Girardin, Émile de (1806-81). Dynamic press entrepreneur who in 1836 inaugurated the publication of the roman-feuilleton in La Presse [see Press, 2]. He had already made his fortune in the late 1820s and early 1830s by launching a series of magazines which, each in its way, caught the mood of the moment—from the dandyish La Mode to the Journal des connaissances utiles and the Musée des familles, the latter two of which both spoke directly to the utilitarian and domestic concerns of the rising bourgeoisie. Always a key figure in politics and literature, it was he who handed Louis-Philippe the terms of abdication in February 1848.
[Brian Rigby]
