LA CROIX. - French Catholic newspaper founded in Paris on 16 June 1883 by the "Maison de la bonne presse," at the urging and under the direction of the Assumptionist Vincent-de-Paul Bailly. A popular daily, under the banner of the Crucifix, La C. strove to be solely Catholic, without political ties of any kind, and wholly devoted to the triumph of the Cross in obedience to the Church and in active support of the best works of the apostolate.
Around it flourished numerous affiliated publications and significant satellites, such as La C. du dimanche (1889), which was addressed primarily to rural people, Le Cosmos, la C. des Marins, Le Laboureur, Les questions actuelles, the Mois littéraire et politique, the Noël, the Pèlerin, the Sanctuaire, the Echos d'Orient, the Annuaire pontifical, the Etoile Noëliste, l'Action catholique, la Documentation catholique, Bayard, Bernadette, A la page, Jérusalem, Rome, l'Eucharistie, Notre-Dame, l'Union des Églises, Belle-jeunesse, Prêtre et Apôtre, to mention only the principal ones.
Among the collaborators of Fr. Bailly, both on the editorial staff of La C. and in the various publications of the Bonne presse, we may recall Joseph Ménard, M. Tardif de Moldrey, the abbé Maze, Msgr. A. Battandier, Fr. Adéodat Debauge, Bernard Bailly, Ernest Ollivier, Fr. J. E. Droschon, the abbé L. Pagès and the illustrious Msgr. E. Loutil, known under the name of "Pierre l'Ermite."
The anticlerical measures of 1900 imposed significant changes on the imposing publishing complex. Paul Féron-Vrau generously placed himself entirely at the disposal of the Assumptionists in order to save their precious works of Catholic printing, which thus continued to prosper, despite repeated persecutory attempts, thanks to Fr. François d'Assise Bertoye, accustomed to signing himself "Frane," and later also to the newspaper's director, Léon Merklen, while bishops and pontiffs did not stint their encouragement. In 1932 the fiftieth anniversary of La C. was celebrated with great pomp in Paris, and in 1936, on the occasion of the congress held in Rome, the Bonne presse was able to show to what extent it had deserved well of the Church and of the country.
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Renato de Fontenelle