Abstract: The memory of mystification at the heart of the writing of La Guzla (1827), which Mérimée made the subject of his 1840 foreword (Charpentier, 1842), was kept alive in the press, in dictionary and anthology entries, and even in scholarly works. Many authors and journalists paraphrased Mérimée’s text, even if it meant adding elements of their own, accentuating its comic dimension and sometimes going so far as to make their subject serve unexpected ideological developments.
