occultist and novelist Joséphin Péladan, whose Rosicrucian salon he attended several times. Bogdan-Pitești debuted as a writer and political essayist. It was later reported, but not confirmed, that he published his pieces in newspapers and magazines of diverse backgrounds—Le Figaro, Le Gaulois, Gil Blas, L'Intransigeant and La Libre Parole among them. He also claimed to have played a part in staging the first Genevan showing of Richard Wagner's Die Walküre. Salonul Independenților Placed under surveillance due to his involvement in revolutionary politics by 1894, Alexandru Bogdan-Pitești was eventually expelled from France, despite Huysmans' intervention in his favor. Reputedly, the deportation document identified him as a "threat to public order". One urban legend recounts that Bogdan-Pitești was present at Vaillant's public execution and leaned over to kiss Vaillant's mangled body, which both disgusted and alarmed the judicial establishment. Zambaccian suggests that the decision to deport the Romanian provocateur was not politically motivated. He writes that Bogdan-Pitești had exhausted the patience of French authorities by trafficking in stolen bicycles. From France, Bogdan-Pitești had contemplated the idea of revolutionizing Romanian art, and, upon his arrival to Bucharest, began organizing artists' reunions at the Kübler and Fialkowski coffeehouses. In 1896, with Post-Impressionist artists Constantin Artachino, Ștefan Luchian and Nicolae Vermont, he founded Salonul Independenților, the Romanian replica of the French Société des Artistes Indépendants. They were soon joined by painter Nicolae Grant and caricaturist Nicolae Petrescu-Găină. The exhibits featured some of Alexandru Bogdan-Pitești's own drawings, which he intended to use as illustrations for his book of French-language poems, Sensations internes ("Internal Sensations"). He planned for his art movement to reach outside Romania, and, also in 1896, financed an international exhibition of independent and avant-garde artists. Salonul was known for its public protest against academic art: located just outside the Romanian Athenaeum building (a main venue for local Neoclassicism), it put up Petrescu Găină's huge caricature of academic artist C. I. Stăncescu, and flew a red flag next to it. This call to socialist rebellion attracted public attention, and the flag was urgently taken down by agents of the Romanian Police. The subsequent exhibitions were viewed with sympathy by a section of the press, including the leftist newspaper Adevărul. It republished pieces ridiculing Stăncescu in his role of official curator, and made favorable comments on all of the Salonul Independenților artists. Noting the leader's own anarchist past, Adevărul art columnist Gal wrote: "Bogdan has all