Émile de Girardin

Émile de Girardin (born June 22, 1806 in Paris , † April 27, 1881 ibid) was a French publisher and journalist. He was the illegitimate son of Adélaide Marie Fagnan and Alexandre Louis Robert de Girardin .

Émile de Girardin, photograph by Nadar

Life

Childhood and youth

His mother was married to the Paris lawyer Dupuy. Émile spent his early childhood without his parents in a foster pension in Paris until 1814. He then attended a Paris college . He suffered from his illegitimate birth and the disinterest of his birth father. The false name "Émile Delamothe" and an invented identity were particularly disparaging for him. In 1823 he found employment in the office of a royal ministry through mediation. In the following years he worked for a stockbroker.

First successes

With Émile , his first novel, published in 1827, which dealt with the story of his origins, Girardin's literary talent was shown. In 1828 he founded his first newspaper, the Voleur , and in 1829 fashion , which was followed by the Journal des connaissances utiles in 1831 and the Musée des familles in 1832 after the July revolution . In 1831 Girardin had married the writer Delphine Gay , a connection that advanced his editorial activities decisively.

The creation of La Presse in 1836 was overshadowed by a serious incident. Girardin injured his opponent, the journalist Armand Carrel of the competition paper National , so badly in a duel that he died after a few days. He was hit by a bullet in one of the thighs. Due to his speculative stakes in various industrial companies, which were not always successful, his reputation also suffered. His newspaper projects, however, were successful in the long term; La Presse had a circulation of over 22,000 copies in 1846. Girardin modernized and rationalized the newspaper system, which gave the general public access to this medium.

Political activities

After the February days of 1848 Girardin joined the republican party and initially defended the provisional government, which he fought again as it did not accept his services. Although he had first openly recommended Louis Napoléon's candidacy for the presidency, he soon fought against it again, since the prince refused to go into Girardin's political program. From then on he represented socialist ideas and when he was elected to the National Assembly by the Bas-Rhin department in 1850 after many unsuccessful efforts , he belonged to the extreme left, the so-called Mountain Party , which he left in August.

As a result of his election as deputy, Giradin had ceded the editorial department of the press to Auguste Nefftzer . He then took part in the peace congresses in Frankfurt and London in 1850 and 1851. After December 2, 1851, he was banished from France for an indefinite period and lived in Brussels, but was given permission to return to Paris in February 1852.

Before the Italian War, Giradin recommended a national and liberal policy that would give France the Rhine border and freedom at home. Despite this liberal appearance, his activity served to glorify the empire, which, according to his presentation, could get along very well with true freedom. He returned to journalism in 1862, headed the press again until 1866 and founded the imperialist Liberté in 1867 , which he used to agitate against Prussia.

During the war in 1870 he criticized Prussia. Before the siege of Paris, Giradin withdrew to Limoges . There the Journal founded La Défense nationale , then published L'Union francaise in April 1871 , in which he represented the idea of ​​transforming France into a federal republic, later acquired the Journal officiel and took over the management of France in November 1874 . In 1877 Giradin contributed significantly to the overthrow of the reactionary government of May 16, thereby gaining new popularity and being elected to the Chamber of Deputies in the 9th constituency of Paris as Greuy's successor . In 1881 he decided not to be re-elected and retired from professional life.

Private life

For Èmile de Girardin, journalistic work must have always been in the foreground. In 1831 he married the writer Delphine Gay , whom he had met in her mother's literary salon. After Delphine's death, he married Wilhelmine von Tiefenbach (1834-1892) in 1856, an unfortunate relationship. Their daughter died in 1865 and the couple divorced in 1872. Girardin led a double life at times : he had relationships with other women and had a son named Alexandre with Thérésia Cabarrus, the daughter of a friend from his childhood days in the foster pension.

Works

• Études politiques (2nd edition 1849)
• De l'instruction publique en France (new edition 1842)
• De la liberté de la presse, etc. (1842)
• Les Cinquante-deux (1848, 13 vols.)
• La politique universelle, décrets de l'avenir (Brussels 1852, ed. 1854)
• La separation de l'Église et de l'État (1861)
• Paix et liberté (1864)
• Les droits de la pensé (1864)
• Force ou richesse (1864)
• Le succès (1866)
• La voix dans le désert (1868)
• Le gouffre (1870)
• Hors de Paris (Bordeaux 1870)
• L'Union française, extinction de la guerre civile (1871)
• L'homme et la femme, l'homme suzerain, la femme vasalle, réponse à l'homme-femme de Mr. Dumas fils (1872)
• Grandeur ou déclin de la France (1876)
• La question d'argent (1877)
• L'égale de l'homme (again on the question of women, 1880, a reply to Dumas' Les femmes qui tuent et les femmes qui votent )
• A selection of his newspaper articles was collected under the titles: Questions de mon temps (1858, 12 vols.) And Questions philosophiques (1868)
• Several comedies, e.g. B. Le supplice d'une femme and Les deux soeurs (both performed in 1865, the former with success, the latter with a fiasco)
• Le mariage d'honneur (1866)
• Les hommes sont ce que les femmes les font (1868)

literature

• Jules Balteau, Michel Prévost, Roman d'Amat (eds.): Dictionnaire de biographie française . tape 16 : Gilbert – Guéroult. Letouzey et Ané, Paris 1985, ISBN 2-7063-0158-9 , Sp. 195-198 .
• Francis Lacombe: Études sur les socialistes . Lagny, Paris 1850, p. 445-474 .

Web links

Commons : Émile de Girardin  - album with pictures, videos and audio files

• Works by and about Émile de Girardin  in the German Digital Library