Le Rappel

Le Rappel (French for "the Recall") was a French daily newspaper founded in 1869 by Victor Hugo's sons Charles and François-Victor and three others. It was published from the end of the French Second Empire until 1933.[1] At the start of the Third Republic, it embodied a radical-republican tendency and as such was highly contested by the French government.[2]

Le Rappel
Founder(s)Charles Hugo
François-Victor Hugo
Auguste Vacquerie
Paul Meurice
Henri Rochefort
Founded4 May 1869
Political alignmentRepublicanism
LanguageFrench
Ceased publication1933
HeadquartersParis
CountryFrance

Publication history

The newspaper, which benefited from the law of 11 May 1868 on freedom of press, was founded on the initiative of Victor Hugo on the eve of the general elections of 1868.[3] Le Rappel was started on 4 May 1869, with Charles and François-Victor Hugo, Auguste Vacquerie, and Paul Meurice as its principal contributors.[2]

As a contribution to the first issue, Victor Hugo wrote a manifesto consisting of an address to the five co-editors:

It is a call. I love the word in every sense. It is the call to principle by conscience; the call to truth by philosophy; the call to duty by right; the call to the dead by reverence; the call to punishment by equity; the call to the past by history; the call to the future by logic; the call to action by courage; the call to idealism by thought; the call to science by experiment; the call to God in religion by the extirpation of idolatry; the call to the people’s sovereignty by universal suffrage; the call to humanity by free education; the call to liberty by the awakening of France and by the stirring cry Fiat Jus!.

— Victor Hugo, [4]
Victor Hugo's Les Misérables as a feuilleton novel in Le Rappel

Impact and influence

Le Rappel quickly became one of the major organs of early radicalism, opposing Napoleon III's empire but also denouncing crimes happening around Europe at the time. On 29 August 1876, Victor Hugo denounced the massacre of Serbs by the Ottoman Empire in a long editorial called Pour la Serbie, protesting against the impassivity of European governments.[5] On 27 April 1881, after Jews were slaughtered and driven out of the city of Yelisavetgrad in Russia, Victor Hugo used Le Rappel to denounce the pogrom and to express fury at the massacre.[6]

Notable contributors

Notable contributors have included:

References
  1. Marva A. Barnett (29 September 2009). Victor Hugo on Things That Matter: A Reader. Yale University Press. p. 374. ISBN 978-0-300-16105-2.
  2. Victor Hugo (14 March 2019). Novels, Plays, Poetry, Essays, Memoirs & Letters. e-artnow. p. 74. ISBN 978-80-273-0372-4.
  3. Matthew Josephson (2006). Victor Hugo: A Realistic Biography of the Great Romantic. Jorge Pinto Books. p. 462. ISBN 978-0-9742615-7-7.
  4. Barbou, A.; Frewer, E.E. (1882). Victor Hugo and His Time. Harper & brothers. p. 122.
  5. Marieke Stein (2007). Victor Hugo orateur politique, 1846-1880 (in French). Champion. ISBN 978-2-7453-1448-2.
  6. Halsall, A.W. (1998). Victor Hugo and the Romantic Drama. University of Toronto romance series. University of Toronto Press. p. 233. ISBN 978-0-8020-4322-1.
  7. Avenel, H. (2018). Histoire de la Presse Française Depuis 1789 Jusqu'à Nos Jours (in French). Creative Media Partners, LLC. p. 573. ISBN 978-0-274-39999-4.
  8. Le Rappel, 26 octobre 1907, p. 1.
  9. Le Rappel, 16 juin 1904, p. 1.
  • Digitized issues of Le Rappel (BnF)


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