Le Figaro: Journal Humoristique, Littéraire, et Social was a French-language literary newspaper published in Biddeford, Maine in December 1895, by Urbain Ledoux. Volume 1 number 1 of Le Figaro was 16 pages in length. Subscriptions were offered in the United States and Canada at a cost of $1.00 per year, $0.50 for 6 months, or $0.10 per issue; subscriptions in France required an additional postage fee of 6 francs. Although it was intended to be a monthly publication, only one issue appeared. This publication was financed entirely by Ledoux, and as with many French-language newspapers in late nineteenth-century New England, cost of printing and low readership among a predominantly working-class francophone population likely contributed to this paper’s inability to publish more than one issue.
The front cover includes a playful masthead with jesters illustrated by Ledoux, as well as a globe of the Earth with the word “circulation” and lines of travel moving outward from Biddeford, Maine across North America, indicating the publication’s intended reach. According to Le Figaro‘s first content page, the purpose of the newspaper is as follows (translated from the French):
Our desire in founding Le Figaro is to endow the United States with a literary, humoristic, social French-language newspaper that is illustrated by the best artists from two continents, and that is welcome in all French-Canadian households, by all classes, and for all ages. We have intended to create a family newspaper, and to achieve this goal we have made no exceptions, and we are confident that we will be followed in this path by those we address today: all the French-Canadians spread across the vast American continent.
The paper requested submissions of poems, writings, and drawings from young people for its second issue, with $5.00 prizes to be given out to the best submissions. Subsequent pages include songs and illustrations; cartoons, vignettes, jokes, and “proverbs;” a women’s section; a children’s section; and a “Chronique d’outre-mer,” or news from abroad. The final content section includes a brief history of Napoleon, followed by the last pages which contain local advertisements from businesses in New England and Québec.
Le Figaro represents Urbain Ledoux’s second attempt to start a French newspaper. His first attempt, L’independence, was founded in 1893 but only lasted a few weeks. An eccentric and storied character, Ledoux was born in Sainte-Hélène-de-Bagot, Québec, in 1874, before immigrating to Biddeford with his family as a child. In addition to publishing newspapers, he became active in Republican politics. He later joined the Consular Service and was stationed in Canada and Europe. When he returned to the United States, Ledoux turned his attention to issues surrounding unemployment and wealth inequality—particularly in Boston and New York —where he opened aid facilities, conducted public demonstrations, and advocated for policy change, earning the nickname “Mr. Zero,” meaning he preferred attention not to be directed at himself as much as toward those he was intended to help. One of his most famous stunts, depicted in photographs held by the Library of Congress, was a live public auction in Boston in 1921 of jobless veterans. He ran for mayor of New York City in 1933 on a platform of social change. He spent the remainder of his life advocating for the respect and support of poor people, dying in 1941.
