Print collector's quarterly (4.1914)

tomime, wlio is entirely under the fatal influenae of
clown. He is quite as mach a rogue as tliat gentleman,
but he has not his genius and courage. So, in pan-
tomimes (it may, doubtless, have been remarked by the
reader), clown always leaps first, pantaloon following
after, more clumsily and timidly than his bold and ac-
complished friend and guide. Whatever blows are
destined for clown, fall, by some means of ill-luck,
upon the pate of pantaloon; whenever the clown robs,
the stolen articles are sure to be found in his com-
panion’s pocket; and thus exactly Robert Macaire and
his companion Bertrand are made to go through the
world; both swindlers, but the one more accomplished
than the other. Both robbing all the world, and Rob-
ert robbing his friend, and, in the event of danger,
leaving him faithfully in the lurch. There is, in the
two characters, some grotesque good for the spectator
—a kind of “Beggars’ Opera” moral.
Ever since Robert, with his dandified rags and airs,
his cane and snuff-box, and Bertrand, with torn sur-
tout and all-absorbing pocket, have appeared on the
stage, they have been populär with the Parisians; and
with these two types of clever and stupid knavery, M.
Philipen and his companion Daumier have created a
world of pleasant Satire upon all the prevailing abuses
of the day.
Almost the first figure that these audacious carica-
turists dared to depict was a political one: in Ma-
caire’s red breeches and tattered coat appeared no less
a personage than the King himself—the old Poire—in
a country of humbugs and swindlers the facile prin-
ceps; fit to govern, as he is deeper than all the rogues
in his dominions. Bertrand was opposite to him, and

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