Arthur Meyer (journalist)

Arthur Meyer (Le Havre, 1844 - Paris, 1924) was an executive in the French press.

Arthur Meyer was the director of "Le Gaulois", a notable conservative French daily newspaper that was eventually taken over by "Le Figaro" (which was run by François Coty at the time) in 1929. He was an unusual person, a key player at the crossroads of society life, the press, and politics under the French Third Republic; this grandson of a rabbi from a modest Jewish family eventually became a royalist, an "anti-Dreyfusard" (a non-supporter of the victim of the Dreyfus affair) and a Catholic.

Career

"Le Gaulois"

In 1882, Arthur Meyer, who had hired Octave Mirbeau as a secretary two years earlier, took over the newspaper "Le Gaulois" permanently. The paper had been founded in July 1868 by Edmond Tarbé des Sablons and Henri de Pène, and it was essentially the main daily social paper of the nobility and the elite of the bourgeoisie in France. Catering to the high-class socialites, "Le Gaulois" had a relatively small circulation, between twenty and thirty thousand copies, but it had a very real influence on French society. It was the first newspaper to have a column about films, which first appeared in March 1916. From June 1897 until August 1914, "Le Gaulois du dimanche" (the Sunday edition of "Le Gaulois") was the weekly literary supplement of choice and it contained many serials over the years; it was in "Le Gaulois du dimanche" that Raymond Roussel's "Locus Solus" appeared.

Other enterprises

In 1881, Meyer had the idea, along with Alfred Grévin, to represent the personalities that made the front page of the news section as wax mannequins, which allowed visitors - in an era before photography was used in the press - to put a face to the names in the news. This was the beginning of the Musée Grévin, which opened its doors on June 5, 1882 and swiftly became successful.

Personal and Political Life

In 1888, Meyer supported the general Georges Ernest Boulanger and plotted with the Duchess of Uzés to bring about the return of the monarchy. He engaged in a duel with Édouard Drumont, who had insulted his origins in Jewish France, but he also supported the guilt of fellow Jew Alfred Dreyfus, who was wrongfully accused of treason in the aforementioned Dreyfus affair. Meyer converted to Catholicism in 1901 without ceasing to be the target of the pro-Dreyfus activist group Action Française. He married Mlle de Turenne, a young aristocrat, in 1904 - a marriage that came relatively late in his life. He died in 1924.

Works

* "Ce que mes yeux ont vu" ("What My Eyes Saw") - 1911
* "Ce que je peux dire" ("What I Can Say") - 1917

References

* Odette Carasso, "Arthur Meyer, Directeur du Gaulois. Un patron de presse juif, royaliste et antidreyfusard", Editions Imago, 2003