Acrobats and Mountebanks

[p272]

I write the word without fear of any misunderstanding.

We are now contemplating simple, healthy men who pass [p273] their lives in performing very hard work, and who are freed from sensual temptation by physical fatigue. As a rule, [p274] therefore, the passions of gymnasts are purely sentimental and platonic; you will find in them first of all the great element of all love—the protection of the weak by the strong. There is, in fact, in every pair of acrobats, a male and a female, the “hero” or bearer, the “man underneath” who supports the weight of the whole “act,” to whom the “man above” confides his life. The latter is the younger, the most supple and graceful of the two. He receives the larger share of the applause, the most enthusiastic “bravos.” His existence depends upon the self-sacrifice and affection of the man who upholds him.

“We must rely upon each other,” said one of the Hanlons to me one day, referring to their young comrade, “Bob,” the favourite of the whole troupe.

Translated:

“We must love each other like the youthful soldiers of the Theban legion, like Castor and Pollux, to whom legend has never assigned any mistress.”

This conviction of the superior, absolute beauty of man is so bound up in the customs of the gymnasium, that you will find that all men of high culture who devote themselves to physical exercises, acquire with their attachment to the trapeze, the same æsthetic views. The most illustrious example that I can quote on this point is certainly Pierre Loti.

You have read his novel of Azyadé, and you know the enthusiasm with which he speaks of the gymnasium. Remember, on the other hand, the tenderness of the novel-writer for Frère Yvres, recall the Pêcheurs d’Islande clinging to the helm of their boat, and you will more easily realize the [p275] discipline by which gymnastics lead an acrobat who cares for his profession, to the æsthetic admiration for man.

For my own part until I read the works of Pierre Loti, I never thoroughly understood the epithet which Pindar throws in the face of an Olympian victor in a lyrical antistrophe—

“Oh, barren gymnastics!” . . . . .

The clowns are the most popular members of the motley crowd that attracts the audience of the circus, hippodrome and other places of amusement, where strength and beauty form the basis of the entertainment. Their pirouettes fill the house, they are the “attraction,” the great success of the programme. As they are not very numerous, for there are not more than thirty of them scattered over the globe, [p278] the directors compete for them at very high salaries. Like the star-tenors they contract engagements for many years in advance, and receive the emoluments of an ambassador, and their requirements increase with their success. I am told by the agents that their commissions have never been so high as in the last few years.

Although much appreciated in France, the clown is not a creation of the Latin genius. It only invented the three personages of the comedy dell’arte, the three typical masks from which every expression of the human face arise: Pierrot the coward, Arlequin the crafty, and between them, the perverse Columbine. During many centuries these three puppets have moved through every shade and variety of psychological pantomime.

At the present time Italian pantomime is an extinct art. In the time of Watteau the poor masks had already lost their definite outlines, and their idiosyncrasies had become misty and dim. They are now effaced, dispelled by the cloud of powder which the clown, launched from the other side of the Channel, scattered in the air as he tumbled upon the French stage.

Etymologically the clown is the rustic, the rough peasant, pugnacious, ignorant and silly, who enlivens the sombre dramas of Shakespeare by his foolish quibbles. In England this ludicrous personage was the indispensable accessory of every play; he is nearly related to the French Jocrisse, who also wears the garb of a well-to-do countryman, and is equally ridiculed by the city folk.

The Shakesperian clown has not yet disappeared. He is to be found with all his traditional attributes in the three [p279] companies of Hengler’s Circus, which travel all over England, and at Christmas time give simultaneous performances in London, Liverpool, and Dublin.

I remember entering the arena of this national circus one Sunday morning in London, and being considerably surprised to find the whole company in morning dress assembled in the ring. A black-coated individual, Bible in hand, was addressing the acrobats. He was a clergyman. I have been told since that Mr. Hengler exacts punctual attendance at the Sunday services from every member of his troupe.

In this traditional house, the Shakesperian clown, the jester, as he is called in the profession, appears in white tights, [p280] ornamented with blue or red patches indiscriminately arranged, with a short drapery round the hips, and a fool’s cap on his head. Thus attired, he does not caper and joke, but declaims passages from Shakespeare and sings Irish songs which delight the public in the cheap places.

You can easily imagine that such a figure could not be moved from its native surroundings. The dialect of Old Tom, the tirades of King Lear, would not please any audience, except in the United Kingdom. Some other work must be found for foreign engagements.

The jester, therefore, looked round to see if he could not gather some useful hints from his stage companions, that might help to fill his travelling bag, and naturally he studied the coloured minstrels. It is impossible to write a serious history of the clown without making some allusion to these negro singers. The modern clown, acrobat, magician, and pantomimist was produced by the union of the jester and the minstrel.

Lovers of old books, who strolled round the Quai Voltaire last winter may have noticed in the window of a dealer in curious prints, a collection of bad chromolithographs from New York which attracted and amused the passers by. They depicted the misfortunes of “coloured men,” caricatured by their old masters; ridiculous falls into buckets of water; a horse kicking a negro in the jaw; a gun exploding, blows a negro into a thousand pieces like Captain Castagnette. The mouths with their gleaming teeth are always split by a foot placed across them, the legs are thrown above the woolly heads in grotesque dances, which seem performed in rhythm to the blows of a whip. These coarse pictures were not signed [p281] by the artist, they bore the names of the publishers only, Currier and Ives of New York.

English pantomime, the extraordinary pantomime of the Hanlons, Pinauds, Renards, Leovils, Ramys, and Leopolds, is considerably influenced by these slave gaieties, by the monkey-like tricks of the negroes capering for the amusement of their cruel masters.

Freedom has been granted, the whip no longer inspires the [p282] epileptic dances of the blacks, but their jerky gambols so greatly diverted the “massa,” that they have survived slavery itself in an essentially American and English institution: the Christy Minstrels.

Visit music halls you will find on occasional stages a curious chorus of men in evening dress, sitting in a semicircle, their faces blackened with soot. In St. James’s Hall the effect is particularly curious, for it is here that Messrs. Moore and Burgess, who have carried negro minstrelsy to the highest perfection, exhibit their company of coloured minstrels. The back of the stage is occupied by the orchestra. From an artistic point, no pains is spared to seek out and engage the best musicians who come before the public both vocal and instrumental. Among the vocalists may be reckoned some of the finest voices obtainable in England or in America. The singers are seated in a semi-circle, the comic men are placed at either end of the row, and these furnish the life and humour of the entertainment; they are the comic vocalists, the propounders of quips and tellers of droll stories; their instruments are the bones and tambourines.

They play, sing, dance a jig and make jokes. This is the duty of the two leaders of the band, the jester and his butt.

Messrs. Moore and Burgess confine their well-recognised original Christy Minstrel Entertainments to the St. James’s Hall. It is the key-note of their programme that they “never perform out of London.” On the other hand, their commonplace imitators become out of the London season itinerant humourists.

In the summer you will find them on the sands [p283] of every sea side town. Banjo in hand, arrayed in the cotton trousers worn by the old slaves, always accompanied by the black dress coat, an eyeglass in one eye, straw hats on their blackened heads, they call themselves the Ethiopian serenaders. They travel in bands and perform in the open air.

Very agile and supple, they repeat in violent dances a [p284] species of gymnastics which a little resembles the “chahut” of the lower classes in France. The great “split” is as familiar to them as the somersaults, etc; and these two exercises form the greater part of the pantomime, which the minstrels perform when they are tired of playing on the banjo.

The acrobatic success of the minstrels pointed out a road for these clowns, who were anxious to place a girdle of somersaults round the terrestrial globe. The pirouette had the advantage of being understood by the spectators in every land.

The clown therefore started without any other luggage.

This English emigration dates from about 1865. This was the time of the clever entries of vaulting clowns, who starred the whole ring with their capers. They vaulted from the “carpet,” and from the great and little batoude, that is to say, performed a somersault from a spring-board over a wall of horses.

In the course of his travels the jester, now an acrobat, learnt the idiom of several countries. From a few words interspersed through his performance, he at once saw that his English pronunciation easily roused the laughter of the audience. His accent amused the Parisians particularly, and he thought that great capital might be made of his broken French, and a large salary earned whilst sparing his physical labour. The corporation at once divided into two branches.

The clowns who found that their inclinations prompted them to become “patterers” renounced the “carpet” and the “spring-board” to speak to the public.

Those whom gymnastics had fascinated turned towards acrobatic pantomime. [p285]

And here we must weave a crown of laurels and immortal flowers for Billy Hayden, the incarnate type of a patterer clown, and you may be sure that some day his place in the history of the stage will be quite as important as that of the late Deburau.

Billy related the history of his life to me. He was born in Birmingham, and his vocation dates from his early childhood. He was one day mounted upon his father’s shoulders to watch an acrobat performing in the open air, who ascended a movable perch. The spectacle made a deep impression upon the [p286] child, and nothing could prevent him from following his vocation.

Billy is a pupil of the minstrels. At the opening of his career, he travelled through the world besmeared with black. In Germany, the idea first occurred to him to powder himself like Pierrot, and at once found that the change produced a great success. The clever expressive features previously concealed by the soot were suddenly disclosed by the powder. And the audacity of the clown increased with the encouragement of public applause.

Nearly all the jokes with which he has amused us are borrowed from the minstrels. They always repeat the scene of a jester and his butt, the stock-in-trade of the old show. At the circus, the ring-master is the butt, the sensible man who corrects the childish nonsense of the clown.

The clown Footeet plays one of these traditional scenes very naturally. Mounted upon a horse, with his face to the tail, he calls out:

“Oh, this horse hasn’t got a head.”

The ring-master gravely answers:

“It is on the other side, clown.”

“Turn it round then.”

“That is impossible, clown, you must turn round yourself.”

Footeet prefers vaulting to talking. But Billy Hayden is as lazy as his donkey, and prefers jokes to somersaults. His repertoire includes an amusing story of a stolen child.

When the star equestrian dismounts from her horse, Billy turns to M. Loyal and says:

“Môa aussi, jé été oun cholie pétit démoisel.” [p287]

“Allons donc! clown!”

“Vô n’étiez pas là quand jé suis né? Môa, j’y été. Alôrs jé dois savoir mieux que vô!”

And in a lamentable voice he relates the misfortune which befell him:

“Labonn’ mé proménait dans oun vouâture d’enfant, et ell’ [p288] s’assoit sur le bi-du-bout-du-banc à causer avec oun militair’. Et alors oun vieil’ sorcière é venue avec oun pétit garçon. Et ell’ a pris môa la choli pétit’ fill’ de la vouâture d’enfant’, et ell’ a mis à la place môa, le vilain petit garçon, dans la vouâture d’enfant. Et depuis ce temps-là jé oun souis vilain pétit garçon!”13

With this Billy draws out an indescribable pocket-handkerchief and bursts into tears.

Those whom this clown does not amuse, who prefer drama to comedy, will reserve their approbation for the acrobat-clown, who has inherited the genius of the Hanlon-Lees.

This radical transformation of style tempted the jester by many advantages: first, by replacing words by gestures, it suited the natural taciturnity of the Anglo-Saxon character, which cannot dispose of the resources of Italian loquacity; then it evoked great applause by the unexpected contrast between the somersault suddenly executed precisely according to rule, following the ridiculous knockabout performance of the tumbling scenes.

In making this evolution the clown exposed himself to the danger of being confused with the professional gymnast whose exercises he reproduced. This danger however was more [p289] apparent than real. The work of a gymnast is of a special traditional character which no whimsical variation is ever allowed to tamper with. Its immediate aim is the display of daring movements and harmonious attitudes of the human body, and above all it is a plastic performance. The clown’s art, on the contrary, should aim at evoking laughter, not applause. It appeals less to the sense than to the intelligence, and, unlike gymnastics, it is not confined by classic fixed rules. It has the right to follow the wildest fancies of a whimsical imagination. It is not a Greek art, but an English one, and it reflects all the most curious characteristics of the Anglo-Saxon people.

[p290]

The prevailing note in the Anglo-Saxon character is melancholy. This produced the spleen, the gloomy ideas and the systematic calculated first tinge of madness which the English themselves call “eccentricity.” To this habitual sadness the Anglo-Saxon joins a certain brutality, which is visible in all his games, sullies all his pleasures, and even gives to his vices a peculiarly sombre hue. In England gymnastics are cultivated, not for the beauty which they bestow upon the body, but for the murderous weight which they give to the fists of a boxer. England is the cruel country, where men first formulated the law of the “struggle for life.”

[p291]

The clown, the direct son of the Saxon genius, said to himself:

“To please my fellow-countrymen, who worship strength more than anything else, I must first of all be strong, before I can excite their admiration. I will therefore commence by developing my muscles. As to my pantomime, if I wish it to succeed, it must, by the incoherence of its actions, the whimsicalness of its pointless gestures, the automatism of its movements, imitate the terrible spectacle of insanity.”

With this idea, the English clown has adopted a mourning livery of black and silver, and has broken the powdered mask [p292] of Pierrot by two red spots, two bloody patches; the insignia of boxing and of English consumption.

This gloomy clown crossed over to France upon the steamers that carried Darwin’s books and the commentaries of Schopenhauer. For one hour the French imbibed the sadness of their insular neighbours, the black acrobat was well received.

Every one will remember the welcome which the Magiltons and the Hanlon-Lees received in Paris. It was the first time [p293] we had seen English pantomime. The exotic art upset all our ideas of logic, it was in direct opposition to all our innate taste for clearness and delicate performances. However, it succeeded, for it evoked the only laughter of which we were at that time capable, a laughter without merriment, convulsive, full of terror.

The Hanlon-Lees! How many pleasant artistic feelings the name evokes in the memory of Parisians. The troupe is scattered now, throughout the world, there are the Hanlon-Lees on one side, the Hanlon-Volta on another, three of the brothers are dead, and their comrade Agoust has abandoned them to become manager of the Nouveau Cirque.

This intelligent and amiable man, who intends some day writing the memoirs of his eventful life, has told me the details of the history of the Hanlon-Lees—their true history, not the account of them which you will find in a little book published under the title of the Memoirs of the Brothers Hanlon-Lee, [p294] with pretty illustrations by Regamey and a splendid preface by the master, Theodore de Banville.

The six brothers Hanlon, Thomas, George, William, Alfred, Edward, and Freddy, first met Agoust in Chicago, about 1865. They were then working as trapeze and carpet acrobats. Thomas and Alfred, two splendidly built men, were the “underneath men,” the carriers in the pyramid. The other brothers were—rather puny; they always wore double tights. Under the silk tights—worn outside—was another suit, called in the acrobatic vocabulary, a thirty-two franc. In the place of muscles this suit was arranged with fine woollen fringes, which were carefully combed upwards so as to obtain good curves; and one of the favourite jokes amongst artists, is to stick pins, provided with little white flags, into these false muscles.

At Chicago the Hanlons were vaulters, and Agoust juggled. A tight-rope dancer, and Tanner with his dogs, had joined the company, but the entertainment was still too short.

Agoust, who had been manager of the Young Henry Theatre, pantomimist and leader of the ballet, suggested to the Hanlons that they should perform a pantomime. He made them rehearse two old pieces by Deburau, Harlequin Statue, and Harlequin Skeleton. The experiment succeeded, and in 1867 the little company went to Paris, where it made its reputation by the pantomime of the Village Barber.

The war of 1870 divided every one. The Hanlons returned to America with the Strandges company, which had been installed at the Châtelet. Agoust enlisted in a marching regiment.

They met again in 1876, at the Walhalla in Berlin. The [p295] Hanlons were trying to mount a scene borrowed from the minstrels, the celebrated Do, mi, sol, do. They were made up like negroes.

“What can you do in this piece?” they asked Agoust.

He replied, “You have no conductor. I will place myself in the desk.”

The five Hanlons then accepted their old comrade as a partner in the place of their brother Thomas, who had died in America. Thomas Hanlon had fallen at Cincinnati whilst making the spring for life, and had broken his head against the balustrade. It had been mended somehow, but he suffered intense pain when his brothers jumped with both feet upon his head. He had complained, saying that he could not bear it, but he still continued this performance. At the end of a few months he went mad.

The brothers Hanlon were always a band of terribly hard workers. Every day, except Sunday, they rehearsed from ten in the morning, till two—and from four till six in the afternoons. When they were tired of vaulting they sat down and worked mentally.

“My boys, never drink before a performance,” George (the leader) would say to them. “After it is over, do whatever you like.”

The Hanlons were Irish, and were supposed to drink deeply sometimes after leaving the theatre. But if there were excesses they were utilised, for when they met on the following day, they related their dreams to each other and endeavoured to construct a play out of them.

Do, mi, sol, do met with extraordinary success at the Folies-Bergères. The Hanlons had been engaged for one [p296] month at a salary of £360, but the first evening after the performance, they signed an agreement for £600 per month, and played their pantomime for thirteen months running.

Do, mi, sol, do and the Journey in Switzerland were performed in Belgium and England with extraordinary success. In the latter country Agoust separated from his companions.

English pantomime does not require any tragic incidents in order to fill us with admiration and wonder. We have lately seen two companies of artists in Paris, the Leopolds and the Pinauds, who recalled the best days of the Hanlon-Lees. I am thinking chiefly of the Pinauds, who are exceptionally clever. I made the acquaintance of these three talented American actors whilst they were at the Folies-Bergères. They are not brothers, but friends, and they are thorough gentlemen. I say this quite earnestly, for if you [p297] meet them in the American Minister’s drawing-room you will not feel at all surprised to find them there.

They are devoted to their art, extol it with much enthusiasm, and discuss it like artists who have deliberately adopted it, and who exert all their inventive faculties in the production of their pantomime and in bringing their unique idea into full relief. I saw this strange performance several times running and should find great difficulty in analysing it. It consists of a series of disjointed actions placed side by side, accompanied by rapid changes of costume, mad pursuits, and grotesque disguises.

A gentleman is playing a guitar, but he is constantly [p298] interrupted by the entry and exit of strange individuals leading animals, which are all musical instruments. Everything is musical in this pantomime—the pig that the peasant drags after him, the carriage of the cannon with which a malefactor fires a shell at the back of the guitarist. The last part of the farce [p299] is filled with the misfortunes of the peasant with the pig. In the first place the rustic is roughly attacked by a bull, which aims violent blows at his umbrella with its horns. The peasant valiantly resists the blows from the horns and tail of the animal, drives it off, and proud of his victory, sits down to rest with a triumphant air. But, alas, an ill-disposed jester sets fire to John Bull’s hat, it explodes like a petard and flies into the friezes. In despair the peasant lifts his arms to heaven. His prayer is answered immediately. As though the ceiling were a horn of plenty, a rain of hats and caps descends upon the stage. But they are the crushed shabby hats of bookmakers and poor Irishmen, a lot of those formless head-gear, which are only seen in London, where the workman has no distinctive head-dress, but puts on the cast-off garments of [p300] the rich, thus giving to his poverty the appearance of a masquerade. The peasant quickly tries on about twenty of the hats, but not one of them fits his head. Again he lifts his arms to heaven with a gesture of despair, and the curtain falls.

With the mania which we Frenchmen have of insisting that everything should have a meaning in spite of all appearances, I asked the Pinauds what their pantomime signified. “Absolutely nothing,” replied one of them. “On the contrary, we try to destroy all connection between the scenes of our entertainment. We only wish to produce upon the audience the impression of violent terror and madness. And therefore we represent a man, alarmed by the successive apparitions of animals which play music when they are touched.” I listened [p301] quietly, but I could not help remembering the invariable question, which I had heard the doctor at the police station ask the drunken maniacs whom the police had picked up in the streets—

“You see beasts, do you not, animals that swarm round you?”

They all reply in the affirmative, hanging down their heads.

These drunken hallucinations, these apparitions of animals, are the framework of the English pantomime, the terrible visions of a gin-drinker who has rolled into a gutter at the door of a drinking bar.

The Craggs, “gentlemen acrobats,” also appeared at the Folies-Bergères.

They came from New York, where they had made a great success. They had also made large profits during their six [p302] weeks’ engagement, for they received 100 dollars a night. They enter the stage in Indian file, all the seven, wearing evening dress and white ties. They come forward in a line to the front of the stage, and bend their heads; you think that they are going to bow, simply like you or I. Instead they make a somersault. Seven somersaults forward. They are so quickly executed that every one present asks if he is dreaming. Very correctly executed, notwithstanding, very correctly! Not one smooth head is ruffled, not one white tie unloosed, not a shirt front creased.

We must however believe that the coat inconveniences the gentlemen in their work, for with very leisurely movements, [p303] and perfect indifference, the seven Craggs go to the back of the stage, and there, one, two, three, in time, as though performing an exercise, they take off their coats and appear in fourteen shirt sleeves.

And from that moment, for the space of half an hour, they execute the most wonderful acrobatic feats.

The seven Craggs mount upon each other, then fall away like houses built of cards. MM. Craggs senior turn MM. Craggs junior round their arms. One half of the Craggs always has the legs in the air, whilst the other half is head downwards. And what deportment! how completely it differs from the smiles, kisses thrown to the public, and rolling eyes [p304] of the Italian acrobat! We shall see that in the Molier Circus, authentic gentlemen have been converted into passable clowns. Messrs. Craggs have proved to us, a more unexpected fact, that perfect gentlemen can be made from professional clowns.

Since it is my mission to betray the secrets confided to me, I will tell the public, the whole world, that the Craggs are not seven brothers, as we might be tempted to believe, but a family consisting of the father, six sons, and one little sister Cragg.

Mr. Cragg, the father, is nearly forty-two years old, he looks like the brother of his eldest son, who is not yet twenty-four. The little girl who so bravely wears the black coat asserts that she is fourteen. I kissed her, after the performance, and complimented her most sincerely. [p305]

“She is a little Australian,” said her father, smiling kindly at her.

“An Australian, Mr. Cragg?”

“Yes, she was born at Sydney, whilst her brothers and I were performing in New Zealand and China.”

The Craggs have just returned from Pekin.

They have travelled round the world, with gardenias in their buttonholes, and Barnum has thrown golden bridges across the ocean for them.

I told you that the time had come for writing a monograph of the clown-king!

Whilst the acrobat was endeavouring to become a man of the world, the man of the world was becoming an excellent acrobat. The “governing classes” determined to have their Léotard. The gentleman quitted his stall in the circus to ascend the pad and the trapeze. [p308]

Lieutenant Viaud—in literature Pierre Loti—was one of the first to achieve this metamorphosis.

Those who have read his novels with a little attention will know the high value he places upon human beauty. Azyadée particularly, contains whole pages, infinitely curious, a little disquieting, very pagan in their candour, in which [p309] gymnastics are extolled with technical knowledge and lyric warmth.

M. Pierre Loti thinks, with the Platonics, that the body should be formed and embellished with as much refinement as the intelligence. Certain of the superiority of his mind, he wished that this cerebral strength should be served by the muscles of an athlete, and worked with indefatigable patience to correct in himself the weakness of nature.

And he has really transformed his body by the practice of gymnastics. Now, well set up, although of medium height, he produces an impression of strength and agility. One feels that in him exists that spring of elasticity which raises a body from the soil and wrests it from the laws of gravitation.

And indeed, or so it has been said, Pierre Loti joined a troupe of acrobats a few years ago, and appeared as a trapeze “novelty” in a circus in the south of France. The Naval Ministry would have been agitated by this whim....

Is this story true?

At all events it is probable, and it proves—and this is all that concerns us—the high esteem which, at the present time, a gentleman can feel for an art which the last generation decidedly ignored too much.

The men of taste, even, who clearly perceived the picturesque side of a circus, were not too numerous.

The collection of M. Louis is perhaps unique in the world.

Paul Ginisty, who has examined these treasures, has related his impressions, with much ability and grace, in the Dieu Bibelot.

“Do you know,” he says, “the Montchanin Circus?” [p310]

“You do not go into it through a large entrance, you need only knock at the door of a charming little hôtel. You do not [p311] find in it any of those odours usually noticed in hippique establishments, because it contains neither arena, stables, nor horses. The title of ‘circus’ is simply the familiar name given to the collection of an old amateur, who dwells in a calm quiet street in the Quartier de Villiers, and who has really a passion for everything relating to equestrian exhibitions. No one possesses as many traditions of circus art as he does. He has not only known all those who for thirty or thirty-five years have distinguished themselves in the arena; but he has also lived with every dynasty of ring-masters, Hercules and jugglers of the past. In fact, he has surrounded himself with an infinitely curious collection of prints and documents of all ages referring to the circus. It includes portraits of all the masters, specimens of costumes, placards, programmes, and advertisements of ‘phenomena.’

“Some of these prints, drawings by Carle Vernet, engravings of Grimaldi and Debucourt, are artistically interesting; others are simply typical. There is not one corner of the hôtel without some of these pleasing designs.”

Another lover of the circus, no longer content with collecting portfolios full of beautiful equestrian placards, determined to quietly live the healthy existence of a circus performer for his own amusement. When first the public read in the paragraphs of the society papers that Señor Molieros had built a circus, in his private house, in which he was ring-master, and trained horses for the haute école and other performances, people said:

“It is simply a whim of a Spanish grandee.”

The truth is that Señor Molieros is really named Ernest Molier, that he is a Manceau, and that possessing a large [p312] fortune, he prefers spending it upon horses that he loves, rather than with gamblers, who bore him.

Not every one who asked for admittance to the small hôtel [p313] in the Rue de Boulogne obtained it. Molier’s intrepidity led him to prefer vicious horses, and difficulties only increased his eagerness to conquer them. “He was never happier than when some dangerous animal that no one had hitherto ventured to mount, would obey his eyes and his lightest touch. Like Anthony he would have rather killed the horse than allowed him to disobey!”14

Ernest Molier has often told me that he did not learn his profession from books. You have seen too in the perusal of these monographs, that the science of the circus is entirely traditional. But you would never guess with how much suspicious jealousy the banquiste defends the guardianship of his secrets. I have learnt by experience how unwillingly he confides even a few items of his knowledge to a writer, who can never be a rival; and from this I can imagine how much he would distrust a horseman. Only Molier’s integrity and military frankness enabled him to overcome this dislike.

Besides, Molier has the circus genius, and a man of genius can dispense with masters.

In the Rue Blanche his stable overcrowded him. Air and space were both lacking. In 1879 he therefore transported his luggage and caravan to Rue Benouville, at the gate of the Bois. A house, fencing hall and stables sprang from the soil as though built by magic. The riding-school was ornamented with the decorations of the fête of the Paris-Murcie and was converted into a regular circus. A few boxes were added for the use of privileged spectators; no one then foresaw the wonderful success obtained by the meetings in the Rue de [p314] Benouville; the preparations were only made for the reception of friends.

They came in crowds to visit the hospitable mansion.

The fencing hall was opened to them; they fenced, vaulted, practised with the dumb-bells and mounted the trapeze. But Molier, faithful to his passion, devoted himself to his horses. He trained Arlequin, a dappled grey Russian horse, in the [p315] arts of the haute école, which consist in performing the Spanish walk and trot, in galloping, cantering, changing feet, balancing on the fore legs, as well as on the hind quarters;15 “and also Blondin, a superb Norman chestnut, with a light mane and [p316] tail, a horse trained in the haute école almost in the same style as Arlequin.”

Molier also trained equestrians for the pad and the haute école. His first pupil was the pretty Mademoiselle de Trèves. [p317] He placed her on a horse, and made her an exceptionally good rider, capable of riding standing, on a bare-backed horse and of leaping over barriers, in the best style of the haute école. Then followed Mademoiselle Irma Viollat, one of the ornaments of the corps de ballet. The master taught her to repeat on horseback all the dances that she excelled in upon the stage.

Insensibly a crowd of amateurs had gathered round Molier; and they formed a complete company. At last Molier one day yielded to the entreaties of his comrades and consented to give a performance in his circus. [p318]

It was quite understood that it was to be a private entertainment. [p319]

All Paris tried to get in.

Artists and society people broke open the doors. [p320]

They left the circus in great astonishment, and loudly proclaimed their admiration.

Of course, the newspapers were full of it. The people who had been left out were very severe. They declared it was a scandal. Noblemen playing at acrobatics were an easy subject for abuse. “What do you say? Messrs. Hubert de la Rochefoucauld, Martel, de Saint-Aldegonde, de Maulde, de Visocq, de Sainte-Marie, Courtay, d’Arquevilliers and de Pully had appeared in spangled tights?”

They recalled the Romans during the decadence, and M. Prudhomme crossed his arms upon his breast in the attitude of the philosopher of Couture.

Since then, men have realized that these acrobatic amusements were only the artistic form, the blast of trumpets preceding the vanguard of the revolution, which has just ended in the formation of the Society of Physical Education.

Molier and his friends, who, with legitimate pride, remember that on one occasion they presented the Duchesse d’Uzès with 50,000 francs for the benefit of the Hospital for Incurables, claim, with some reason, a share in influencing this national movement. They certainly rendered bodily exercises fashionable once more, and this is a great deal in a country where routine is the only queen that has never been dethroned.

Moreover the warm applause which greeted the tirade of the Brettigny in the Révoltée last winter, proved to the acrobats of the Cirque Molier that they had won their cause in the opinion of the public.

You may remember the indignant tirade in which the gentleman acrobat defends his favourite amusement against the witticisms of Madame Herbeau: [p321]

“What do you want a man of our class to do at the present time? Politics are prohibited. They are monopolized by other buffoons, whose exercises are much more dangerous for the spectators and not so amusing. The army? Well, it is a refuge for those who have courage, and I have belonged [p322] to it. But there was too little to do in time of peace. Literature? I should not know how to begin, and I dare own that I would not deign to adopt it. Naturalism is too dull, and dilettantism too sterile. I find it better to enjoy life than to write about it. You say that I degrade my race? Nay, I revive it. You know the language used by the rhetors and journalists in describing the corrupt scions of the old aristocracy. Well, we will regenerate this corrupt youth! We are strong, our muscles are like those of the street porters, of our ancestors the Frank warriors, of the companions of Charlemagne, who were only superb brutes.”16