The Shadow of Great Britain-Chapter 696 - 337 Press and Publication Review

The rain outside the window was pouring down harder, and if you put it in the words of Great Dumas, it was as if God had overindulged in wine the night before.

However, Great Dumas, who usually enjoyed making witty remarks, was in no mood for jokes now.

Since obtaining the manuscript of "The Red and the Black," he had realized the reasons why this novel was banned in France just one year after its publication.

It wasn’t because the book was too fake, but rather because it was too real.

Although Great Dumas’s father had been marginalized by Napoleon by the time he was born, he had at least caught a glimpse of the corrupt opulence of French high society in his youth.

During the era of his growth, he also witnessed various demons and monsters emerging from France’s lower and middle classes.

After reading "The Red and the Black," he was convinced that the author, Mr. Stendhal, must have had a similar life experience, otherwise it would be impossible to depict France’s social ugliness over the past decade so vividly.

This was also essentially confirmed in the letter Hugo sent him.

Mr. Stendhal was much older than both him and Hugo, had received a good education, experienced the Great Revolution firsthand as a young man, and had enthusiastically participated in it.

However, unlike the German girls often complained about by Heine, Mr. Stendhal was a true dragoon. Not just a dragoon, but also a proud lieutenant in the French Empire’s Sixth Dragoon Regiment.

Due to his high level of administrative skills, during Napoleon’s campaign in Tsarist Russia, Stendhal was given an important mission, serving as the quartermaster of the Sixth Dragoon Regiment.

But that was the end of his glorious life. After Napoleon’s defeat at Waterloo, with the complete restoration of the Bourbon Dynasty, a despairing Stendhal could only leave behind a disgruntled remark, "Aside from humiliation, we can expect nothing more," and moved from Paris to near Rome.

It was from this time that he picked up his pen, intending to use another means to alleviate his increasingly depressed mood caused by the failure of the revolution.

Unfortunately, such a peaceful life did not last long.

Although Napoleon had fallen, in addition to bringing war to the lands of Europe, his army also exposed the European populace to a new ideology.

Having once bathed in the winds of freedom, they could no longer tolerate the tyrants of despotism riding over them.

This is the direct reason why countries across Europe erupted with agitators like the German Heine and why Poland exploded with the Warsaw Uprising.

In Italy, the cry they raised was the bungled arrival of Louis Bonaparte in London due to the Charbonnerie uprising.

But with regard to supporting the Charbonnerie uprising, Stendhal was definitely a more senior predecessor than Louis, having been expelled by the authorities of the Two Sicilies as early as 1821 for his support of the Carbonari.

Having lost his refuge in Italy, and suspected by the current July Monarchy for his past support of Napoleon, even possibly under long-term surveillance by the Paris police, Stendhal naturally could not find a respectable, stable job in Paris.

Over time, his descent into his present poor and sickened plight was almost inevitable.

In normal times, life was already difficult, but when cholera swept through Paris, it was unsurprising that Hugo and the other members of the Second Literary Society of Paris directly wrote to Great Dumas on Stendhal’s behalf.

Great Dumas could understand their feelings.

"The Red and the Black" was indeed a worthy masterpiece for publication.

But as a Frenchman who frequently concerned himself with politics, Great Dumas also understood the sensitivity of the book.

If he wanted to publish this book, two problems had to be solved, which were also the two main reasons "The Red and the Black" was banned in Paris.

The first was the extreme admiration for Napoleon revealed in the book.

Although France’s July Monarchy outwardly acknowledged Napoleon’s contributions to France in an effort to reconcile the conflicts among various political factions, in reality, Louis Philippe’s government had always been cautiously aware of the strength of the Bonapartist faction.

In Great Dumas’s view, this petty thief who took advantage of the impasse amongst various forces to steal the fruits of the July Revolution was in a constant state of fear day and night.

A slight rustle of grass could trigger his perpetually tense nerves, as he feared that one day the popularity of books like "The Red and the Black" might inspire upstanding French citizens to oust him from the throne.

As for London, though they were not as fearful of the deceased Napoleon as the French July Monarchy, and were relatively tolerant of various works of literature involving him.

However, due to the impact of the Napoleonic Wars, both the Whig and Tory parties’ conservative factions had always been committed to portraying Napoleon as a man-eating devil. Even within the Tories, Disraeli had disagreed with Arthur’s decision to publish Louis’s masterpiece "Napoleonic Ideas."

At the time, Arthur emphasized that publishing "Napoleonic Ideas" could divert the readership of liberal and radical publications like "The Westminster Review" and expand to a larger readership base, ultimately convincing Disraeli.