Gabriel Marielle, the owner of The Daily Roar, had also been experiencing mixed feelings lately.
Naturally, the good news was that sales of The Daily Roar were soaring, exceeding 200,000 copies per issue in Paris alone, with impressive sales in the provinces as well.
This success was due to the launch of the column "An Honest Parisian's Travelogue of the Provinces."
Although each issue only contained two or three short stories, sometimes as brief as forty or fifty lines, they had become the primary reason for Parisian readers to buy The Daily Roar.
Everyone was eager to see what adventures "an honest Parisian" would encounter in Burgundy, Brittany, or Provence.
Especially the priests he depicted were no longer just the common stereotypes of being rigid, lecherous, selfish, or hypocritical...
Instead, they were elevated to another level, bringing whispered secrets that could only be passed by word of mouth onto the public stage with a subtle humor.
Of course, his characters were not all priests; there were also landlords, farmers, wealthy merchants, officials, beggars, prostitutes... all vividly portrayed and hilarious.
Even more incredible was how "an honest Parisian" managed to portray these matters so completely and vividly from bizarre angles in every issue.
The worry was that The Daily Roar was also facing unprecedented pressure.
Bishop Guibert Bohain of the Holy See's Paris Archdiocese had already requested the government three times to ban The Daily Roar and to seize both owner Gabriel and "an honest Parisian" to face trial—of course, Bishop Guibert would have preferred to send them directly to the guillotine.
But fortunately, this was Paris, where nothing couldn't be solved with money.
After he sent valuable gifts to Ferdinand Hérault, a high-ranking official in the Seine department; Albert Gigot, the Chief of Police in Paris; and Léon Say, the Minister of the Interior, Bishop Guibert's complaints were temporarily shelved.
However, this also gave these influential figures leverage for future extortion against The Daily Roar and himself.
As for the 13 sous per line paid to the "honest Parisian" for his manuscript, it was a mere drop in the ocean compared to the newspaper's overall increased revenue.
One must understand that each copy of The Daily Roar, sold at 3 centimes, brought him half a centime in net profit after deducting costs for paper, printing, labor, manuscript fees, and distribution.
200,000 copies meant 1,000 francs.
But this wasn't the bulk of his income—advertisements for brothels, independent courtesans (demimondes), mistress agencies, and mummy aphrodisiac powders... those were.
These brought an additional 500 to 1,000 francs per issue, fluctuating with the newspaper's circulation.
Of course, 20% to 30% of these profits had to be used to grease the palms of those outstretched hands, both high and low.
For Gabriel, as long as The Daily Roar could be sold, it was a machine constantly printing francs, and he would spend any amount of money to ensure it never stopped operating.
Like every morning, he arrived at the newspaper office early—a two-story building he had bought outright, located in an alley off Rue des Saints in the 8th arrondissement.
The upstairs housed the offices, while the downstairs contained the typesetting room and printing press.
After sitting down, he took out a cigar he hadn't finished yesterday, lit it again, and after a satisfying puff, began to open today's submissions.
After discarding more than a dozen unsolicited submissions, an envelope signed "An Honest Parisian" appeared before him.
"Huh? Didn't he just send all of this week's stories yesterday?"
Gabriel was somewhat confused, but his hands didn't stop.
Instead, he quickly tore open the seal and pulled out two thin sheets of letter paper.
The first sheet was covered in writing, and Gabriel froze after reading just a few lines—
[... The two arrived under the grape arbor, where a set of Spanish-style table and chairs was placed, along with a harp and a bow and arrow.
Miss Helena sat by the harp, gently stroking the strings, producing pleasant sounds; Mr. Simmons, meanwhile, shot arrows at a target.
They made a wager: for every arrow Simmons shot into the bullseye, Helena would drink a glass of wine with him. Before long, Simmons hit ten bullseyes, intoxicating Helena.
At this moment, Helena's face bloomed like a rose, and her eyes resembled the autumn waters of the Seine.
Simmons took the wine into the room, took out the mummy powder, poured it into the wine, and drank it all.
When he returned, Miss Helena had already laid out a mattress and a silk summer quilt under the grape arbor, and she herself...
[... (2 lines deleted here)], lay supine on the mattress, wearing only a pair of red shoes on her feet and fanning herself with a white gauze fan.
Simmons approached, how could he not be stirred?
So, emboldened by the wine, [... (20 lines deleted here)].
He then tied Helena's feet to the grape arbor, hanging her upside down, [... (15 lines deleted here)]
...Simmons... [... (10 lines deleted here)]
...Helena lay facing skyward, [... (10 lines deleted here)]
...Simmons chuckled, saying, "[... (1 line deleted here)]"
...Helena [... (20 lines deleted here)]
...Only then did Helena fall into a deep sleep.]
Gabriel: "..."
As the famous owner of The Daily Roar and an infamously crude jokes and erotic stories writer, he was quite "well-read" in this area, having read everything from Boccaccio's The Decameron to Marquis de Sade's Philosophy in the Bedroom.
But he had never read such refined, explicit, yet so tastefully evocative prose, especially the recurring
"[... (XX lines deleted here)]" marks, which made him itch with frustration.
He finally turned to the second page, only to find—that was all?
There was only one line:
[Dear Mr. Gabriel, this is a small section from a novel I am conceiving.
If you are interested, we can discuss its publication plan in detail...]
Gabriel slammed the letter onto the desk:
"Bastard... no, a demon!"
An excerpt without beginning or end had completely ignited the passion of this successful man, who had both a wife and several mistresses, to the point where he needed a glass of whiskey to calm down.
Returning to his desk, he swept aside the other submission letters and, smacking his lips, reread the first page of the letter.
"A masterpiece!
A masterpiece!
An unparalleled masterpiece!"
At this moment, Gabriel was looking at the text with complete admiration, naturally discerning its brilliance.
The setting, vivid imagery, and descriptions of actions and language contained captivating elements previously unseen in European novels.
The only problem was that the scale was simply too explosive; once published, both the writer and the publisher would face immense risks!
But if it were published, its popularity and the resulting profits would likely be astronomical!
Ultimately, the desire for money triumphed over the fear of court, and Gabriel, with trembling hands, wrote a line at the bottom of the second sheet of paper:
[Good. But we need to meet and talk...]
After writing, he slipped the letter into a new envelope, wrote down the "poste restante" address on Boulevard Saint-Martin, and then shouted,
"Pierre, you lazy ass, get in here now!"
(End of Chapter)
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