The Feuilleton at War

The nineteenth-century newspaper was a hybrid text, presenting both fact and fiction, often through reporting and the literary feuilleton respectively. The Siege of Paris upended daily life, making fact appear stranger than fiction, which led to a collapsing of the hybridity of newspapers, coalescing into one chronicle of the Siege. The press increasingly spread gossip dressed up as fact, fictionalized the news, and politicized fiction. Constantly rehashing and reframing the news, the press presented daily life itself as a departure from reality: the news itself became escapist.