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GIR series of weekly letters under the signature of the "Vicomte de Launay," which she continued until the year 1848. In these she gave the literary, artistic, and other passing intelligence of the like kind, in a style which for lightness, airiness, and sparkling vivacity has never been surpassed. Whoever desires to possess a picture of Parisian society in its most attractive aspects under Louis Philippe, will find it admirably given in these letters, that have happily been collected and published in a single volume. No one had more, rather say, no one enjoyed equal advantages. Madame de Girardin was acquainted with every person of note; her observation was close, and in rendering her impressions she violated no rule of good taste. On two public occasions she trenched upon the domain in which her husband ruled, but it was to support him against injustice. She assailed the chamber of deputies when an attempt was made to nullify Emile de Girardin's election on account of his birth, and she fulminated an indignant complaint against General Cavaignac for depriving her husband of his liberty. Her dramatic works embrace tragedy, comedy, and a sort of drama so unique in its blended pathos and mirth that she may be said to have invented it. The little pieces, "La Joie fait peur," "La Chapeau de l'Horloger," and "Une femme qui deteste son mari," have excited more tears than her tragedies and more smiles than her comedies. The only complaint ever made against her was by Lamartine, that she laughed too much; but the fastidious gravity of the sentimentalist has not been warranted by friends like Theophile Gautier, who pronounced her a "good fellow," for so we think we may translate the term bon camarade, which he once applied to her. Different, however, was his language when he announced her death in an article in the Moniteur, marked by a grief which many shared. Madame de Girardin succumbed to a long and painful malady on 25th June, 1855. Before her funeral the coffin had to be placed before the door of the classic little villa in the Champs Elysees, in order to afford the crowds of people an opportunity of testifying their sorrow. The coffin was soon hidden in a heap of flowers. The funeral became a public one; a star had disappeared, and another historical salon was closed.—J. F. C.  * GIRARDIN,, the son of General Alexander de Girardin, was born at Paris in 1802. Some obscurity seems to hang over his birth. The career of this eminent political writer has been one of extraordinary activity and adventure. The first journal with which he, while yet a young man, became connected was issued under the astounding title of the Robber (Le Voleur), because it lived upon the writings of its contemporaries. From Le Voleur he went to La Mode in 1829, under the patronage of the duchess de Berri, which was withdrawn as soon as the editor began to mingle politics with fashion and dress. It was the revolution of 1830 that opened the way to Girardin's enterprising views regarding the press, which he thought ought to be brought more within the reach of the people. Presenting himself to the home minister, Casimir Perrier, he proposed to him a plan of government instruction for the working-classes and which simply consisted in making the great official Moniteur a one sou paper. The proud minister would not hear of such a thing, and the destined originator of cheap journalism became engaged in various speculations of the cheap periodical and book kind, until in 1831 he launched his evening paper, the Presse, at forty francs per annum, about one-third of the price of the Moniteur and the leading journals. La Presse was in fact the first penny newspaper. Great inventors and discoverers have sometimes paid dearly for the benefits they have conferred upon mankind, and Girardin very nearly shared the fate of the monk who found out gunpowder. The French penny press was inaugurated by four duels, in the last of which the founder of cheap journalism killed his man and vowed he would fight no more. The man he killed, and who fell the champion of high-priced journalism, was, strange to say, the leader of the republican party, Armand Carrel. It would be highly unjust, however, to leave the statement in such a way as to lead the reader to infer that four challenges were sent by chivalric French journalists about a mere question of price. On the contrary, their animosity arose from an opposite virtue. They said, in rather high-flown terms, that the mission of the press was sacred, that it was a sacerdoce, and they treated Girardin as a sort of apostate priest who was degrading their church into low mercantile traffic, and they resolved upon excommunicating him after their own fashion, which was to shoot him. At this time the editor of La Presse was a member of the chamber of deputies, and continued to sit until the memorable year 1848. A month before the revolution he publicly resigned his seat, declaring that the ministry was leading the country to a crisis, and that he would not sit in an assembly which was blindly participating in its fatal errors. When only some days afterwards the revolution took every one by surprise, M. de Girardin contrived to make his way into the presence of the bewildered king, into whose hands he put an act of abdication, which, wonderful to relate, his majesty signed, entered a hack carriage, and drove away, leaving this singular Warwick to shout "Confiance, confiance." He failed, however, to inspire others with the confidence with which he was himself so plentifully endowed. His next act was no less audacious. The triumphant republicans formed a procession to the tomb of their adored Carrel, when lo! there rose up before them the man by whose hand he fell—Emile de Girardin himself—who, after expressions of sorrow, improved the occasion by proposing the abolition of duelling. So little, however, were the republicans disposed to respond to his cry of confidence, that the first thing General Cavaignac did when armed with authority in the days of the June insurrection, was to put the editor of the Presse under lock and key. Elected a member of the legislative assembly for the department of the Bas Rhin in June, 1850, M. de Girardin made several propositions which received little attention. The coup d'etat of December, 1851, reduced him to private life. He disposed of the Presse, revised his voluminous essays, which he published in ten volumes, published an occasional pamphlet, which found readers, but he no longer takes a busy part in public affairs.—J. F. C.  * GIRARDIN,, professor at the agricultural school in Rouen, was born on the 16th of November, 1803, in Paris. He is the author of several well-known manuals of chemistry and technology; also of a treatise on volcanoes. He has likewise published memoirs in the Annales Chim. Phys., and in the Comptes Rendus of the French Academy. They comprise notices on the composition of the silver bell in Rouen, on the detection of sulphurous acid in commercial hydrochloric acid, besides some investigations performed conjointly with Bidard and Preisser. Girardin is a member of the Rouen Academy and Society of Agriculture; and is a corresponding member of the French Academy.—J. A. W.  GIRARDIN,, Comte de, son of Réné Louis, marquis de Girardin, was born at Lunéville, 19th of January, 1762, the ex-king of Poland being his godfather. Educated by his father, and to a slight extent by Rousseau, in the most advanced liberalism, he hailed the advent of the Revolution with ecstasy. In September, 1791, he was elected deputy to the legislative assembly by the department of the Oise; but gradually his democratic zeal began to cool, and in 1792 he was glad to accept a diplomatic mission to England as a means of safety. In English society he was remarked for his singular likeness to Fox. Compelled to return to France in January, 1793, he sought refuge first at Ermenonville, afterwards at Sezanne, where he was arrested, and, together with his brothers, committed to prison. In prison he learned to work as a joiner, and laboured patiently at that trade until the evil days were over. He afterwards became very intimate with Joseph Bonaparte, accompanying him to Naples, and subsequently to Spain. He held various offices under the emperor, in some of which he was continued by Louis XVIII. In 1819 he was elected deputy for the Lower Seine, of which department he had formerly been préfet, and, joining the opposition, became one of its most fearless and powerful orators, though frequently his zeal hurried him beyond the bounds of discretion, and rendered necessary a call to order. He died at Paris, 27th February, 1827. In 1828 appeared his "Journal et Souvenirs, Discours et Opinions," in two octavo volumes.—W. J. P.  GIRARDIN,, was born at Paris, 25th January, 1735, and died at Vernouillet, 20th September, 1808. He entered the army at an early age, and was attached to the personal service of the ex-king of Poland, Stanislaus. He became a colonel of dragoons, but, when peace was restored, devoted himself to the embellishment of his estate of Ermenonville. A warm admirer of Rousseau, he persuaded him to leave his wearisome work of music-copying in Paris, and to accept a little hermitage at Ermenonville. Rousseau, who died there, gave some slight instruction to his host's son, Louis-Cécile de Girardin.—W. J. P.  GIRARDON,, one of the most celebrated French sculptors, was born at Troyes, March 16, 1628. By his father, 