Octave Mirbeau’s biting satire of sensationalist journalism. A newspaper director proudly displays his front page of murders and guillotines, boasting of 403 new ‘apache’ subscribers while declaring ‘No ideas in my paper!’ A masterpiece of media criticism.
I want to express here all my pleasure at returning to the ranks. I truly thought it was over for me and that never, never again would I be permitted to write in a newspaper what I think about the people and things of my time. And I was reduced to wishing for the return of the gentler, more tolerant eras of political tyranny and religious inquisition, since, under a regime of free discussion, it’s formally forbidden for free men to exercise a right that laws consecrate, it’s true, but that customs, stronger than laws, abolish.
The fact is that all newspapers, however divided they may be in serving—I won’t say causes, but different private interests and rival ambitions—become a single newspaper when it comes to parties: routine, mediocrity, injustice and lies.
However much of a man of letters I may be, I didn’t go so far as to imagine the universe was in mourning for my silence, or that I was missing from the happiness of the people and peoples. But I was deeply humiliated.
Humiliated?… Or perhaps proud?… Good Lord, I’m not quite sure anymore.
What I do know is that, to avoid feeling too sorry for myself, I savoured bitter joys in often repeating that I wasn’t the only one in this position, that there were many other voices than mine, and dearer ones, among all “the voices that have fallen silent.” But this didn’t console me.
This didn’t console me, for the months passed and the years passed, newspapers died, others were born that died again, and M. François de Nion continued to exalt thinkers, M. Maizeroy warriors and lovers, M. Abel Bonnard the vague melancholy of rich ladies; and M. Fernand Nozière, “delightful writer,” whose various virtues Mme Liane de Pougy recently celebrated in verses of a rather familiar but touching lyricism, continued to take communion imperturbably, here and there, under the literary species of Voltaire, Laclos, Renan, Anatole France and the prophet Andréa de Nerciat… Ah! how I envied them!
⁂
I had been left with the memory of my last interview with the director of a major republican newspaper.
This director—let’s not identify him further—is an admirable man. He made this clear to me straight away. I love him, for I owe to him knowing a bit more precisely today what constitutes the ideal of a shepherd of consciences and educator of the masses.
“I wanted you to write articles for me,” he said. “But I’ve realised it’s impossible. You’ve only yourself to blame… You’re a bad spirit… and…”
Being of an amiable nature and not wanting to distress anyone when there’s no direct interest involved, he hesitated to say more… I encouraged him as best I could.
“And… a spirit… excuse me… very dangerous,” he finished, softening the harshness of his judgement with a friendly voice.
This wasn’t the first time I had heard this reproach. I wasn’t surprised and replied with smiling good grace, a bit weary:
“Bad, granted!… But dangerous?… Come now, sir… dangerous to what?… to whom?… To oneself at most… Ah! poor me! You do me great honour, I assure you, far too much…”
“You see!” he sighed. “You’re not even aware of it.”
He made a discouraged gesture, in harmony with the discouragement his face expressed… And he proclaimed:
“You respect nothing… I mean nothing that’s respectable… Men who’ve arrived… men in position… men of money… men of wit… Men of wit! Just think!… All that remains to us of a charming and joyful past… And established things, the Academies, the Schools of Fine Arts, the Palaces of Justice and charitable institutions… the economic doctrines of M. Leroy-Beaulieu… what else… the theatres… what do you make of them?… And all these political and administrative institutions we owe to Louis XIV, to Napoleon, and which form the persistent glory of our radical-socialist Republic, what are they to you?… Nothing… Yes, nothing… Less than nothing… Now, in my paper, sir, I want everything respected, everything… everything consecrated by criticism, by fashion, by advertising, by anything at all. And I want people to bow, once and for all, before power, in whatever hands it passes and repasses; before wealth, no matter how it was conquered and how it’s used… before success… Ah! success, above all!… What a beautiful thing! Success knows what it’s doing, and whom it addresses… It never makes mistakes… And look… I loathe what you call ideas… No ideas in my paper!… You must have seen on entering the inscription I nailed myself above my office door… ‘Ideas requested to abandon all hope here.’ Excellent wording! Ah! sir, ideas only serve to pervert people, or else to bore them. They’re very harmful to subscriptions. In my paper, I want people to enjoy themselves… By enjoying themselves, they acquire virtue.”
He took from the table that morning’s issue of his newspaper and showed me the front page.
It was covered with impressive illustrations: portraits of murderers, satyrs, judges, poisoners and policemen… severed heads, brains turned to mush, opened and ransacked bellies, truncated corpses. In bold, full letters, lacking only the terror of being printed in red, blazed titles, super-titles, sub-titles, inter-titles and extra-titles, from which the words: blood; murder, strangulation; rape, knife, leapt out and jumped at your throat. In the middle of the page, very black against a radiating sun background, guillotines, guillotines…
“Look at this issue,” the admirable director admired… “One of my best certainly… Ah! they’re not all so successful!… I’m so poorly supported by my collaborators, and even by events… Yes, yes… I know… When I lack sensational crimes, I invent them… but it’s not as good as nature… When I lack imagination, I take some from the best in the repertoire… but it’s not as good as current events… Ah! I often have such trouble!… Excellent issue, truly!”
He smiled, leaned towards me and, drumming on my knees:
“Excellent business too… A golden affair,” he confided in a slightly lower voice… “Between us, eh?… In this morning’s post, my administrator counted four hundred subscriptions from apaches… Exactly four hundred and three. That’s a figure!… Well!… Just listen!…”
He consented to explain that he was very concerned with “giving more scope”—perhaps he meant “more amplitude”—to this “very, very interesting” movement.
“I dream of instituting world records, national and international cups, all sorts of bonuses and prizes for murders, rapes, nocturnal and diurnal aggressions… travel scholarships for distant burglaries…”
Breaking into laughter, resounding and very cheerful, he cried:
“Your scholarship or your life! Eh?… What?… That’s rather funny…”
But immediately becoming a businessman again, he continued more steadily:
“You see… For a modern newspaper… That’s all there is anymore… That and the theatre… It’s the same thing, actually… with this slight difference that if crime amuses… the theatre instructs… To instruct while amusing, that’s my motto.”
He turned a page of his newspaper, discoursed at length on the methodical, rational arrangement of the eighteen columns, texts and drawings, devoted to the doings of the theatre.
“The theatre’s doing well…” he approved. “There’s no denying it, it’s doing very well… It’s progressing every day… This Gavault? What a delightful writer!… And what a delight this Little Chocolate Girl!… But one can dream of better still… One can dream of enchocolating all the theatres of Paris with the chocolate of this little chocolate girl… And I’m working to… to… how do you say it in your poet’s language?… to… concretise this dream… It’s not far off, actually… It’s nothing away… A few bores to discourage… and there we are… I’m studying, at the moment, a project… a vast project of weekly competitions, where, with the directors’ approval, with the critics’ help, with the French Academy as jury, I’d crown, each week, or just as needed, the best play… And by the best play… ah!… ah!… you know what I mean… That’s how I work!”
I saw that this man was happy and, at that moment, moved. Truly, he wished me well.
“Come now!… come now!… If your heart’s in it… I open this field, this immense field to your activity… Think about it and come see me again… Doesn’t it appeal to you?… Yes, I know, one rebels at first… And then, one gets used to it… Children, women, passions, rent… one must live… And you’ll see, later, how you’ll thank me for having torn you from the bitterness of literature, from the disillusions of art!…”
⁂
For several months, I remained as if crushed under the heavy memory of this interview. And my nights were haunted by nightmares. In my sleep, I saw nothing but a sheet of paper, immense and very white, where, as on the screen of a gigantic cinematograph erected over the world, passed and repassed endlessly.
And suddenly, here is Paris-Journal giving me the joyful surprise of opening wide its doors, not only to me, but to this little friend I take everywhere with me: my freedom.
Should I say that we feel, she and I, rejuvenated and as if delivered?
Freedom, dear freedom, I believe we are going to have a bit of fun, for it seems to me the springs of our enthusiasms and our disgusts are far from dried up…
1910.
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Léon Hennique Novel 