I hold out my hand to it. It casts me not a mite, but
a smile which means to say: to-morrow."
When he embarked on the hazardous venture of starting a newspaper of
his own, the motive was chiefly a desire to exercise a larger
political influence. Yet he had additional incentives. The Reviews to
which he had contributed in the past had yielded him almost as much
annoyance as profit; and, since the two most important ones, the
_Revue des Deux Mondes_ and the _Revue de Paris_, both under the same
editorship, were closed against him, he believed he needed an organ in
which to defend himself from the rising virulence of hostile
criticism. A press campaign in his favour could be better and more
cheaply waged in a paper under his entire control. His plan was not to
create a journal, but to revive one. In 1835 the _Chronique de Paris_,
formerly called the _Globe_, was on its last legs, albeit it had been
ably edited by William Duckett; and the proprietor, Bethune the
publisher, was only too glad to listen to Balzac's overtures. By dint
of puffing the new enterprise, a company was formed with a nominal
capital of a hundred thousand francs; Duckett was paid out in bills
drawn on the receipts to accrue, since the novelist had no ready money
of his own; and a start was made under the new management.
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