ABSTRACT
By the second half of the eighteenth century, the French language periodical press had become a very substantial enterprise with dozens of competing publications. Various characteristics distinguished it from the larger world of print: above all, the government recognized its different characteristics and accorded it its own regimen of regulation.1 The press’s periodicity also provided a particular sort of challenge to state authority. Critics, indeed, considered periodicals a single group, often assailing itrather contradictorily-for useless polemics as well as for dryness.2 Forced to develop a different work schedule for the periodical, printers came to recognize the medium as especially problematic.3 Editors too came to regard periodicals as a genre, remaining in journalism even if they seldom idealized such a career. Some publishers specialized in the periodical, and norms governing proper reporting began, hesitantly, to be articulated.4
