ut the brothers
Bonnaire for a sum just double that which they had offered him. It was
then, in 1846, that the new company was constituted, with Buloz as
managing director, and M. Mole, M. d'Haussonville, M. de Saint Priest,
Count Roger, the duc de Broglie, M. de Rothschild, M. Baude and others
as stockholders. A number of writers too were interested in the concern,
and were to pay for their stock in the shape of contributions. A year or
two before, the _Revue_ had been most violently attacked by persons ill
disposed to bear with M. Buloz's firm determination to admit nothing
into the _Revue_ but what he considered up to the standard requisite to
maintain its reputation. Alexandre Dumas led the coalition, which was in
part made up of men who had been criticised by the _Revue_. As was
natural, their enmity only advertised the periodical and increased its
circulation. Still, his enemies managed in more ways than one to make
him feel their power. Ever since 1838, M. Buloz, under the title of
"commissaire du roi," had been manager of the Theatre Francais, but
after the revolution of 1848 he was abruptly dismissed. Thenceforth he
gave his attention exclusively to his literary enterprise, and the
_Revue_ gained thereby.

From the very first, Buloz had secured the rising literary talent of the
day for the _Revue_. Alfred de Vigny contributed to it successively
_Stello_, _Laurette_ and _Le Capitaine Renaud_; Alexandre Dumas, whose
jealousy was only aroused later on, published therein his _Impressions
de Voyage_; Balzac wrote for it, as did also Nodier, Victor Hugo,
Barbier, Brizeux, Merimee, Lerminier, George Sand, Jouffry, Alfred de
Musset, Sainte-Beuve, Gustave Planche and Augustin Thierry, whose
_Nouvelles lettres sur l'Histoire de France_ first appeared in the
_Revue_.

In 1840, M. Thiers, while president of the council, wrote an article for
the _Revue_. Buloz, who greatly admired the statesman-historian, pressed
him strongly the following year to write upon the Eastern Question. M.
Thiers, then at Lille, was about to go to Germany in order to examine
the battle-fields of Napoleon for his great work. We find him writing to
Buloz a letter which is not less interesting at the present time than it
was thirty-six years ago: "I often think of writing for you an article
on the Eastern Question, but it is somewhat difficult for me to leave my
work. However, I am preparing to put pen to paper in order to carry out
my promise. I m