"Refutation of Monsieur Sainte-Beuve" is just a Sarajevo-style fuse, and the white-hot war of public opinion is the main drama. Garion's purpose is to activate this lifeless literary world, so that the conscience of society dares to break the iron rope that chokes the throat, dare to speak freely in the newspaper, and tear apart the old world.

From a conservative regime to a liberal empire, the change in Napoleon III's policies meant that the reactionary Catholic forces would lose ground, and a new literary spring would begin to take root and blossom into a world full of flowers.

Garion's prediction of the situation is as firm as Shelley's "Ode to the West Wind".

"Winter is coming, will spring be far away?"

Mérimée took her coffee and walked to the living room with a lazy expression.

As a close friend of Balzac and Stendhal, as well as a friend of Delacroix, Mérimée befriended most of the literati of the Second Empire, and of course many friends who eventually turned against him because of his change of political force. However, Mérimée, who served as the Chief Inspector of History and a member of the House of Lords, is still a leading figure and authority in the literary and artistic circles, with wealth and status unmatched by other literati. He is what Eugène Sue calls a well-deserved winner in life.

Mérimée had a handsome face that dwarfed Balzac, Stendhal and Dumas in his youth, he once snatched Stendhal's favorite lover, Madame Blue, and was questioned by George Sand for his "poor grades in bed", but as time passed, the fifty-seven-year-old Mérimée had more wrinkles at the corners of his eyes and less of the romance of his youth. More of a sense of calmness and vicissitudes.

Mérimée sat down in the drawing-room, and the servant brought him breakfast. His status as a member of Congress has allowed him to enjoy all the glory, and the manuscript fee is not so important.

Mérimée opened the Die de Paris, founded by the Goncourt brothers, and as soon as he glanced at it, a striking headline caught his attention.

"Refutation of Monsieur Sainte-Beuve".

"Oh, who is the courage to scold Sainte-Beuve this time?"

He looked at the newspaper with a smile as he took his coffee, and gasped when he had finished reading the refutation of M. Sainte-Beuve.

This article is full of dark secrets and unspeakable inferiority complex hidden in the heart of Sainte-Beuve. People in the literary world are either afraid of Sainte-Beuve's fame and choose not to talk about it, or they are involved in the old feelings and turn a blind eye. Only this rookie who broke into the Parisian literary scene, first started with an astonishing poem, and then caused a storm by involving the revolutionary party, but he did not stop in prison, and even wrote an article against Sainte-Beuve, as if he had eyes that looked directly into people's hearts, and shook out all the dirty little secrets of his past.

"Tut-tut, he said all the things that others didn't dare to say, which is equivalent to igniting explosives in the literary world. But if this young man dares to do this, I'm afraid it can't be separated from Baudelaire behind his back. New hatred and old hatred are counted together. ”

Mérimée turned the next page, again about the young man. It's just that it has changed from poetry to fiction.

“《1984》？ It's interesting to get the name of the novel. ”

Determined to refute Sainte-Beuve's rebellious attitude, he continued to watch. However, as her gaze continued to browse, the expression on Merimi's face gradually changed from calm to panicked.

As a master of literature, he can still see the clue behind this beginning. Especially when writing about watching the plot of the show called "movie", Mérimée finally found the corresponding reality, which was clearly alluding to the newspaper censorship after the Orsini case.

"This ...... His heart is damned! Damn republicans, I didn't expect to dare to insinuate the government, it's just lawless! Don't think that under the banner of other countries, under the banner of other times, I don't know what you're writing about, huh! ”

He stood up and half-narrowed his eyes. In a few days there will be a dinner at the Tuileries Palace, and he will have to report this serious problem to Napoleon III.

Mérimée was gathering evidence in a dense manner, but Sainte-Beuve's house was in shambles. Not because he was robbed, but because when he saw the poem that satirized himself, he finally exploded.

"No, damn it, damn it."

"No, don't!"

"Why would he know this stuff, damn bastard!"

The unbearable past, which he didn't want to remember, was deliberately written into a poem, and then published in the newspaper and put in plain sight for people to see.

This is even more unbearable than hanging a corpse and whipping it. The shame of desperately wanting to forget is displayed in front of everyone.

This kind of destruction of people's morals and reputations is even more unacceptable than the life of Sainte-Beuve. He clutched his head in pain, remembering the unbearable pleas and begging Hugo not to expel him, and as Aldi stood behind him, looking at Sainte-Beuve indifferently, then turned and went into the house, ignoring the other party.

He opened the drawer, only to see the old letters neatly laid out. At that time, Sainte-Beuve was like a resentful woman who had fallen out of favor, crying to Hugo about the pain of his imminent loss.

"I feel pain for this, but I can only miss the past. I have to wave goodbye to you and hide in some unknown corner......"

"Did you see that? I was disappointed and angry. I want to kill you, I want to kill you, please forgive me for these terrible impulses......"

In the second year of secondary school, Sainte-Beuve had a strong love and fascination with Hugo, and when his strong love was not reciprocated by Hugo, he chose to hook up with Aldi to get revenge on his beloved friend.

This emotionally motivated stupidity became the subject of Sainte-Beuve's silence in the future, but his opponents made a laughing stock of the whole unbearable past and published it in the newspapers.

Annoyed, Sainte-Beuve grabbed the stack of obscure letters and threw them into the hearth, and the twisted love and hatred that had once been revealed between the lines became sparks leaping over charcoal, and finally embers.

He wanted to watch the flickering flames burn out his unbearable past.

The secret that was revealed could only be chosen by people all over the world to keep it for him. Wherever he goes in the future, he will be labeled as unbearable.

A poor perfidious wretch.

However, what angered Sainte-Beuve the most was that he did not dare to write a rebuttal at all, the past history of these secrets was dug up, and God knows how many secrets were hidden behind them.

And, like the name of Sainte-Beuve before him, he also left his name at the end of the verse.

It's not an honorific title, though, but a joking title.

"Author: Parisian troll, Gallien."