CROIX, L.A. – A French Catholic newspaper founded in Paris on 16 June 1883 by the « Maison de la bonne presse », under the impetus and direction of Vincent-de-Paul Bailly. A popular daily bearing the sign of the Cross, La C. remained exclusively Catholic, with no political ties, wholly devoted to the triumph of the Cross in obedience to the Church and in active support of the best apostolic works.
Around it flourished numerous affiliated and significant satellites, such as La C. du dimanche (1889), aimed mainly at rural readers, Le Cosmos, La C. des Marins, Le Laboureur, Les questions actuelles, Le Mois littéraire et politique, Noël, Le Pèlerin, Sanctuaire, Échos d'Orient, Annuaire pontifical, Étoile Noëliste, Action catholique, Documentation catholique, Bayard, Bernadette, La Page, Jérusalem, Rome, L'Eucharistie, Notre-Dame, Union des Églises, Belle-jeunesse, Prêtre et Apôtre, to name only the principal ones.
Among the collaborators of Fr. Bailly, both at the editorial office of La C. and in the various publications of the Bonne presse, we recall Joseph Ménard, M. Tardif de Moïdrey, Abbé Maze, Msgr. A. Battandier, Fr. Adéodat Debauge, Bernard Bailly, Ernest Ollivier, Fr. J. E. Droschon, Abbé L. Pages, and the illustrious Msgr. E. Loutil, known under the name of « Pierre l'Ermite ».
The anticlerical measures of 1900 imposed significant modifications upon the vast publishing complex. Paul Féron-Vrau generously placed himself entirely at the disposal of the Assumptionists to save their precious Catholic printing works, which continued to thrive despite repeated persecutions, thanks to Fr. François d'Assise Bertoye, who often signed himself « Frane », and later to the newspaper's director, Léon Mermel, while bishops and pontiffs spared no encouragement. In 1932, the fiftieth anniversary of La C. was solemnly celebrated in Paris, and in 1936, on the occasion of the congress held in Rome, the Bonne presse was able to demonstrate to what extent it had deserved well of the Church and the nation.