Political communication in the 19th century is of particular interest due to the technical changes that promote it, and to the development, greater or less according to the precise period, of mass political life. In this vast field, the relationship between the written and the spoken word have not so far been the object of much study. Without neglecting the technical and physical aspects of this relationship, we will pay as much attention to the ways the spoken word could become written (through the publishing of speeches, pleas, songs, toasts) as to the converse (newspapers sold through the open outcry of their titles, reading out loud in reading clubs), as well as to their historical evolution. The spoken word also contaminates the written word stylistically and rhetorically. Finally, we will ponder, with writers from the period, the impact of a larger diffusion of the written word on the way individuals exchange opinions.