Print collector's quarterly (4.1914)

having listened with delight and reverence to some tale
of knavery truly royal, was exclaiming, with a look
and voice expressive of the most intense admiration,
“Ah vieux blagueur! va!”—the word blague is un-
translatable—it means French humbug as distinct
from all other; and only those who know the value of
an epigram in France, an epigram so wonderfully
just, a little word so curiously comprehensive, can
fancy the kind of rage and rapture with which it was
received. Tt was a blow that shook the whole dynasty.
Thersites had there given such a wound to Ajax, as
Hector in arms could scarcely have inflicted: a blow
sufficient almost to create the madness to which the
fabulous hero of Homer and Ovid feil a prey.
Not long, however, was French caricature allowed to
attack personages so illustrious: the September laws
came, and henceforth no more epigrams were launched
against politics; the caricaturists were compelled to
confine their Satire to subjects and characters that had
nothing to do with the State. The Duke of Orleans
was no longer to figure in lithography as the fantastic
Prince Rosolin; no longer were multitudes (in chalk)
to shelter under the enormous shadow of M. d’Ar-
gout’s nose; Marshai Lobau’s squirt was hung up in
peace, and M. Thiers’ pigmy figure and round spec-
tacled face were no more to appear in print. Robert
Macaire was driven out of the Chambers and the
Palace—his remarks were a great deal too appropriate
and too severe for the ears of the great men who con-
gregated in those places.
The Chambers and the Palace were shut to bim; but
the rogue, driven out of his rogue’s paradise, saw
‘‘that the world was all before him where to choose,”

86