1, the early relationship between Mondion and Chen Jitong.
Mondion (1849-1894), full name Adabert-Henri Foucault de Mondion, was born in Pang Si, a small French coastal town. He was eager to learn and received a good education in his youth.
Chen Qitang and Mondion should have known each other no later than 1878. In June of that year, Xie Chen accompanied Guo Songtao to visit the Paris Institute of Mining. Chen called Meng Di Weng an "apprentice", which Meng Di Weng denied in the preface of The Truth of Northern Qi Dynasty. Mondion said: "He (referring to Chen Jitang) pretends to be my student", adding: "I am indeed a teacher of an extremely clever China official, but this China official is not called Chen Jitang; But one of his compatriots is called Ma Jianzhong. ". Montessori highly praised Ma Jianzhong's cleverness in his book, calling him "the smartest and most educated China in Europe". However, it is not necessary for Chen Jitong to pretend to be a disciple of Montessori in front of Guo Songtao. Moreover, with Ma Jianzhong and Chen Qidong's similar status in the embassy and their experience in studying "public law", Mondeo is likely to tutor them in French and Latin. In fact, French public opinion at that time also regarded them as Montessori disciples. 1880, Montion was awarded "Four Military Merits and Rewards" by the Qing government for his outstanding achievements in teaching Chen and Ma. Li Hongzhang also called Monti "French Apprentice" in his memorial. As can be seen, in 1880, Mondion was already attached to the Bureau of Study Abroad. René de Ponte-Jester also believes that Montessori was later hired by Chen Jitong as an "embassy copywriter" to assist Ambassador Li in handling French documents.
As a result of working in the embassy, Mondion was exposed to a lot of diplomatic information between China, French and German. He made full use of the information in his hand and published two books. The first book, named Diary of a Qing Dynasty Official-China's Letters and Unpublished Diplomatic Documents, was published in the newspaper. It was first published in 1887, which involved a lot of information about the China Study Abroad Group and its embassy in Germany, and even some secret letters and documents during the Sino-French War. When this book was published, the author did not sign his name, but used "an official in China" as his pen name. Another book, entitled The Truth of the Northern Qi Dynasty, was first published at 1889, and Mondion signed it under his real name. This book reveals some inside stories of European diplomatic circles (France, Germany and China) during the Sino-French Vietnam dispute, and criticizes the French government's foreign policy, especially for the purpose of attacking Rufeili. The book has detailed comments on the diplomatic negotiations between China and France and the influence played by Germany during this period. The author cited some personal letters to illustrate his point of view, including several letters from Chen Qitang.
Both books talked about the author's own role in the Sino-French War, and Mondion also tried to exaggerate it. He quoted General boulanger as saying: "No other Frenchman is more loyal and smarter than Mr. Didion to serve our France." Others think: "If we listened to his advice, the war with China could be avoided, or a peace treaty could be signed more quickly under more favorable conditions." It can be seen that Mondion did actively intervene in the negotiations between the two countries in Europe during the Sino-French War. Montessori and Chen Jitong should have a good relationship between teachers and friends in their early days.
2. Inference of the reasons why Mondeo and Chen Qidong broke up.
188910 June 1 1 day, Mondion published a signed article, which wrote, "I wrote under the pen name of Colonel Chen Qitang. I am the author of Self-Portrait of China. I wrote China People's Drama under the same pseudonym, which was published by Gorman Levy Press. The article also revealed that he wrote a reply to the reader for Chen Qitang, "I tried my best to reply except signing". Shortly after this article was published, it was countered by Chen Qitang. In The Times, Chen announced that he broke up with Mondion, claiming that the two books were his own, but admitted that "some of them came from cooperation". Chen Jitang's article caused great repercussions, and the two sides later had a heated debate in the press. Obviously, the direct trigger of their breakup was the article written by Mondien on June 65438+1October 65438+1October 065438+1October 0, but it was not that simple, and there were deeper reasons behind it. Judging from the documents collected by the author at present, it seems that there are two factors in their breakup: political contradictions and conflicts between fame and fortune.
During the Sino-French War, Mondion did do more planning for China in the German Embassy in China, which contributed to the Sino-French peace talks. Chen Jitang also expressed his strong gratitude to him in a letter. But Mondion also played another role, that is, a spy who collected intelligence and provided information for France. As a Frenchman, or "patriot" as boulanger said, his behavior is beyond reproach. On June 24th, le figaro 1894 (a few days after Montessori's death), the headline article commenting on Mondeo's life was titled L'Espion. Obviously, the author thinks this is an important identity of Montessori. In another article in le figaro, it also describes how Mondien got information from Chen Jitong and passed it on to Vincent, the French war minister. In The Truth of Beiqi, Mondeo quoted boulanger's letter to show off, including "When he found our army in the tragic situation of Beiqi Incident in Berlin, Mondeo successfully made direct contact with our ambassador to Beijing". Once Montessori's spy status is discovered by the Chinese side, it is inevitable that the relationship between the two sides will become tense. However, Mondeo's character is unwilling to be lonely. In an official's diary, he quoted a large number of internal files and letters in China-China's letters published in1887 and unpublished diplomatic documents, which should be intolerable to any diplomatic mission in any country. It is conceivable that the German and French embassies were angry with him, but under the circumstances at that time, it was impossible for China to openly interfere and forbear. But the break between Chen Jitang and Montessori is inevitable.
Self-portrait of China was a great success after it was published in 1884. Reprinted at least four times in one year and at least 1 1 times in three years. After the publication of 1886, The People of China was also welcomed by readers, and it was printed three times in a row during the year. Because the signature is "General Chen Qitang", most of the benefits from this naturally fall on Chen. Critics praised the book as "Voltaire's satire and Montesquieu's profundity", and some even claimed that some parts of the book could be compared with Plato. Chen Qitang frequented salons in Paris, and was very popular. The huge economic benefits brought by repeated reprinting are also enviable. In a letter to Mondeo, Chen said, "Who can say that we will not become millionaires one day?" Whether as an author or a collaborator, it is conceivable that all this will make Mondeo psychologically unbalanced, but several works published by Montessori are far less popular than Self-Portrait of China. It is not surprising that he attacked Chen Jitang for the first time on 1889.
3. Evidence analysis described by Mondian.
Regarding the investigation between Mondeo and Cheng Qidong, most of the documents we can find come from Mondeo's statement, the most important of which is Cheng Qidong's letter he quoted. As the originals of these letters cannot be found, we can only assume that these letters are completely reliable at present, which is a premise discussed below. In the preface of "A pseudonym when I was an official in Qing Dynasty", Mondion quoted 22 personal letters written by Chen Qitang. The writing time of these letters is from 1884 to 1887, and 1887 is only one letter (1September 3). This year, Montessori published his Diary of an Official-China's Letters and Unpublished Diplomatic Documents. In the previous article, I thought this book was one of the factors that led to the bad relationship between Chen and Meng. In this year, their correspondence is less, and they are easy to understand. Other letters are mainly concentrated in 1884 and 1885, especially1884 (1/letter). Montessori quoted these letters mainly to explain two problems: first, Chen Jitong's French level could not be written; Secondly, Chen Qitang asked himself to write "self-portrait of China people" and "drama of China people". The following interview will be described in detail.
On June 20th 1884, Chen wrote: "I sent you an article from today's Le Monde. If you think it's worth replying, that's great: I'll ask you to write a reply. " The article entitled "Babies in the Workhouse" in Le Monde mentioned in the letter is about the discussion of "charity work" published by Chen in Two Worlds. This article is sharply worded, attacking China's bad habit of abandoning babies and drowning babies at that time, and accusing the charity system in China, Chen Meihua. Tchen Kitong asked Mondeo to reply, and the latter obeyed, but the reply was unpublished and the content was unknown. In July of the same year 1, Chen asked Montessori to write a song dedicated to a young woman. In a letter dated May 28th (1885), Chen asked Montessori to write an article about Italian for Fracassa. The above is a letter from Chen quoted by Mondion to prove that Chen Qitong's French level is very poor. It is true that Chen has turned to Montessori for help many times, but this is not enough to prove that Chen is incapable of writing in French; On the contrary, the letters quoted by Montessori have the opposite effect, that is, these letters with correct words and rich expressions can prove that Chen Jitong's French level is quite good.
Regarding Chen Qidong's invitation to Mondeo to write for him, Chen wrote to Mondeo on May 1884 and 12, saying, "I am sending you the stamped proof of my book, please correct it. As there is no manuscript, I can't undertake the work alone. Those gentlemen gave the manuscript to Two Worlds magazine, which will be published on 15 next month. " When Montessori quoted this letter, he particularly emphasized the sentence "Because there is no manuscript". But the following sentence "The manuscript has been handed over to Two Worlds magazine" can explain the whereabouts of the manuscript, and even if the manuscript is in Mondeo's hand, it is not enough to prove that Chen Qidong has not written the first draft of the article or participated in the writing of the manuscript. Mondeo claims that Chen didn't participate in the writing of "Self-Portrait of China People" at all, and what he said here is obviously insufficient evidence. On June 13 of the same year, Chen Xin mentioned that he sent several books to Mondion according to a sinology bibliography, and said, "I foresee that the next book you suggested me to publish will be very interesting." "The next book" refers to "China people's plays". In the letter of August 4 of the same year, Chen wrote: "The chapter" Front Hall "is very charming. Maybe it's best not to give it to the newspaper. what do you think? Because we want to publish it. " The preface is the first chapter of China drama. When dealing with this article, Chen consulted Montessori, which seems to prove that Montessori is the main author of this article, but it cannot be inferred that the China People's Drama Encyclopedia was written by Montessori.
Looking at the evidence cited by Mondeo, we can't fully confirm his view that Chen Jitong wrote two works signed by him. The personal letters published by Chen Qitang also failed to help him achieve the purpose of restoring his works. On the contrary, the newspapers in Paris sided with Chen Jitang.
4. Summary of this case.
Mondion himself said in his book When I was an Official of the Qing Dynasty: "The Parisian newspapers seem to support this young man to file a lawsuit in China first." In his book, he also complained many times that The Times was unfair to him because it was unwilling to publish its own articles for copyright. It can be seen that the public opinion at that time was very unfavorable to Mondion. The attitude of public opinion on this issue lasted until Mondion died. In July, 1894, 1 1, le figaro published Pan Ruosi's article The Truth of Fogo de Mondion: His Life, Political Mission and Death. When talking about Chen He's case, the article said: "In order to cater to his friend's simple thoughts and strong self-esteem, Fogo de Mondion co-wrote two fascinating works that caused a sensation in Paris: China's Self-portrait and China's Drama. Since then, Chen Jitang has become a popular speaker and won the "French First-class Education Medal". This statement of "cooperation" represents the view of French public opinion on copyright at that time. French sinologist Cody's view on this matter is more favorable to Chen Qitang. He said: "He (Chen Qidong) is very smart, kind and helpful. He speaks and writes in French and is very humorous. Mr. Fogo de Mondion once asked to take back the copyright of the works published in the name of Chen, but I know Chen very well and he is fully capable of writing these books. "
Mondion denied Chen Qitong's French writing ability in his book, but in fact, Chen's writing ability was affirmed before Meng's death. Chen Qitang's works in his life are not only China's Self-portrait and China's Drama, but we have seen eight kinds of French works, not including some articles. After the above two books, Chen Jitang published The Story of China (1889), Entertainment in China (1890), The Legend of the Yellow Shirt (1890) and Parisian (189/kl). 0/0 years after Mondeo's death, Chen published the French light comedy Brave Love (1904) in Shanghai. However, no one declared "recovering" the copyright of these works, and it has nothing to do with Montessori. We can't deny that Chen Jitang is the author of these books. Moreover, from the analysis of writing style, these later works, like the first two, have maintained a more humorous style, with no obvious difference. This can also prove that Chen Qidong participated in the writing of at least the first two books, and it is not sufficient and unreasonable for Mondeo to completely deprive Chen of copyright.
From the researcher's point of view, it is almost impossible for Chen and Meng to find the final "death certificate" about the self-portrait of China people and the drama of China people, and they can only infer right and wrong according to the existing materials. From the analysis of the existing literature, there are four reasons for the possibility of cooperation between the two:
First, Chen Qidong has many official duties, so he can't finish all the articles of "Self-Portrait of China People" by himself, and needs Mondeo's assistance; Two Worlds magazine published 18 articles in the book from May to June, which should have been done before. From1June 1983 to1June 1984, after returning to Europe, Chen Qitong was busy negotiating with China on the Vietnamese issue, so Chen could not concentrate on his writing. Instead, it is good for French diplomacy to write articles in French magazines to introduce French customs and opinions. Therefore, Chen urgently needs someone to cooperate.
Secondly, Mondeo and Tchen Kitong both work in the Embassy of China in Berlin, which is convenient for cooperation. Montessori has been translating western languages for the China Embassy for a long time, and his relationship with Chen Qitang is a teacher and friend. They have been dating for a long time, and there is no obstacle to communicate with each other. It is also reasonable for Montessori to write some chapters in the book to modify and polish the text for Chen.
Thirdly, Mondeo has limited knowledge of China and needs Chen Qidong to provide him with creative materials. On this point, Mondion completely denied it. However, Montessori also admitted that Chen had provided him with some excerpts, which shows that Montessori's statement is contradictory.
Fourthly, the great success of China's Self-Portrait prompted them to continue to cooperate with China's plays. If the first three reasons are established, this reason is its natural inference.