The history of the _Constitutionnel_ follows that of the _Debats_. The _Debats_, says M. Texier, is ingenious, has tact without enthusiasm, banters with taste, and scuds before the wind with a grace which only belongs to a _fin voilier_--to a fast sailing clipper. But, on the other hand, none of these qualities are found in the _Constitutionnel_, which, though often hot, and not seldom vehement and vulgar, is almost uniformly heavy. For three-and-thirty years--that is to say, from 1815 to 1848--the _Constitutionnel_ traded in Voltairien principles, in vehement denunciations of the _Parti Pretre_ and of the Jesuits, and in the intrigues of the emigrants and royalist party _quand meme_. For many years the literary giant of this Titanic warfare was Etienne, who had been in early life secretary to Maret, duke of Bassano, himself a mediocre journalist, though an excellent reporter and stenographer. Etienne was a man of _esprit_ and talent, who had commenced his career as a writer in the _Minerve Francaise_. In this miscellany, his letters on Paris acquired as much vogue as his comedies. About 1818, Etienne acquired a single share in the _Constitutionnel_, and after a year's service became impregnated with the air of the Rue Montmartre--with the spirit of the _genius loci_. When one has been some time writing for a daily newspaper, this result is sure to follow. One gets habituated to set phrases--to pet ideas--to the traditions of the locality--to the prejudices of the readers, political or religious, as the case may be. Independently of this, the daily toil of newspaper writing is such, and so exhausting, that a man obliged to undergo it for any length of time is glad occasionally to find refuge in words without ideas, which have occasionally much significancy with the million, or in topics on which the public love to dwell fondly. Under the reign of Louis XVIII. and Charles X. it lost no opportunity, by indirection and innuendo, of hinting at the "Petit Caporal," and this circumstance during the life of the emperor, and long after his death, caused the journal to be adored--that is really the word--by the old army, by the _vieux de vieille_, and by the _durs a cuirs_. In these good old bygone times the writers in the _Constitutionel_ wore a blue frock closely buttoned up to the chin, to the end that they might pass for officers of the old army on half-pay. In 1830 the fortunes of the _Constitutionnel_ had reached the culminant point. It then counted 23,000 subscribers, at 80 francs a year. At that period a single share in the property was a fortune. But the avatar of the Citizen King spoiled in a couple of years the sale of the citizen journal. The truth is, that the heat of the Revolution of July had engendered and incubated a multitude of journals, great and little, bounding with young blood and health--journals whose editors and writers did not desire better sport than to attack the _Constitutionnel_