Print collector's quarterly (4.1914)

DAUMIER’S “ ROBERT MACAIRE ”

By WILLIAM MAKEPEACE THACKERAY
From " Parisian CaricatTire." first publislied in Ilie London and IIYV
minster Hevieio for April, 1839 (Volume 32, No. 2, pp. 282-305)


MONG the various characters of roguery
which the French satirists liave amused
themselves by depicting, there is one of
which the greatness (using the word in the

sense which Mr. Jonathan Wild gave to it) so far ex-

ceeds that of all others, embracing, as it does, all in
turn, that it has come to be considered the type of
roguery in general; and now, just as all the political
squibs were made to come of old from the lips of Pas-
quin, all the reflections on the prevailing cant,
knavery, quackery, humbug, are put into the mouth of
Monsieur Robert Macaire.

A play was written, some twenty years since, called
the “Auberge des Adrets, ” in which the characters of
two robbers escaped from the galleys were introduced
— Robert Macaire, the clever rogue above mentioned,
and Bertrand, the stupid rogue, his friend, accom-
plice, butt, and scapegoat, on all occasions of danger.
It is needless to describe the play—a witless perform-
ance enough, of which the joke was Macaire’s exag-
gerated style of conversation, a farrago of all sorts of
high-flown sentiments such as the French love to in-
dulge in—contrasted with his actions, which were
philosophically unscrupulous, and his appearance,

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