lished a bureau of addresses, a centre for information and publicity, where any one could procure particulars of what he needed. Some resorted there to announce what they had to sell, that it might be easy for others to find there what they wanted to purchase. but it was as yet only half an invention: it was only possible to get information at the bureau of addresses by putting oneself to trouble and wasting time. Renaudot, who wished to facilitate business, had the idea of circulating in Paris a sheet containing particulars of the goods offered for sale, in such a manner that any one could make his choice without leaving home. We only know of a single number,[1] which seems to indicate that it cannot have had a long existence. But the idea was a happy one, and some years later it was resuscitated. He who appropriated it was one Dugone, who has noticed, he tells us, how some people, especially foreigners,[2] take a great interest in reading bills, but how, at the same time, it is not a pastime that every one can indulge in. Carriage people, for instance, pass too rapidly and look from too great a distance, to see them properly; magistrates and ecclesiastics are constrained by their gown, which imposes on them a certain reserve; it would be scarce becoming to ladies to approach too close or mindle too freely with the crowd staring at them. And so it was that the idea occurred to Dugone of collecting them and making a journal of them, which he called by a name which has remained to it—the Petite Affiches.
Among the Romans the placard never grew into a newspaper, but it continued to be displayed on the walls until the end of the Empire, and never ceased to be their principal medium of publicity. It was by the placards, or, as was more often said, by the inscriptions, that authority made its decisions known; that citizens
- ↑ I borrow this detail and many others from the Histoire de la Presse of M. Hatin. He has reproduced this precious number, and among the objects on sale are to be remarked: 'A cost of scarlet cloth, unfinished, lined with satin of the same colour, and with silver stripes, would be sacrificed for 18 écus'; 'A house in the Pont-Neuf quarter, with seven bedrooms, for 1200 livres'; 'Beds with serge vallances, necklaces, earrings'; finally: 'A young dromedary at a reasonable price,' which is no everyday piece of goods.
- ↑ Molière calls the Germans 'great inspectors of bills.'
