Laurent-Antoine Pagnerre and the Publishing Coterie103One of the st measures of the new regime that provoked conct within the book trade was a loan granted to commerce and industry. Intended to alleviate the ancial crisis that had befallen France in the wake of the Revolution of 1830, this loan was approved by the legislature in October of that year. Totaling thirty million francs, it was to be distributed by the minister of ance, who would be assisted by a commission of prominent businessmen and anciers. This commission was in turn to be advised by the chamber of commerce in each locality. According to the regulation governing the loan, all recipients had to deposit merchandise or equipment with the state as collateral as well as pay interest of 4 percent. A large portion of this loan was given to the book trade. As soon as the loan was announced, members of the trade applied for a share of it. In a petition to the commission responsible for distributing the loan, several notable publishers requested that their trade be given three million of the thirty million francs to be granted by the government. In support of their request, they argued that because the book trade constituted 10 percent of all industry in crisis, it deserved 10 percent of the loan. This request, which was backed by the minister of ance as well as by the ofial newspaper the Journal des dbats, was fulled to a large extent. In the end, the government commission granted to publishing and printing over 2.7 million francs, or 9 percent of the total loan. At least half of this amount went to publishing.13 Within the book trade, the loan was divided between a small number of entrepreneurs, most of whom were publishers. Out of a total of 440 members of the book trade who requested aid, only seventy-four (or 16.5 percent) received it. Of these, forty-nine were publishers. Many of these were the same publishers who had been involved in the commission and the circle in publishing in 1829. For example, Hector Bossange received st sixty thousand francs and then an additional forty thousand; Charles Gosselin received sixty thousand; Jules Renouard, sixty thousand; J.-B. Baillire, forty thousand; and Aim Andr, thirty thousand. Of the other recipients of the loan, most were also prominent publishers, such as Pierre-Franois Ladvocat (the mboyant diteur in the Wooden Galleries at the Palais Royal who was immortalized in Balzac Lost Illusions), who received forty thousand francs; the Widow Bchet (a publisher of Balzac), who received one hundred thousand francs; and Alphonse Levavasseur (a renowned literary publisher), who received forty thousand francs. The periodical publisher Paulin, in whose ofes the July
