It took Lionel a full day of probing and piecing together fragments to understand the whole story.
Although he hadn't attended the Sorbonne's Poetry Society held on the last weekend of the Easter Holiday, the academy had still received a huge amount of sponsorship.
One donation of 150,000 francs would establish a "Rothschild-Sorbonne Literary Scholarship" at the Sorbonne, awarded annually with 5,000 francs to Sorbonne students who demonstrated outstanding creative performance.
This year's scholarship was almost tacitly assumed to be awarded to Lionel.
However, since Lionel would graduate next year and could only receive it once at most, everyone was only envious, rarely jealous, and didn't even speculate much about the relationship between Madame Rothschild and Lionel.
After all, she had been one of the Sorbonne's major sponsors in previous years; this year, she simply sponsored an unusually large amount.
But another donation of 300,000 francs was almost explicitly given because of Lionel—
"With this humble sum, I pay my highest respects to the Son of Sorbonne Literature who could have attended the 'Poetry Society' but chose to be absent for the sake of dignity and conscience!
—From Baroness Alekseyevna Durova-Shcherbatova"
After a servant from a proud-looking Baroness's estate finished reading these words at the "Poetry Society," a luxurious carriage with heavy wheels drove into the square where the Poetry Society was held at the Sorbonne, in front of everyone.
Several burly men unloaded a few boxes from the carriage, and the servant opened the lids on the spot; a golden glow instantly blinded everyone.
Inside the boxes were "Louis d'Or" coins, which had been out of circulation for nearly 100 years, each minted with the likeness of the "Sun King" Louis XIV.
Each "Louis d'Or" contained 6.45 grams of gold and could be exchanged for 20 to 24 francs, so the nearly 15,000 gold coins on site at that time truly shocked everyone.
What was even more remarkable was that the "Louis d'Or" had already exited French currency circulation in 1795, replaced by the current franc, and most people had exchanged their Louis d'Or for the new currency for convenience.
Even in some aristocratic families, "Louis d'Or" coins were mostly used for appreciation and decoration, not actually for buying things.
It would probably be impossible to find a rich person in all of France who could produce so many "Louis d'Or" coins.
As for who the "Son of Sorbonne Literature who could have attended the 'Poetry Society' but chose to be absent for the sake of dignity and conscience" was, one could figure it out with their eyes closed.
Regarding the purpose of this donation, the servant proudly declared: "Baroness Alekseyevna allows the Sorbonne to dispose of this money as it sees fit; she trusts the noble character of the Sorbonne people!"
Then he got into the carriage and left, leaving the Sorbonne faculty, students, and guests on site utterly bewildered.
The Sorbonne faculty and students were almost going crazy—300,000 francs with no restrictions on use!? Is there really such a good thing!?
One must know that the 150,000 francs donated by Madame Rothschild were for a scholarship, which not only had a dedicated account for management, but the academy also had to submit a usage report to her every year and accept audits from her private accountant at any time.
Even diverting a small amount would be extremely troublesome.
According to busybodies, after Baroness Alekseyevna came to Paris, her magnanimous and generous style led to her being ostracized by the Parisian aristocratic ladies' circle, and this money largely served as a demonstration to them.
But choosing Lionel as the reason, the subtle implications of that had to be carefully savored.
And stimulated by her, the aristocratic ladies attending the Poetry Society also began to compete, and when the accounts were finally tallied, the Sorbonne had received or was about to receive donations totaling over 2 million francs.
As a result, although Baroness Alekseyevna's 300,000 francs still stood out, her proportion of the total donations decreased once the total amount went up, which at least saved the Parisian aristocratic ladies some face.
2 million francs was also the largest single-year fundraising amount in the Sorbonne's history.
And what brought all this about was precisely Lionel, who had not attended the Poetry Society and had "mysteriously disappeared" for two weeks during the Easter Holiday!
Rumor had it that Mrs. Alexeievna came from one of Russia's oldest noble families—the Shcherbatov family.
Her father was Prince Sergei Ivanovich Shcherbatov, and her mother was the daughter of Count Vorontsov, carrying half Georgian royal blood.
The inheritance her father left her included:
Four estates located in Moscow, St. Petersburg, Russia, and Chernihiv, Ukraine;
Shares in the Baku oil field;
40% equity in a salt mine in the Don River basin;
A three-story villa on Rue de Varenne in the 7th arrondissement of Paris—of course, she didn't like living there, finding it too small.
Baroness Alekseyevna, with her inherited assets and controlled dowry, had an annual income exceeding 1.4 million rubles (approximately 3.5 million francs).
This annual income was unparalleled throughout Russia and even all of Europe.
As famous as her wealth was her appearance—a round face with large ears, a straight nose and square mouth, eight feet tall, ten spans wide at the waist, a bushy beard on her cheeks, and a palm-width of chest hair, possessing the courage of ten thousand men, truly a formidable hero.
It is said that Baroness Alekseyevna left Moscow to live permanently in Paris with the strong support of her husband.
That Lionel could battle her for two weeks was even more remarkable than his literary talent—one must know that on this European continent, literary giants are easy to find, but a Rasputin is hard to come by.
Now, Lionel, looking across the entire Sorbonne, no professor or student dared to look down on him anymore.
— — — —
After knowing everything, Lionel was also very helpless; he couldn't very well tell people: "During the Easter Holiday, I first went to Jersey to visit Mr. Hugo's former residence, then encountered a sensational triple murder case that rocked all of Paris, and finally moved out in a panic..."
Even if he did, everyone would surely have that "you don't need to explain, I understand" expression.
And he also didn't know what this Mrs. Alexeievna was really thinking.
Was it because she admired "the old guard," or because she admired his character for standing up to Professor Terry and speaking out for Chen Jitong?
But she had spent 300,000 francs for him, and although not a single penny had yet fallen into his pocket, the goodwill released was as immense as a hurricane.
Lionel was very troubled about how he would "repay" her in the future; would he really have to repay a money debt with his body?
He muddled through like this for two days, and by Tuesday, Lionel could finally extricate himself from the suffocating ambiguous atmosphere of the Sorbonne and attend a historically famous literary salon to catch his breath—
"Charpentier's Tuesday"