
It is always difficult to smuggle a banned book into a country in which it is banned, particularly when said banned book is Victor Hugo's Napoleon-le-Petit, which was obviously critical of Napoleon III, who exiled the author, and that country is France, ruled by said Napoleon III. Hugo's work reached Paris:-tucked in barrels of hay
-wrapped around tobacco leaves
-stuffed in carriage clocks
-sandwhiched between two sheets of metal, i.e. as a sardine
-in bundles of pages strapped to the legs of tourists in baggy trousers
-hidden in the bindings of prayer books
-in women's garters
Perhaps the most outlandish method of dissemination reads like something out of Dumas novel, though it comes straight from the French Foreign Office:
"The latest mode of clandestine transmission consists of small balloons fashioned from sheets of printed paper which will be launched whenever the wind stands fair for France."

"balloons fashioned from sheets of printed paper which will be launched whenever the wind stands fair for France."
ReplyDeleteA forruner of the world wide web perhaps?
What a great story! I must find out about the other means by which banned books were smuggled.
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