Le Conservateur

Le Conservateur

"Le roi, la charte et les honnêtes gens" (The king, the charter and men of honour)
Type	Weekly newspaper
Founded	3 October 1818 (1818-10-03)
Language	French
Ceased publication	22 March 1820 (1820-03-22)
Headquarters	Paris, Kingdom of France

Le Conservateur was a political newspaper founded in 1818.

History

To avoid the censorship that was imposed on daily papers, Le Conservateur was published semi-periodically. It expressed the views of the Ultra-royalist party, which had been outvoted following the dissolution of the Chambre introuvable in 1816.

The editors of Le Conservateur, whose ranks included Chateaubriand, Marie-Barthélemy de Castelbajac, Count O'Mahony, Baron Trouvé, Viscount de Bonald, Abbé de Lamennais, Villèle, Charles-Marie d'Irumberry de Salaberry and Joseph Fiévée, mainly denounced the policies of the government of the Duke of Richelieu and then that of Élie Decazes, who were accused of defending revolutionary interests that were jeopardising the Charter of 1814.

Seventy-eight issues were produced, divided into six volumes. Le Conservateur was undoubtedly a success: three thousand copies were printed in the first issues, then oscillated between seven thousand and eight thousand five hundred from November 1818, before stabilising at around six thousand after 22 October 1822.

In his Memoirs from Beyond the Grave, Chateaubriand wrote that the ‘revolution wrought by this newspaper was unheard of: in France, it changed the majority in the Houses; abroad, it transformed the spirit of the cabinets’.

Le Conservateur ceased publication in 1820, in protest against the bill to re-establish censorship.

See also

• History of French journalism

Notable contributors

• François-Marie Agier
• Ernest de Blosseville
• Henri de Bonald
• Félix de Conny
• Astolphe de Custine
• Édouard de Fitz-James
• Charles Joseph Fortuné d'Herbouville
• Antoine Eugène Genoud
• Achille de Jouffroy
• Édouard Lelièvre de La Grange
• Anselme Crignon d'Ouzouer
• Humbert de Sesmaisons
• Élysée de Suleau

References

• Avellaneda, Morgane (2023). "Le Conservateur, véritable groupe politique ou illusion médiatique?," Sociabilités littéraires, No. 7, pp. 139–53.
• Clark, Roger (1974). "Autour d'une lettre inédite: Nodier et Le Conservateur," Romance Notes, Vol. XVI, No. 1, pp. 57–60.
• Clément, Jean-Paul (1996). "À propos de la création du Conservateur (1816-1820)," Bulletin de l'Association Guillaume Budé, No. 55, pp. 307–22.
• Collins, Irene (1959). The Government and the Newspaper Press in France: 1814-1881. London: Oxford University Press.
• Dijn, Annelien de (2008). "Liberty and Inequality: The Royalist Discourse". In: French Political Thought from Montesquieu to Tocqueville: Liberty in a Levelled Society?. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, pp. 40–67.
• Hudson, Nora E. (1934). "The Circulation of the Ultra-Royalist Press under the French Restoration," The English Historical Review, Vol. XLIX, No. 196, pp. 687–97.
• La Mennais, Félicité de (1826). "Lettre a M. l'éditeur du Conservateur." In: Mélanges. Louvain: Vanlinthout et Vandenzande, pp. 215–18.
• Lecler, Joseph (1960). "Les controverses sur l'Église et l'Etat au temps de la Restauration (1815-1830)," Revue des Sciences Religieuses, Vol.XXIV, No. 2/4, pp. 297–307.
• Ledré, Charles (1960). La presse à l'assaut de la monarchie, 1815-1848. Paris: A. Colin.
• Lerminier, Eugène (1844). "La presse légitimiste depuis 1789," Revue des Deux Mondes, Vol. VIII, pp. 615–42.
• Reboul, Pierre (1973). Chateaubriand et Le Conservateur. Lille: Université de Lille III.
• Waresquiel, Emmanuel de; Benoît Yvert (2002). Histoire de la Restauration, 1814-1830, naissance de la France moderne. Paris: Perrin.

External links

• Le Conservateur at Gallica