The next day, several newspapers contained, under various headings, the following items:
‘M. le Baron Hulot d’Ervy has just sent in his resignation. The irregularities in the accounts of the Algerian administration, which have come to light with the death and flight of two officials, have a bearing on the decision of this highly placed administrator. On learning of the crimes committed by employees, in whom, unfortunately, he had placed his trust, Monsieur le Baron Hulot had a stroke when he was still in the Minister’s office.
M. Hulot d’Ervy, the Marshal’s brother, has had forty-five years’ service. This decision, which he has been urged in vain to reconsider, has been regretted by all those who know M. Hulot, whose personal qualities are equal to his talents as an administrator. No one has forgotten the devotion of the chief Commissary of the Imperial Guard at Warsaw, nor the extraordinary energy with which he organized the various supply services of the army hastily raised by Napoleon in 1815.
Yet another of the glorious figures of the Imperial era is about to leave the stage. Since 1830, M. le Baron Hulot has been one of the indispensable luminaries in the Council of State and the War Ministry.’
‘ALGIERS. The affair known as the forage case, to which some newspapers have attached an absurd importance, has been brought to an end by the death of the chief culprit. The man Johann Wisch killed himself in prison and his accomplice has fled. But he will be tried in default.
Wisch, a former army contractor, was an honest man with a good reputation; he could not bear the thought of being duped by one Chardin, the absconding storekeeper.’
And amongst the Paris news items could be read the following:
‘In order to prevent any future irregularity, M. le Maréchal, Minister of War, has decided to institute a Commissariat department in Africa. An office-manager, M. Marneffe, is tipped to be the head of this organization.’
‘The succession to Baron Hulot arouses many ambitions. It is said that his Directorship has been offered to M. le Comte Martial de la Roche-Hugon, a deputy and brother-in-law of M. le Comte de Rastignac. M. Massol, Master of Appeals, will be appointed Councillor of State, and M. Claude Vignon Master of Appeals.’
Of all kinds of false rumours, the most dangerous for opposition newspapers is the official one. However shrewd journalists may be, they are at times, wittingly or unwittingly, the dupes of those among them who, like Claude Vignon, have risen from the newspaper world to the high regions of power.
It takes a newspaper man to get the better of a newspaper.
So, to misquote Voltaire, we may say:
‘The Paris news item is not what a deluded people thinks.’*