Émile de Girardin 1806-1881

Ar every step you walk into this cold, swift man, this suppressed volcano, this marble beacon which flames on all the horizons of the intelligence. You will meet him on the rostrum, you will meet him in the Press, always rejected, always victorious...’ So wrote Charles Monselet, the man of letters, in 1857.

He was writing of an imposing figure in an imposing age. It has been rightly said that Émile de Girardin was more American than French. He was the supreme example of the self-made man, the nineteenth-century precursor of Citizen Kane.

He had been born on June 21st, 1806, the illegitimate son of Comte Alexandre de Girardin, one day to be General, and Grand Veneur to Charles X, and the engaging Mme Dupuy. We know that Mme Dupuy was engaging, for she had posed for the celebrated picture by Greuze: Jeune fille aux colombes. She was the wife of Joseph-Jules Dupuy, who was temporarily abroad.