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THE FINAL VERSION OF THIS ARTICLE WAS PUBLISHED IN FRENCH CULTURAL STUDIES

2015 26 (1): 32-44 , doi: 10.1177/0957155814554526

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‘Nothing ruins writers like journalism’: Colette, the press and Belle Époque

literary life

Abstract

This article takes Colette as a case study to explore the role of press in the literary world of the

Belle Époque. Like Colette, many literary authors worked in journalism, a commercial career

that often clashed with ideals of creative autonomy and genius. Yet the close connection

between the literary world and the press was more complex and productive than has previously

been acknowledged by both cultural historians and historians of the press. This analysis offers

new perspectives not only by examining Colette’s overlooked journalistic career, but also by

looking at the role of money, publicity and how the press shaped the politics and poetics of

writers. This paper argues that the press played a crucial and underexamined role in French

literary life of the Belle Époque and that the study of the press contributes to a better

understanding of the institutional context of cultural production.

Key words: press, journalism, publicity, cultural production, gender, politics, Belle Époque,

Colette

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After Colette took up a regular appointment at Le Matin in 1910, her mother warned her that

nothing ruined writers more than journalism: ‘C’est la fin de tes œuvres littéraires, tes romans.

Rien n’use les ecrivains comme le journalisme’ (Sido to Colette, 31 October 1910, cited in

Bonal & Maget, 2010: 17). Yet Colette simply said about her job in 1914: ‘il faut vivre’. (letter

to Christiane Mendelys, 20 August 1914, cited in Pichois and Forbin, 1961: 107). Even though

Colette downplayed her journalistic career, she was a prolific and seemingly enthusiastic

journalist all her life. Colette was also not alone. Many contemporary literary colleagues,

including Proust, Gide, Jean Lorrain or Anatole France, pursued careers in journalism and this

was a reflection of the prominent position the press had come to occupy in French society

towards the end of the nineteenth century.

In fact until 1914 the French were – together with Americans – the world’s biggest

consumers of newspapers (Albert, 1990: 31). Liberal press laws, low prices, technological

advances, cheaper transportation, better education, as well as increased literacy among the

French population all contributed to this fact. Around 1900 2400 titles, both periodicals and

newspapers, were being published everyday in Paris. By 1914 there were 80 daily newspapers

with 5.500.000 copies issued in Paris alone (Albert, 1990: 32). Costing between 5 and 10

centimes, French newspapers were also the cheapest in the world. The period between 1890

and 1914 was indeed the golden age of the press (Bellanger et al., 1972: 239-405).

A specific characteristic of the French press was that the big names in journalism were

almost all literary figures. Historians of journalism (Albert, 1990; Ferenczi, 1993; Martin,

1997; Chalaby, 1998; Delporte, 1999) have observed that French journalism was more a

journalism of expression and opinion than of observation. Preference was given to the

chronicle that centred on personal commentary over reportage that valued objectivity.1

Newspapers prided themselves in having literary stars on their payroll. L’Écho de Paris for

example labelled itself as a ‘journal littéraire et politique’. In 1900 the Baedeker tourist guide

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to Paris even warned tourists against the opinionated and biased Parisian press explicitly listing

L’Écho de Paris, Le Figaro and Le Journal as ‘littéraire’.2 But even the more popular

newspapers such as Le Petit Parisien or Le Petit Journal reserved a place for literary

columnists and serial literature.

Colette’s mother was however not alone in her concern. Negative views of journalism

were commonplace, sprung out of concerns about the declining importance of literature in the

face of mass culture. Throughout the nineteenth century this supposedly harmful role of

journalism in cultural life had become a real literary trope (Curatolo and Schaffner, 2010: 13-

15), central for example in Balzac’s Illusions Perdues, Maupassant’s Bel-Ami or De

Goncourt’s Charles Demailly.. In Mon Coeur mis à nu (1887) Baudelaire wrote rather

dramatically: ‘Je ne comprends pas qu’une main pure puisse toucher un journal sans une

convulsion de dégoût.’3 Octave Mirbeau called the journalistic chronicle this ‘old prostitute’,

ironically in a chronicle4 while Edmond de Goncourt wrote in his journal on 21 January 1895:

‘J’ai bien peur que les rares fabricateurs de livres de ce jeune monde soient mangés par le

journalisme, où se touchent de grosses payes avec le tintamarre de la gloire’.5 That kind of

thinking – opposing the untouched purity of literature to the ink stained newspapers – has

persisted throughout the twentieth century. Bourdieu for example argued that ‘the journalistic

field tends to reinforce the ‘commercial’ elements at the core of all fields to the detriment of

the ‘pure’’ (Bourdieu, 1998: 70).

However in recent years, scholars have argued that these ideologically fuelled views on

newspapers and mass culture have often hindered a closer look at the role of journalism in

literary modernity (Campbell, 2004: 3) and do not do justice to the pluriformity and literary

nature of journalism in France (Thérenty, 2007) or Europe in general (Broersma, 2007). What

has often been neglected is that journalism is a form of writing and should therefore also, as

Thérenty (2003) has also proposed, be studied within the context of literary history rather than

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purely in the domains of history, sociology and journalism studies. This is particularly true for

the Belle Époque where the press played an undeniably great role in the publishing industry

and in authors’ careers. More recently and in particular in France, scholars have begun to map

the cultural history of the press in the nineteenth century (Kalifa et al., 2012) while Leroy and

Bertrand-Sabiani (1998) have provided a brief overview of the role of the press in the literary

field.

Colette’s journalistic career has also been somewhat overlooked. There is surprisingly

little written on her ‘parallel oeuvre, unjustly forgotten in the archives of the press’ as Bonal

and Maget (2010: 11) have also remarked.6 Yet her work and career are perfect examples of

the close ties between literary writers and the press around 1900. She contributed reportage,

reviews, and stories to popular dailies such as Le Matin or Le Journal, to literary periodicals, as

well as to various magazines. Many of her novels were pre-published in periodicals and her

professional and personal lives were widely reported in the press. Colette’s case reveals some

of the ways writers were involved with the press – whether for financial, publicity, political or

creative reasons. Her case also shows that the boundaries between the journalistic and the

literary world were never as clear cut as some, including authors themselves, have made them

out to be. Studying Colette’s involvement with the world of newspapers and periodicals revises

several ideas about her as a writer and a journalist. Her case also shows how the press shaped

writers’ careers and reputations, their politics and their poetics and its influential role in the

Belle Époque literary world.

Il faut vivre: money

For many writers money was a primary reason to get involved with journalism. In a letter to

Missy from 1910 Colette made it clear that she needed journalism to make a living:

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‘Madame et Monsieur demande un article sur le Printemps (la saison, pas le magasin) pour le numéro

de Pâques, on me donnera 3 louis, alors je ne peux pas refuser, le journal est toujours très aimable pour

moi. Le numéro de Pâques devant être illustré somptueusement, il faut que je fasse l’article tout de

suite, et puis la chronique sur Bruxelles pour Paris-Journal, qu’est-ce que tu veux, le roman attendra un

peu, ce n’est pas de ma faute.’

(letter to Missy, February 1910, quoted in Bordji and Maget, 2009:12)

At the time 3 louis was 80 francs which would now roughly convert to 300 euros or 267

pounds. To put this in perspective: around 1900 a servant, depending on position and hierarchy,

earned between 1 and 10 franc a day (Winock, 2003: 160) and the monthly rent of a mid-range,

furnished apartment in Paris was about 150 to 200 francs.7 If we take into account the number

of publications Colette regularly wrote for between 1895 and 1923, it is clear that journalism

provided her with a substantial additional income.

Newspapers and periodicals to which Colette contributed between 1895 and1923:

La Cocarde, le Gil Blas, La Vie heureuse, Le Mercure de France, La Vie parisienne, la Revue illustrée,

Le Damier, Le Mercure musical, La revue théâtrale, Le Plaisir, Akademos, Comœdia, Fantasio, Paris-

Théâtre, Le Nouveau Siècle, Madame et Monsieur, Paris-Journal, Le Matin, L'Éclaireur de Nice, Nos

loisirs, Lisez-moi, Les Humoristes, Les Tablettes, Les Cahiers d'aujourd'hui, L'Officiel des concerts,

cirques, music-halls, Femina, Le Flambeau, La Baïonnette, Le Figaro, Excelsior, Le Film, Filma,

L'Éclair, Les Annales politiques et littéraires, Parisiana, Les Écrits nouveaux, La Revue de Paris, Le

Journal, La Nouvelle Revue française, Conferencia.

(Source : Centre d’étude Colette)

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Reading through her letters of 1910 Colette seemed to be working on an article almost on a

daily basis alongside the novel she was trying to finish. ‘Hier j’ai fait un petit début de

chronique pour Paris-Journal, mais demain je vais me remettre au roman’, she said in February

1910 (quoted in Bordji and Maget, 2009 :103) while for example in March she wrote: ‘Je

viens de mettre au net sept ou huit pages de ‘‘tournées’’ pour Comoedia’ (cited in Bordji and

Maget, 2009: 127). Apart from contributing articles, Colette also benefited from the

prepublication of her novels and stories in the press. In that same year, 1910, Colette received

500 francs for the serial publication of her novel La Vagabonde, around 1840 euros or 1640

pounds today. She would probably also have received an extra pay per line revenue from

reproduction in provincial papers. This is not even counting any royalties she might have

earned from the book publication.

Yet money was precisely the reason for the mistrust towards journalism, as De

Goncourt’s words once again make clear:

Oh ! la jeunesse des lettres, je la trouve bien pressée de jouir du succès, bien avide de l’argent, bien

incapable de travailler de longs mois dans la retraite, le silence, la maigre rétribution de son labeur, ce

qu’a fait notre génération.8

De Goncourt opposes the idea of commercial writing (‘avide de l’argent’) and the myth of the

creative, autonomous and impoverished genius (‘la maigre rétribution’). He conveniently

forgets to mention however that many of his generation –Zola and Maupassant among others –

were in fact prolific journalists. Even De Goncourt himself contributed to newspapers and

many of his novels were pre-published as serials in the press. More importantly, De Goncourt

also had a private income and could afford to work independently.

For many others, journalism was simply a necessity. Alphonse Allais expressed a more

pragmatic attitude towards journalism, stating with his characteristic sense of humour: ‘mon

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traité avec Le Journal me garantissant une somme fixe pour mes chroniques, qu’on rie ou

qu’on ne rie pas.’ (Le Journal, 26 April 1895). In the early years of her career Colette was

going through a divorce, was in debt, and had no inheritance or other financial support. Women

already had limited career options around 1900 so journalism provided a welcome source of

income and independence. For authors like Colette or Allais, De Goncourt’s theoretical

concerns about ivory tower autonomy were a luxury they simply could not afford.

Publicity and Belle Époque Media Culture

The magazine Madame et Monsieur that had paid Colette 3 louis in 1910 for an article had also

recently interviewed her. Colette was just as much an object for the press as she was an active

contributor. ‘Y-a-t-il beaucoup de coupures de journaux?’ Colette asked Missy in February

1910 (cited in Bordji and Maget, 2009: 115), acutely aware of the need for reviews. She

regularly checked l’Argus de la Presse, a service that together with the Courrier de la Presse,

delivered articles and reviews on demand. She also actively engaged with her critics at a time

when she was making a name for herself as an author as Poskin (2000) has discussed. She

courted publicity or at the least was not afraid to use it. Due to the rapid rise of the press the

Belle Époque had become a true celebrity culture in which literary authors were discussed as

much in the society columns or photographed for magazines as they were in literary reviews

(Mesch, 2013). Colette gave regular interviews and posed for photographers. Her theatre career

and personal life were fodder for gossip journalists. Photographs of Colette published in the

press at the time of her theatre career convey someone who is acutely aware of the camera and

of the ins and outs of publicity and self-promotion.

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La Revue illustrée, 20 February 1906, source: BnF/Gallica

Colette had begun her career as the wife of critic and journalist Willy (pseudonym of

Henri Gauthier-Villars) who mastered the art of self-publicity. He also produced best-selling

novels like clockwork thanks to his army of young ghost writers in need of money. Willy knew

how to create a media event and thanks to the Claudine books Colette was, reluctantly or not, a

part of this. Claudine cigarettes, Claudine playing cards, Claudine paper fans, Claudine

perfume; all kinds of merchandising were created to boost sales. Colette, Willy, and Polaire

who played Claudine on stage, publicly dressed up and were photographed or caricatured as

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their literary alter egos in the press. They consciously transgressed the boundaries between

public and private and cleverly marketed the works as autobiographical.

Caricature by Sem during the success of the Claudine series, Revue illustrée, 15 July 1902,

source: BnF/Gallica

The press offered writers many options for publicity apart from just book reviews. Jean

Lorrain, immensely successful as a journalist and novelist, also knew how to publicise himself.

Even a more avant-garde author like Alfred Jarry wrote his own blurbs in literary journals or

invited friends to cause a stir at the premiere of Ubu Roi in 1896. The saturated media culture

of the Belle Époque was always hungry for a scandal or a good story. In 1909 Colette

contributed an article to the Christmas special of Paris-Théatre, the same magazine that had

publicised her very public divorce battle with Willy. Colette also contributed to Fantasio, a

satirical periodical that had published gossipy articles about her and her lover Missy.

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Unsurprisingly perhaps, Colette’s constant exposure in the press meant that she was not

always taken seriously as a literary author at the start of her career. Fellow author Lucie

Delarue Mardrus, said that she seemed ‘perpétuellement en train de jouer la centiéme de

Claudine’9, even though Mardrus was very much a media celebrity herself. As Lucey (2006:

12) has also pointed out André Gide in his Journal condemned the ‘exhibition éhontée’ of

Colette’s Moulin Rouge performance in 1906.10 He clearly could not reconcile Colette’s media

exposure with his ideas of literary autonomy. Yet like De Goncourt Gide was less dependent

on the press for money. Lucey (2006: 78) suggests that Gide’s ability to ‘incarnate literary

disinterestedness’ – as opposed to Colette’s extracurricular activities in in the press and in the

theatre – might be the reason why Gide’s literary reputation has seemed stronger over the years

than Colette’s.

The transgression of public and private spheres, the blurring of boundaries between

fiction and autobiography made Colette attractive to the press. Colette in turn made good use of

the publicity the press provided since it sold copy and made her money. For authors of modest

means, male or female, scandal with a big spoon of self-promotion was a quick way to achieve

success or notoriety. Even though that publicity did not always sit well with some of Colette’s

literary contemporaries, it didn’t just bring her notoriety. The press also provided her with an

important platform for her views and her writing.

Women, journalism and politics

The press offered authors a political, public voice, a space outside of their literary work to

engage with the public and discuss current events. Yet for women this proved complicated.

Female authors were judged differently and put into the separate category of ‘femmes de

lettres.’11 Recently Mesch (2013) has demonstrated how Belle Époque women’s magazines

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like Femina and La Vie Heureuse celebrated the achievements of modern, women writers,

while still accentuating and promoting their traditional female qualities and roles.

These roles did not include a political one. Political culture in France was generally

hostile towards women, who were deemed to belong the private, not the public sphere

(McMillan 2000: 45-93). Ideology, politics and ‘serious’ journalism were considered the

domain of men. Major literary names such as Zola, France, Mirbeau or Barrès all enjoyed

prestigious positions as political opinion makers who regarded journalism as a force for

influence and change. The impact of these intellectuals became particularly clear during the

Dreyfus Affair. There were some notable women during the Affair, including Séverine, Gyp, or

the female journalists of La Fronde. However, women writing about politics always risked

being dismissed as frumpy feminists, bas bleus, a recurring target of ridicule and satire in the

press, however progressive or Republican the publication (Chenut, 2012). For women to be

accepted and taken seriously as a novelist or poet in the Belle Époque, politics seemed mostly

off-limits, both in their literary work and in their journalism. When a female author explored

social and political ideas in her work, critics often responded negatively (Izquierdo, 2009:82-

89). Lucie Delarue-Mardrus, for example, wrote reportages and articles for Femina, Le Journal

and Le Matin, yet hardly ventured into the political domain, and when she did she was

commissioned to write several anti-feminist pieces for Le Matin (Plat, 1994: 128/129). In

general newspaper editors preferred women to write for the women’s pages about ‘women’s

subjects’, or at best as literary critics.

In 1909 Colette was asked to write a short piece on contemporary fashion for Comoedia

even though she admitted not knowing much about the subject (letter April 1909, cited in

Bordji and Maget, 2009: 63). Like many of her colleagues, including the aforementioned

Séverine and Gyp, Colette posed for homely, non-threatening photographs in women’s

magazines. She and other female authors carefully balanced their public role with the

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traditional gender roles and concepts of femininity society imposed on them (Mesch, 2013: 5/6,

56).

As a result, women writers often had to create their own space to participate in political

debate, such as in feminist newspaper La Fronde which campaigned in favour of Dreyfus and

followed the model of daily newspapers. Yet often women were limited to specialist or ‘low-

brow’ newspapers and periodicals that had considerably less political influence. In Colette’s

case this meant writing for women’s magazines such as Femina or La Vie Heureuse or

periodicals specialising in the world of entertainment and gossip – Paris-Journal, La Vie

Parisienne or Comoedia – which press historians have categorised as ‘diverse’ or ‘grivois’

(Albert, 1990: 3). Bellanger calls them the ‘feuilles de la vie parisienne, grivoises et littéraires’,

not to be confused with the more serious daily newspapers (Bellanger et al., 1972: 380).

Since fighting the literary establishment was often career suicide, many female authors

outwardly accepted this status quo. It was often a survival strategy or, as Roberts (2002)

argues, part of a subversive tactic to circumvent the feminist backlash of the period. Colette

could voice her anger over being judged on her womanhood for example when Femina

published her article on motherhood with the subtitle ‘impressions de maman’. In a letter to the

editor she wrote ‘Que je sois mère, cela ne regarde pas le lecteur (…) c’est l’auteur qui paraît

devant lui, ce n’est pas la femme’ (letter to editor Pierre Lafitte of Femina 1 February 1914,

cited in Pichois and Brunet, 1999: 217). At other times she seemed decidedly anti-feminist. In

an interview with Walter Benjamin in 1927 Colette was quoted as saying that women should

‘never really participate actively in public life’ (cited in Thurman 1999:417). Having matured

in a time when women authors were celebrated only if they wrote within certain parameters,

when women did not have the right to vote and had limited financial independence, such

conflicting statements are hardly surprising.

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However, Colette did of course participate in public life. Just before the First World War

Colette started working for Le Matin which, by 1913, was the second biggest newspaper in

France after Le Petit Parisien, selling almost a million copies a day.  Colette wrote a weekly

column entitled ‘Le journal de Colette’ for this newspaper, the title emphasising the personal,

autobiographical nature of the stories. Interestingly, in its mission statement in 1894, Le Matin

had presented itself explicitly as ‘un journal qui ne dépendra d’aucune coterie littéraire [...] un

journal d’informations télégraphiques universelles et vraies’ (Le Matin, ‘profession de foi’, 26

February 1894). Contrary to other prominent newspapers like l’Écho de Paris, Le Journal or

Le Figaro, Le Matin sought to be a non-literary, unaffiliated, informative newspaper modelling

itself on Anglo-American inspired reportage.

While the more literary oriented newspapers would have perhaps dismissed Colette’s

kind of writing as lacking big ideas, as offering too much reportage and too little commentary

for their front page chronicles, Le Matin preferred the sort of personal, participatory reportage

and non-partisan observation Colette excelled in. Her articles written during the war are

especially fascinating. Colette had travelled to Verdun in the autumn of 1914 to join her

husband, who was fighting with the French army. Colette mainly wrote about the human cost

of war, such as in this article from January 1915: ‘les enfants dans les ruines’,’children among

the ruins’ which starts with: ‘L’automobile emporte, avec nous, des paniers de cadeaux de

Noël. Pour les soldats? Non. Les soldats ont tout ce qu’il faut et davantage.’ (Le Matin, ‘Le

journal de Colette’, 6 January 1915)

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Source: BnF/Gallica

This small quotation is typical of her journalistic style. The narrative starts right in the action,

with Colette as both narrator and protagonist, bringing Christmas presents to children affected

by the war. She reports in a seemingly personal capacity, as a woman and a mother, engaging

the reader emotionally, but also as an anthropologist almost. Colette proceeds to describe the

village where half the houses have been destroyed, the children and women left without homes,

food and clothes. Colette criticises the fact that while officers are enjoying their Christmas

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wine and fruit, these villagers have nothing left, making a clear political statement about the

devastating effects of the war on ordinary people as well as about class inequality.

As Dumont (2012), Tilburg (2009) and Holmes (1991) have also argued Colette’s work

was never as a-political as she herself made it out to be. She voiced a lot of political themes,

whether it was writing about the cost of war, arguing for women’s financial independence,

workers’ rights, or sexual freedom. Colette’s journalism was geared more towards what we

would now call human interest. ‘Je n’aime pas beaucoup les idées générales’ Colette wrote in

an article for Comoedia on 15 February 1909, conforming again to the dominant vision that

women belonged in the private sphere.12 Yet Colette was able to comment on current issues

while still claiming a purely subjective perspective, thus turning the presumptions of the

feminine perspective to her advantage. Like other high-profile women writers at the time, she

cleverly fused ‘contestation and conformity’ (Holmes and Tarr, 2006: 19). Colette blended the

‘reportage’ style of newspapers such as Le Matin with her distinct literary style, instead of

copying the much more male-dominated tradition of the partisan chronicle. That strategy even

allowed her, as the fragment above shows, to implicitly criticise the French army at a time of

war.

It is not a coincidence that Colette’s career in reportage really took off just before and

during the First World War. During this time Andrée Viollis also began to contribute war

reportage to Le Petit Parisien and Lucie Delarue-Mardrus wrote for Le Journal while

volunteering in army hospitals. Women suddenly found themselves with more opportunities in

society as a whole. Interestingly, that general shift in social attitudes appears to have coincided

with a shift in journalistic writing around this time, later also described by the American

journalist and sociologist Helen MacGill (1940) in News and the Human Interest Story.

MacGill observed that while journalism initially focused on what a select group of (white,

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middle class) men wanted to read – politics and economics –, with the emancipation of new

groups of readers and writers in the early twentieth century perspective and approach shifted.

Creative opportunities

Colette’s articles on the First World War would eventually be published in the collection Les

Heures longues in 1917 which Colette herself- with typical false modesty -called ‘pauvres

choses journalistiques’ (letter to Francis Carco, July 1918, cited in Gilet, 1997: 205). Yet she

carefully selected the articles and the collection was considered by André Billy to be ‘une

nouvelle forme de journalisme, un journalisme lyrique’ (L'Œuvre, 27 January 1918, cited in

Gilet, 1997: 205). Many of Colette’s journalistic articles appeared in published collections or

formed the basis for later short stories or novels. For Colette, her journalistic and her literary

style were never entirely separate.

In a letter to Missy from 1910 Colette said about an article she had submitted to La Vie

Parisienne: ‘Et ce petit article n’a rien de si épatant qu’il faille l’insérer dans le roman…’

(cited in Bordji and Maget, 2009: 116). This quotation is particularly significant because of

what she does not say. The fact that Colette explicitly states she did not want to include this

particular article in one of her novels implies that she often in fact did precisely that. Colette

had already started writing for this weekly magazine back in 1904. La Vie Parisienne devoted

its pages to gossip, fashion, theatre and literature, and also published quite a lot of columns,

short stories, and serialized fiction. In this periodical Colette published extracts from almost all

her early works (Dialogues des bêtes, l’Envers du music-hall, Les Vrilles de la vigne) as well

the integral text of the novels La Vagabonde and L’Entrave. La Vagabonde was published

between May and October 1910 to much critical acclaim and helped cement Colette’s literary

reputation.

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Writing for La Vie Parisienne, Paris-Journal, Femina and other ‘low-brow’

publications meant that in these early years of her career Colette was less dependent on

publishers, literary journals, salons or critics. Colette had not yet achieved the critical success

as an author she would gain some years later. Yet journalism meant she could earn a living and

write on a regular basis.

Colette also cleverly used her personal life and theatre career in her articles for the

entertainment magazines that loved these inside stories. Her article on ‘La folie des minceurs’

for Paris-Journal from 1910, for example, starts off with a scene set in her theatre dressing

room: ‘Mon amie Valentine s’habille. J’ai devant moi le spectacle, ‘éminemment suggestif’,

assurent ces messieurs, d’une jeune femme en corset. Suggestif ? heu…Je lui reprocherais

surtout de n’avoir rien d’éminent…’ (Paris-Journal, 31 January 1910).13

Whether writing about the craze to be thin or the effects of war, Colette always draws

the reader into a similar (apparently) personal setting, using colloquial, intimate language

before she embarks on the discussion of the actual theme; a narrative technique similar to those

deployed in her literary works. ‘Mon amie Valentine’ also appears in the stories of Les Vrilles

de la Vigne. Colette’s success as a journalist was perhaps partly due to the clever way she used

her personal, literary perspective in her writing. The title given to a published collection of her

articles for Le Matin was Dans la foule (1918). Colette claimed to be part of the crowd, of the

event she described, yet was simultaneously detached from it, an observer. That literary device

enabled her to discuss slightly risqué subjects and to write about socio-political issues without

giving an explicit opinion. In one of her later letters to her friend and critic André Billy (April

1928, cited in Pichois and Forbin, 1973: 194) she gently mocked him for claiming that there

was a lack of literature in La Naissance du Jour, and that the narrator was simply Colette.

However, Colette herself played – quite deliberately – with the boundaries of public and

private, of fact and fiction.

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Colette’s trademark weaving of her life into her work has of course been remarked

upon countless times. Her slightly scandalous reputation helped newspapers like Le Matin or

periodicals like La Vie Parisienne sell more copy. Yet what has gone unnoticed is that the

genre of reportage, in which the reporter/narrator is both observer and part of the story, actually

suited her style quite well. Thérenty (2007: 66) has convincingly shown how journalistic and

literary genres merged within newspapers and how they became a hub for literary modernity.

Pinson (2008) has argued the influence of Le Figaro’s society columns in Proust’s writing, for

example, while Alfred Jarry created his own semi-journalistic, semi-literary genre

(Dubbelboer, 2012). Journalistic reportage proved a natural fit for Colette who, as Freadman

(2012) has also argued, experimented with genres to narrate her life throughout her career.

Colette’s success in popular magazines, her growing literary reputation, and her

subsequent appointment at Le Matin affirmed both her journalistic status and literary

reputation. After the First World War she was very much part of the cultural establishment as

a journalist, a literary critic and prize-winning literary author. She continued her journalistic

career throughout her life, working for newspapers such as Le Journal as well as for women’s

magazine such as Marie-Claire. Even though Colette herself always downplayed her

journalism – ‘ça n’a pas d’importance’ she said with apparent indifference when asked about

her journalistic work (cited in Bonal and Maget, 2010: 11) – it was thanks to the journalism

that her writing career really took off, and without it her literary output would have looked very

different.

The press and the literary world

In her introduction to the English translation of La Vagabonde (2001) Colette’s biographer

Judith Thurman writes, ‘Had she never written a word of fiction, she would still be

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remembered as one of the most original French journalists of the century’ Yet Colette is not

really remembered as a great journalist in cultural history. Nonetheless Thurman is right in

pointing to Colette’s journalistic writings as they are an extraordinary historical document of

the first half of the twentieth century and deserve more study. Not only do her articles reveal

her to be a more political, socially aware author than has often been acknowledged in studies of

her literary work. The press also played a huge role in shaping and establishing her career,

providing her with money, publicity, career opportunities, a political platform, creative

opportunities, and a place to experiment.

It might be tempting to see the Belle Époque literary world, to use Bourdieu’s terms, as

a place of contestation between literature bowing to either heteronomous principles (money,

power) or to the principle of artistic autonomy (Bourdieu, 1996): in other words to see a

continuing struggle between best-selling writers who were heavily involved in the press and

critically acclaimed, autonomous authors who were not. However such a distinction does not

hold up to closer scrutiny of the Belle Époque literary world, the press and individual careers of

authors. Colette’s case illustrates the complex bonds between the press and the literary world.

She was bestselling yet critically acclaimed, a media celebrity while still becoming a respected

author. Despite an often ideologically driven rhetoric on the press and the mass culture as

opposed to ideas of the autonomous modern work of art, journalism was for many authors

much more than a simple moneymaking exercise. Especially in France around 1900 the press

was an integral part of the literary field and journalistic writing and literary writing were never

that clearly distinct.

As Thérenty (2007) has argued, journalism in the early twentieth century proved

a fertile breeding ground for literary creativity. But the press also shaped the literary

world from a sociological perspective. It gave authors like Colette a platform to publish,

to publicise, and to express their (political) views. Despite restrictions imposed by the

20

press on female authors, journalism nevertheless provided women with more and more

opportunities in the years leading up to the First World War. Studying the role of the

press in the cultural world provides a better understanding of the institutional and

historical context of literary and cultural production in France. Journalism and the press

did not ruin Colette as her mother Sido feared, nor did it destroy the careers of other

writers. On that point Colette’s mother turned out to be wrong. Without the platform

offered by the press in the Belle Époque much of Colette’s work and that of other

writers would probably never have seen the light of day.

Acknowledgements

This work was supported by a British Academy Postdoctoral Research Fellowship

Notes

1 Apart from the coveted status of ‘homme de lettres’ Albert (1990: 38) sees this as the result of restrictions

imposed by the authorities on the French press until the Third Republic. Investigative journalism was severely

hindered hence journalists focused more on analysis and criticism of official sources than news gathering, which

provided an ideal platform for literary figures. Ferenczi (1999: 30) also argues that despite influences around 1900

from American-style reportage, French journalism kept this distinctly literary characteristic.

2 Paris et ses environs. Manuel du voyageur par K. Baedeker (1900), Paris: Ollendorff, 32.

3 Charles Baudelaire (1975) Oeuvres complètes I. Paris: Gallimard, 706 4 ‘Ah, la chronique…vieille prostituée !’ Octave Mirbeau, Le journalisme francais, La France, 14 May 1885,

cited in Curatolo and Schaffner, 2010: 14.

5 Edmond et Jules de Goncourt (1956) Journal. Mémoires de la vie littéraire 1891-1996, tome IV, Paris,

Fasquelle & Flammarion, 721.

6 The Cahiers Colette in particular have published several of Colette’s articles over the years. Digitalisation and

improved accessibility of newspapers and periodicals will possibly lead to a renewed interest in the journalistic

work of French authors.

7 Paris et ses Environs, 1900: 12.

21

8 De Goncourt, Journal, 1956: 721. 9 Lucie Delarue-Mardrus (1938) Mes Mémoires. Paris: Gallimard, 141. 10 André Gide (1996) Journal I: 1887-1925, edited by Éric Marty. Paris: Gallimard, 547. 11 For a contemporary example of how women authors were discussed see Paul Flat (1909) Nos femmes de lettres. Paris: Perrin. 12 ‘Une lettre de Colette Willy a propos de ses debuts comme auteur dramatique, actrice et danseuse’, Comoedia

illustré, 15 February 1909, 110.

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