Note 261 — BOOK VIII[239]

Alfred Xavier Baron Dufougerais (1804-1874), a member of a royalist family, was a barrister in Paris when, in 1828, he became one of the proprietors and one of the editors of the Quotidien. In April 1831, he bought the Mode, revue du monde élégant from Émile de Girardin, its founder, and turned it into a political organ. He kept the fashion article and plates, so as to justify the title and retain the advantages attaching to the speciality; but at the same time the paper, in his hands, became a formidable weapon against the Monarchy of July. Without being exactly a writer, Alfred Dufougerais possessed the journalistic instinct to a high degree, and, under his management, the Mode soon took the leading place in the van-guard of the royalist press. In September 1834, the state of his health obliged him to transfer the ownership of his paper to other hands. Alfred Dufougerais, who was gifted with a genuine talent for speaking, preferred the contests of the bar to those of the press. He appeared in all the leading newspaper trials and soon became standing counsel to the royalist journals both in the provinces and in Paris. Among other feats, he thrice obtained the acquittal of the Indépendant de l'Ouest at Laval. In 1849, Dufougerais was elected by the Department of the Vendée to the Chamber of Deputies, where he constantly voted with the Right until the coup d'État of 2 December 1851, when he retired into private life.—B.