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Yes, sir, sold her own child! If I had a daughter, I would wait on her hand and foot as I wait on Coralie; she is like my own child to me. These are the first good times she has seen since I have been with her; the first time that she has been really applauded. You have written something, it seems, and they have got up a famous claque for the second performance.
In that bright spring sunshine and the hopeful spring of their youth they even laughed at the previous day's disappointment. Ah! what a claque it was, after all! For himself, he, Ostrander, would much rather see that satin-faced Parisian girl who had got the prize smirking at the critics from the boards of the Grand Opera than his countrywoman!
Etienne and Lucien reached a handsome house in the Rue du Faubourg-du-Temple. "Is M. Braulard in?" Etienne asked of the porter. "Monsieur?" said Lucien. "Then, is the leader of the claque 'Monsieur'?" "My dear boy, Braulard has twenty thousand francs of income. All the dramatic authors of the Boulevards are in his clutches, and have a standing account with him as if he were a banker.
This never happens in England, partly because every 'first night' is attended by a claque, judiciously posted and naturally well disposed. Not that these 'first-nighters' are paid to applaud, as in Paris or Vienna. Neither are they labelled as claqueurs.
He shrugged his shoulders, made some laughing remark to a friend on the platform, and with all the nonchalance in the world asked the meeting if they wished to hear any more. A claque of his supporters replied with feigned enthusiasm, but a malcontent at Alice's side rose and stamped to the door. "I came to hear sense," he cried, "and no this bairn's-blethers!" The poor girl was in despair.
By-and-by more serious duties were allotted to me. In this wise I served my apprenticeship to journalism. My father naturally revised my work. The first article, all my own, which appeared in print was one on that notorious theatrical institution, the Claque. Here let me say that we were rather swagger young fellows at Bonaparte.
There were many in Warsaw who looked on coldly at the proceedings. "There is a Governmental claque that starts all these demonstrations" said one of them. "You ought not to be deceived by that any more than by the new posters on the walls every day. Bill-stickers are sent out by the Government each night. The people do not paste up these posters themselves.
Reasoning not unshrewdly, they estimated that their comments upon its fidelity to nature would be received as expert evidence. Loudly they praised the skill of the painter whenever there were ears near to which such evidence might be profitably addressed. Lem Perry, the leader of the claque, had a somewhat set speech, being uninventive in the construction of new phrases.
At the sight of Etienne Lousteau, the dealer in orders and tickets rose from a sturdy chair before a large cylinder desk, and Lucien beheld the leader of the claque, Braulard himself, dressed in a gray molleton jacket, footed trousers, and red slippers; for all the world like a doctor or a solicitor.
Even the classic Théâtre Français and the frigid Odéon, which are in great part supported by the government, and about which hangs the purest odor of high art, have each a regularly organized claque, which is paid to applaud, and which holds its rehearsals with the same solemnity that the players do, in order to introduce at the proper moment a gust of hand-clapping, a burst of laughter, or cries of "Bravo! bravo!"
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