215

7, 72–76 and 95–100. The quotation from the bill’s reporter is from “Rapport fait au nom de la commission chargée d’examiner le projet de loi relatif aux droits des héritiers et des ayants cause des auteurs, par M. Perras, député au Corps législatif,” 49. According to the publisher Gervais Charpentier, the Corps Législatif almost did not vote on the measure before the end of its legislative session, because it feared that it was too late to help the heirs of Musset; however, Charpentier assured the legislature that Musset’s copyrights had not yet expired. See Les héritiers d’Alfred de Musset contre M. Charpentier, éditeur, 30–31. 33. For the discussion in the Senate (on 6 July 1866), see Annales du Sénat et du Corps législatif, 1866, vol. 10, 211–216. 34. On international negotiation on intellectual property, see Jean Cavalli, La genèse de la Convention de Berne pour la protection des oeuvres littéraires et artistiques du 9 septembre 1886 (Lucerne: Imprimeries Réunies, 1986); Berne Convention for the Protection of Literary and Artistic Works from 1886 to 1986 (Geneva: International Bureau of Intellectual Property, 1986); Saunders, “The Internationalisation of Copyright and Authorship,” chap. 7 of Authorship and Copyright; and Seville, The Internationalisation of Copyright Law, esp. chap. 3 (“Towards the Berne Union”). 35. On the various measures to reform the licensing system during the Second Republic, see communications between the director of the book trade and the minister of the interior, regarding a commission to reevaluate the regulation of the book trade, circa Apr. 1848, A.N., F18568; Pierre Leroux, proposal for additional amendment to the constitution, “L’imprimerie ne peut être soumise à aucun monopole,” Assemblé nationale, 20 Sept. 1848, Moniteur universel, 21 Sept. 1848; “Rapport fait par M. Martel, au nom de la treizième commission d’initiative parlementaire, sur la proposition de MM. Dain, Richardet, Sommier, Crestin, Derriey, Michel (de Bourges), Madier-Montjau, tendant à l’abrogation de l’article 12 de la loi du 21 octobre 1814” (26 Nov. 1850), Compte rendu des séances de l’Assemblée nationale législative, vol. 10, annexe p. 182, and retraction of this “proposition” by its authors, 29 Nov. 1850, Compte rendu des séances de l’Assemblée nationale législative, vol. 10, p. 453; “Assemblée Nationale, 14 février 1851: Rapport de la 15e commission d’initiative parlementaire sur la proposition de MM. Dain, Michel (de Bourges), et MadierMontjau, relative au libre exercice des professions de libraire et d’imprimeur,” Moniteur universel, 15 Feb. 1851, p. 542; and Jules Delalain, Recueil de documents officiels relatifs au régime de l’imprimerie publié par J. Delalain, Président du Congrès des imprimeurs de France (Paris: Charles Noblet, 1867), B.N., 8-Q-3734 [7], 20–30. 36. [Louis Hachette], L’instruction populaire et le suffrage universel (Paris: Imprimerie de Ch. Lahure, 1861), B.N., Lb56–1111. Quotations from pp. 21 and 6. The “eminent statesman” is identified as the Count de Morny by Jean-Yves Mollier in Louis Hachette, 1800–1864: Le fondateur d’un empire (Paris: Fayard, 1999), 413. 37. Victor Masson, “Résumé” of Hachette’s brochure, Chronique, 23 Feb. 1861; Charles Laboulaye, “Des moyens d’assurer en France un grand développement aux arts graphiques: Extrait des Rapports des Membres de la Section française du Jury

Notes to Page 216

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international sur l’Exposition universelle de Londres en 1862 (Classe XXVIII, section 1, chapitre 9),” reprinted in La liberté de la librairie et de l’imprimerie: Recueil de pièces publié à l’occasion de l’enquête votée par le Corps législatif, ed. Charles Laboulaye (Paris: Bibliographie de la France / Pillet, 1869), BHVP in-octavo 30762, pp. 37–42; Édouard Laboulaye, “L’instruction publique et le suffrage universel,” Revue nationale et étrangère, politique, scientifique, littéraire, 10 Apr. 1861, pp. 331–336; Frédéric Thomas, editorial for Le Siècle, 25 Jan. 1864, mentioned in his deposition to the commission appointed by the minister of the interior to investigate the regulation of the book trade in 1869–1870, Ministère de l’Intérieur, Enquête sur les questions relatives au régime de la librairie et du colportage ([Paris]: [Imprimerie Impériale], n.d. [1870]), BHVP, folio 10475, session of 11 Dec. 1869, pp. 1–5; and Émile de Girardin, Les droits de la pensée: Questions de presse, 1830–1864 (Paris: Michel Lévy frères, 1864). 38. For evidence of Michel Chevalier’s endorsement of freedom of commerce in the book trade, see Laboulaye, “Des moyens d’assurer en France un grand développement aux arts graphiques,” p. 37, note 1. On the debate over the press bill of 1861, see Moniteur universel, 3, 4, 14, 17, 19, 22, and 28 June 1861; and Darimon, L’opposition libérale sous l’Empire, 83–85 and 88–89. According to Darimon, this bill was an attempt to protect the newspaper Opinion nationale, which had already received two condemnations and would be suspended if it received another. 39. On the position of the Administration of the Book Trade, see manuscript “Note” entitled “Liberté de l’imprimerie et de la librairie: Examen de la question,” on letterhead of Ministère de l’Intérieur, Direction générale de la Sûreté publique, Division de l’imprimerie et de la librairie, Paris, 23 Oct. 1865, A.N., F182370. 40. Ernest Pinard, “Exposé des motifs d’un projet de loi sur la presse,” presented to the Corps Législatif, 13 Mar. 1867, Annales du Sénat et du Corps législatif, 1867, vol. 2, annexe 16–17; also cited in La liberté de la librairie et de l’imprimerie, 45–46. The issuing of new licenses in the late 1860s was protested by Jules Delalain in several letters on behalf of the Syndicat Général des Imprimeurs de France to the minister of the interior (for example, on 14 Dec. 1869, 30 Jan. 1870, and 16 March 1870), IMEC, BCL2.F10-. 41. Ernest Pinard, “Exposé des motifs d’un projet de loi sur la presse,” presented to the Corps Législatif, 13 Mar. 1867, Annales du Sénat et du Corps législatif, 1867, vol. 2, annexe 9–18; Eugène Pelletan, speech to the Corps Législatif, 29 Jan. 1868, Annales du Sénat et du Corps législatif, 1868, vol. 2, 51. On the broader context of the liberalization of the Second Empire, see Zeldin, Émile Ollivier and the Liberal Empire of Napoleon III; and the memoirs of Émile Ollivier, Le 19 janvier: Compte-rendu aux électeurs de la 3e circonscription de la Seine, 2nd ed. (Paris: Librairie Internationale; Bruxelles: A. Lacroix, Verboeckhoven & Cie., 1869), and L’Empire libéral: Études, récits, souvenirs, 2nd ed. 18 vols., (Paris: Garnier Frères, 1895–1918). 42. See Chronique of the Bibliographie de la France, 2 Mar. 1867, 23 Mar. 1867, 30 Mar. 1867, and 21 Mar. 1868; and IMEC, BCL2.F10- (Imprimerie) and

306

Notes to Pages 219–223

BCL2.F30- (Chambre des Imprimeurs). For an example of the defense of the licensing system by a jurist, see V. Groualle (president of the Order of Advocates at the Conseil d’Etat and at the Cour de Cassation), Consultation pour les imprimeurs [des départements] sur le caractère de leurs brevets et la nature des droits qui y sont attachés (Paris: J. Claye, 1867), IMEC, BCL2.F10-. In defense of the maintenance of the license, Delalain published a collection of documents, Recueil de documents officiels relatifs au régime de l’imprimerie (Paris: Ch. Noblet, 1867), B.N., 8-Q-3734. An exception to the opposition to the abolition of licensing among printers was Ernest Hamelin, director of the Gras printing firm in Montpellier, who in 1867 published a brochure in defense of abolition, called La liberté de l’imprimerie au point de vue des intérêts de l’industrie typographique, reprinted in La liberté de la librairie et de l’imprimerie, 156–216. 43. [Henri] Nogent-Saint-Laurens, “Rapport fait au nom de la commission chargée d’examiner le projet de loi relatif à la presse,” Corps Législatif, 15 June 1867, Annales du Sénat et du Corps législatif, 1867, vol. 7, annexe 64–81. 44. Ibid., annexe 75. 45. Speech by Adolphe Thiers to Corps Législatif, 30 Jan. 1868, Annales du Sénat et du Corps législatif, 1868, vol. 2, 87; speech by Eugène Pelletan to Corps Législatif, 13 Feb. 1868, Annales du Sénat et du Corps législatif, 1868, vol. 5, 150. For the debates in the Corps Législatif over the press law of 1868, see Annales du Sénat et du Corps législatif, 1868, vol. 2, 29–31 Jan., 1 Feb., 3–6 Feb.; vol. 5, 7–8 Feb., 10–15 Feb., 17–19 Feb.; vol. 6, 20–22 Feb., 24 Feb., 5–7 Mar., and 9 Mar. 46. For the arguments of Nogent-Saint-Laurens, see, for example, his speeches to the Corps Législatif on 3 Feb. 1868, Annales du Sénat et du Corps législatif, 1868, vol. 4, 152–157; and on 9 Mar. 1868, Annales du Sénat et du Corps législatif, 1868, vol. 6, 251–253. 47. For the discussion of the press bill in the Senate, see Annales du Sénat et du Corps législatif, 1868, vol. 8, 27 Apr., 4–7 May. For the argument of Sainte-Beuve, see transcription of debate from 7 May 1868 (pp. 16–24). 48. “Pétition adressée au Sénat par les éditeurs de Paris,” Jan. 1869, reprinted in La liberté de la librairie et de l’imprimerie, 7–10. 49. Note on letterhead of the First Bureau of the Division de l’Imprimerie et de la Librairie in the Ministry of the Interior, undated [ca. early 1869], A.N., F182370. 50. For the report of this commission, see Ministère de l’Intérieur, Enquête sur les questions relatives au régime de la librairie. For additional coverage of the commission, see Chronique, 14 Aug. 1869; 30 Oct. 1869; 6, 13, and 20 Nov. 1869; 11, 18, and 25 Dec. 1869; 1, 15, and 29 Jan. 1870; and 19 Feb. 1870. 51. See Ministère de l’Intérieur, Enquête sur les questions relatives au régime de la librairie, esp. minutes from 29 Oct. 1869, 5 Nov. 1869, 12 Nov. 1869, 19 Nov. 1869, and 11 Dec. 1869; Laboulaye, ed., La liberté de la librairie et de l’imprimerie; “Enquête sur la liberté de l’imprimerie et de la librairie: Réponses au questionnaire adoptées par la députation du Cercle de la librairie,” Chronique, 13 Nov. 1869; Chenu, “Une douane

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intérieure,” Le Siècle, 12 July 1869, reprinted in Chronique, 31 July 1869; and speech by Jules Simon to an assembly of employees in bookselling at the Cercle de la Librairie, in favor of abolition of licensing, 17 Jan. 1870, printed in Chronique, 29 Jan. 1870. In addition to the Cercle de la Librairie, the following organizations supported the abolition of licensing in their depositions before the investigative commission of 1869–1870: the Chambre du Commerce de Musique, the Chambre des Imprimeurs Lithographes de Paris, the Chambre Syndicale des Imprimeurs en Taille-Douce de Paris, the Société des Conducteurs de Machines d’Imprimerie (with the exception of a few members, according to the printing industrialist and commission member Paul Dupont), the Société Typographique, the Société Libre Typographiqe, the Société des Protes, and most members of the Société des Gens de Lettres and the Syndicat des Journalistes. 52. Ministère de l’Intérieur, Enquête sur les questions relatives au régime de la librairie, esp. depositions by Mourges, 29 Oct. 1869, and by Delalain (along with provincial printers from Tours, Lille, Lyon, Saint-Brieuc, and Bar-sur-Seine), 12 Nov. 1869; Charles de Mourgues, Observations présentées à Messieurs les membres de la Commission d’enquête sur le régime de l’imprimerie et de la librairie, par M. Ch. de Mourgues, Président de la Chambre des imprimeurs de Paris, au nom de la Chambre des imprimeurs et en conformité des résolutions exprimées par l’assemblée génerale des imprimeurs de Paris du 25 octobre 1869 en réponse au questionnaire officiel publié par la Commission d’enquête: Séance de la Commission d’enquête du 29 octobre 1869, IMEC, BCL2.F10-; and Jules Delalain, “À Messieurs les membres de la Commission d’enquête sur l’imprimerie” [printed letter], Paris, 18 June 1870, IMEC, BCL2.F10-. For examples of the legal briefs in defense of the claim that printers should receive an indemnity for the loss of their license, see Henry Celliez, Mémoire pour la Chambre des imprimeurs de Paris sur la question d’indemnité dans le cas où la loi en discussion supprimerait les brevets (Paris: Typographie de Ad. Lainé et J. Havard, 1867); and V. Groualle, Consultation pour les imprimeurs [des départements] sur le caractère de leurs brevets et la nature des droits qui y sont attachés (Paris: J. Claye, 1867), both in IMEC, BCL2.F10-. 53. Ministère de l’Intérieur, Enquête sur les questions relatives au régime de la librairie, deposition by retail booksellers, 19 Nov. and 11 Dec. 1869; and Taride, “Commission d’enquête concernant la liberté de la librairie: Résumé des réponses faites par M. Taride, au nom et comme président (provisoire) de la Société des libraires détaillants, aux questions posées par la Commission, dans la séance du 11 décembre dernier,” Chronique, 29 Jan. 1870. 54. J.-B. Pélagaud (president of the Chambre Syndicale des Imprimeurs de Lyon), De la suppression des brevets imprimeurs et libraires: Réponse des imprimeurs et des libraires de Lyon et du département du Rhône (Lyon: Imprimerie Vingtrinier, n.d. [late 1869 or early 1870]), B.N., 4-Q-245 (4), esp. pp. 1–2 and 6–7. For other examples of opposition to abolition among printers and bookdealers in the provinces, see Réponse des imprimeurs et des libraires du département du Nord au questionnaire de

308

Notes to Pages 225–227

Son Exc. M. le Ministre de l’Intérieur, concernant les modifications qui pourraient être introduites dans la législation et la réglementation de leurs industries (Lille: Imprimerie L. Danel, n.d. [1869]); Eugène Beauvais, Imprimeur-Libraire au Mans, Département de la Sarthe, Mémoire adressé à Son Excellence le Ministre de l’Intérieur, sur la question des brevets d’imprimeur et de libraire: Réponse au questionnaire relatif à l’enquête (Le Mans: Imprimerie Beauvais, 1869); Eugène Beauvais et al., Enquête sur le régime de l’imprimerie: Département de la Sarthe (Le Mans: Ed. Monnoyer, 1869); Protestation des libraires du département de la Loire-Inférieure contre la suppression des brevets: Réfutation des réponses de MM. les éditeurs de Paris, publiées dans le No. 46 (13 Novembre 1869) de la Bibliographie de la France et intitulées OPINION DES EDITEURS DE PARIS (Nantes: Imprimerie Charpentier, n.d. [late 1869 or early 1870]), all at IMEC, BCL2.F10-. On the opposition to the abolition of licensing in Lyon, see also Laure Pabot, “Le passage de la librairie à la librairie à Lyon, 1870–1900,” in Le commerce de la librairie en France au XIXe siècle, 1789–1914, ed. Jean-Yves Mollier (Paris: IMEC Éditions / Éditions de la Maison des Sciences de l’Homme, 1997), 71–79. 55. Pélagaud, De la suppression des brevets imprimeurs et libraires, 11–12; Protestation des libraires du département de la Loire-Inférieure contre la suppression des brevets, 3–5; and “Enquête sur la liberté de l’imprimerie et de la librairie: Réponses au questionnaire adoptées par la députation du Cercle de la librairie,” Chronique, 13 Nov. 1869, response to question number 3, “Convient-il de maintenir l’obligation du brevet pour l’exercice de la profession de libraire?” 56. Exchange between Léon Gambetta and the minister of the interior (Chevandier de Valdrôme) before Corps Législatif, 3 Feb. 1870, Annales du Sénat et du Corps législatif, 1870, vol. 2, 68–69; Ministère de l’Intérieur, Enquête sur les questions relatives au régime de la librairie, 2 Apr. 1870; discussion in Corps Législatif of budgetary proposal to suppress government inspectors of book trade, 12 July 1870, Annales du Sénat et du Corps législatif, 1870, vol. 5, 618–619; and Jules Delalain, printed circular report to members of Syndicat Général des Imprimeurs de France, 20 July 1870, IMEC, BCL2.F10-. 57. For the text of the decree of 11 Sept. 1870, see Moniteur universel, 12 Sept. 1870; and Félix Charriaut, ed., Collection générale des lois et décrets du Gouvernement français à partir du 4 septembre 1870, vol. 1, Gouvernement de la Défense nationale (du 4 sept. 1870 à 11 fév. 1871) (Bordeaux: De Laporte / Librairie centrale, 1871), 13. Due to the war, this decree was not printed in the Chronique of the Bibliographie de la France until 3 Dec. 1870. On the motivations of the leaders of the Government of National Defense, see Jules Favre, Gouvernement de la Défense nationale du 30 juin au 31 octobre 1870 (Paris: Henri Plon, 1871), esp. 210–211 and 242; Adolphe Crémieux, Gouvernement de la Défense nationale: Actes de la Délégation à Tours et à Bordeaux: Compte rendu (Tours: Ernest Mazereau, 1871); and Jules Simon, Souvenirs du 4 septembre: Origine et chute du Second Empire et le Gouvernement de la Défense nationale (Paris: Librairie illustrée, 1874), esp. 264.

Notes to Pages 227–229

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58. For evidence of the support of the Cercle de la Librairie, see annual report by president Jules Basset to general assembly, 10 Mar. 1876, printed in Chronique, 18 Mar. 1876. 59. On the reaction of the Cercle de la Librairie to the bill, see speech by president Georges Masson to annual general assembly, 6 Feb. 1874, quoted in Chronique, 14 Feb. 1874; letter from Masson to president of legislative committee, transcribed in Chronique, 14 Mar. 1874; and speech by Masson to annual general assembly, 19 Feb. 1875, quoted in Chronique, 27 Feb. 1875. 60. See Pétition de la Chambre des maîtres imprimeurs de Paris à l’Assemblée nationale, juin 1871, signed by J.-Ch. de Morgues, president (Paris: Imprimerie Jouaust, n.d. [1871]); printed letter from Jules Delalain to members of Syndicat Général des Imprimeurs de France, announcing upcoming meeting at Cercle de la Librairie, 20 June 1871; “Projet de loi sur la librairie, présentée par M. le maréchal de MacMahon” (16 Dec. 1873), Annales de l’Assemblée nationale, vol. 28, annexe 259–260; Pétition des imprimeurs brevetés de Paris tendant au remboursement de la valeur de leurs brevets supprimés par le décret du Gouvernement de la Défense nationale en date du 10 septembre 1870 (Paris: Imprimerie G. Jousset, n.d. [1883]), accompanied by a printed letter from G. Jousset, president of the Chambre des Imprimeurs, to Deputies of the National Assembly, 30 Sept. 1883; Assemblée Nationale, Annexe au procès-verbal de la séance du 29 novembre 1875: Rapport fait au nom de la 18e Commission des pétitions sur la pétition de M. de Mourgues, président de la Chambre des imprimeurs de Paris, relative au décret du 10 septembre 1870 sur les brevets des imprimeurs, par M. Taillefert, membre de l’Assemblée nationale, no. 3481 (Versailles: Cerf & fils, n.d. [1875]); Sénat, Annexe au procès-verbal de la séance du 21 juin 1876: Proposition de loi concernant les imprimeurs et libraires atteints par le décret du 10 septembre 1870, présentée par M. Houssard, Sénateur (Versailles: A. Bourdilliat, n.d. [1876]); and Sénat, Annexe au procès-verbal de la séance du 8 août 1876: Rapport sommaire fait au nom de la 5e Commission d’initiative parlementaire chargée d’examiner la proposition de résolution de MM. Taillefert et Houssard, tendant à la nomination d’une commission de neuf membres, chargée de présenter une proposition de loi ayant pour but de statuer sur les conséquences du décret du 10 septembre 1870, à l’égard des imprimeurs, par M. le Baron de Ravignan, Sénateur, no. 214 (Versailles: A. Bourdilliat, n.d. [1876]). All of these are found in IMEC, BCL2.F10-. See also Journal officiel, 20 Feb. and 25 Feb. 1877; and Chronique, 29 July 1871, 4 May 1872, 27 Dec. 1873, 24 Jan. 1874, 7 Feb. 1874, 21 Feb. 1874, 28 Feb. 1874, 7 Mar. 1874, 14 Mar. 1874, 21 Mar. 1874, 28 Mar. 1874, 9 May 1874, and 5 June 1880. 61. Bulletin officiel du Ministère de la Justice, 1881, pp. 122–123, quoted in Pierre Casselle, “Le régime législatif,” in HEF 3:48. 62. Émile Ollivier, L’Empire libéral: Etudes, récits, souvenirs, 2nd ed., vol. 10, p. 401 note. 63. For examples of the repeated demands of printers and booksellers that the government address the effects of the decree of 10 Sept. 1870, see the following

310

Notes to Pages 229–231

references, all held in IMEC, BCL2.F10-: undated petition from “les Imprimeurs de Paris” to the National Assembly [early 1870s]; Jules Delalain, Indemnité due aux imprimeurs de Paris pour la suppression de leurs brevets, Publication de la Chambre Syndicale des Imprimeurs de Paris (Paris: Jules Delalain et Fils, 1873); Eugène Plon, letter to editor of Journal de Paris (which was widely reprinted in other newspapers), 21 June 1873; Jules Delalain and Charles Noblet, president and secretary of Syndicat des Imprimeurs de France, État légal des brevets d’imprimeur en lettres (Paris: Imprimerie Delalain, 25 June 1875); Bureau du Congrès des Imprimeurs de France (Jules Delalain, president), Un Dernier mot sur les brevets d’imprimeur (Paris: Charles Noblet, n.d.); printed circular letter from formerly licensed printers of Paris (organized by Jousset, president of the Chambre des Imprimeurs), to Deputies of National Assembly, demanding indemnity, in 1883. See also Bulletin de l’imprimerie (1876–1882), esp. 12 Aug. 1877; and Bulletin des libraires, esp. 1 June 1896, 1 Aug. 1896, 1 Dec. 1896, and 1 Feb. 1897. 64. See, for example, Nord, The Republican Moment; and Hazareesingh, From Subject to Citizen. 65. This point has been made, though without more than passing reference to the period analyzed in detail here, by Carla Hesse, “Enlightenment Epistemology and the Laws of Authorship in Revolutionary France, 1777–1793,” Representations 30 (Spring 1990): 109–137; Saunders, Authorship and Copyright, esp. chap. 3 (“France: From Royal Privilege to the Droit Moral”); Jane C. Ginsburg, “A Tale of Two Copyrights: Literary Property in Revolutionary France and America,” in Of Authors and Origins: Essays on Copyright Law, ed. Brad Sherman and Alain Strowel (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1994), 131–158; and Gregory S. Brown, “After the Fall: The Chute of a Play, Droits d’Auteur, and Literary Property in the Old Regime,” French Historical Studies 22, no. 4 (Fall 1999): 465–491. For the earlier view that French law placed more emphasis on the rights of authors, especially their socalled moral rights, see Henri Desbois, Le droit d’auteur en France, 3rd ed. (Paris: Dalloz, 1978). This view is still recycled in legal scholarship on intellectual property—for example, in Catherine Seville, The Internationalisation of Copyright Law. 66. As Jeremy Popkin (following Gerd van den Heuvel and Marcel Gauchet) has suggested, French practice continues to differ from the more libertarian AngloAmerican tradition in placing limits on what can be expressed via the press, out of concern for collective harmony. See Popkin, “Citizenship and the Press in the French Revolution,” in The French Revolution and the Meaning of Citizenship, ed. Renée Waldinger, Phililp Dawson, and Isser Woloch (Westport, CT: Greenwood Press, 1993), 126. A similar point is made by Charles Walton in Policing Public Opinion in the French Revolution: The Culture of Calumny and the Problem of Free Speech (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2009), esp. 231–233. On the collaboration of the Cercle de la Librairie with the Nazi Occupation, see Pascal Fouché, L’édition française sous l’Occupation, 1940–1944 (Paris: Bibliothèque de littérature française contempo-

Notes to Pages 232–234

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raine de l’Université de Paris VII, 1987); and Jean-Yves Mollier, Édition, presse et pouvoir en France au XXe siècle (Paris: Fayard, 2008), esp. chap. 2 (“La guerre et les compromissions de l’édition française”).

Epilogue: The Effects of Liberalization 1. On the broader context of economic liberalism in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, see Richard Kuisel, Capitalism and the State in Modern France: Renovation and Economic Management in the Twentieth Century (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1981), esp. chap. 1 (“The Liberal Order of 1900”). 2. On deregulation in these other countries, see Frédéric Barbier, L’Empire du livre: Le livre imprimé et la construction de l’Allemagne contemporaine, 1815–1914 (Paris: Éditions du Cerf, 1995), esp. 132; Norbert Bachleitner, “The Politics of the Book Trade in Nineteenth-Century Austria,” Austrian History Yearbook 28 (1997): 95–111; and John Feather, A History of British Publishing (London: Croom Helm, 1988), esp. chap. 12 (“The Organization of the Trade in the Nineteenth Century”). On the international systematization of intellectual property, see David Saunders, “The Internationalisation of Copyright and Authorship,” chap. 7 of Authorship and Copyright (London: Routledge, 1992). For a broad comparative study of the history of publishing in the modern era, see Jacques Michou and Jean-Yves Mollier, eds., Les mutations du livre et de l’édition dans le monde (Saint-Nicolas, Québec: Les Presses de l’Université de Laval, 2001). 3. William St. Clair, The Reading Nation in the Romantic Period (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2004). 4. On the late nineteenth-century French literary field, see Jean-Yves Mollier, L’argent et les lettres: Histoire du capitalisme d’édition, 1880–1920 (Paris: Fayard, 1988); Pierre Bourdieu, The Field of Cultural Production, trans. Randal Johnson (New York: Columbia University Press, 1993); and Bourdieu, The Rules of Art: The Genesis of the Literary Field, trans. Susan Emanuel (Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 1996). On the birth of the “intellectual,” see Christophe Charle, Naissance des “intellectuels” (Paris: Éditions de Minuit, 1990). 5. Henri Baillière, La crise du livre (Paris: Librairie J.-B. Baillière et fils, 1904), 10 and 37. 6. Ernest Flammarion, Quelques types de libraires et éditeurs de 1866 à 1875, et Souvenirs du Paris démoli (Paris: Imprimerie Hemmerlé, 1933), 30. 7. Frédéric Barbier, “Libraires et colporteurs,” in HEF 3:265–272; and Laure Pabot, “Le passage de la librairie à la librairie à Lyon, 1870–1900,” in Le commerce de la librairie en France au XIXe siècle, 1789–1914, ed. Jean-Yves Mollier (Paris: IMEC Éditions / Éditions de la Maison des Sciences de l’Homme, 1997), 75 and 77. Martyn Lyons, following the research of Claude Savart, disagrees that the decree of 10 September 1870 was instrumental in increasing the

312

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number of bookdealers, but their data are based on prefectoral reports, which exclude Paris. See Martyn Lyons, Le triomphe du livre: Une histoire sociologique de la lecture dans la France du XIXe siècle (Paris: Promodis / Éditions du Cercle de la Librairie, 1987), 196–197; and Claude Savart, “La liberté de la librairie (10 septembre) et l’évolution du réseau des libraires,” Revue française du histoire du livre 22 (1979): 91–121, based on research in A.N., F182295–2309. 8. Frédéric Barbier, “Les imprimeurs,” in HEF 3:69–74; Dominique Varry, “L’imprimerie et la librairie à Lyon au XIXe siècle,” in Le commerce de la librairie en France au XIXe siècle, 67; Isabelle de Conihout, “La conjoncture de l’édition,” in HEF 4:70–76; and Élisabeth Parinet, “L’édition littéraire, 1890–1914,” in HEF 4:164. 9. Christophe Charle, “Le champ de la production littéraire,” in HEF 3:143. On the renewal of publishing and the shift from the éditeur to the maison d’édition circa 1880, see Mollier, L’argent et les lettres. 10. “Vue d’ensemble sur l’industrie et le commerce du livre,” supplement to the Bibliographie de la France, 12 Mar. 1909. 11. Barbier, L’Empire du livre, 147. 12. Baillière, La crise du livre, 12. 13. Frédéric Barbier, “Une production multipliée,” in HEF 3:108–11 and 122– 123; Parinet, “L’édition littéraire, 1890–1914,” in HEF 4:165. On the development of a “mass” market for print in France by the late nineteenth century, see Lyons, Le triomphe du livre. 14. Barbier, “Libraires et colporteurs,” in HEF 3:265–268. 15. On the contemporary debate about the “crisis of the book,” see (in addition to Baillière, La crise du livre, and Flammarion, Quelques types de libraires et éditeurs de 1866 à 1875): “Le commerce de la librairie: Lettre d’un libraire de province à M. le Directeur de l’Intermédiaire,” printed in Chronique of the Bibliographie de la France, 21 Nov. 1891; Un Vieil Auteur, “Les livres et le public,” Liberté, 19 Apr. 1892; Jean sans Terre, “Le livre à 2 francs,” Le Petit journal, 21 Apr. 1892; Albert Cim, “Auteurs, éditeurs et libraires,” Revue bleue, 20 Jan. 1894; F. Baranger, “Chronique générale: La crise du livre,” Bulletin des Libraires, 1 June 1896; “La crise de la librairie,” Journal des débats, 8 Apr. 1897; Émile Berthet, “La surproduction littéraire,” Gaulois, 8 Apr. 1897; and Paul Gsell, “La crise du livre en France,” Revue des revues, 15 Oct. and 1 Nov. 1903. For a later summary of this debate, see Robert F. Byrnes, “The French Publishing Industry and Its Crisis in the 1890’s,” Journal of Modern History 23, no. 3 (Sept. 1951): 232–242. The argument that the abolition of licensing caused an explosion in the number of bookdealers was emphasized by the book historian JeanAlexis Néret, Histoire illustrée de la librairie et du livre français des origines à nos jours (Paris: Lamarre, 1953). For more recent analyses of the causes of the “crisis of the book,” see Barbier, “Une production multipliée,” in HEF 3:124–127; and Jean-Yves Mollier, “La crise de l’édition n’a pas eu lieu [?],” L’Histoire, no. 127 (1989): 68–69. 16. Olivier Dumas, Jules Verne, avec la publication de la correspondance inédite de Jules Verne à sa famille (Lyon: La Manufacture, 1988), 124. On the earnings of other

Notes to Pages 237–240

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late nineteenth-century authors, see Christophe Charle, “Le champ de la production littéraire,” in HEF 3:157–165. The assumption that the fin de siècle was a “golden age” for writers was articulated, for example, by John Lough, Writer and Public in France from the Middle Ages to the Present Day (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1978), 370. 17. My analysis of this new “high monopoly” period in France is inspired by William St. Clair, The Reading Nation, esp. 120–121, 355–356, and 414–415. 18. According to Anna Boschetti, “Never, perhaps, was the divorce between the literary avant-garde and the editorial circuit touching the general public as deep as at the turn of the [nineteenth to twentieth] century” (“Légitimité littéraire et stratégies éditoriales,” in HEF 4:514). On this split between avant-garde and popular literature, which Jean-Yves Mollier characterizes as the “two faces,” or Janus bifrons, of the literary field, see Jean-Yves Mollier, “France between Literary Culture and Mass Culture: Seventeenth to Twentieth Centuries,” in Literary Cultures and the Material Book, ed. Simon Eliot, Andrew Nash, and I. R. Willison (London: British Library, 2007), 269–280; and Christophe Charle, La crise littéraire à l’époque du naturalisme: Roman, théâtre et politique: Essai d’histoire sociale des groupes des genres littéraires (Paris: Presses de l’École Normale Supérieure, 1979). 19. Jean-Yves Mollier, “Écrivain-éditeur: Un face-à-face déroutant,” Travaux de littérature 15 (2002): 24–27; Christophe Charle, “Le champ de la production littéraire,” in HEF 3:147–150; Anna Boschetti, “Légitimité et stratégies éditoriales,” in HEF 4:514–515. The quotation from Bloy comes from Mollier, “Écrivain-éditeur,” 26. On the Zay Bill, see Pascal Fouché, “L’édition littéraire, 1914–1950,” in HEF 4:236–237. On the rise of the literary agent in Great Britain, see Mary Ann Gillies, The Professional Literary Agent in Britain, 1880–1920 (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2007). 20. Jean-Yves Mollier, Louis Hachette, 1800–1864: Le fondateur d’un empire (Paris: Fayard, 1999), esp. 241, 253, 312, 332, and 379; and Mollier, “Écrivain-éditeur,” 30– 37. On the persistence of censorship following the liberalization of publishing, see Jean-Yves Mollier, “La survie de la censure d’État, 1881–1949,” in La censure en France à l’ère démocratique, 1848–, ed. Pascal Ory (Paris: Éditions Complexe, 1997), 77–87. On the case of Émile Templier and the Countess de Ségur, see Sophie Rostopchine, Comtesse de Ségur, La Comtesse de Ségur, 1799–1874: Correspondance, ed. Marie-José Strich (Paris: Éditions Scala, 1993); and Hortense Dufour, Comtesse de Ségur, née Rostopchine (Paris: Flammarion, 1990). On the case of Pierre-Jules Hetzel and Jules Verne, see Hetzel Papers, B.N., Département des Manuscrits, NAF 17004 (Correspondance Hetzel-Verne); and Christian Robin, ed., Un éditeur et son siècle: Pierre-Jules Hetzel, 1814–1886 (Saint-Sébastien: ACL Édition, 1988); Simone Vierne, “Hetzel et Jules Verne, ou L’invention d’un auteur,” Europe, special issue on Hetzel (Nov.–Dec. 1980): 54–63; Olivier Dumas, “Hetzel et Verne: 25 ans de collaboration,” Arts et métiers du livre, special issue on Hetzel (Jan. 1987): 49–55; Dumas, Jules Verne, esp. 121–134; and Herbert Lottman, Jules Verne (New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1996).

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Notes to Pages 240–242

21. For example, in the subcommission on literary property of 1862, during discussion of a proposed stipulation reading “No modification may be made to a literary or artistic work without the consent of the author,” some members expressed concern about the pretentions of publishers “that they had the right to subject the works of which they have become proprietors to the modifications that they judge appropriate to introduce.” See 10th meeting of the subcommission, 28 June 1862, Ministère d’État: Commission de la Propriété Littéraire et Artistique, Rapports à l’Empereur, décrets, collection des procès-verbaux, documents (Paris: Imprimerie impériale, 1863), BHVP, in-4 104252, p. 133. 22. On the Association Littéraire et Artistique Internationale, see the documents in IMEC, BCL1.AA2-; Jules Lermina, L’Association littéraire et artistique internationale: Son histoire, ses travaux, 1787–1889 (Paris: Bibliothèque Chacornac, 1889); and Jean Cavalli, La genèse de la Convention de Berne pour la protection des oeuvres littéraires et artistiques du 9 septembre 1886 (Lucerne: Imprimeries Réunies, 1986). On the development of the notion of the moral rights of authors, see Annie Prassoloff, “La littérature en procès: La propriété littéraire en France sous la Monarchie de Juillet” (Doctoral Thesis, École des Hautes Études en Sciences Sociales, 1989); and Saunders, Authorship and Copyright, esp. chap. 3 (“France: From Royal Privilege to Droit Moral”) and chap. 7 (“The Internationalisation of Copyright and Authorship”). 23. Hetzel-Verne Correspondence, B.N., Département des Manuscrits, NAF 17004; Émile Zola, “L’argent dans la littérature,” in Oeuvres complètes, vol. 41, Oeuvres critiques: Le roman expérimental, edition Eugène Fasquelle (Paris: Typographie François Bernouard, 1880), 143. For an example of the view that the autonomous “intellectual” is characteristic of literary culture in France, see Charle, Naissance des “intellectuels”; and Patricia Parkhurst Clark, Literary France: The Making of a Culture (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1987). 24. On the negotiation of the “uniform discount” by the Chambre Syndicale des Libraires de France and the Syndicat des Éditeurs, see Fonds Didot, CAMT, 179 AQ 260; the Chronique of the Bibliographie de la France, the Bulletin des Libraires, and CRCA, 1891–1893; Pascal Fouché, “Le Syndicat des Éditeurs, 1892–1950,” in HEF 4:148–149; Maurice Malingue, “La naissance du syndicalisme dans la librairie,” in Le commerce de la librairie en France au XIXe siècle, 211–215; Alfred Fierro, “Évolution et typologie de la librairie,” in HEF 4:111–113; and Frédérique Leblanc, Libraire: Un métier (Paris: L’Harmatlan, 1998), esp. 158–162. On the complaints of booksellers, see Barbier, “Libraires et colporteurs,” in HEF 3:264–265; Henri Desmars, “L’office en librairie au XIXe siècle,” in Le commerce du livre en France au XIXe siècle, 195–202; and Elisabeth Parinet, “Le prix du livre: Un vieux sujet de débat,” in Le commerce du livre en France au XIXe siècle, 203–210. According to the history of the Cercle de la Librairie drafted by the printer Paul Delalain, “There were enough adherents to the two syndicates concerned that the decisions they made in common could produce the intended results; and among even those who participated in

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neither one nor the other, many (obeying a natural sentiment of probity and understanding their true interests) followed the published indications and respected the known resolutions.” See Paul Delalain, manuscript “Résumé de l’histoire du Cercle de la librairie, 1881–1914 (fin de la présidence de M. Layus),” Fonds Delalain, IMEC, BCL2.D1, pp. 19–20. For evidence of the judiciary’s approval of the minimum price agreement, see “Dossier Affaire Le Goaziou: Plaidoiries, jugement (avril–déc. 1901),” IMEC, BCL2.B2.06. 25. On the failure of a similar attempt at price maintenance in the United States, see Michael Winship, “The Rise of a National Book Trade System in the United States, 1865–1916,” in Les mutations du livre et de l’édition dans le monde, 296–304. Modeled after the French “uniform discount,” a similar “Net Book Agreement” was instituted by the British Association of Publishers in 1896. See Russi Jal Taraporevala, Competition and Its Control in the British Book Trade, 1850–1939 (Bombay: D. B. Taraporevala Sons & Co., 1969); and R. J. L. Kingsford, The Publishers Association, 1896–1946 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1970). 26. Delalain, manuscript “Résumé de l’histoire du Cercle de la librairie, 1881– 1914,” 28. On the negotiation of the memento of customs between authors and publishers, see IMEC, BCL2.HH1-; Georges Masson, Paul Delalain, A[rmand] Templier, et al., Note relative à un code des usages concernant les rapports entre auteurs et éditeurs présentée au deuxième Congrès international des éditeurs, réuni à Bruxelles du 23 au 26 juin 1897 (n.p.: Imprimerie E. Capimont et Cie., n.d. [1897]), B.N., 4-F-Pièce-1191; Cercle Belge de la Librairie, Congrès international des éditeurs, 2e session—Bruxelles, 23–26 juin 1897 . . . : Documents—Rapports—Procès-verbaux (Brussels: Cercle Belge de la Librairie, 1897), IMEC, BCL Imprimés; CRCA, 9 July 1897 and 22 July 1898; annual report by president, Jules Hetzel, to general assembly of Cercle de la Librairie, 25 Feb. 1898, printed in Chronique, 5 Mar. 1898; report by Max Leclere to Jules Hetzel on behalf of a commission of publishers appointed by the Cercle de la Librairie to draft a “code of customs” on author-publisher relations, adopted on 3 May 1898 and printed in Chronique, 1 Oct. 1898. On the International Congress of Publishers, see Thomas Loué, “Le Congrès international des éditeurs, 1896–1938: Autour d’une forme de sociabilité professionnelle internationale,” in Les mutations du livre et de l’édition dans le monde, 531–543. 27. On the demands of publishers for state patronage, see Pascal Ory, “Le rôle de l’État: Les politiques du livre,” in HEF 4:51–67; and Yves Surel, L’État et le livre: Les politiques publiques du livre en France, 1957–1993 (Paris: L’Harmattan, 1997). On the Syndicat des Éditeurs, see Pascal Fouché, “Le Syndicat des éditeurs, 1892–1950,” in HEF 4:148–149. 28. On the campaign for the “uniform price” (prix unique) in the late 1970s and early 1980s, see Surel, L’État et le livre, chap. 2 (“La genèse du paradigme de l’exception du livre”) and chap. 3 (“L’alternance de 1981 comme fenêtre politique: La loi Lang du 10 août 1981”); and Guillaume Husson, “La loi Lang et le prix unique du livre: Bilan et perspectives,” in Histoire des industries culturelles en France, XIXe–XXe

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siècles: Actes du colloque en Sorbonne, décembre 2001, ed. Jacques Marseille and Patrick Eveno (Paris: Association pour le développement de l’histoire économique, 2002), 103–110. 29. James Surowiecki, “L’Affaire Messier,” The New Yorker, 15 July 2002. On the persistence of cultural exceptionalism in France, see Surel, L’État et le livre; Marc Fumaroli, L’État culturel: Essai sur une religion moderne (Paris: Éditions de Fallois, 1991); Philippe Poirier, Histoire des politiques culturelles de la France contemporaine (Dijon: Université de Boulogne / BIBLIEST, 1996); Philippe Poirier, ed., Les politiques culturelles en France: Textes rassemblés et présentés (Paris: La Documentation française, 2002).

Index

Abrantès, Duchess d’, 22 Administration of the Book Trade (before 1789), 6, 7 Administration of the Book Trade (after 1810), 8, 50–51, 78; and licensing, 54, 213, 216, 221–222; and debate over railroad station bookstands, 169, 170, 171, 173, 174; and literary property, 201 advertising, practices of publishers, 17, 22, 35, 43 Aillaud (publisher), 136 Alguhon, Maurice, 138 Allarde Law, d’ (1791), 7, 62 André, Aimé, 103 Annuaire de la librairie, 131 architecture, compared to publishing, 179 art, compared to publishing, 2, 17, 50 association: among publishers, 4, 10, 91, 96–100, 106–108, 109–113, 118, 120–122, 152–153, 154, 188, 210; of printers and bookdealers, vs. publishers, 4, 97–98, 108–109, 188, 189; among businessmen, 5, 97, 122, 153; political culture of, 11, 106, 121–122, 138; corporatist criticism of, as coterie, 92–94, 105, 111, 113–116, 119; state reaction to, in book trade, 100–102, 108–109; tax policy on, 142, 145. See also bourgeois idiom: cercle of 1829; Cercle de la Librairie; sociability Association for the Defense of Literary Property, 187, 203 Association Littéraire et Artistique Internationale, 211, 240, 242 authors: consequences of liberalization on, 12–13, 230, 233, 236–237, 238–241; illusions of, 14, 233, 240–241; rights of, 27, 29, 31, 71–74, 79–90, 191–212, 230, 236–237, 240;

birth of, 28, 29; responsibility of, 31; effects of éditeur on, 33–34, 36–40; self-criticism of, 41; reaction to éditeur among, 41–46; role in campaign for literary property, 74–75, 194, 201–202, 207, 211; code on negotiations with publishers, 13, 233, 240, 242–243; gender of, 256n19. See also éditeurs; literary property; “moral” rights Baillière brothers, 221 Baillière, Germer, 80 Baillière, Henri, 233, 235 Baillière, J.-B.: role in liberal camp, 52, 189; role in campaign for literary property, 80, 85; role in association among publishers, 99, 103, 108, 110, 111; role in Cercle de la Librairie, 123, 124, 136, 140, 142; role in dispute over railroad station bookstands, 167 Balzac, Honoré de, 1, 32, 46, 97, 103, 137, 199; reaction to éditeur, 23, 28, 33, 36, 42, 44, 240, 241; relations with éditeurs, 37, 38, 39, 40, 239; role in campaign for literary property, 74. See also Lost Illusions Bank of France, 99, 110, 143, 151 Barbier, Frédéric, 4, 24, 25, 32, 34, 234, 235 Barrès, Maurice, 175 Barrois (family), 52, 76 Barrois, Louis-Théophile, 113, 115, 117, 127 Basset, Jules, 137 Baudelaire, Charles, 217 Baudouin (publisher), 35 Baudry (publisher), 76 Beaulé (publisher), 117 Béchet, Widow, 103 Belgium: literary piracy in, 75, 76–77, 80, 84, 91, 106, 116, 192, 193, 194; treaty of 22 Aug.

318

Belgium (continued) 1852 on literary property between France and, 192–193; exile of publishers in, 199; legislation on literary property in, 200. See also Congress of Brussels; literary piracy Berne Convention (1886), 211, 230, 240 Bertin, Armand, 40 Bibliographie de la France, 35, 51, 93, 98, 116, 123, 135, 146, 147, 173–174, 180, 182, 235 Bibliothèque Charpentier, 36, 77, 180 Bibliothèque des Chemins de Fer, 158, 160–161, 164, 167, 170, 174 bibliothèques de gare. See railroad station bookstands bill of 1826 on the policing of the press, 61, 65, 98 bill of 1828 on the periodical press, 66 bill of 1829 on bookdealing, 66–67 bill of 1829 on printing, 66, 67 bill of 1830 on freedom of occupation for the printer and the bookdealer, 67–70 bill of 1839 on literary property (Chamber of Peers), 82–85, 191 bill of 1841 on literary property (Chamber of Deputies), 85–89, 191, 192 bill of 1848 proposing constitutional amendment to abolish licensing in book trade, 212–213 bill of 1850 on licensing, 212–213 bill of 1851 on licensing, 212–213 bill of 1873 on book trade, 227–228 billiards, as activity of Cercle de la Librairie, 140–142, 143, 145 Bixio, Jacques-Alexandre, 117, 151 Bloy, Léon, 238 Bobée (publisher), 107 Bohain and Mirès, 116 Bonald, Louis-Gabriel-Ambroise, Count de, 65 Bonnellier, Hippolyte, 42 bookdealers. See libraires book historians, 5, 9, 15, 37, 120, 253n8 books: nature of, as product, 3, 233, 241, 243–244; effects of rise of éditeur on, 34–35, 42, 43, 232, 235, 236; prices of, 35–36, 43, 241–242, 243; marketed with premiums, 92, 97, 112–114, 116, 117; as collateral for loan of 1830, 104–105. See also railroad station bookstands booksellers. See libraires Bossange (family), 62, 76, 99

Index

Bossange, Hector, 99, 103, 104 Bossange, Martin, 99, 104–106 Bourdeau, Pierre-Alpinien-Bertrand, 66 bourgeois: idiom of Cercle de la Librairie, 4, 119, 121–122, 124–125, 138–145, 153; class origin of éditeurs, 32, 145; identity of July Monarchy, 49, 91; as epithet against éditeurs, 92; association, state tolerance of, 102, 110. See also association; cercle; sociability Bourdin (publisher), 161 Bouton, Victor (also known as René Didier or Vaute), 10, 92–94, 96, 98, 113–114, 115, 116, 117–118, 126, 155 Brédif, Jacques-François, 157 Bréton, Henri, 157 Bréton, Louis, 142, 157; role in Cercle de la Librairie, 125, 126, 144, 175; role in railroad station bookstand enterprise, 158, 168, 169; role in international expositions, 183; role in liberalization of book trade, 189, 223 brevet. See licensing Brown, Gregory, 74 Bulletin de la librairie, 123 Buloz, François, 23, 39 business historians, 5, 97, 249n8 businessmen: stereotype of French, 5, 122; networking among, 5, 122, 153; attack on éditeurs as, 42. See also association; bourgeois; sociability Byron, Lord (George Gordon), 22 cabinet de lecture (also known as cabinet littéraire), 22, 25, 36, 55, 77 Calmann-Lévy (publisher), 33 Canel, Urbain, 32–33 Carlier, R. P., 94 cartel, 96–97. See also association censorship: as focus of historiography, 2; by state, 6, 26, 30, 54, 63, 66, 71, 75, 239; by Hachette and Company, 175 cercle, as form of association, 10–11, 100, 121–122, 127, 138–145 cercle of 1829 in publishing, 97, 98–102, 103, 105, 106, 108, 109, 125 Cercle de la Librairie (founded 1847), 4, 5, 97, 109–111, 120–122, 154, 155, 188–189; combination of idioms in, 10–11, 119, 121–122; role of, in liberalization of book trade, 12, 118, 188–189, 232; criticism of, 92–93, 115, 127; support of, for lotteries,

Index

116–117; role of publishers in, 120, 125, 126–127, 153; in twentieth century, 122, 125, 238, 243; corporate idiom of, 122, 128–137; foundation of, 123–124; organization of, 124–126; crisis of (1856), 125, 144–145; hôtel of, 125, 129–130, 133 (ill.), 134 (ill.), 139–140, 141 (ill.), 143; emblem of, 129, 130 (ill.), 131 (ill.), 132 (ill.); bourgeois idiom of, 138–145; attendance at, 142–143; professional idiom of, 145–152; role of, in international expositions, 148–150, 179, 181, 183; role of, in dispute between Louis Hachette and Napoléon Chaix over railroad station bookstands, 156, 166–169, 170, 171, 173–174, 175, 185–186; role of, in campaign for literary property, 191–192, 194–195, 196–198; role of, in campaign for abolition of licensing, 218, 220–225, 227, 228 Chaix, Napoléon, 11, 155–156, 180; dispute with Louis Hachette over railroad station bookstands, 161–166, 168, 169–172, 174, 175, 185–186; role in debate over place of publishers in international expositions, 176, 181–182, 183, 185–186 Chamber of Commerce (Paris), 66, 80, 99, 110, 122, 146, 151, 187 Chamber of Printers of Paris. See Chambre Syndicale des Imprimeurs de Paris chambres syndicales: of Old Regime, 6–7, 26, 28, 32; demand for revival of, 50, 58, 108, 123, 124, 126; echo of, in nineteenthcentury associations, 96, 121, 122, 128; postrevolutionary state resistance to, 100–102; legalization of (1868), 121. See also corporate idiom; corporation Chambre Syndicale des Imprimeurs de Paris (founded 1838), 108–109, 137, 150, 181, 182, 183–184, 222, 223, 227, 228 Chambre Syndicale de la Librairie et de l’Imprimerie (pre-revolutionary). See Paris Book Guild Chambre Syndicale des Libraires de France, 109, 241 Chaptal, Jean-Antoine, 2 Chardon, Lucien. See Rudempré, Lucien de Charle, Christophe, 29, 237, 238 Charles X, King, 61, 62, 65, 67, 78, 80, 98, 100, 102 Charpentier, Gervais, 23, 32; book format named after, 36, 77; attack by, on “coterie” in

319

publishing, 114, 115, 117; role of, in dispute over railroad station bookstands, 166, 169, 171–173, 174; role of, in debate over place of publishers at international expositions, 180; role of, in debate over literary property, 204–205, 207, 209; role of, in debate over licensing, 215, 221 Chartier, Roger, 24 Charton, Édouard, 19, 161 Chateaubriand, François-René, Viscount de, 22, 74, 112 Chenu ( journalist), 223 Chevalier, Michel, 215 Chevandier de Valdrôme, Jean-Pierre, 225–226 Chirac, Jacques, 244 Chronique, 146, 147 (ill.), 182, 214 circle. See cercle classics, as specialization in publishing, 15, 17, 27, 28, 30, 32, 34–35, 156, 157, 167, 237, 257n22 Claye, Jules, 137 Colbert, Jean-Baptiste, 26 collection, of books as marketing tool, 17, 35, 43. See also Bibliothèque Charpentier; Bibliothèque des Chemins de Fer Colombier (publisher), 198, 200, 202 colportage, 36, 55, 152, 159–160, 163, 164, 175 commerce: as interest of state, 4, 12, 54, 189–190, 212, 217–218; freedom of, as justification for liberalization of book trade, 53, 59, 60, 62–63, 67, 69, 215, 216, 220, 221, 223, 228; freedom of, as argument against activities of publishers, 101, 163, 166; freedom of, as justification of activities of publishers, 117, 164 Commission des Auteurs et Compositeurs Dramatiques, 194, 201–202 Commission du Colportage, 160, 167, 169–171, 173, 174, 175, 180 commission of 1825–1826 on literary property, 78–80, 82, 84, 99, 191, 199 commission of 1829 on publishing, 62–63, 66–67, 78, 80, 98, 99, 103 commission of 1836–1837 on literary piracy, 80–82, 106–107, 187, 191 commission of 1836–1837 on literary property, 81–82, 84, 99, 106–107, 191 commission of 1836–1837 in publishing, 107, 108 commission of 1861–1863 on literary property, 201–207, 208, 210

320

commission of 1869–1870 on licensing, 222–226 Compagnie du Chemin de Fer du Nord, 158, 159, 161, 169 Comptoir Central de la Librairie, 107–108, 114 Comptoir National d’Escompte, 93, 110, 114, 122, 143, 151 Condorcet, Marie-Jean-Antoine-Caritat, Marquis de, 72 Congress of Brussels (1858), 194–201, 206 Constant, Benjamin, 63–70 contrefaçon. See literary piracy Cordier (printer), 66 Cormenin, Louis de, 96 corporate idiom, of Cercle de la Librairie, 119, 121–122, 128–137, 138, 153 corporatism. persistence of, in nineteenthcentury book trade, 3, 49, 123, 229, 233, 236; among liberal publishers, 5, 13, 241–244; of pre-revolutionary book guild, 6–7, 26–27. See also corporatists corporation: organization of, before Revolution, 6, 7, 28, 32, 63, 130, 133; evocation of, in nineteenth-century book trade, 10, 53, 63, 92, 115, 119, 121, 128, 129, 137, 153, 154, 166, 168, 173, 224, 293n25; opposition to, by state, 101–102, 109, 220. See also chambres syndicales; corporate idiom corporatists, lack of organization among, 4, 10, 108–109; in debate over regulation of book trade, 8, 9, 47, 48–49, 51, 52, 53–54, 90–91; reaction of, to association among publishers, 10, 106, 111, 113–116; Victor Bouton as example of, 10, 96–98; Napoléon Chaix as example of, 11, 155; position on licensing, 56–59, 68–69, 70, 223–225, 227, 229; position on literary property, 73–74, 77, 85–86, 193–194, 195, 198–200, 203–205 corps d’état. See chambres syndicales; corporation Corsaire, 39, 107 Crapelet, Georges-Adrien, 68–69, 85–86, 104, 108 credit, practices of publishers, 4, 17, 18, 22, 24, 135 “crisis of the book” (1890s), 229, 235–236, 241 cultural exceptionalism, of French, 241, 244 cultural historians, 2, 24 culture industry, 2, 50, 156

Index

Curmer, Léon, 19, 20, 23, 24, 52, 85, 177–178, 180 customs, policy on, 53, 62, 76–77, 81, 89, 151 Cuvier, Baron Georges, 78, 78 Darimon, Alfred, 207 Darnton, Robert, 2, 6, 27, 33 Daudet, Alphonse, 237, 240 Dauriat (in Lost Illusions), 14, 22, 40, 41 Declaration of the Rights of Genius (1793), 7, 29, 51, 73, 79, 82, 89, 207 decree of 28 Feb. 1723 on the book trade, 58, 129, 130 decree of 30 Aug. 1777 on the duration of privileges in the book trade, 27–28, 29, 72 decree of 5 Feb. 1810 on the regulation of printing and bookdealing, 7–8, 9, 29, 32, 33, 34, 50–51; debate over, 48–49, 51–54, 56–57, 59, 90–91; as compromise position on literary property, 73, 74, 78, 79, 82, 89, 188, 193, 210, 216. See also licensing; literary property; Napoleon decree of 17 Feb. 1852 on the press, 188, 215, 220 decree of 28 March 1852 on literary property, 192–193, 211 decree of 11 Sept. 1870 on freedom of occupation in printing and bookdealing, 226–227, 228, 229, 242–243 Delalain (family), 52 Delalain, Jules: role in Cercle de la Librairie, 123, 144; role in dispute over railroad station bookstands, 166, 167–168, 169, 174; role in debate over place of publishers at international expositions, 178; role in campaign against abolition of licensing, 189, 218, 223–224, 226, 227; role in Congress of Brussels on literary property, 197–198 Delalain, Paul, 135, 142, 143, 242–243 Delavigne, Casimir, 22 Delort (printer), 80 DeMarco, Eileen, 174 Dentu, Édouard, 178, 221 department stores (grands magasins), 36, 234 Dépot Central de Librairie, 36 Desnoyers, Louis, 40 Diderot, Denis, 16, 22, 46, 72 Didot (family), 52, 99, 104, 130, 177. See also Firmin-Didot

Index

Didot, Firmin, 60, 61 (ill.), 66, 69–70, 78, 79, 80, 99, 105 Direction Générale de la Librairie et de l’Imprimerie. See Administration of the Book Trade “disloyal” commerce. See “unfair” competition distribution, practices of publishers, 17, 36, 234 Doré, Gustave, 1 droits d’auteur. See literary property Dubois (deputy), 88 Dumas, Alexandre, 35 Dupin, Baron Charles, 70 Dupont, Paul, 45, 128, 161, 189, 209, 222 Dupuy (publisher), 111 éditeurs, 3, 8, 9, 14–15, 20 (ill.); role of, in campaign for liberalization of book trade, 4, 11, 46–47; organization of, relative to printers and bookdealers, 4, 97–98, 108–109, 188–189; origins of, 9, 23–33; scholarship on, 9, 15, 24–25; role in Cercle de la Librairie, 11, 126–127; status of, vis-à-vis printer, 11, 165, 170–171, 173, 176, 177–179, 180–182, 183–184; rise of, 14–15, 46, 241; as subject of literature, 15, 41; categorization of, 15, 18–19; criticism of, 15, 41–44; definition of, 16–23, 253n8; division of labor with printer and bookdealer, 17–21, 44; number of, 23, 28–29, 233, 234–235; as title to avoid licensing requirement, 29–30, 55, 57; responsiblity of, 31; as self–made men, 21, 32; consequences of, 33–40; positive image of, 45–46; legitimization of, 11, 46, 155–156, 175, 176–185, 185–186. See also liberals éditeur-propriétaire, 31 éditeur responsable, 31 education: as factor in rise of publishing, 4, 235; of publishers, 57; as justification for liberalization of the book trade, 60, 62, 214, 215, 220, 221; as function of Cercle de la Librairie, 135 Elzevier, 130 Empire, 9, 29, 30, 55, 58, 63, 90, 91, 210. See also decree of 5 Feb. 1810; Napoleon Encyclopédie, 4, 16, 22 England. See Great Britain entrepreneurs. See businessmen entrepreneurialism: as characteristic of éditeur, 1, 14, 16–17, 19, 21, 32, 41, 46–47, 178;

321

defense of, among publishers, 5, 46, 156, 178–179, 184–186; vs. guild system, 27, 29, 33, 50 entrance requirements, in book trade. See chambres syndicales; licensing envoi d’office, 36 Erckmann-Chatrian, 240 Etienne (sometimes spelled Estienne), 58, 130 exchange system, in pre-revolutionary book trade, 18, 36 expositions, participation of publishers in, 148–150, 149 (ill.), 155–156, 176–185. See also International Exposition of 1851 in London Favre, Jules, 215, 219, 227 Felkay, Nicole, 97 Fénélon, François, 35 Feuilleton, 98, 106, 146 feuilletons, 25, 35 Firmin-Didot, Alfred, 142 Firmin-Didot, Ambroise, 99, 112, 151, 196 (ill.), 212; role in debate over licensing, 66, 212, 222; role in debate over literary property, 80, 81, 195, 197, 202, 203–204, 206, 207; role in association of publishers, 99, 108, 110, 124, 126, 128, 137; role in organization of printers, 108, 137, 189; role in dispute over railroad station bookstands, 167 Firmin-Didot Frères, 80, 85, 106, 110 Flammarion, Ernest, 175, 233 Flaubert, Gustave, 139, 217 Forcade la Roquette, Adolphe de, 222, 225 Foucher, Victor, 174, 195, 197 Fouque, Victor, 41, 42, 43, 45, 57 Fourcault de Pavant, Pierre, 157 Fournier, Henri, 108 Fouret, René, 184 Franco-Belgian Treaty of 22 August 1852. See Belgium Franco-Prussian War, 136, 226, 227, 278n28 French Revolution. See Revolution of 1789 funerals, as part of corporate idiom of Cercle de la Librairie, 136–137 Furne, Charles, 97, 106, 111, 137, 180, 197, 221, 225 Galignani (publisher), 76, 136 Galland (bookdealer), 57 Gambetta, Léon, 225, 227 Garnier, Charles, 125, 129, 134, 139

322

Garnier-Pagès, Louis-Antoine, 219, 227 Gautier, Théophile, 38, 202 Gavarni, Paul, 20 Genlis, Mme. de, 22 German lands: book trade in, compared to France, 26, 42, 60, 232, 235; law on literary property in, 88; associations in, 100, 107, 109, 281n1; relations with book trade in, 181 Girardin, Émile de, 23, 62, 81, 215 Gosselin, Charles, 23, 32, 93; role in liberal camp, 52, 62; role in debate over literary property, 80, 81, 85; role in “coterie” in publishing, 94, 99, 100, 103, 106, 107, 108 Government of National Defense, 226, 227 Gratiot, Amédée Great Britain: book trade in, compared to France, 26, 42, 60, 231, 232, 244; literary property in, 34, 81, 84, 211, 230, 237; circles in, 100, 138; relations with book trade in, 106, 136; treaty of 1851 on literary property between France and, 152, 191; free trade treaty of 1860 between France and, 190. See also International Exposition of 1851 Guide Joanne, 161 Guillaumin (publisher), 111 Guizot, François, 65, 80, 114, 157, 187 Gutenberg, 24, 130 Hachette and Company, 33, 125, 162, 167, 172, 175, 185, 221, 225, 239, 242 Hachette, Alfred, 157 Hachette, Georges, 125, 126, 157 Hachette, Louis, 23, 156–157, 158 (ill.), 175, 185; and dispute over railroad station bookstands, 11, 155, 156–176, 222; and campaign for inclusion of publishers at international expositions, 11, 155, 176–177, 180–183, 184–186; role in liberal camp, 52, 155, 185–186, 187, 188, 189; role in debate over literary property, 80, 81, 85, 191, 194–195, 197, 198, 199, 200, 202, 203, 204, 205, 206, 209; role in “coterie” in publishing, 93, 99, 108, 118; role in Cercle de la Librairie, 110, 126, 137, 139, 151, 154; role in legitimization of éditeurs, 155–156, 184–185; role in debate over licensing, 212, 213–215, 216, 217, 220, 221; relations with authors, 239

Index

Hauman (publisher), 76 Hazareesingh, Sudhir, 190 Hébrard, J., 48, 123, 124, 126, 127, 128, 137, 138 Hesse, Carla, 8, 28, 29, 32, 35, 51, 72, 73 Hetzel, Louis-Jules, 126, 239 Hetzel, Pierre-Jules (pseud. P.-J. Stahl), 23, 32; relations with authors, 40, 237, 239–240, 241; role in debate over literary property, 199–200, 202, 204–205, 206 Hingray, Charles, 123, 124, 151 Histoire de l’édition française, 24 Holland, 27, 76 Houssard, 228 Hugo, Victor, 22, 35, 38, 74, 80, 174, 199, 211, 237, 240 illusions, of authors regarding publishers, 1, 14, 237, 240–241 Illusions perdues. See Lost Illusions illustration, role in emergence of éditeur, 24 –25 Imprimerie Centrale des Chemins de Fer, 161 Imprimerie Impériale (renamed Imprimerie Royale), 56 imprimeurs, 1, 18; division of labor, with publishers, 1, 9, 18; regulation of, under Old Regime, 6–7, 26–28; tensions between libraires and, 7; regulation of, post-1810, 8, 30, 51, 54–56, 63–65, 188, 213, 216; lack of organization among, 10, 98, 108–109, 118, 188, 189; in Cercle de la Librairie, 11, 99, 126–127, 154–155; status of, vis-à-vis publishers, 11, 155–156, 164–165, 176, 185, 212; effects of liberalization on, 12, 32, 233, 234, 235, 236, 241; numbers of, 23, 28–29; criticism of éditeurs by, 30, 41, 46; attack on “coterie” in publishing by, 97, 102, 106, 111–117, 121, 127; Revolution of 1830 and, 102, 104; role of, in industrial expositions, 177, 179–185. See also corporatists; indemnification; licensing indemnification, of printers for abolition of licensing, 55, 67–70, 90, 218, 224, 226, 228–229 industrialization, 2, 4, 15, 24, 25, 35 information revolution, 13 Institut Mémoires de l’Édition Contemporaine (IMEC), 120 intellectual property. See literary property

Index

International Congress of Publishers, 242 International Exposition of 1851 in London, 148, 157, 179. See also expositions Jacob the Elder, 58 Janzé, Baron Charles-Alfred de, 175 Jérôme-Napoléon, Prince, 180, 181–182 joint-stock corporation: form of association in publishing, 98–99, 107, 112, 113; Cercle de la Librairie as, 124 Joubert (publisher), 111 Journal général de la librairie et de l’imprimerie. See Bibliographie de la France journalists, 14, 22, 41, 48, 50, 81, 143, 202, 222, 223 Juillerat, Paul, 201, 222 July Monarchy, 9, 49, 90–91, 188; role in birth of éditeur, 24, 31; and debate over licensing, 70–71; and debate over literary property, 80–90; and association in book trade, 110, 138 Karr, Alphonse, 42, 74 Kock, Charles-Paul de, 38 Laboulaye, Charles, 111, 179, 189, 214, 215, 221, 223 Laboulaye, Édouard, 215 Ladvocat, Pierre-François (Camille), 14, 22–23, 30, 43, 45, 103, 104 Laffitte, Jacques, 104–105 La Fontaine, Jean de, 35 La Grange, Édouard, Marquis de, 89 Lahure, Alexis, 184 Lahure, Charles, 68, 137 Lamartine, Alphonse de, 38, 74, 86–88 Landes, David, 249n7, 282n5 Lang, Jack, 243 Langlois (publisher), 110, 111 La Rochefoucauld, Sosthène, Viscount de, 78, 79 law, as occupation comparable to publishing, 58–59, 68, 217 law of 21 Oct. 1814 “relative to the freedom of the press,” 55, 56, 65, 66, 159, 213 law of 3 Aug. 1844 on the rights of dramatic authors, 89, 191 law of 8 April 1854 on literary property, 192–193, 200, 207–208, 211 law of 2 July 1861 on the press, 215–216

323

law of 6 July 1866 on literary property, 207–210, 211 law of 11 May 1868 on the press, 216–221, 222 law of 29 July 1881 on the “liberty of the press,” 228–229 Lebègue, J.-C., 56 Lebrun, Pierre-Antoine, 205, 210 Le Chapelier Law (1791), 7, 121 Lecoffre, 111 leisure. See association; bourgeois; sociability Le Mans, bookdealers of, 115, 116 Le Normant (printer), 80 Le Play, Frédéric, 182 Leroux, Pierre, 212 Les Français peints par eux-mêmes, 19–20 Levavasseur, Alphonse, 103 Lévy, Michel, 23, 40, 166, 223 Lévy brothers, 221, 225. See also CalmannLévy; Lévy, Michel liberalism, 3, 5, 51, 189–190, 232; tensions in, 5, 12, 47, 49, 60–62, 190, 230–231, 233; reaction against, 241–244 liberals: in debate over regulation of book trade, 3–4, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 48–49, 51, 52–53, 90–91, 97, 98, 120, 155; persistence of protectionism among, 13, 233, 241–244; position on licensing, 59–63, 213–215, 221, 223; position on literary property, 73, 74, 77–78, 85, 191, 193–195, 198, 202–203; rise in power, vis-à-vis corporatists, 98, 109, 120, 185–186; support for, by Cercle de la Librairie, 120, 152, 153, 186; role of Louis Hachette among, 155, 185–186, 187 libraires: 15, 16, 18, 19–20, 21 (ill.), 253n8; regulation of, under Old Regime, 6–7, 26–27; tensions with printers, 7; licensing and, 8, 30, 55–56, 66–67; effects of liberalization on, 12, 32, 233–234, 236, 241–242; number of, 12, 23, 28–29, 233, 234, 236; role in price-fixing, 13, 236, 242; division, between éditeurs and, 18, 19–20, 46; categorization of, 18–19, 44; criticism of éditeurs by, 30, 41–45, 46, 155; specialization in retailing, 36; attack on “coterie” in publishing by, 92, 97, 102, 106, 111–117, 121, 127; lack of organization among, 97, 98, 108–109, 188; in Cercle de la Librairie, 126–127; incompetence of, 236. See also corporatists Librairie Moderne, 112 Librairie Parisienne, Française et Étrangère, 99

324

licensing: as source of debate in book trade, 3, 9, 11–12, 49, 53, 54; requirement, 8, 51, 54–55; abolition of (in 1870), 12, 190, 212, 226–227, 230–231, 233–236; ineffectiveness of, 29–30, 55–56; position of corporatists on, 53–54, 56–59, 218, 223–225, 227, 229; position of liberals on, 53, 59–63, 98–99, 187, 188, 213–215, 218, 221, 223; discussion by government of, 54, 63–71, 190, 212–213, 215–222, 225–229; role of Cercle de la Librairie in obtaining abolition of, 120, 152, 186; as argument against Hachette’s railroad station bookstands, 163. See also bill of 1829; bill of 1830; bill of 1848; bill of 1850; bill of 1851; commission of 1829; commission of 1869–1870; decree of 11 Sept. 1870; law of 11 May 1868; law of 29 July 1881 literary capital, 17, 28, 29, 36, 40 literary market, 1–4, 5, 6, 12–13, 15, 35, 91, 98, 188, 190, 230–231, 232–233, 241, 243 literary piracy, 48, 75–78, 80, 89, 98, 106–107, 191–192, 193–194. See also Belgium literary property: as source of debate in book trade, 3, 9, 11–12, 49, 53–54, 71–72; revolutionary compromise on, 7, 8, 29, 51, 72–73; position of corporatists on, 9, 52, 53–54, 73–74, 77, 85–86, 193–194, 195, 197, 198–200, 203–205; position of liberals on, 9, 52–53, 62, 74, 77–78, 85, 98–99, 187, 188, 191–192, 193–194, 194–195, 197, 198, 202–203; role in rise of éditeur, 9, 26, 29, 33, 46; effect of, on book trade, 12–13, 35, 233, 236–241; extension of, to fifty years after death of author (1866), 12, 210–212; vs. “rights of authors,” 72, 73, 84, 87, 197, 208, 211; role of authors in campaign for, 74–75; discussion by government of, 78–85, 86–90, 90–91, 190–191, 192–193, 200–202, 205–210; unilateral vs. reciprocal protection of, internationally, 78, 81, 84, 85–86, 88–89; French vs. Anglo-American law on, 90, 211–212, 230; role of Cercle de la Librairie in obtaining extension of, 120, 152, 186; role of Cercle de la Librairie in protecting, via declaration bureau, 146–148. See also Berne Convention; bill of 1839; bill of 1841; commission of 1825; commission of 1836–1837; commission of 1861–1863; Congress of Brussels; Declaration of the

Index

Rights of Genius; decree of 5 Feb. 1810; law of 3 Aug. 1844; law of 6 July 1866 literary scholars, 2, 24 “literary underground,” 6–7, 27 lithography, 4, 24, 25 Livre des cent-et-un, 23 Livret Chaix, 161 loan of 1830 to publishing, 10, 92, 94, 97, 102–106, 108, 110, 113, 114 Lost Illusions, by Honoré de Balzac, 1, 9, 14, 41, 46, 103, 240 lotteries, as marketing tool by publishers, 10, 92–94, 96, 97, 111–117 Lottin, Augustin-Martin, 135 Louis-Napoléon, Emperor. See Napoleon III Louis-Philippe, King, 70, 80, 82, 102 luxury, as criticism of éditeur, 44–45 Lyon (France), 18, 52, 224 Lyons, Martyn, 23, 35 Mac Mahon, Maréchal de, 227 Manuce, 130 Marie (publisher), 38 Marie, Thomas, 209 marketing, practices of publishers, 17, 22, 35–36, 43–44 Martignac, Viscount Jean-Baptiste de, 65, 66, 67 Martinet, Émile, 183 Masson, Georges, 126, 149, 152 Masson, Victor, 99, 111, 166, 169, 180, 181, 182, 189, 214, 221 Mathias, 111, 123 Mathilde, Princess (Bonaparte), 207 Maupas, Charlemagne-Émile de, 159, 160, 161–163 Maupassant, Guy de, 175 medicine, as occupation comparable to publishing, 58–59, 217 Meignan (publisher), 117 Méline (publisher), 76 Messier, Jean-Marie, 244 Mittérand, François, 243 Molière, 35 Mollier, Jean-Yves, 4, 22, 33, 37, 46, 111, 165, 167, 234, 238, 239 monarchy, pre-revolutionary, 6–7, 26–28 Moniteur universel, 22, 157, 158 mono-édition, 37, 40

Index

monopoly: of Paris Book Guild, 6, 27, 28; of Louis Hachette, over railroad station bookstands, 11, 159–160, 161, 163–164, 167, 169, 171–172, 174, 176, 185, 222; demand for, by printers, 52, 57; in extension of literary property, 74, 199, 200, 203, 207; as criticism of “coterie” in publishing, by corporatists, 52, 92, 96, 111, 115, 116; as criticism of licensing, by liberals, 67, 217, 218; as argument against organization, by state, 101 “moral” rights, of authors, 191, 211, 230, 237, 240 Morgues, Charles de, 222, 223, 224, 227 Morizot (publisher), 166 Morny, Charles-Auguste, Count (later Duke) de, 159, 187, 189, 213, 215, 217 Musset, Alfred de, 39–40, 209 Musset, Paul de, 207, 239 Napoleon, 4, 135, 201; reregulation of book trade by, 7, 12, 32, 48, 50, 59; “marriage” between state and market of, 8, 90, 91, 229; establishment of licensing system by, 54, 55, 70, 216; regulation of literary property by, 191, 193 Napoleon III (Louis-Napoléon Bonaparte), 93, 118, 159, 180, 191; role in liberalization of, 4, 12, 187; authoritarianism of, 188; extension of literary property by, 192, 193, 207; relaxation of licensing by, 213; “liberal” empire of, 217 National Discount Bank. See Comptoir National d’Escompte Nazi Occupation, 230–231 networking. See association; businessmen; sociability newspapers, 29, 35, 43, 44, 107, 138, 157, 159, 161, 176, 216–217, 219, 220; editors of, 1, 40, 62, 81, 85, 173, 175, 219, 237 Nogent-Saint-Laurens, Henri, 209, 220, 222 notary, as occupation comparable to publishing, 58, 68 nouveautés (“novelties”), as specialization in publishing, 17, 27, 30, 34–35 Ollendorff, Paul, 237 Ollivier, Émile, 190, 217, 219, 225, 229

325

Old Regime: in book trade, 6–7, 26–28, 29, 32, 33, 50, 58, 75; position of publishers vs. printers under, 46, 52; attitude toward, in nineteenth-century book trade, 49, 63, 123, 135, 137 organization, among publishers. See association Pagnerre, Laurent-Antoine: and “coterie” in publishing, 10, 52, 93–96, 95 (ill.), 98, 99, 107, 108, 112, 113, 115, 117–118, 155; and liberal camp, 52, 189; and Cercle de la Librairie, 110, 111, 123, 124, 126, 128, 129, 151; and campaign for inclusion of publishers in international expositions, 179; and literary property, 191; and licensing, 212 Palais Royal, 14, 22, 43, 103 Panckoucke, Charles-Joseph, 4, 21–22, 27, 28, 37, 39, 46, 99, 177 Panckoucke, C. L. F., 46, 99, 108, 177 paper-making, mechanization of, 4, 24, 25–26 paper manufacturers: role of, in associations in publishing, 10, 11, 99, 101, 120, 126, 127, 154–155, 169, 173; commission of, in 1829, 62; discussion of, in context of international expositions, 178, 179 paratextual material, as impetus for rise of publisher, 28, 29 Paris: book trade in, 2, 5, 14, 18, 23, 28–29, 32, 52, 57, 233; monopolization of privileges in, 6, 27; relations of, with provinces, 7, 48, 107, 116, 174, 224–225; limitation of licenses in, 8; “coterie” of publishers in, 92–93, 99, 102, 104; Cercle de la Librairie centered on, 126– 127. See also Paris Book Guild Paris Book Guild, 6, 7, 27, 47, 52, 72, 73, 177; reinvention of, in Cercle de la Librairie, 10–11, 123, 128, 129, 130, 135, 137, 153; overthrow of, by Revolution, 28–29, 74; revival of, opposed by state, 101, 138, 188; history of, reconstructed by Cercle de la Librairie, 130–135 patronage, 37, 45 Paulin, Jean-Baptiste Alexandre, 80, 103, 106, 108 “paying” public domain. See public domain peddling. See colportage Pelletan, Eugène, 209, 217, 219, 220, 227 Persigny, Jean-Gilbert-Fialin de, 174 Peyronnet, Count, 61

326

pharmacy, as occupation comparable to publishing, 58–59, 217 Picard, Ernest, 227 Pichot, Amédée, 40 Piedmont-Sardinia, treaty of 1843 on literary property between France and, 89 Pillet Senior, 108, 110, 124, 146 Pinard, Ernest, 216, 217, 220 piracy. See literary piracy Plassan (family), 52 Plassan, J.-R., 30, 58 Plon, Henri, 111, 166 pluri-édition, 37, 40, 238 Polignac, Jules-Auguste-Armand-Marie, Prince de, 67 Portalis, Count Joseph-Marie, 78, 83–84 Portalis, Frédéric, Viscount de, 87 poster, as marketing tool of publishers, 22, 35, 43, 44 Pourrat brothers, 112 Prassaloff, Annie, 31 premiums, 10, 43, 92, 97, 111–117. See also lotteries press, freedom of, 7, 12, 53, 61, 62, 63–64, 65, 67, 101, 190, 212, 215, 219, 229, 230, 233 press, periodical, 2, 5, 236. See also newspapers press law, 2, 30–31, 54, 102, 188, 229–231, 232; as concern of publishers, 53, 229. See also bill of 1826; law of 21 Oct. 1814; law of 2 July 1861; law of 11 May 1868; law of 29 July 1881; Serre Laws price-fixing, 190, 212, 217, 233, 236, 241–242, 243 printers. See imprimeurs printing: mechanization of, 4, 24, 25–26, 234, 235 privileges: of Old Regime, 6, 7, 26–28, 29, 71, 72, 73, 121; abolition of, 9, 28–29, 46, 50; equation of licensing with, 59, 63, 65, 66, 68, 69, 70, 218, 223; equation of literary property with, 73, 74, 76, 83, 84, 87–88, 199, 200. See also monopoly producer, publisher as, 1, 11, 155–156, 176–185, 185–186 professional idiom, of Cercle de la Librairie, 4, 10–11, 119, 121–122, 145–152 professional syndicate: Cercle de la Librairie as, 125–126; law on, 125, 145, 242. See also professional idiom prospectus, as marketing tool of publishers, 17, 22, 35, 43

Index

protectionism. See corporate idiom; corporatists Proudhon, Pierre-Joseph, 203, 240 provinces: piracy in, 7, 27, 107; distribution of books in, 10, 36, 107, 214, 222; printers and bookdealers in, relative to Paris, 92, 109, 114, 174, 224–225; relation of Cercle de la Librairie with, 125, 127; position on licensing in, 224–225, 228; effect of liberalization on, 237 public: order, state concern for, 3, 4, 6, 7, 12, 49, 54, 56, 65, 66, 90, 101, 163, 188, 189, 190, 212, 213, 217, 220, 222, 227; demand for print, 4, 24, 25, 27, 35, 239; interest in access to print, as justification for limitation of literary property, 7, 29, 49, 71, 73, 77, 79, 82–83, 88, 89–90, 190, 193, 195, 203–204, 206, 210; interest, as justification for corporatist position, 8, 9–10, 53–54, 58–59, 68, 224; sphere, effect of Hachette’s railroad station bookstands on, 156, 172; sphere, effect of origins of liberalization in authoritarian regime on, 231. See also readers public domain, 27, 29, 30, 34, 35, 51, 52, 54, 72, 73–74, 89–90, 191, 194, 198–199, 236, 237; proposal for “paying,” 79, 199–200, 202, 203, 204–205, 206, 207, 208, 238 publisher. See éditeurs publishing, economic importance of, 2 Racine, 35 railroad, as factor in rise of publishing, 4, 24 railroad station bookstands, 11, 155, 156–176, 162 (ill.), 185 readers, 2, 4, 236, 237–238 Regnault, Élias, 19–20, 33 regulation of book trade. See decree of 5 Feb. 1810; licensing; literary property; Napoleon Renan, Ernest, 237 Renduel, Eugène, 23, 38, 108 Renouard, Antoine-Augustin, 78, 79, 85, 87 Renouard, Augustin-Charles, 87–88, 89 Renouard, Jules, 62, 85, 87, 103, 180 Renouard, Paul, 104 republicanism, predating Third Republic, 5, 229 Restoration Monarchy, 1, 9, 32, 156, 240; regulation of book trade under, 29, 30; consideration of reform of regulation of 1810

Index

under, 49, 55, 63–67, 78–80, 90–91, 188; association of publishers under, 102 Revolution of 1789, 15; and book trade, 3, 7, 9, 48–50, 51, 123; and rise of éditeur, 26, 28–29, 32–33, 46; and literary property, 71–73 Revolution of 1830, 26, 67, 69, 70, 80, 92, 97, 102, 103, 104 Revolution of 1848, 12, 71, 92, 93, 96, 110, 112, 122, 125, 135, 142, 188 Revue nationale et étrangère, 204, 215 rights of authors. See literary property romanticism, 31, 35, 237 Rouher, Eugène, 190, 208, 217, 219, 220 Roulhac, Eugène, 144, 150, 173 Rousseau, Jean-Jacques, 35 Roussel, Pierre, 136 royalties, as form of payment to authors, 37, 38, 237 Royer-Collard, Pierre-Paul, 78 Rudempré, Lucien de (in Lost Illusions), 14, 240 Sainte-Beuve, Charles-Augustin, 210, 220 Salvandy, Narcisse-Achille de, 82, 87 Salverte, Eusèbe, 69 Sand, George, 39, 199, 239 Saunders, David, 75 Séchard, David (Lost Illusions), 1 Second Empire, 11, 118, 121, 138, 145, 175, 185, 201; role of, in liberalization of book trade, 4, 5, 12, 187–188, 189–190, 229–231, 233; and literary property, 210; and licensing, 212, 213, 226 Second Printing Revolution, 24, 25–26 Second Republic, 10, 93, 94, 145, 188, 190, 212 Ségur, Philippe, Count de, 81 Ségur, Sophie, Countess de, 239 serials. See feuilletons Serre, Pierre-François-Hercule, Count de, 30, 65 Serre Laws (1819), 30–31, 63–64, 221 Sérurier, Count, 170 Sewell, William H., Jr., 73, 121, 129, 136 Siméon, Viscount Joseph, 83 Simon, Jules, 187, 189, 203, 209–210, 219, 227, 228 Smith, W. H., 157, 158 sociability, 5, 100, 122, 138–139, 144, 153 Société des Gens de Lettres, 74–75, 80, 169, 201, 203, 211, 215, 222

327

Société Nationale de la Librairie pour les Publications à Bon Marché, 107 Société pour la Poursuite des Contrefaçons Littéraires et Artistiques, 192, 198 Sociétés de Paris, Londres et Bruxelles, 106 Soulié, Frédéric, 42, 43–44, 45 sous-comptoir in publishing (1848), 93, 97, 110–111, 112, 114, 118, 135, 151 stamp taxes, 53, 152, 214, 219 state, protection of publishers by, 5, 10, 46, 52, 92, 97, 102, 114; in twentieth century, 13, 241, 243; of Louis Hachette, 157. See also loan of 1830 St. Clair, William, 34, 232, 256n17 Stendhal, 39 stereotypography, 4, 24, 25 subscription, as marketing tool of publishers, 17, 22, 25, 35 Sue, Eugène, 35, 38, 39 Switzerland, 27, 75 syndicat. See professional syndicate Syndicat Général des Imprimeurs de France (1869), 218, 222, 223, 227 Syndicat de la Librairie, proposed by Napoléon Chaix (1859), 168, 170, 171 Syndicat des Éditeurs, 126, 242, 243 Syndicat des Libraires Détaillants, 126 Taillefer, 228 Talma, François-Joseph, 78 Taylor, Baron Isidore, 78 technological change, as cause of rise of literary marketplace and specialization of publishing, 2, 3, 4–5, 24, 25 Templier, Armand, 126, 242 Templier, Émile, 157, 189, 239 theater, compared to publishing, 2, 5, 12, 17, 50, 190, 215, 217–218 Thierry, Amédée, 207 Thiers, Adolphe, 114, 219 Third Republic, 5, 12, 121, 145, 175, 212, 229, 230, 240 Thomas, Frédéric, 215 Thunot (publisher), 109 trade guilds. See chambres syndicales Treuttel and Würtz, 62, 80, 99, 108 Tribunal de Commerce, 122, 146, 150, 151 Turgot, Anne-Robert-Jacques, 7 Turnovsky, Geoffrey, 74

Index

328

“unfair” competition, as criticism of publishers, 43, 57, 97, 105, 111, 113–114, 155, 170 Union des Éditeurs, 92, 93, 97, 112–117 Union des Maîtres Imprimeurs, 126 United States: law on literary property, compared to France, 211; freedom of press, compared to France, 231; resistance to price-fixing, compared to France, 242; literary market, compared to France, 244 Universel, 43 Verne, Jules, 199, 235, 237, 240, 241 Vidocq, François, 22 Vigny, Alfred de, 40, 74 Villèle, Count Jean-Baptiste de, 65

Villemain, Abel-François, 78, 80, 84, 85, 88 Voltaire, 35 Walewski, Count Alexander, 201, 202, 206, 207, 217 Warée, Barnabé, 105, 113, 115 Werdet, Edmond, 15, 20–21, 22, 23, 32, 33, 41, 42, 107 William I, King (Holland), 76 world’s fairs. See expositions World War II. See Nazi Occupation Würtz, 81, 100 Zay Bill (1936), 238 Zola, Émile, 235, 237, 241