Mercure de France, Le. In 1724, following a government reorganization of publishing, this title was conferred on a publication whose previous names included Le Mercure français (1605), the forerunner of the periodical press in France, and Le Mercure galant. France's leading literary review, Le Mercure de France was wide-ranging in subject-matter, but prudent in its politics: it was government-controlled. Directed between 1758 and 1760 by Marmontel, the journal numbered Voltaire and La Harpe among its collaborators, and helped promote the Encyclopédie. After 1778 it prospered under the management of Panckoucke, covering politics as well as the arts. Generally published weekly, it declined during the Revolution, but was one of the few non-specialist reviews to continue publication under Napoleon.
In 1889 Symbolist authors founded a literary review entitled Le Mercure de France that lasted until 1965 and gave birth to a publishing house in 1894. Remy de Gourmont, Jules Renard, and Jarry published in the review.
[Michael Palmer]
