Editing Arthur de Gobineau (section)

===Early writings===
In the later years of the [[July Monarchy]], Gobineau made his living writing serialized fiction ([[Feuilleton|''romans-feuilletons'']]) and contributing to [[reactionary]] periodicals.{{sfn|Budil|2008|p=135}} He wrote for the ''Union Catholique'', ''[[La Quotidienne]]'', ''L'Unité'', and ''[[Revue de Paris]]''.{{sfn|Biddiss|1970|p=19}} At one point in the early 1840s, Gobineau was writing an article every day for ''La Quotidienne'' to support himself.{{sfn|Biddiss|1970|p=19}}  As a writer and journalist, he struggled financially and was forever looking for a wealthy patron willing to support him.{{sfn|Budil|2008|p=135}} As a part-time employee of the Post Office and a full-time writer, Gobineau was desperately poor.{{sfn|Biddiss|1970|p=16}}

His family background made him a supporter of the House of Bourbon, but the nature of the Legitimist movement dominated by factious and inept leaders drove Gobineau to despair, leading him to write: "We are lost and had better resign ourselves to the fact".{{sfn|Biddiss|1970|p=17}} In a letter to his father, Gobineau complained of "the laxity, the weakness, the foolishness and—in a word—the pure folly of my cherished party".{{sfn|Biddiss|1970|p=19}}

At the same time, he regarded French society under the House of Orléans as corrupt and self-serving, dominated by the "oppressive feudalism of money" as opposed to the feudalism of "charity, courage, virtue and intelligence" held by the ''ancien-régime'' nobility.{{sfn|Biddiss|1970|p=20}} Gobineau wrote about July Monarchy France: "Money has become the principle of power and honour. Money dominates business; money regulates the population; money governs; money salves consciences; money is the criterion for judging the esteem due to men".{{sfn|Biddiss|1970|p=21}}

In this "age of national mediocrity" as Gobineau described it, with society going in a direction he disapproved of, the leaders of the cause to which he was committed being by his own admission foolish and incompetent, and the would-be aristocrat struggling to make ends meet by writing hack journalism and novels, he became more and more pessimistic about the future.{{sfn|Biddiss|1970|p=21}} Gobineau wrote in a letter to his father: "How I despair of a society which is no longer anything, except in spirit, and which has no heart left".{{sfn|Biddiss|1970|p=16}} He complained the Legitimists spent their time feuding with one another while the Catholic Church "is going over to the side of the revolution".{{sfn|Biddiss|1970|p=16}} Gobineau wrote: {{blockquote|Our poor country lies in Roman decadence. Where there is no longer an aristocracy worthy of itself, a nation dies. Our Nobles are conceited fools and cowards. I no longer believe in anything nor have any views. From Louis-Philippe we shall proceed to the first trimmer who will take us up, but only in order to pass us on to another. For we are without fibre and moral energy. ''Money has killed everything''.{{sfn|Biddiss|1970|p=16}}}}Gobineau struck up a friendship and had voluminous correspondence with [[Alexis de Tocqueville]].<ref>Richter, Melvin (1958). "The Study of Man. A Debate on Race: The Tocqueville-Gobineau Correspondence," ''Commentary'' '''25''' (2), pp. 151–160.</ref><ref>Alexis de Tocqueville, ''The European Revolution and Correspondence with Gobineau,'' John Lukacz (ed.), [[Doubleday (publisher)|Doubleday Anchor Books]], 1959.</ref><ref>Beloff, Max (1986). "Tocqueville & Gobineau," ''Encounter'', Vol. LXVII, No. 1, pp. 29–31.</ref><ref>Tessitore, Aristide (2005). "Tocqueville and Gobineau on the Nature of Modern Politics," ''The Review of Politics,'' Vol. 67, No. 4, pp. 631–657.</ref> Tocqueville praised Gobineau in a letter: "You have wide knowledge, much intelligence, and the best of manners".{{sfn|Biddiss|1970|p=47}} He later gave Gobineau an appointment in the [[Quai d'Orsay]] (the French foreign ministry) while serving as foreign minister during the [[Second Republic (France)|Second Republic of France]].<ref name="DJ. Richards 1900. pp. 101–117">{{Citation|last=Richards|first=E. J.|title=Joseph-Arthur de Gobineau (14 July 1816–13 October 1882)|url=http://go.galegroup.com/ps/retrieve.do?sort=RELEVANCE&docType=Biography%2C+Biography&tabID=T002&prodId=DLBC&searchId=R1&resultListType=RESULT_LIST&searchType=BasicSearchForm&contentSegment=&currentPosition=1&searchResultsType=MultiTab&inPS=true&userGroupName=san17777&docId=GALE%7CLQOXCP894110461&contentSet=GALE%7CLQOXCP894110461|work=[[Dictionary of Literary Biography]]|volume=123: Nineteenth-Century French Fiction Writers: Naturalism and Beyond, 1860–1900|pages=101–117|year=1992|editor1-last=Brosman |editor1-first=Catharine Savage |editor1-link=Catharine Savage Brosman |series=A Bruccoli Clark Layman Book|place=Tulane University|publisher=[[The Gale Group]]}}</ref>

====Breakthrough with Kapodistrias article====
In 1841, Gobineau scored his first major success when an article he submitted to ''[[Revue des deux Mondes]]'' was published on 15 April 1841.{{sfn|Budil|2008|p=135}} Gobineau's article was about the Greek statesman Count [[Ioannis Kapodistrias]]. At the time, ''La Revue des Deux Mondes'' was one of the most prestigious journals in Paris, and being published in it put Gobineau in the same company as [[George Sand]], [[Théophile Gautier]], [[Philarète Chasles]], [[Alphonse de Lamartine]], [[Edgar Quinet]] and [[Charles Augustin Sainte-Beuve]] who were all published regularly in that journal.{{sfn|Budil|2008|p=135}}