UNIVERS. — Journal founded in Paris by Abbé Migne, first published on 3 November 1833 under the title L'Univers religieux; it acquired fame and a growing circulation VEUILLOT, LOUIS (v.), editor-in-chief from 1845.
Judging political regimes solely according to the supreme interests of Christianity, U. professed itself above all, and beyond every contingent consideration, Catholic. Its faith and the literary prestige of its editors aroused considerable hostility both within and outside Catholicism. Strenuous and combative, under Louis-Philippe it opposed the university monopoly no less than the remnants of Gallicanism, and fought for the adoption of the Roman liturgy. It adhered to the Second Republic (1848), but in a conservative sense, maintaining the same stance in 1853 and during the first years of the Empire. Suppressed in 1860 for its censures of the Roman policy of Napoleon III, it was revived in 1867, expounded the Syllabus, and defended papal infallibility both before and after the First Vatican Council. After 1870 it became the interpreter of the legitimist aspirations of the Catholics of France and again supported the Pontiff, deprived of temporal dominion. Eugenio Veuillot succeeded his brother Louis in the direction, who died in 1883. In November 1890, the “Algiers toast” caused a dramatic secession within U.: Eugenio declared his intention of pursuing in the newspaper a policy of adherence to the Third Republic (ralliement). Elisa, his sister, consequently withdrew and founded Vérité Française, which in 1907 was to merge into the fraternal newspaper. The energetic direction of Pietro and Francesco Veuillot, Eugenio’s sons, could not avert the slow crisis that heralded its disappearance.