Agog, Not Agape

At the editorial desk of Petit Parisien sat the charming relict of the late Senator Paul Dupuy, famed Gallic publicist, looking over the latest batch of U. S. comic strips for her Sunday edition. Now and again as she listened to the hum of the presses she wondered whether today she had-scooped Senator Franc,ois Coty, famed Gallic parfumier and editor of the new Ami du Peuple and other papers.

Meanwhile at the editorial desk of Ami du Peuple pondered M. Coty, hoping perhaps half-heartedly that he had been able to scoop the charming relict of his late adversary.

That there should be a deep bond of sympathy between brilliant Mme. Dupuy and gallant M. Coty, what with perfumes and charm, is not to be gaped at. Last week Paris was not agape, but agog with rumors of a combination of the journalistic interests of Dupuy and Coty in an enormous merger.

Mme. Dupuy, it was said, would absorb several liberal papers with her Petit Parisien, while M. Coty planned on various expansions and absorptions with his politically-conservative, journalistically-yellow papers. The Dupuy interests are valued at some $15,000,000 while M. Coty likes to be told he is one of the half-dozen richest men in the world.

Both Mme. Dupuy and M. Coty have brought American newspaper ideals into Paris journalism.

Mme. Dupuy, nee Helen Browne of New York, took over management of her husband's papers on his sudden death a year ago. 'Besides the Petit Parisien these include the Dimanche Illustre (the "Sunday Illustrated"), La Science et la Vie, a monthly magazine of popularized science, Omnia, a magazine for automobilists. The Sunday paper is edited after the fashion of the familiar U. S. Sunday sheet, including comic strips, many of which Mme. Dupuy imports from the U. S. Even strips involving baseball are used; and if Paris does not understand the game, well, so much the worse for Paris.

Intending her two sons for journalistic careers, Mme. Dupuy declared she would send them to the U. S. to get their first newspaper training.

M. Coty owns Figaro and Gaulois, and the new Ami du Peuple, founded some months ago and sold, in spite of bitter opposition by other papers and the news-vending organizations controlled by them, at the cut-rate of two sous. The usual price of a paper in Paris is five sous (25 centimes, about one cent). With headlines that would be called flaring in Paris, with crime stories played up, it was said to have attained already a circulation of around 800,000. However, in France circulations are not audited; so it was equally possible to believe (or doubt) Helen Browne Dupuy's claim that her big paper (Petit Parisien) circulates 1,500,000 daily.