istance really knew England. Voltaire had by turns glorified
and ridiculed it; De Stael had shown it to us in an agreeable book; the
witty letters of Duvergier de Hauranne had revealed the secrets of its
electoral system. Your correspondence of 1841 completed the work." He
might pertinently have added, "Because you are about the only French
newspaper writer who ever thoroughly understood the English language,
and could thus avoid ridiculous blunders."

It has been observed that the _Debats_ almost exclusively supplies the
Academy with its contingent of publicists--a circumstance accounted for
by that journal being jealous of the purity of its language, and in
other respects preserving a high and dignified standard. It has, indeed,
for an unusually long period enjoyed its reputation. French and Belgian
newspapers are very much of a mystery to an Anglo-Saxon. They seem to
flourish under conditions impracticable to American or English journals.
The _Independance Belge_ and the _Journal des Debats_ lie before us.
Neither of them contains sufficient advertisements to make up three of
our columns, yet their expenses must, we should suppose, especially in
the case of the _Debats_, published as it is where prices are so high,
be very large. Both these papers contain articles evidently the work of
able hands, and in the case of the _Independance_ the foreign
correspondence must be a very costly item, forming, as it frequently
does, five columns of a large page. The price of each is twenty
centimes--high, certainly, for a single sheet.

It has often been observed, too, that French newspaper-men seem
exceptionally well off. They frequent costly _cafes_, occasionally
indulge in _petits soupers_ in _cabinets particuliers_, and, altogether,
taking prices into account, appear to be in the enjoyment of larger
means than their brethren of the pen elsewhere. Of course, the success
of a French newspaper is, even in the absence of advertisements,
intelligible in the case of the _Figaro_ or _Petit Journal_, with their
circulation of 70,000 and 150,000 a day; but in the case of such papers
as the _Debats_, whose circulation is not very large, it is difficult to
explain.

The position of a journalist in Paris seems to stand in many respects
higher than elsewhere. Of course, the fact of contributions not being
anonymous adds immeasurably to the writer's personal importance, if it
also gets him into scrapes. Elsewhere, _editors_ are men of ma