The most important event during Strindberg's stay in Paris was probably his contact with Björnson. A friendship sprang up between the two Scandinavian rebels which was rich in sympathy and exchange of ideas. In _The Author_ Strindberg gives us his impressions of Björnson, and Björnson has written an interesting description of Strindberg.[6] Strindberg found Björnson a complex of personalities, consisting of the preacher, the peasant, the theatrical manager and the good child. Björnson found Strindberg young throughout, at home everywhere, free everywhere, an incurable idealist in whose eye something sinister battled with something roguish. By the side of the massive Norwegian Strindberg experienced an unusual sense of security which developed into filial love. Björnson's democratic drama _The King_ had been attacked as _lèse-majesté_ and a political scandal. They had many experiences in common, were relatives in thought. Björnson in exile appealed to whatever vestige of hero-worship was left in Strindberg's soul. Suffering from nervous depletion, and in a generally weakened state of health, he adopted a deferential attitude towards Björnson which, being foreign to his temperament, was logically bound to be followed by emancipation. Early in their intercourse Strindberg had made the characteristic discovery that he was endowed with greater knowledge and a more incisive understanding than Björnson. Björnson begged Strindberg to be less personal in his satire, apparently unconscious of the extremely personal nature of his own attacks upon the common enemy. The tie of friendship was gradually loosened, until Björnson's rôle of "conscience" and father confessor came to an abrupt end in 1884. Strindberg was content to dwell for a time amongst the _literati_ of different nationalities who had assembled in Paris. Free from the stings of the bourgeois wasps upon whose nest he had trampled, he enjoyed the fresh air and the keen winds in the great republic of mind. Like other men he knew the exhilaration which follows upon the _jeu d'esprit_ in the highways of thought, the intellectual union which rejuvenates and fatigues by its fertility. But unlike most men he soon tired of even the best company, and the craving for solitude and independence became imperative.