By 1894 Le Vélo, the newspaper that organised the first Paris–Roubaix, was the leading cycling journal in France. It had an advantage over its rivals because as well as carrying news it was also the official voice of the governing body of French cycling. Le Vélo published the locations and start times of all official races in France, so cyclists and cycling fans alike needed to buy it, to read race reports and interviews, and to find out where future races were being held.
Everything was looking good for Le Vélo. Even if some advertisers grumbled when the newspaper hiked its ad prices up, it didn’t affect their need to be seen in its pages. Then, just when it looked like Le Vélo had French cycling sewn up, its editor Pierre Giffard got involved in something outside of the sport that ended up costing his newspaper dearly. It was the Dreyfus affair, a cause célèbre in which a Jewish army officer called Alfred Dreyfus was framed for treason by a section of the French military and was convicted in 1895 on very dubious evidence.
Dreyfus was sent to the French penal colony, Devil‘s Island. His Jewish heritage and the fact that he was born in Mulhouse in Alsace, which was then part of Germany having been won during the 1870 Franco-Prussian War, were accepted as evidence that he had passed French military secrets to the Germans. Somebody had done so; there was no doubt about that, but no direct evidence implicating Dreyfus.
There was public disquiet, and even some of the French Army didn’t believe in his guilt. One officer, Lieutenant-Colonel Picquart, conducted his own investigation, and he came up with credible evidence that the real traitor was a Major Ferdinand Esterhazy. The French high command wouldn’t listen, and Picquart was transferred to Tunisia to keep him quiet, but the questions he and others raised wouldn’t go away. Reports of a cover-up started appearing in the French press.
A campaign led by artists and intellectuals, including the novelist Emile Zola, gathered strength and eventually won a pardon for Dreyfus in 1899, but the case stirred deep emotions. It was a massive talking point in France, with everybody having a view. There were some very public arguments and demonstrations on both sides. At one protest an influential backer of Le Vélo, the Count de Dion, was arrested. He was demonstrating against the campaign to pardon Dreyfus, and was alleged to have hit the President of France, Emile Loubet, on the head with a walking stick he was waving about to emphasise his point.
Le Vélo’s editor Giffard was pro-Dreyfus, and had high principles. Putting principle before business, he criticised De Dion in an article he wrote for a serious newspaper, Le Petit Journal. De Dion was outraged, and even though he was imprisoned when word of what Giffard had written reached him, he withdrew his support for Le Vélo as well as all of the money he’d invested in it. Then, still unhappy, De Dion went further.
When he was released from prison after a fifteen-day sentence in 1900, De Dion formed his own sports newspaper, which he called L’Auto-Vélo. It was funded by his businesses, and by those of his friends who either sympathised with his views or were unhappy with Le Vélo’s advertising rates. They included Edouard Michelin, the biggest tyre manufacturer in France.
The new venture needed an editor, and De Dion went for somebody young and ambitious who knew about cycling. He was Henri Desgrange, a 35-year-old former racer who ran the biggest velodrome in Paris, the Parc des Princes. Desgrange had a law degree, and had started his working life practising law, but he was too adventurous to spend his life in fusty courts arguing arcane cases. He was a racer first and a lawyer second, and he came unstuck when one of his employer’s clients saw Desgrange speeding around a Paris park with his calves exposed. The client complained to Desgrange’s boss, who promptly sacked him.
So Desgrange changed careers, quickly becoming the head of advertising for the tyre manufacturer, Clément et Cie. He continued racing, setting the first official World Hour Record in 1895, riding a distance of 35.325 kilometres on the Vélodrome Buffalo in Paris. There had been unofficial hour records before. James Moore rode 23.2 kilometres in 1873, and Frank Dobbs did 29.552 in 1876, but Desgrange’s hour was the first recognised by the then governing body of world cycling, the International Cycling Association.
While working in advertising, Desgrange wrote articles about cycling for various newspapers, including Le Vélo. He also wrote a best-selling book on training called The Head and the Legs. By the time Desgrange left advertising to run the Parc des Princes he had a big following in French cycling, and influential friends. De Dion chose well.
It was 1900, the beginning of a new century, but starting a new publication is never easy even when there are good reasons to do so. Giffard and Le Vélo were in a very strong position. As well as the backing of the French Cycling Federation, Le Vélo still had a lot of advertisers because Giffard only put up rates for De Dion’s associates. And Giffard held the moral high ground because of his stand over Dreyfus.
But still not willing to make life easy for his new rival, three years after L’Auto-Vélo was launched, Giffard instituted proceedings in the courts that forced it to drop the word vélo from its title. Giffard won, and L’Auto-Vélo had to call itself L’Auto from then on. The newspaper covered many new and adventurous pursuits, but focused on cycling, and now its title said it was about cars. Circulation hadn’t been great since it was founded, so how would it hold up in future? Desgrange needed a marketing plan to cement L’Auto’s association with cycling, the sport people were interested in.
He tried printing the words ‘Motoring and Cycling’ underneath ‘L’Auto’, like a sub-heading to help reveal the paper’s content. He also listed on the front page other adventurous pursuits L’Auto covered, but it was a bit clumsy. With sales falling and his advertisers taking their custom elsewhere, Desgrange needed a big gesture. He needed something that would link L’Auto in people’s minds with cycling for the foreseeable future.
The pressure was on, but then Giffard cranked things up by goading Desgrange in print. Desgrange was furious and called his staff together, telling them they needed to come up with something that would switch attention from Le Vélo to L’Auto. ‘We need to do something big, a big promotion. Something that will nail Giffard’s beak shut,’ he is reported to have said.
Géo Lefèvre was a young reporter who covered cycling and rugby, as well as taking part in both sports. He’d worked for Le Vélo, but Desgrange convinced him that he’d be better off with him. Now, though, Lefèvre had his back against the same wall as Desgrange. Giffard was unlikely to re-employ Lefèvre if L’Auto went under. Maybe Desgrange realised that, because he took Lefèvre out to lunch and asked him what he thought they could do.
The story goes that Lefèvre suggested promoting a six-day cycle race on the road. Six-day races on the track, although popular in Britain and America, were not yet so in France, but this was never-know-until-you-try time for L’Auto. Lefèvre suggested the route should be in the shape of a hexagon, the same shape as the outline of France. There are other versions of what happened at that meal too, and Lefèvre himself was always vague about it. Later, when the Tour de France was part of French life, he said in at least one interview that he only suggested a lap of France for want of something better to say when Desgrange asked him.
A lap of France, a Tour de France, already existed, and it was part of life in the centre