The _Revue des Deux Mondes_ had been started in 1829. It was a sickly bantling, and had to change its name the following year to the _Journal des Voyages_. The new name, however, brought no fresh subscribers, and the _Journal_ was dragging on a dreary existence when M. Auffray, the printer, bought it, and engaged his former schoolfellow, Francois Buloz, as editor of the new series of the _Revue des Deux Mondes_. His yearly salary was twelve hundred francs, and two francs for every subscriber. There were then but three hundred and fifty of these, but in 1834 the three hundred and fifty had become one thousand; in 1838 five hundred more had been added; in 1843 there were two thousand; in 1846, two thousand five hundred; and in 1851, five thousand. Long before this the _Revue_ had become a power. Buloz remained as a partner, but M. Auffray had long since given up his interest in it: he had been succeeded by Alexander Bixio, and the latter by Messrs. Florestan and Felix Bonnaire, the owners of the _Revue de Paris_. Messrs. Bonnaire in 1845 proposed to buy out Buloz for a sum exceeding one hundred thousand francs. After consulting with Merimee, Sainte-Beuve and others, Buloz declined the proposal, and with the aid of his friends bought out the brothers Bonnaire for a sum just double that which they had offered him. It was then, in 1846, that the new company was constituted, with Buloz as managing director, and M. Mole, M. d'Haussonville, M. de Saint Priest, Count Roger, the duc de Broglie, M. de Rothschild, M. Baude and others as stockholders. A number of writers too were interested in the concern, and were to pay for their stock in the shape of contributions. A year or two before, the _Revue_ had been most violently attacked by persons ill disposed to bear with M. Buloz's firm determination to admit nothing into the _Revue_ but what he considered up to the standard requisite to maintain its reputation. Alexandre Dumas led the coalition, which was in part made up of men who had been criticised by the _Revue_. As was natural, their enmity only advertised the periodical and increased its circulation. Still, his enemies managed in more ways than one to make him feel their power. Ever since 1838, M. Buloz, under the title of "commissaire du roi," had been manager of the Theatre Francais, but after the revolution of 1848 he was abruptly dismissed. Thenceforth he gave his attention exclusively to his literary enterprise, and the _Revue_ gained thereby.