As an _artiste_, Lola was naturally anxious to conciliate the Press, which had not spoken too kindly of her first performance on the Paris stage. Gautier's unflattering notice had appeared in one of the most influential newspapers--_La Presse_. This journal was under the direction of the famous De Girardin, the Harmsworth of his generation. Till 1st July 1836 the lowest annual subscription to any newspaper in Paris was eighty francs; on that day De Girardin issued the first number of _La Presse_ at a subscription of forty francs a year. This startling reduction in the price of news excited, of course, no little animosity, but its successful results were immediately manifest. The daring journalist's next innovation was the creation of the _feuilleton_. The new paper prospered exceedingly, though it represented the views of the editor rather than those of any large section of the public. In 1840 De Girardin acquired a half of the property, the other being held by Monsieur Dujarier, who assumed the functions of literary editor.
In 1845 Dujarier was a young man of twenty-nine, a writer of no mean ability, and a smart journalist. He was well known to all the Olympians of the Boulevard, and entered with zest into the gay life of Paris. Lola became acquainted with him soon after her arrival in the capital, probably in an effort to win the paper over to her side. He spent, she tells us, almost every hour he could spare from his editorial duties with her, and in his society she rapidly ripened in a knowledge of politics. But before her political education had proceeded far, the woman's beauty and the man's wit had produced the effect that might have been looked for. "They read no more that day"--Lola and Dujarier loved each other.
"This," continues our heroine, "was in autumn [the autumn of '44], and the following spring the marriage was to take place." I fancy the word "marriage" is introduced here out of respect for the susceptibilities of the American public. The Old Guard of the Boulevard, in Louis Philippe's golden reign, _se fiança mais ne se maria pas_. Besides, Lola was still legally the wife of that remote and forgotten officer, Captain James. "It was arranged that Alexandre Dumas and the celebrated poet, Méry, should accompany them on their marriage tour through Spain." Dumas, Méry, and Lola, to say nothing of Dujarier, travelling together through Andalusia--here would have been a gallant company indeed, with which one would have gladly made a voyage even to Tartarus and back! The narrative, too, of the journey would have permanently enriched literature. But the scheme has gone, these sixty years, to the cloudy nether-world of glorious dreams unrealized.