Gabriel Marelle, the owner of The Hubbub, was also experiencing mixed feelings recently.
His joy, naturally, came from The Hubbub's soaring sales, exceeding 200,000 copies per issue in Paris alone, with impressive sales in the provinces as well.
This was all thanks to the new column, ""An Honest Parisian"'s Travelogue of the Provinces."
Although each issue only featured two or three short stories, sometimes as brief as forty or fifty lines, they became the primary reason Parisian readers bought The Hubbub.
Everyone was eager to see what adventures An Honest Parisian would encounter in Burgundy, Brittany, or Provence.
In particular, the priests he depicted were no longer just the common stereotypes of being old-fashioned, lecherous, selfish, and hypocritical... instead, they were elevated to another level, subtly bringing whispered gossip, usually only passed by word of mouth, onto the public stage with a touch of humor.
Of course, his characters weren't 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 write about these matters so vividly and comprehensively from such peculiar angles in every issue.
His worry was that The Hubbub was also facing unprecedented pressure.
Gibert Bohain, the Bishop of the Paris Archdioces, had already requested the government three times to ban The Hubbub and to bring both the owner, Gabriel, and An Honest Parisian to court—though Bishop Gibert would have preferred to send them directly to the guillotine.
Fortunately, this was Paris, where nothing couldn't be solved with money.
After he sent valuable gifts to Ferdinand Herault, a high-ranking official of the Seine Department; Albert Gigo, the Chief of Police of Paris; and Lyon Seille, the Minister of Interior, Bishop Gibert's complaints were temporarily shelved.
However, this gave these influential figures leverage for future blackmail against The Hubbub and himself.
As for the 13 sous per line paid to An Honest Parisian, it was a mere drop in the ocean compared to the newspaper's overall increased revenue.
It's worth noting that for each copy of The Hubbub sold at 3 centimes, after deducting costs for paper, printing, labor, manuscript fees, and distribution, he could net half a centime, which amounted to 1,000 francs for 200,000 copies.
But this wasn't the bulk of his income—that came from brothels, independent prostitutes (courtesans), mistress agencies, and advertisements for mummy aphrodisiac powders, etc.
This brought in 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 reaching out.
For Gabriel, as long as The Hubbub could still be sold, it was a machine constantly printing francs, and he would spend any amount to ensure it didn't stop operating.
As every morning, he arrived at the newspaper office early—a two-story building he had solely purchased, located in a small alley on Saints Street in the 8th arrondissement, with offices upstairs and the typesetting room and printing press downstairs.
After sitting down, he pulled out a half-smoked cigar from yesterday, relit it, took a satisfying puff, and then began to open today's submissions.
After discarding a dozen junk submissions, an envelope signed "An Honest Parisian" appeared before him.
"Hmm? Didn't he send all of this week's stories yesterday?" Gabriel was a bit confused, but his hands didn't stop; instead, he tore open the seal even faster and pulled out the two thin sheets of letter paper inside.
The first sheet was filled with writing, and Gabriel froze after reading just a few lines—
"...The two came to the grape arbor, where a set of Spanish-style table and chairs was placed, along with a harp and a bow and arrows. Miss Ilena sat by the harp, gently stroking the strings, producing a pleasant sound; Mr. Simmons, meanwhile, shot at a target with the bow and arrows. They agreed that for every arrow Mr. Simmons shot into the bullseye, Ilena would drink a glass of wine with him. Soon, Simmons had hit ten arrows, getting Ilena drunk. At this moment, Ilena's face bloomed like a rose, and her eyes resembled the autumn waters of the Seine River. Simmons took the wine into the room, took out mummy powder, poured it into the wine, and drank it all. When he returned, Miss Ilena had already laid out a mattress and silk 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 silk fan in her hand. Simmons walked over, and seeing this, how could he not be moved, so, fueled by the wine,... □ □ □ □ □ □ □ □ □ □ □ □ □ (20 lines deleted here). He then tied Ilena's feet to the grape arbor, hanging her upside down, □ □ □ □ □ □ □ □ □ □ □ □ (15 lines deleted here)... Simmons... □ □ □ □ □ □ □ □ □ □ □ □ □ (10 lines deleted here)... Ilena lay face up,... □ □ □ □ □ □ □ □ □ □ □ □ (10 lines deleted here)... Simmons chuckled: "□ □ □ □ □ □ □ □ □ □ □ □ (1 line deleted here)"... Ilena □ □ □ □ □ □ □ □ □ □ □ □ (20 lines deleted here)... Only then did Ilena fall into a deep sleep."
Gabriel: "..."
As the famous owner of The Hubbub and an infamous writer of crude jokes and erotic stories, he was quite "well-read" in this area, having devoured everything from Boccaccio's The Decameron to Marquis de Sade's Philosophy in the Bedroom.
But he had never seen such exquisite, explicit, yet so charming writing, especially the frequent occurrences of "□ (XX lines deleted here)" which made him scratch his head in frustration.
He finally managed to turn to the second page, only to find—the rest was missing?
There was only one line of text: "Dear Mr. Gabriel, this is a small section of a novel I'm conceptualizing. If you're interested, we can discuss its publication plan in detail..."
Gabriel slammed the letter paper onto the table: "Bastard... no, devil!"
A headless, tailless description 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 the other submission letters aside and smacked his lips as he re-read the first page of the letter paper.
"Masterpiece! Masterpiece! An unparalleled masterpiece!" At this moment, Gabriel was looking at the text with complete admiration, naturally discerning its brilliance.
The scene setting, visual sense, and descriptions of actions and language, all had a captivating quality that had never appeared in previous European novels.
The only problem was that the content was too explosive; once released, both the writer and the publisher would face enormous risks!
But once published, its popularity and the resulting profits would likely be an astronomical figure!
Ultimately, the desire for money overcame the fear of court, and Gabriel, with trembling hands, wrote a line at the bottom of the second sheet of letter paper:
"Good. But we need to meet and talk..."
After writing, he stuffed the letter paper into a new envelope, wrote down the "poste restante" mailbox address on Saint Martin Boulevard, and then shouted, "Pierre, you lazy ass, get in here!"